Image Credits

Against the Jews

Every image on the lecture page, with its source, license, and the reason it was chosen. The material is public-domain and freely-licensed work from Wikimedia Commons: the monuments and manuscripts of the tradition this lecture reconstructs, and photographs of the late-Roman synagogues that show how differently people actually lived. Creative Commons works are attributed below. All images have been resized for the web.

Image Work & Attribution License Where it appears Why it’s included
The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem hayez-temple.jpg The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem Francesco Hayez (photo: Didier Descouens) 1867 (photographed 2023) Source ↗ Public domain Hero background · Hero artifact caption The fall of Jerusalem in 70, with the menorah carried out at the left: the event later theologians read back as proof that God had rejected the Jews.
Spoils of Jerusalem, relief on the Arch of Titus, Rome titus-spoils.jpg Spoils of Jerusalem, relief on the Arch of Titus, Rome Photo: Amphipolis Relief 81 CE (photographed 2014) Source ↗ CC BY-SA 2.0 Hero ornament · Part 05 medallion · Cover art backdrop Rome’s own monument to the sack of the temple, carved within a decade of it: the defeat that the second century would turn into an argument.
Ecclesia and Synagoga (replica of the Strasbourg Cathedral figures, Beit Hatfutsot, Tel Aviv) ecclesia-synagoga.jpg Ecclesia and Synagoga (replica of the Strasbourg Cathedral figures, Beit Hatfutsot, Tel Aviv) Photo: Sodabottle Originals c. 1230 (photographed 2011) Source ↗ CC BY-SA 3.0 Origin section figure · Scroll panel The Church crowned and the Synagogue blindfolded with a broken staff: the finished form of the tradition whose construction this lecture traces.
Saint Justin the Philosopher justin-martyr.jpg Saint Justin the Philosopher Theophanes the Cretan c. 1545 to 1546 Source ↗ Public domain Hero ornament · Part 03 medallion Justin Martyr, whose Dialogue with Trypho gave the tradition many of its central arguments, as later Christian art chose to remember him.
John Chrysostom, tondo mosaic in the north tympanum, Hagia Sophia chrysostom.jpg John Chrysostom, tondo mosaic in the north tympanum, Hagia Sophia Photo: Francesco Bini Mosaic 9th century (photographed 2022) Source ↗ CC BY-SA 4.0 Part 01 medallion · FAQ backdrop The preacher of the Antioch sermons against the Jews, who was in fact arguing with his own congregation for enjoying their neighbors’ festivals.
Torah niche from the synagogue at Dura-Europos dura-torah-niche.jpg Torah niche from the synagogue at Dura-Europos Unknown (Dura-Europos synagogue) c. 244 to 256 CE Source ↗ Public domain Hero ornament A painted Torah shrine from a third-century Syrian synagogue: the living Jewish communities the rhetoric was written about, and around.
The west wall of the Dura-Europos synagogue, during excavation dura-west-wall.jpg The west wall of the Dura-Europos synagogue, during excavation Yale University Art Gallery Paintings c. 244 to 256 CE Source ↗ CC0 Part 04 medallion · Stats backdrop A whole wall of biblical painting from a diaspora synagogue, a reminder of how much of this world the polemic simply does not describe.
The synagogue at Sardis, Lydia sardis-synagogue.jpg The synagogue at Sardis, Lydia Photo: Carole Raddato Building late 3rd century CE (photographed 2015) Source ↗ CC BY-SA 2.0 Part 07 medallion · Instructor backdrop A large, confident synagogue on a main civic street, its inscriptions naming gentile donors: the religious fluidity that the law codes never prepare us to see.
Title page for the Codex Theodosianus in a Breviary of Alaric (Cod. Sang. 731, fol. 1r) theodosian-code.jpg Title page for the Codex Theodosianus in a Breviary of Alaric (Cod. Sang. 731, fol. 1r) Unknown scribe (Abbey Library of Saint Gall) 794 Source ↗ Public domain “Prepare to Rethink” backdrop · Part 06 medallion The imperial law code that insulted Judaism as a nefarious sect and, in the same collection, kept ruling that no law prohibits it.
Codex Sinaiticus (the Greek New Testament) codex-page.jpg Codex Sinaiticus (the Greek New Testament) Unknown (4th-century scribe) 4th century CE Source ↗ Public domain Part 02 medallion The Greek scriptures themselves: the texts whose interpretation, and whose language, made the whole argument possible.
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 209 (𝔓10), a leaf of Romans papyrus-fragment.jpg Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 209 (𝔓10), a leaf of Romans Unknown (ancient scribe) 4th century CE Source ↗ Public domain At-a-Glance backdrop · Session backdrop A scrap of the letter in which Paul insists that all Israel will be saved, and that the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
Fresco from the Catacomb of Marcellinus and Peter, Rome catacomb-fresco.jpg Fresco from the Catacomb of Marcellinus and Peter, Rome Unknown (plate by Joseph Wilpert) Fresco 3rd century CE Source ↗ Public domain “Included with Enrollment” backdrop How third-century Christians pictured their own faith, in the same decades their theologians were sharpening the arguments this lecture examines.

Public-domain works are reproduced freely. CC BY / CC BY-SA images are credited to their photographers as required; follow each Source link for the full license text.