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William Diebold
"Christians, Pagans, and Jews at Dura Europos”
April 22, 2015
Monuments
Dura Europos Synagogue, completed 244-245 C.E, (now Damascus, National Museum)
Dura Europos Christian Building, c. 240 C.E. (and definitely before 256 C.E.) (now New
Haven, Yale University Art Gallery)
Terms
midrash--a body of Biblical interpretation (often oral) and a technique of interpretation
in which a) no word of the text is regarded as superfluous; b) apparent gaps in the Biblical
account are filled; and c) the reader "understands a text in light of how own experiences." The
term can also refer to particular written compilations of midrashim. (cf. Joseph Telushkin,
Jewish Literacy, 156-158)
Quotations
1) "No single site provides more material evidence about the diversity of religious
expression in late antiquity than does Dura Europos." (Wharton, “Good and bad images,” 1)
2) “The importance of the Synagogue and Christian Building at Dura-Europos cannot be
overstated.” (McClendon, 155)
3) "The presupposition that an image can legitimately have only one “true” subject is
opposed by the midrash, which provides a model for an alternative relationship between text and
meaning. This other reading allows the image to have a particular verse from Esther as its
subject at one moment and a different narrative at another moment, depending on how it operates
for its reader/viewer." (Wharton, Refiguring, 48)
4) "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is
in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water underneath the earth. Thou
shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God."
(Exodus 20:4-5; King James version)
5) “In the days of Rabbi Johanan [so, around 250 C.E.] they permitted [alternative, began
to make] images on the walls, and he did not stop them.” (Berger, 124)
6) "In modern terms, this image would be profoundly insulting, a visual blasphemy on
what was most sacred to the faith of others." (Rajak, 142)
Bibliography
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Berger, Pamela. “The Temples/Tabernacles in the Dura-Europos Synagogue Paintings” in Dura
Europos, eds. Brody and Hoffman, 123-140
Bland, Kalman P. The Artless Jew. Medieval and Modern Affirmations and Denials of the
Visual. Princeton, 2000
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Building” in Dura Europos, eds. Brody and Hoffman, 189-200
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Chambersburg, 1973
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Philology 96 (2001), 269-304
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Cambridge, 2005 (esp. chap. 11: “Liturgy and the Art of the Dura Europos Synagogue”)
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Museum,” The Art Bulletin 84 (2002), 643-659
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Levine and Z. Weiss. Portsmouth, 2000
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Dimension for the Study of Judaism." Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish
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Europos.” Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue. Edited by S.
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------ . The Synagogue. The Excavations at Dura-Europos, Final Report 8, 1. New Haven, 1956
Levine, Lee. The Ancient Synagogue: the First Thousand Years. 2nd edition. New Haven,
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Building at Dura-Europos” in Dura Europos, eds. Brody and Hoffman, 155-168
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Synagogue.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 60 (1992), 587-658
Olin, Margaret. “‘Jewish Christians’ and ‘Early Christian’ Synagogues: The Discovery at DuraEuropos and Its Aftermath” in her The Nation without Art: Examining Modern
Discourses on Jewish Art. Lincoln, 2001.
Peppard, Michael. “New Testament Imagery in the Earliest Christian Baptistery” in Dura
Europos, eds. Brody and Hoffman, 169-188
Rajak, Tessa. “The Dura-Europos Synagogue: Images of a Competitive Community” in Dura
Europos, eds. Brody and Hoffman, 141-154
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Art. Washington, D.C., 1990
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subtexts, intertexts.” Art History 17 (1994), 1-25
------ . Refiguring the Post Classical City. Cambridge, 1995
White, L. Michael. Building God’s House in the Roman World. Architectural Adaptation
among Pagan, Jews, and Christians. Baltimore, 1990
Plan of the frescoes of the Dura-Europos synagogue (from Weitzmann and Kessler, pl. 2)