Greco-Roman Gods and Goddesses in the Daily Life of the Jew in the Greco-Roman Period

The topic of how Jews living in the Greco-Roman period in Israel and in the Diaspora understood the images of Greco-Roman Gods and Goddesses (and symbols of the Gods and Goddesses) items they encountered in their daily lives (through their use of or contact with coins, glass, oil lamps, pottery, mosaics, bath-houses, in buildings (the outside and inside decoration in buildings) as well as in burial iconography in burial caves and on ossuaries is the subject of much debate. The author will show examples of daily items that Greco-Roman Jews would have come in contact with from various archaeological contexts in Israel and show the images (and representations/symbols) of Greco-Roman Gods and Goddesses on the objects. The author will compare Jewish attitudes towards these images in Greco-Roman period Jewish literature (primarily Apocrypha, Philo and Josephus) and Rabbinic texts to see if there is a consistent view of how these images were viewed.