| Title: | The Foundation of Bethsaida-Julias by Philip the Tetrarch |
| Author(s): | Nikos Kokkinos |
| Affiliation: | University College London |
| Year: 2008 | Volume: 59 | Issue: 2 | 236-251 pp. |
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| Keywords: | Post-biblical literature, historiography, Josephus, Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, Bethsaida, Herod Philip I, names, archaeology, coins, Livia (Empress) |
| Abstract: | Josephus ( Ant. 18.27) explicitly names Julia ‘the daughter’ of Augustus, distinguished from Livia/Julia ‘the wife’, as the person to whom the town of Bethsaida was dedicated. This must have taken place by 2 BCE when Julia was banished, denounced for multiple adulteries. The numismatist A. Kindler suggested that Josephus may be wrong and that Livia/Julia the wife would lie behind this dedication dated to 30/31 CE. Following Kindler, the archaeologists and theologians currently operating at et-Tell—identified by them as the site of Bethsaida-Julias—have produced many papers accusing Josephus of error. Reviewing the evidence, it is clear that the original suggestion should have never been made. By taking this opportunity, a problem of wider significance is underlined: the difference between the titles ‘Augusta’ and ‘Sebaste’ in west and east. Many documents attributed a priori to Livia, based only on the presence of her adopted name, could belong to Julia. |
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