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Artifact Analysis
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- Stone Vessels & Ritual Baths in Galilee
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Debates about the historical Jesus often revolve around whether he's best understood as a Jewish prophet, teacher and healer or as an itinerant philosopher, less influenced by Judaism than Hellenism (Greek culture). A related issue is how best to understand the region Jesus lived and worked in, the Galilee—was it Jewish or Hellenistic? -
 When trying to answer that question from archaeological artifacts, certain items are particularly useful: for example, the absence of pig bones (because kosher laws prohibit eating pork, Lev 11), and/or the presence of stone vessels (above, which were used to prevent the transmission of impurity in liquids; see John 2:1-11) and ritual baths or miqvaoth (left, for ritual bathing).-
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- Bibliography
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- Adler, Yonatan. "Jewish Purity Practices in Roman Judea: The Evidence of Archaeology." The Ancient Near East Today – ASOR Blog 5:2 (Feburary 2017). Online, http://asorblog.org/jewish-purity-practices-roman-judea-evidence-archaeology/, accessed February 2, 2017.
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- Chancey, Mark A. Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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- --------. "How Jewish Was Jesus' Galilee?" Biblical Archaeology Review 33:4 (2007) 42-50, 76.
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- --------. The Myth of a Gentile Galilee. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. [especially ch. 3]
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- Eshel, Hanan. "The Pools of Sepphoris—Ritual Baths or Bathtubs? They're Not Ritual Baths." Biblical Archaeology Review 26:4 (2000) 42-5.
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- --------. "We Need More Data." Biblical Archaeology Review 26:4 (2000) 49.
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- Horwitz, Liora Kolska. "Partners in Purity: Second Temple Olive Presses and Scapulae Scoops." Near Eastern Archaeology 74:4 (2011) 241-246.
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- Magen, Yitzhak. "Ancient Israel's Stone Age: Purity in Second Temple Times." Biblical Archaeology Review 24:5 (1998) 46-52.
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- Meyers, Eric M. "Yes, They Are." Biblical Archaeology Review 26:4 (2000) 46-8.
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- Miller, Stuart S. At the Intersection of Texts and Material Finds: Stepped Pools, Stone Vessels, and Ritual Purity among the Jews of Roman Galilee, Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements 16. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015.
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- Reich, Ronny. "They Are Ritual Baths: Immerse Yourself in the Ongoing Sepphoris Mikveh Debate" Biblical Archaeology Review 28:2 (2002) 50-55.
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