67 RURAL GALILEE AND RAPID CHANGES purity interests, affirming the later rabbinic traditions describing this period 76. Though we should exercise extreme care not to depict this activity with modern individualistic terminology, it is nevertheless evident that what we would call “religious motivation”, whether of national-religious or traditio-religious sort, was widespread in first- century Palestine as evident in the Qumran texts, in the extensive use of stone vessels and miqva’ot, in the rigid observation of the ban against images, in Josephus’ writings, etc 77. By incorporating this material more profoundly into the discussion, I suggest that we will get a more firm hold of the driving forces behind the emergence of the Jesus movement than what we have been able to obtain from the socio-economic investigations of its Galilean background. Lutheran School of Theology Morten Hørning JENSEN Aarhus, Denmark SUMMARY Much research on the socio-economic conditions of Galilee in the Hero- dian period has argued for a rapid economic deterioration amongst the rural population. This is said to have resulted in a deadly spiral of violence prompting popular protest movements of which Jesus of Nazareth became the most renowned. Other investigations, however, paint a much more le- nient picture of Galilee being under only a moderate development. This ar- ticle outlines the problem at hand in the research, suggests a methodology for further development and applies this to new archaeological material emerging from excavations in Galilee and the textual material available. 76 The most recent treatment of this issue can be found in Y. ARBEL, Ulti- mate Devotion. The Historical Impact and Archaeological Expression of In- tense Religious Movements (London 2009). 77 Cf. the discussion in M.H. JENSEN, “Socio-Economic and Socio-Reli- gious Dynamics in Herod Antipas’ Galilee – A Holistic Approach” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the SBL, New Orleans 2009).