New Evidence Suggests That Jews Were Better Off under Christian Rome Than Previously Thought

While religious tolerance does not come naturally to human society, neither does the sort of intolerance that predominated in 17th-century Europe. The widespread insistence on doctrinal uniformity was very much a product of the rise of Christianity and Islam. For this reason, it has long been assumed that the decline of the Jewish community in the Galilee—which thrived even after the destruction of the Second Temple—was the result of the Roman empire’s adoption of Christianity in the 4th century CE. Jodi Magness has come to a different conclusion, based on her excavation of the Huqoq synagogue, whose magnificent mosaics have been slowly unearthed over the past several years. Rossella Tercatin writes: