This book argues that women served as leaders in a number of synagogues during the Roman and Byzantine periods. The evidence for this consists of nineteen Greek and Latin inscriptions in which women bear the titles "head of the synagogue," "leader," "elder," "mother of the synagogue" and "priestess." These inscriptions range in date from 27 B.C.E. to perhaps the sixth century C.E. and in provenance from Italy to Asia Minor, Egypt and Palestine. While new discoveries make this a growing corpus of material, a number of the inscriptions have been known to scholars for some time. The book contains a new preface by the author.
EISBN
978-1-951498-08-5
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvzpv5mr
Table of Contents
In Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue, I argued against a then-prevailing view. On the basis of nineteen inscriptions, I challenged certain ideas about women whose relatives honored them with such titles as head of the synagogue, leader, elder, mother of the synagogue, and woman of priestly class/priestess or who claimed those titles for themselves, such as in donative inscriptions.¹ According to the consensus at that time, these titles did not imply that Coelia Paterna, Gaudentia, Rufina and the other women referenced in the inscriptions carried out any functions at all. Scholars claimed that they bore these titles because their...
It is my thesis that women served as leaders in a number of synagogues during the Roman and Byzantine periods. The evidence for this consists of nineteen Greek and Latin inscriptions in. which women bear the titles “heat of the synagogue” “leader,” “elder,” “mother of the synagogue” and “priestess” these inscriptions range in date from 27 B.C.E to perhaps the sixth century C.E. and in provenance from Italy to Asia Minor, Egypt and Palestine. While new discoveries make this a growing corpus of material, a number of the inscriptions have been known to scholars for some time. The purpose a...
PART ONE THE INSCRIPTIONAL EVIDENCE
In three Greek inscriptions women bear the title archisynagōgos/archisynagōgisss. The fornation is a rather curious one. whereas, for example, archirerus, archigrammateus archikybernētēs consist of archi- plus the nane of the office, archisynagōgos/archisunagōgissa comes from a archi- plus an element formed from the institution orer which the officer stands in this case synagōgē. Architriklinos (from .triclinium—a dining room, with three couches), meaning a “head waiter,” would be a parallel Although the-title siso occurs occasionally in paganism, it is most often Jewish and it is a probabit that the pagan a examples represent a borrowing from Judaism, rather than vice versa....
One of the more recent additions to our knowledge of women leaders in ancient Judaism is the Peristeria inscription, first published in 1937, from the area of Thebes in Phthiotis in Thessaly.
CII 696b.¹ A kioniskos (also called columella: a small column, flat on top and without a capital, used as a gravestone²) with the symbol of the seven~ branched menorah,
G. Scjtirou f who discovered the inscription, took peristeria a to be a common noun (cf peristeria “pigeon,” “dove”), and Archegisis to be the name of the deceased. Louis Mobert suggested the interpretation fiven above, on the basis that...
Six ancient Greek inscriptions have been found in which women bear the title “elder” (preabytera/presbyterēsa = presbyterissa). In addition to these, there exists-one Greek inscription in which a woman la called PRESEBYTNS (sic), most likely presbytis.
Kastelli Riaaamou r Crete
CII .731c.¹ White narble sepulchral plaque (45 x 30 x 2.8 cm height of letterss 1.5-3 cut; distance between lines? .5-1.5 cm; 4th/5th c.).
This inscription was discuaaed above in the context of heads of the synagogue,² Important for the interpretation of the title presbytera is its parallelization with archisyimgōgissa, which. makes it unlikely that presbytera is simply a. term...
There exist two Greek inscriptions in which the title mētēr synagōgēs occurs (reconstructed), one Greek inscription in. which a woman bears the title mētēr, two Latin inscriptions in which the title mater synagocae occurs, and one Latin inscription in which a woman bears the unusual title .. pateressa. All six of the inscriptions are from Italy, three being from Rome two from Venosa in Apulia and one from Venetia in Brescia. They range in date from around the second century C. E. until perhaps as late as the sixth century.
Rome
CII S23 (= CIL VI 29756).¹ sarcophages fragment decorated...
There-exist three ancient Jewish inscriptions in which a woman bears the title hiereia/hierissa. They range in age from the first century B.C.E. through possibly the fourth century C.E. and were found in fell el-Yahudiyyeh in Lower Egypt, in Beth She’arim in Galilee, and in Rome.
C. C. Edgar, who first published the inscription, in 1922, thought that IERISA was “the name of Marion’s father; whether it is an indeclinable noun or whether this is a genitive in -a I do not know.”¹ Edgar thus thought that Marion’s father’s name was Ierisas or Ierisa. This rather strange interpretation of a not...
PART TWO BACKGROUND QUESTIONS
In a lecture on the Galilean synagogue ruins held on December 16, 1911 in Berlin, the great Jamaica scholar Samuel Irauss said to his audiences
Following the. demands of politeness, Mr. Krauss did look for f and did find f the remains of what he called the women’s gallery in the ancient Galilean synagogues.³ The majority of modern Judaica scholars and archaeologists follow Krauss in both, method and result, i.e., they look for a women’s gallery and they find one.
The significance of the question of the women’s gallery for the question of women as leaders in the synagogue should...
The lack of an adequate understanding of women’s partialpation in the life of the ancient synagogue has hindered research on the Jewish inscriptions in which women bear titles. Even the following, very cursory survey of several salient points should shed light on the context from which they arose. The basis for all other participation is attendance at the synagogue services. Women’s attendance at synagogue worship services is taken for granted in the ancient sources. The New Testament gives several of the earliest attestations of this. In Luke 13: 10-17, Jesus heals a woman who had been bent over for eighteen...
The view that the titles in question were honorific is based less on evidence from the inscriptions themselves or from other ancient sources than on current presuppositions concerning the nature of ancient Judaism, Seen in the larger context of women’s participation in the life of the ancient synagogue? there is no reason not to take the titles as functional, nor to assume that women heads or elders of synagogues had radically different functions than men heads or elders of synagogues, Of the functions outlined for each title, there are none which women could not have carried out. If women donated...
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