47 RURAL GALILEE AND RAPID CHANGES To sum up, the working hypothesis of the present investigation can be stated in three points: (a) The cost of rapid change was to be paid by those at the base of the socio-economic pyramid, namely, the rural population (following Scott). (b) A “synthetic” evaluation must be based on a diachronic evaluation of the sources. (c) By identifying rapid change, we are not able to describe the socio-economic conditions per se, but only if it was worsening, improving or remaining unchanged 14. II. The Socio-Economic Pulse of Rural Galilee 15 1. The Political History of Galilee Beginning with the political development in Galilee, the question confronting us is to what extent the region was experiencing dramatic and rapid change. The issues to be dealt with are (a) the Roman takeover and the reorganization by Pompey, (b) the era of Herod the Great, and (c) the reign of Herod Antipas 16. 14 This would also be my main objection to the otherwise highly informative recent article by J.L. REED, “Instability in Jesus’ Galilee: A Demographic Per- spective”, JBL 129 (2010) 343-365. Through the introduction of demographics into the discussion, Reed is able to show plausibly how difficult life was in an- tiquity with shorter life expectancy, high rates of child deaths and deadly dis- eases. However, it is a big leap in argumentation to jump from this to the conclusion that Galilee witnessed “a high level of social instability” (REED, “In- stability”, 349), since these living conditions were a shared fate for life in the Roman world as such. Following this logic, one would have to conclude that the entire ancient world was marked by “social instability”. Further, when ap- plying his general statistics to Galilee, Reed admits that there are no grounds for claiming that “Galileans fared terribly and were destitute under Antipas” (REED, “Instability”, 364). 15 An earlier and shorter version of some of the issues under discussion in this section has been published in M.H. JENSEN, “Conflicting Calls? Family and Discipleship in Mark & Matthew in the Light of First-Century Galilean Village Life”, Mark and Matthew, Texts and Contexts I. Understanding the First Gospels in Their First Century Settings (eds. E.-M. BECKER – A. RUNESSON) (Tübingen 2011) 205-232. 16 A fourth topic with some relevance concerns the question of the origins of the Galileans, which I have treated in detail in M.H. JENSEN, “Climate, Droughts, Wars and Famines in Galilee As a Background for Understanding the Historical Jesus” JBL (forthcoming 2012).