Studia Antiqua
Keywords
book review, synagogue chronology, architectural types, architectural typology, Magness reinterpretation, late antique Palestine
Abstract
Synagogue studies in the holy land have been ongoing for a little over a century, beginning with early 20th-century surveys by German scholars Heinrich Kohl and Carl Watzinger. During that time, theories about their dating and chronology of construction have become cemented in scholarly discourse, shaping how archaeologists and historians interpret Jewish life in antiquity. Jodi Magness’s Ancient Synagogues in Palestine challenges the traditional chronology of the construction of synagogues in Palestine. Beginning with Eleazer Sukenik—a pioneering Israeli archeologist operating in the early twentieth century—archaeologists chronologically dated synagogues in Palestine based on architectural types.
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Holdaway, Andrew. "Book Review: Ancient Synagogues in Palestine: A Re-Evaluation Nearly a Century after Sukenik’s Schweich Lectures." Studia Antiqua 24, no. 1 (2025). https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studiaantiqua/vol24/iss1/7
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Biblical Studies Commons, Classics Commons, History Commons, Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons