Building Jewish In The Roman East

Archaeology has unearthed the glories of ancient Jewish buildings throughout the Mediterranean. But what has remained shrouded is what these buildings meant. Building Jewish surveys the architecture of small rural villages in Galilee in the early Roman period before examining the development of synagogues as Jewish associations. Building Jewish also explores Jerusalem’s flurry of building activity under Herod the Great in the first century BCE. Richardson’s careful work not only documents the culture that forms the background to any study of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity, but it also succeeds in demonstrating how architecture itself, like a text, conveys meaning-thus directly illuminating daily life and religious thought in the ancient world.