The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science . By Peter Harrison

The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science . By Peter Harrison

Abstract

Journal of the American Academy of Religion If Galilean coins lacked figural representation, then Greco-Roman art also failed to make significant inroads in the Galilee until the second and third centuries (this is Chancey’s conclusion in chapter 7, 193–220). Gesturing to the biblical prohibition of “graven images” (Exod. 20:4–6; Deut. 4:15–18), Chancey agrees with Steven Fine that Jewish art in the first century should be called “anti-idolic” rather than “aniconic” (195, mention of Kalman Bland’s The Artless Jew [Princeton 2000] would have enhanced this discussion). The point is that first-century Jews would have been resistant to the visual depiction of the divine, but not to all figural representation, especially in domestic rather than public space (a fact that seems to run counter to the evidence from coins). This chapter focuses first on Galilean domestic space. Admitting that frescoes and mosaics had made inroads in the Galilee by the first-century CE (196), Chancey pays special attention to a first-century mosaic from a house in Magdala that depicted fish and fishing boats (197–198). But he says no more, preferring to reiterate his central contention that the sea change in the religious culture of Galilee took place in the third century,