Synagogues as Foci of Multi-Religious and Ideological Confrontation? The Case of the Sardis Synagogue

Abstract

It is tough to be a “holy place.” Once chosen, constructed, purchased, converted and negotiated, “places,” as opposed to texts or other visual sources, change slowly, and generally still exist long after those who made the original construction and design decisions are gone. Synagogues are a particularly complex case, as their “sanctity”—as far as Jews were concerned—was mostly contingent on use by the “holy people,” the culture of venerating the holy books and their activation through liturgy, selected Tabernacle/Jerusalem Temple metaphors and a general approach to holiness shared with polytheists and, later on, Christians who helped Jews explain their religion to themselves and to others within the global mélange that was late antiquity (from Introduction)