ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I discuss Jewish and Christian groups in eastern rural Galilee particularly in relation to synagogues that recent archaeological excavations have firmly dated to Late Antiquity. In earlier scholarship, many previously discovered Galilean synagogues were dated to the second and third centuries ce, but there is now mounting archaeological evidence that demonstrates how synagogues were built, renovated and in use in the region from the late fourth to the seventh centuries. Not only are the synagogues in, for example, Capernaum and Chorazin now generally dated to the fifth century or even later, but the evidence for the newly found synagogues at Horvat Kur and Huqoq clearly demonstrates that rural Jewish communities continued to establish these public buildings well into the period when the influence of Christianity became more and more visible in the region.
