49 RURAL GALILEE AND RAPID CHANGES After Herod’s death, turmoil swirled over the country. While most of the incidents described by Josephus took place in Judea (cf. Ant. 17.285: Lh|sthri,wn de. h` Ioudia ple,wj h=n), Galilee was impacted as v , well when Judas, son of Hezekiah, captured the city of Sepphoris and took hold of its weapon arsenal. According to Josephus, Varus recaptured the city in 4 BCE, burned it to the ground, and sold the inhabitants as slaves (War 2.56, 68; Ant. 17.271–272, 289) 19. Interestingly, no internal upheavals are reported, by Josephus or any other written source, to have taken place in Galilee during the reign of Antipas and, in fact, until the war of 66 CE. The rebellion in 6 CE led by Judas the Galilean (so War 2.118; Ant. 18.23 and Acts 5:37) or Judas of Gamala (so Ant. 18.4) 20 probably did not take place in Galilee since it was a response to the census in Judea carried out by Quirinius after the removal of Archelaos. Likewise, there is nothing in Josephus’ records to indicate that the one known war of Antipas, namely his fight with his former father-in-law, the Nabatean king Aretas, took place in Galilee. Rather, since the fight was partly due to a dispute about boundaries, it seems to have taken place in or near Antipas’ other area, Perea, bordering on Aretas’ kingdom (cf. Ant. 18.113-115) 21. Also Antipas’ arrest of John the Baptist reportedly did not lead to direct rebellion even though John was able to gather a crowd (Ant. 18.116-119) 22. Despite Josephus’ interest in portraying Antipas in an unfavourable light as another example of bad Herodian rulership, he does not provide us with more embarrassing stories of rebellion or unrest within his jurisdiction 23. When specifically examining Antipas’ reign and its impact on the socio-economic development in Galilee, a larger study of all the sources available forces me to conclude that Antipas is best 19 For a more detailed exposition of these events, see JENSEN, Herod An- tipas, 150-151. 20 This Judas is also likely to be the Judas of War 2.56 spearheading the re- bellion in Galilee after the death of Herod the Great and the burning of Sep- phoris. 21 The manuscripts name the district Gamala, but since it was part of the Decapolis and not subject to either Antipas or Aretas, Feldman suggests the district of Gabilis south of Moabitis in Idumea to have been the area in dis- pute — cf. L.H. FELDMAN, Josephus: Jewish Antiquities Books XVIII-XIX (LOEB 433; Cambridge, MA 1965) 80-81. 22 For a more detailed exposition, see JENSEN, Herod Antipas, 96-97. 23 Cf. my discussion in JENSEN, Herod Antipas, 99-100.