If one were to walk into any modern university library and type the keywords “ancient” and “synagogue” into the library’s computer catalogue, he or she would observe anywhere from two to five dozen citations scroll across the screen, depending upon the quality of the library’s collection in that particular area. A similar query made to the ATLA CD-ROM database would yield nearly two hundred entries. The ambitious reader who took the time to tally-up the number of references in the (select) bibliography at the end of this volume would soon reach the conclusion that the quantity of items called out of the computer catalogue and the CD-ROM constitutes only the tip of the iceberg with regard to research on ancient synagogues.(1)
With so much ink having been spilt on this topic, the question naturally arises: Why another book on ancient synagogues? In response to this reasonable query, let me begin by making two observations. First, as is obvious from the subtitle of this volume, this investigation will specifically confine itself to Second-Temple-period synagogues, that is, synagogues that existed during the period between Zerubbabel’s reconstruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the late sixth century B.C.E. and the Temple’s final destruction in 70 C.E. by Titus. This period was chosen for several reasons. To begin with, it is during this time that our first solid evidence for the existence of synagogues emerges—in Egypt during the third century B.C.E. On the other end of this time-span, the year 70 C.E. serves as a pivotal year for this investigation since it marks not only the cessation of the Temple cult, but also the abrupt termination of a high priestly hegemony that, except for a few brief periods, had administered affairs in Palestine since the end of the Babylonian exile. These two shifts—the loss of the high priesthood and the loss of the temple cult—are important to this investigation because they signal both a major change in Jewish leadership in Palestine and an equally significant change in the nature and focus of Jewish worship and community life throughout the empire.
With regard to the leadership issue, it is important to note that the war with Rome ended with the execution or enslavement of both the priestly aristocracy and the Zealot leadership of the revolt. The Pharisees, who before the war had been positioned in a secondary political tier, survived in sufficient numbers to fill this sudden power vacuum and become the leading political force in Palestine, with the Essenes, Christians, priests and Levites being among the lesser players.(2) While the Pharisaic/Rabbinic dominance of the region does not appear to have solidified until at least after the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 C.E., the heightened polemic against the Pharisees in Matthew’s Gospel (c. 85 C.E.) suggests that the Pharisees nevertheless wielded considerable power in Syro-Palestine even during the earlier period.(3) The implication of this sudden change in power for the present study is that an investigation confined to the Second Temple period could potentially reveal different patterns of leadership within Palestinian synagogues than might be found in the period following the Temple’s destruction.
The second major shift alluded to above—the shift in the nature and focus of Jewish worship and community life—is equally important to this study. In the eyes of most Jews, sacrifices could only be offered at the centralized cultic site in Jerusalem. Consequently, Titus’ destruction of the Temple meant that the various daily, weekly and monthly sacrifices as well as the annual festivals could no longer take place. This negative aspect of the post-70 period reached well beyond the confines of Palestine. Unlike the issue of Jewish leadership in Palestine, an issue which probably had minimal effect on the Jewish diaspora, the loss of the Temple cult itself had a greater impact on these distant Jews: pilgrimages from abroad could no longer be made to the Temple to render sacrifices, nor could votive offerings from individuals or communities outside of Palestine be presented in Jerusalem.(4) Even the diaspora’s participation in the collection of the half-shekel Temple tax was curtailed in the aftermath of the war, as Emperor Vespasian transformed this offering into a new imperial tax to be levied upon Jews empire-wide in punishment for the revolt.(5) The import of the cult’s demise for this study is that, for the period after 70 C.E., we are no longer able to observe the living relationship between the synagogues and the Temple; we can no longer examine what connections between the two institutions existed, if any. We are left only with images of the various strands of Judaism attempting to reconstruct themselves in the aftermath of a tremendous loss.
This leads us to the second observation: aside from the present
volume, no book-length treatment of Second Temple synagogues currently exists. The great
bulk of the published literature has typically examined synagogues dating from the Late
Roman and Byzantine periods, often without distinguishing these structures and their
functions from the buildings of the earlier period (more on this below). This is not to
say that the topic of Second Temple synagogues has never been broached in the scholarly
literature. On the contrary, scores of articles and essays have been written on the
subject, with the topic of synagogue origins being particularly popular. Nevertheless,
these treatments have frequently suffered from methodological shortcomings that have
rendered their conclusions suspect. While we will be noting these throughout the body of
this study, in the following section of this chapter we will make an initial inquiry into
the major problems inherent in much of the older literature. At the same time we will look
at some of the steps that recent researchers have begun to take in order to remedy these
problems. After an examination of current trends in the literature, I will present a
statement of the particular approach to be adopted in this study.
As briefly mentioned above, there has been a tendency in some of the literature to combine the synagogal evidence from many different periods to create a more or less static picture of a “typical” ancient synagogue. The downside of this practice for the examination of pre-70 synagogues is that it can result in a distorted picture of the earlier institution. Moreover, treatments that conflate sources in this manner effectively manufacture a monolithic entity out of an institution that exhibited a great deal of heterogeneity even in the earlier period.
In further addressing this tendency, it will be helpful to distinguish between architectural anachronism and literary anachronism, keeping in mind that these are frequently both present within the literature under discussion.
The first of these problems, architectural anachronism, is the error of displaying and discussing the archaeological remains of synagogues from a period later than the one under consideration. Now, in almost any examination of ancient architecture, one notes a certain continuity in the overall form of a particular type of edifice. For example, one can usually recognize an ancient theater by virtue of its semi-circular auditorium (cavea), its orchestra pit, and its stage-building (skene). After one has studied a particular type of ancient structure as it developed over time, however, one is frequently able to date the structure to a particular period. To extend our example, the earlier Greek style of theater, which was dominant up to the turn of the era, typically had a circular orchestra and a relatively small stage-building that was physically separated from the auditorium. In the earliest theaters, the drama took place in the orchestra, with the stage-building serving as a back-drop. By way of contrast, the later Roman style of theater had a semi-circular orchestra, which was used for the seating of dignitaries. The auditorium was physically connected to the stage-building, which itself was transformed into a massive structure several stories tall and was adorned with statues of the imperial family. The action took place on an elevated platform (proskene) situated between the orchestra and the face of the stage-building.(6)
Now, it might be asked, besides being useful in the dating of a theater, do these differences in style mean anything to the historian? I would submit that they do. For example, one might argue that the heightening of the stage-building and the addition of the imperial statues in the Roman period were architectural manifestations of a widening campaign of imperial propaganda. Similarly, one might make a case that the seating of dignitaries in an orchestra removed from the main body of the people in the auditorium points to a drift towards elitism in the emerging Roman empire. Of course, wide-reaching conclusions such as these should never be drawn solely from the evolution of a single type of architecture, but only after an analysis of various other pieces (and types) of evidence.
This brief outline of the ancient theater’s development is illuminating to our discussion of scholarly treatments of ancient synagogues, for clearly, if one were reading about theaters of the Hellenistic period, one would expect the examination to focus on the earlier Greek theaters and not on the Roman theaters from the later period. The Roman theater might be mentioned as a footnote to the study, or it might perhaps be employed as a foil within the examination to accentuate the peculiar aspects of the earlier kind of theater. But it would not dominate the discussion. Similarly, if one were to read about Second Temple synagogues, one would expect the discussion to concentrate upon synagogues built in that particular era, not ones constructed two to five centuries later. Yet when one turns to books and articles on synagogues from the “biblical period,” it is not uncommon to find pictures and discussions of the limestone synagogue at Capernaum (IV–V C.E.), the frescoes from the synagogue at Dura-Europos (III C.E.), or the zodiac mosaic from the Beth Alpha synagogue (VI C.E.), among other late examples.(7) Even if we recognize that the New Testament period reaches past 70 C.E. to as late as 150 C.E. in the case of 2 Peter, none of these comparisons comes close to being contemporaneous with the biblical literature.(8) In any case, all of the New Testament sources mentioning synagogues should probably be dated to no later than the end of the first century and, with the exception of Revelation, all of the citations invariably refer to synagogues in a pre-70 C.E. setting.(9)
In defense of the older literature it should be stated that, prior to the 1960s, with the exception of the Delos synagogue (I B.C.E.), no synagogue remains had been dated to the Second Temple period. The same cannot be said of more recent treatments since we now have several examples of synagogues dated by a majority of archaeologists to the period before 70 C.E. Despite this fact, the tendency to focus the discussion on the later materials persists. For example, in his article on synagogues in the Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992),(10) Eric Meyers devotes a single paragraph to the description of the synagogues at Gamla, Masada and Herodium, each typically dated to the Second Temple period. Yet there are no plans or pictures and no extended analysis of these structures and their features. The bulk of the architectural discussion (covering five pages) is devoted to the synagogues at Beth She’arim, Gush Halav, Nabratein and Khirbet Shema’, all buildings dating to the third century C.E.(11) Indeed, three-dimensional plans of the Gush Halav and the Khirbet Shema’ synagogues are depicted as well as an artist’s reconstruction of the torah shrine at Nabratein—this last despite the fact that such fixed structures are not attested in the period covered by the Bible, much less the Second Temple period. Of course, Meyers knows this and mentions this fact in passing. However, because so much of the discussion is directed toward the third-century structures, the overall impression left upon the reader is that synagogues from the biblical period correspond closely to the synagogues from the later era. A similar impression is made in Helmut Koester’s widely used text, Introduction to the New Testament (revised in 1995), where, in a section entitled “Judaism in the Hellenistic Period,” he inserts a picture of the Sardis synagogue as it existed in the fifth century C.E.(12) The accompanying caption calls special attention to the synagogue’s fixed torah shrine and to images of eagles carved on its monumental table, all features unattested in synagogues of the Hellenistic era. Since Koester is discussing a period six centuries earlier than the building depicted in the photograph, one wonders why he did not instead include a picture of the Delos synagogue, a structure dating to the era being treated in his text.
I present these two examples not to single out these two researchers. I cite them merely to illustrate the fact that, even in this day and age, researchers can remain fixated upon later synagogal structures despite the fact that their circumscribed period of study is centuries earlier. While the later edifices are indeed interesting and more numerous than those dating to before 70 C.E., one must take care to distinguish them from the earlier examples. To practice conflation of periods is to risk papering over important differences between structures from different times. In order to guard against this, discussions of synagogue architecture must be stratified chronologically, with pre-70 synagogues used to speak of that era, Late Roman synagogues used in discussions of that period, and so on. This principle is especially important when one recalls the shifts occurring after the Temple’s destruction. With changes in both leadership and patterns of worship, later architects and builders may have felt freer to introduce new elements into the designs of their synagogues. Some continuity may have existed across the centuries, but this may have been overshadowed by significant differences. In the case of the synagogue, features such as fixed torah shrines, mosaics or frescoes depicting living creatures, even inscriptions of menorahs, while prominent in later structures, are all features unattested in our period. It is the historian’s task to note these discrepancies and to take them into account when creating an overall interpretive scheme for understanding the nature of an institution in its different phases.
Fortunately, the unearthing of several Second Temple synagogues over the last thirty-five years has made researchers more alert to the danger of projecting back later stylistic features onto the earlier structures. The more recent archaeological literature typically has been careful to give special consideration to the pre-70 buildings. For example, Lee Levine’s collection of essays, Ancient Synagogues Revealed (1982), devotes a separate section to synagogue remains of the Second Temple period.(13) Other authors and editors have followed suit.(14) This practice of chronological stratification has even reached the level of more general treatments with the appearance in 1992 of E. P. Sanders’s Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE, wherein the author discusses only those synagogue remains dating to the period prior to the destruction of the Temple.(15) One hopes that future revisions of other texts on “Second Temple Period Judaism” or “The New Testament Period” will soon join in this more critical approach.
The second of the methodological problems mentioned above, that of literary anachronism, is the practice of relying upon literary sources from a much later period than the one under consideration. As with architectural anachronism, the danger in this procedure is that the later sources may reflect the customs and practices of that day and not of the earlier era. With regard to the study of synagogues, until recently, the commonplace practice of scholars has been to base their portrait of the early synagogues upon tractates from the rabbinic literature. There are several difficulties with this procedure. The first of these is the problem of bias, a problem that is intertwined with the issue of anachronism. While the rabbinic literature almost certainly contains some historical remembrances, the rabbinic schools did not set out to chronicle history. Rather, the compilers of the various documents in this vast corpus each sought to express a worldview not necessarily of how things were, but of how things should have been. Hence the literature is more often prescriptive than descriptive. Here it might be pointed out that even ancient historians wrote with some measure of prescriptive bias. As we shall see in our examination of Josephus’ writings, this first-century historian had his own set of biases, which not infrequently led to key omissions or embellishments in his account. Yet these can be identified and ameliorated. Moreover, certain conventions in the historiological genre limited the degree to which one could distort commonly known facts or events. Stepping over the boundaries of these conventions would threaten a loss of credibility with one’s audience—a result which was the last thing the ancient historian desired.(16) With regard to the rabbinic compilers, while there was certainly a desire to have a particular saying taken seriously or authoritatively, because sayings were transmitted orally, verification of the original utterance (and its authority) by the early audiences would have been extremely difficult. Consequently there was little to inhibit the introduction of individual biases and embellishments at each stage of the transmission process.
When modern historians try to link some of these sayings to the pre-70 period, they are faced with a second and perhaps even greater problem than the difficulty of prescriptive bias: the earliest of the rabbinic compilations, the Mishnah, dates to the beginning of the third century C.E., nearly a century-and-a-half after the destruction of the Temple. Other works such as the Tosefta (c. 250 C.E.), the Jerusalem Talmud (IV C.E.) and the Babylonia Talmud (VI C.E.) date considerably later. Sidestepping for a moment the problem of whether a particular saying is prescriptive or descriptive, how are researchers to know whether or not the saying was transmitted reliably? If a talmudic saying is attributed to a sage from the first century, the centuries that separated the actual writing down of the saying from its reputed utterance make its verification extremely problematic. The potential exists that the saying may have actually been spoken by a later rabbi whose viewpoint was projected back upon the earlier period. Or, more simply, the final reporter of the saying may have embellished it to correspond with the viewpoints of his own day. If this viewpoint happens to agree with the actual practices of the day, (i.e., it is descriptive rather than prescriptive), we face the same problem of anachronism that we saw above in the case of later architecture being seen as representative of the earlier style. In any case, it is not uncommon for various rabbinic sayings to contradict each other. In the arena of our topic, for example, various numbers of synagogues are stated to have existed in Jerusalem before the fall of the Temple: 394 (b. Ketub. 105a), 460 (y. Ketub. 35c [61–64]) and 480 (y. Ketub. 73d [32–35]). Which of these numbers is correct, if any? Or are we to take the figures merely as “ballpark guesses” and conclude that Jerusalem contained synagogues numbering in the hundreds? If so, how can we be sure that the later rabbis making these sayings were not merely assuming that hundreds of synagogues existed in Jerusalem in the first century because such numbers of synagogues existed in some large cities of the fourth through sixth centuries C.E.? Or (to shift into a hypothetically prescriptive mode), perhaps no synagogues existed in first-century Jerusalem, but for some reason the rabbis believed that hundreds of them ought to have existed—perhaps as a way of underscoring the prominence of the early sages and their houses.
As noted above, up until very recently it was a widely held practice for synagogue researchers to cite talmudic sayings without considering the very real danger of anachronism. Hence, it was commonly believed, for example, that the early synagogues subscribed to fixed lectionaries,(17) or that the Pharisees exercised supreme leadership over the services held inside.(18) Yet these practices and leadership patterns reflect those existing in the Byzantine period rather than the Second Temple period. Little or no evidence for these practices comes from the first century. This kind of literary anachronism leaves us with a distorted picture of the pre-70 synagogal institution. Despite the fact that such literary anachronism has come under severe critique (as we shall see), conclusions fostered by this uncritical methodology remain highly influential because they are contained in many of the standard biblical reference works.(19)
The landscape of synagogal studies (and Jewish studies in general) began to shift dramatically in the 1970s, largely as the result of the scholarship of Jacob Neusner. In 1971, with the appearance of his work, The Rabbinic Sayings about the Pharisees before 70, Neusner launched an opening salvo against what he perceived to be a serious misappropriation of rabbinic literature in the study of history. In the introduction of this three-volume study, Neusner stated the matter rather sharply:
New Testament scholars customarily give careful attention to critical considerations when using New Testament materials for historic purposes. But they quote Talmudic stories as contemporary, first-hand, accurate historical accounts. They would not think, when discussing a story about Jesus, of neglecting its internal signs of development or of ignoring several versions of the same story in their attempt to discover what, if anything, can be said about actual events. Yet they cite rabbinic stories of what rabbis said and did as if critical considerations important in New Testament studies simply do not apply. In this they are abetted by Jewish historians who in a pseudorthodox spirit maintain the pretense that wherever or whenever a story was finally written down, whether in third-century Babylonia or tenth-century Italy, said story accurately and reliably relates the exact details of what really happened in the time of which it speaks. From the moment a Pharisaic master or rabbinic sage said or did something, it is supposed, a process automatically was set in motion orally to record, then orally to transmit, an exact detailed historical account of the saying or the event. The relationship between the event and the story that purports to preserve it is never investigated; it is simply supposed to be perfect correspondence.(20)
As a positive contribution towards bringing order out of what had been methodological chaos, Neusner went on in this study to compile and analyze only those rabbinic sayings or stories attributed to figures (or their houses) known to have lived during the Second Temple period. While this method could not assure the historicity of the pericopae, it did present a useful first step towards the identification of a more reliable stratum of earlier material. Later, Neusner advanced this methodology even further by focusing strictly on material from the oldest rabbinic compilation, the Mishnah, and checking to see whether the logical progression of a debate corresponded to the historical order of the characters. Thus, for example, if a rabbi from the Yavneh period (70–130 C.E.) was said to have stated the premise of a particular dispute, but a corollary within that same dispute was attributed to a rabbi from the Second Temple period, then doubt was cast upon the pre-70 attribution. However, if the situation were reversed—the earlier authority’s statement embodied the premise and a later authority’s contained the corollary—then the early attribution was deemed plausible, if not altogether verified. Neusner’s application of this methodology was painstakingly worked out over the course of forty-three volumes,(21) whose conclusions were summarized in his book, Judaism, the Evidence of the Mishnah.(22)
With regard to research on pre-70 synagogues, Neusner’s work has had enormous implications, for even when utilizing the first of the above methods—accepting any early attributions, a practice which yields a greater amount of data—Neusner noted a puzzling silence on the part of the early authorities:
They supply no rules about synagogue life, all the more so about reading the Torah and preaching in synagogues. It would be difficult to maintain that the [Pharisee] sect claimed to exercise influence in the life of synagogues not controlled by its own members or widely preached in synagogues.(23)
From this summary we may conclude not that the Pharisees did not participate in the synagogues, but simply that what probably constitutes the earliest and most reliable stratum of evidence from the rabbinic writings yields us no useful information about pre-70 synagogues.(24)
As a consequence of Neusner’s results, over roughly the last
fifteen years most researchers of Second Temple synagogues have limited their examinations
to literary materials contemporaneous with the era under examination.(25) This development is
to be commended. We have already examined the various dangers inherent in using the later
rabbinic material to speak about the earlier period. Neusner’s industrious program of
identifying early pericopae has given historians a new set of tools with which to conduct
their research in a more methodologically sound fashion. For our more specific enterprise,
however, we are left with no relevant rabbinic material and must therefore resort to the
use of other sources of historical information.
The conclusions reached in the foregoing discussion lead us now to consider the most recent research on Second Temple synagogues. As indicated, the silence of the early rabbinic material on this institution has led researchers to focus upon other sources of evidence contemporaneous with the subject matter. This is not such a sorry state of affairs as it might at first seem, for the relevant sources are both numerous and diverse. There are (1) literary sources, including the various writings of the Bible (the Hebrew scriptures, LXX and New Testament) and the Pseudepigrapha, the works of Philo and Josephus, the Dead Sea scrolls, and the documents from the Egyptian papyri, (2) inscriptions, including those found in Egypt, Cyrenaica, Palestine, Asia Minor, Italy, the Bosporus, and the Aegean, and (3) site remains, such as those excavated at Gamla, Masada, Herodium, Capernaum, Qumran, Delos and Ostia. In later chapters we will consider in detail questions regarding the dating, identification and interpretation of these sources. For the moment, however, it will be sufficient to indicate some of the most recent conclusions that researchers have drawn about pre-70 synagogues from an examination of this narrower body of evidence.
In characterizing the most recent studies, it is fair to state that a good portion of them have challenged many ideas traditionally held about synagogues in the pre-70 era. To begin with, a number of scholars have taken issue with the notion that there were synagogue buildings in pre-70 Palestine. One of these, Howard Clark Kee, has argued that the synagogue existed as a formal institution (with a building) only outside of Palestine in the earlier era and, that when the canonical Gospels use the word synagôgę they are speaking of an informal religious gathering held probably inside a private house.(26) The only exception he allows is Luke 7:5, a verse from the account of the healing of the centurion’s slave in Capernaum. In this passage, Jewish elders appeal to Jesus to heed the centurion’s plea, stating, “he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us [avgapa/| ga.r to. e;qnoj h`mw/n kai. th.n sunagwgh.n auvto.j wv|kodo,mhsen h`mi/n].”(27) Kee attributes the singularity of this usage to the Hellenistic provenance of Luke-Acts:
The very fact that “synagogue” here alone in the gospel tradition points unequivocally to a building, rather than to a gathering, serves to confirm the impression that Luke-Acts is a document from a Hellenistic centre, where . . . Jews in the Diaspora had begun to modify houses or public structures in order to serve more effectively the needs of the local Jewish community.(28)
And what of the several structures in Palestine that archaeologists have identified as synagogues of the Second Temple period? Regarding these, Kee writes,
There is no evidence that [the structures at Masada and Herodium] were structures designed for religious purposes, much less that the routines attested for second-century and later synagogues were practiced there. Other sites that were at first identified as synagogues—at Magdala and Gamala—turn out to be nothing more than private homes in which the pious gathered for prayer . . . Thus there is simply no evidence to speak of synagogues in Palestine as architecturally distinguishable edifices prior to 200 C.E.(29)
In holding the view that Palestinian synagogues did not exist until after the Jewish War, Kee is by no means alone. Richard Horsley, in his recent book on first-century Galilee (1995), following a brief examination of some passages from Josephus and the Gospels, reaches almost identical conclusions:
It is thus clear from the synoptic Gospel tradition as our principal evidence that the synagôgai in Galilee were not buildings, but assemblies or congregations of people . . . In a few passages in Luke-Acts and in Josephus’s reports we are evidently seeing a transition usage in which, at least in Hellenistic situations, buildings in which the assemblies met are beginning to be referred to as synagôgai by association. But synagôgę and knesset both referred to the local village or town assembly in first- and second-century Galilee.(30)
With regard to the proposed pre-70 synagogue structures, after devoting a single paragraph to an analysis of the evidence, Horsley rejects all of the identifications and concludes that there is “no archaeological or literary evidence for synagogue buildings in Judean or Galilean towns and villages until the third century or later.”(31)
Other scholars, while not altogether discounting the archaeological remains of synagogues in Palestine, nevertheless argue that synagogues were not as prominent there in the pre-70 period as was once believed. Thus Paul Flesher posits an antithetical relationship between the Temple and the early diaspora synagogues.(32) In his view, when synagogues first appeared in Galilee in the late first-century B.C.E., their introduction was met with stiff resistence from the priestly leaders of the Temple cult, who perceived them as unwelcome competitors. These leaders, who exercised more power in Judea than in Galilee, prohibited the local population in Judea from constructing and worshiping in them. After an examination of relevant literary and archaeological sources, Flesher concludes that, with the exception of two synagogues in Jerusalem built for diaspora Jews (known from an excavated inscription and from Acts 6:9), “there were no synagogues in Judea prior to the Temple’s destruction.”(33)
Another intermediate position is that of Eric Meyers, who, upon pondering the discrepancy between the large number of literary references to Second Temple synagogues and the present dearth of excavated remains in Palestine, proposes that private homes frequently served as centers for congregational worship:
In the first centuries, large private houses were used as places of worship alongside other buildings that came to be utilized for worship and other matters requiring public assembly. In Palestine, it would seem, it was about a hundred years after the destruction of the Temple that the synagogue as a building began to emerge as a central feature of Jewish communal life.(34)
Meyers’ ambivalence about the early evidence helps us understand why he chose to focus his Anchor Bible Dictionary article on the third-century structures, as we observed above: in his view, pre-70 synagogue buildings in Palestine were still in an embryonic stage of development and could not yet be categorized according to a coherent architectural form. Ironically, his extended treatment of the later synagogue structures in his article fosters an impression opposite the one contained in the above quotation.
Already at several points in our review of the literature we have encountered the position that synagogue buildings evolved out of prayer meetings in private homes. As we have seen, Kee and Horsley argue for an early third-century C.E. date for this transition in Palestine, while Meyers opts for a somewhat earlier date. In setting forth this developmental scheme, these researchers are drawing parallels with the meeting patterns of early Christians. The reasoning is that, since early Christian congregations met in private homes, Jewish congregations commonly did the same thing. Kee, for instance, surveying the various references to synagogues in Mark’s Gospel, comments,
The fact that in two of these passages ([Mark] 1:23; 1:39) the pronomial adjective is added, “in their synagogue” already implies that the followers of Jesus have their assemblies as well, which they see as outwardly similar to, but substantively in tension with the assemblies of the Pharisees.(35)
The last part of this sentence contains the crux of the matter. While no researcher would deny that a similarity existed between the early Christian ekklęsia and the Jewish synagogal communities, the question remains open as to how far one should push this analogy. Were the Christians to some degree innovators, or were they simply mimicking the standard meeting practices of the Jewish milieu from which they emerged? As is amply clear, Kee maintains the latter.
In defending the legitimacy of this position, Kee draws heavily on the work of L. Michael White, who, in his recent book, Building God’s House (1990),(36) argues that the transformation of the Christian house-churches into the public buildings of the fourth century finds its reflection in a parallel development in the Jewish synagogue buildings. Unlike the bulk of Kee’s treatments, however, White’s analysis focuses upon diaspora synagogues, specifically, those at Delos (I B.C.E.), Ostia (I C.E.), Priene (II C.E.), Sardis (II–III C.E.), Dura-Europos (II–III C.E.), and Stobi (III C.E.).(37) From his examination of the site plans of these six excavated structures, White states, “of these six, five were renovated from private domestic edifices, and in each case they had been houses typical of domestic architecture in that locale.”(38) Combining this statement with an analysis of various literary citations and inscriptions, White draws the following conclusion:
Certainly prior to 70, but continuing through the second century as well, the establishment of synagogue communities throughout the Diaspora must have generally followed the same steps as those followed at Delos, Priene, and Stobi. Private household gatherings gradually gave rise to formal establishments through a process of architectural adaptation sponsored in large measure by private benefactions.(39)
White’s conclusions have been accepted by so many recent researchers that it would not be unfair to say that his position presently constitutes the majority position.(40)
While White, Kee, et al. argue for a basic continuity between the meeting facilities of Jews and early Christians, another researcher, Heather McKay, proposes a fundamental difference in meeting purposes between the two groups. According to McKay, while it is clear that early Christians met regularly for corporate prayer (e.g., 1 Cor 12–14, Acts 2), the notion that Jews gathered in synagogues on the Sabbath for communal worship is baseless. The volume incorporating her defense of this hypothesis (1994) forms an exception to the general rule that most recent studies on Second Temple synagogues have been brief: the laborious process of having to prove a negative has led McKay to spend over 250 pages examining various literary and epigraphic references to the Sabbath dating from pre-exilic times all the way up to 200 C.E.(41) Following this lengthy treatment, on the last page of her study, McKay concludes, “there is no unequivocal evidence that the sabbath was a day of worship for non-priestly Jews certainly as far as the end of the second century of the Common Era.”(42) In her view, Sabbath gatherings in synagogues (private homes in the case of Palestine) were strictly for the reading and exposition of Torah, not for prayer.
A somewhat related position on this matter is taken by Lee Levine, who maintains that synagogues served as worship centers only outside of Palestine:
There is no reference in Palestinian sources to the existence of organized communal prayer at that time [the Second Temple period], with the possible exception of the Qumran community, many of whose ideas and practices were different from those of the rest of society. (In contrast, the Diaspora synagogue, called proseuche—in Greek, “place of prayer”—presumably featured the element of prayer, although the reading of the Torah appears to have been central there as well.) Only after the destruction of the Second Temple did the synagogue in Palestine develop and expand as a place of worship.(43)
A final traditional belief about synagogues challenged recently is the phenomenon of the so-called “God-fearers” (fobou,menoi/sebome,noi to.n qeo,n), pagan sympathizers of Judaism who have not fully converted to the religion. References to God-fearers turn up quite frequently in the book of Acts, the best known of these being Cornelius, the Roman centurion, whom Luke presents as the first Gentile convert to Christianity (Acts 10:2, 22, 35). Others are depicted as being members of synagogue congregations in Luke’s portrayals of Paul’s various missionary activities, with many of them also going on to become Christians (Acts 13:16, 26, 43, 50; 16:14; 17:4, 17; 18:7). Citing a lack of corroborating inscriptionary evidence from synagogues in the diaspora, Thomas Kraabel has argued that God-fearers are a Lucan literary invention:
The God-fearers are a symbol to help Luke show how Christianity had become a Gentile religion legitimately and without losing its Old Testament roots. The Jewish mission to Gentiles recalled in the God-fearers is ample precedent for the far more extensive mission to Gentiles which Christianity had in fact undertaken with such success. Once that point has been made, Luke can let the God-fearers disappear from his story. That is just what they do, and that is why there is no further reference to them in the New Testament and no clear independent record of them in the material evidence from the classical world.(44)
Kraabel concludes his examination with a plea for historians to stop using the figure of the God-fearer as the quintessential example of the “inadequacy of Judaism” in the Greco-Roman world. “The New Testament,” he writes, “provides no evidence of such a failure, if the God-fearer texts are properly understood.”(45)
The foregoing exposition of some of the most recent literature about early synagogues attests to a trend that is at variance with much of the earlier research. While the older studies uniformly held that the synagogue was a highly formalized institution in the first century, replete with its own specialized architecture and open to Gentiles, the newer research, as we have seen, has frequently portrayed “synagogues” as being informal gatherings of Jews in private homes for Torah study. The full-blown synagogal institutions depicted in the older viewpoint are presented as being more a phenomenon of the third century C.E. in Palestine and somewhat earlier in the diaspora.
This portrait has not been without its challengers. Kraabel’s article, for instance, met with a flurry of responses, mostly in the aftermath of the publication of an inscription from Aphrodisias (Asia Minor) where Jews, proselytes and God-fearers (theosebeis in the inscription) are clearly delineated as separate groups.(46) The inscription, however, dates to the third century C.E., and so the question needs to be re-examined for the pre-70 period.
Kee’s conclusions have been met with responses by Richard
Oster, Rainer Riesner and, in passing, Lee Levine and James Strange.(47) These authors argue
that Kee’s reconstruction either ignores or discounts pertinent evidence. For his
part, Kee and those sharing similar views remain unconvinced.(48) Other recent writers
have pushed back the transitional period in Palestine to the first century B.C.E. and have
pointed to evidence suggesting that Palestinian synagogue structures existed in this
period as public architecture which served a variety of functions.(49) Still other authors
have highlighted the Egyptian origins of the synagogue or have sought to place early
synagogue architecture within a larger Greco-Roman context.(50) All of these
treatments, however, have been quite limited in their scope. None of them has pulled
together all of the pre-70 evidence in order to present it comprehensively and
systematically. That, of course, is the circumscribed task of the present study. It is to
a fuller exposition of this task that we now turn.
Our consideration of recent trends in the literature leads us to return to the question posed at the beginning of this chapter: Why another book on ancient synagogues? Given the recent dramatic shifts in methodology and the present turbulent state of the literature, the time seems ripe for an in-depth treatment and analysis of the relevant primary sources in an attempt to adjudicate the views articulated in the most recent studies and to present an overarching interpretation of the evidence that is nonetheless sensitive to the critical concerns noted above. In the previous section we observed several positive developments within recent studies of Second Temple synagogues. Most researchers are now taking greater care to stratify the literary and architectural sources, thus mitigating the danger of anachronism. Moreover, they are also now becoming more critical in their readings of the early literary evidence. Ancient sources are rarely taken at face value, but are submitted to sophisticated analyses that attempt to identify and control any biases which might distort our portrait of the early synagogues.
Despite these advances, the question remains open as to how successful recent researchers have been in presenting their historical reconstructions. Have they done justice to the full extent of the data? Have their treatments of the relevant sources been cogently argued? Have they considered evidence that might conflict with their final position? Of course, answers to questions such as these can only be formulated after analyzing individual arguments in light of the evidence. Nevertheless, at this stage of the investigation some preliminary comments are in order. To begin with, a close reading of the arguments presented by recent authors leads me to believe that, in their treatments of the early synagogues, many of these researchers have paradoxically gone both “too far” and “not far enough.” Where they have gone too far is in their treatment of the literary sources. While a “hermeneutics of suspicion” now constitutes part of the stock-in-trade of modern historians, when this hermeneutic is pressed to the point where it appears unwarranted, one starts to become suspicious of the conclusions drawn by the researcher. In any field of research, it is not uncommon for a hypothesis to take on a life of its own, with the evidence being consciously or unconsciously tailored to conform to a Procrustean bed. In the field of ancient history, the danger is especially great because the data are usually very fragmentary and the authors of the sources are no longer present for questioning. When these conditions are combined with critical readings of ancient documents, arguments based on silence can emerge. However, the silence may only be apparent. The researcher may have discounted important pieces of evidence, attributing them to authorial biases or anachronism. Here the problem is one of deciding whether or not a particular interpretation is appropriately critical. Such judgments, of course, can only be made on a case-by-case basis. Yet, as I shall argue, some of the recent synagogue researchers appear to have gone too far in their criticisms because they have not gone far enough in their consideration of relevant data. In some cases, they appear to be unaware of the existence of conflicting data. In other instances, they seem cognizant of evidence at odds with their own conclusions, but discount or minimize the implications of this evidence.
As might be expected, our consideration of these lacunae will suggest a portrait at odds with those offered by many of the recent researchers. First, it seems clear that synagogues existed in Palestine as formal institutions with their own buildings and functionaries as early as the first century B.C.E. In the diaspora, they appeared even earlier, being well-attested in Egypt in the third century B.C.E. Within two centuries they were flourishing in Jewish centers around the Mediterranean. Second, no solid evidence from our period presently exists to indicate that synagogues emerged from meetings in private homes. On the other hand, the data uniformly support the view that synagogue buildings constituted public, monumental architecture as opposed to private, domestic dwellings. Third, evidence exists attesting to the presence of both public and private prayer within the synagogues of Palestine and the diaspora. Finally, the existence of the God-fearers receives confirmation from evidence outside of the treatment accorded them in Acts.
A central task of this study will be to lay before the reader in an orderly manner the existing data along with a critical analysis and interpretation of that data so that the reader can make his or her own judgments on each of these propositions. In accordance with the methodological concerns noted in the previous sections, the data will be limited to only those literary, epigraphic and archaeological sources contemporaneous with the period of the Second Temple. Among these sources will be documents written within a generation of the Temple’s demise yet making reference back to the pre-70 period. While these will be counted as evidence, they will also be scrutinized for any hint of anachronism or bias. Moreover, the rhetorical tendencies of all documents mentioning Second Temple synagogues will be considered and taken into account before drawing historical conclusions from their witness. Beyond this, consideration will also be given to the provenance of the sources, with care being taken to address possible patterns of local variation among the synagogues. Particular attention will be given to evidence suggesting differences between diaspora and Palestinian synagogues, while at the same time any points of similarity will also be noted. Finally, special treatment will be given to what we might imprecisely label “sectarian synagogues,” those synagogues belonging to the Essenes, the Therapeutae and the Samaritans, groups that were at some degree of variance with the larger Jewish society. Christians might also have been included within this treatment, yet the emergence and development of the Christian ekklęsia deserves an examination beyond what can be given in this study. I will, however, reserve space at its conclusion to suggest some potential implications of this study for enhancing our understanding of the formation and evolution of the ekklęsia as well as for the continuing evolution of the synagogues in the Rabbinic period.
A second major task of this study will be to present a proposal that addresses yet another way in which I believe recent researchers have not gone far enough in their analyses. The basis of this assertion is best introduced through a brief look at one of the leading assumptions that has been present within much of the research on the pre-70 synagogues.
As we noted above, much of the older literature set forth the view that the early synagogues served as rivals to the Temple cult—a sort of protest movement against a moribund institution whose priests were corrupt and whose sacrifices were no longer seen as efficacious.(51) In his now classic study, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (1959), Avigdor Tcherikover, stated this proposition rather succinctly:
The urban population sought other intellectual leaders who lived and thought in a manner more akin to themselves. Hence rose the class of scribes, the flesh and bone of the broad city populace, which took upon itself the task of interpreting the Torah neglected by the priests . . . Possibly the new scribal interpretations were delivered in the synagogues which had now for the first time risen and spread in Judea, and thus was created the important opposition between the Temple and the Synagogue.(52)
This position was by no means confined to the older literature. As late as 1981, in an essay included in his compendium, Ancient Synagogues: The State of the Research, Joseph Gutmann was able to present a reconstruction of the early synagogues that is strikingly similar to Tcherikover’s:
The goal of the new Pharisaic religion was to assure the individual’s salvation after death and his bodily resurrection in the messianic age. All this was to be achieved by each individual without sacrifice or priests but through the observance of the laws (the halakhot), systematically set forth in the divinely revealed two-fold Law. The synagogue, one of the unique Pharisaic institutions, became an important meeting place where through prayers and ceremonial practices the individual Jew could affirm his loyalty to the two-fold Pharisaic law, with the guarantee that its observance would bring about salvation of his soul and resurrection. Thus a major historical event in second-century B.C.E. Judea ushered in the Pharisees and their new institution—the synagogue—whose existence is not historically demonstratable prior to the Hasmonean revolt.(53)
More recent research has submitted these reconstructions to a partial critique. Lester Grabbe, for example, has argued that the common assumption that the Pharisees founded or dominated the pre-70 synagogues is not to be found in any of the first-century material. We have already seen evidence to this effect in our review above of Neusner’s analysis of the early rabbinic attestations. Grabbe, while briefly alluding to Neusner’s conclusions, limits his own examination to the canonical Gospels and the works of Josephus. Aside from John 12:42,(54) which he argues reflects the internecine strife arising after the Temple’s destruction, Grabbe finds in this material no reference to the Pharisees as leaders in the early synagogues.(55) In a similar vein, other researchers have pointed out that Josephus numbers the Pharisees at only 6,000 during the time of Herod the Great, with the great bulk of these being located in Jerusalem. In view of this fact, the scholars argue, any portrait of Pharisaic dominance of synagogues outside of Judea seems unlikely.(56) This argument is confirmed when one notes that the rise of the Pharisees can be dated to no earlier than the Maccabean revolt in the mid-second-century B.C.E. Yet epigraphic evidence attests to the presence of synagogues in Egypt nearly a century earlier. It follows that any connection between the early Egyptian synagogues and the Pharisees is extremely problematic.(57)
While synagogue researchers have been inclined to accept these conclusions, they have not been as quick to notice the deeper flaw in Tcherikover and Gutmann’s reconstructions: neither the Pharisees nor any other identifiable Jewish group in the pre-70 period can with certainty be identified as being “anti-Temple.”(58) On the contrary, the overwhelming bulk of evidence suggests that Jews everywhere hallowed and supported this institution. Just a few passages will suffice to demonstrate the depth and breadth of this sentiment.
We begin with an assertion by Josephus, who, in describing the towers overlooking the Temple, makes the following comments:
Whoever is master of these [the fortresses guarding the Temple] had the whole nation in his power, for sacrifices could not be made without (controlling) these places, and it was impossible for any of the Jews to forgo offering these, for they would rather give up their lives than the worship which they are accustomed to offer God (Ant. 15.248).(59)
Since Josephus was himself a priest (as well as a Pharisee!) one might expect him to express a pro-Temple sentiment.(60) Yet his characterization is borne out by other writers. Philo, for example, who had been in Rome in 40 C.E. to petition Gaius over some grievances of the Alexandrian Jews, relates the poignant story of how he came to hear the news of Gaius’ proclamation about erecting a statue of Zeus in the midst of the Jerusalem Temple:
While we were anxiously considering the statement of our case, since we were always expecting to be summoned, there came to us one with a troubled look in his bloodshot eyes and gasping convulsively. He drew us a little way apart since there were some people standing near and said, “Have you heard the new tidings?” and when he was going to report it he was brought up short, as a flood of tears streamed from his eyes. He began again and the second time stopped short and so too a third time. When we saw this we were all in a flutter and bade him tell us the matter which he said had brought him there . . . He managed with difficulty while sobbing and breathing spasmodically to say, “Our temple is lost, Gaius has ordered a colossal statue to be set up within the inner sanctuary dedicated to himself under the name of Zeus.” As we marvelled at his words and, petrified by consternation, could not get any further, since we stood there speechless and powerless in a state of collapse with our hearts turned to water (Legat. 186–189).
Philo goes on to recount that when the Legate of Syria, Petronius, marched into Palestine to execute this appointed task, “the inhabitants of the holy city and the rest of the country” streamed out to meet him, baring their throats and asking to be slaughtered rather than have their Temple defiled (Legat. 225–243). Even given the likely embellishments of this account, Philo’s portrait can hardly be viewed as depicting an anti-Temple sentiment among the Jews. Nor should the Gaius incident be viewed exclusively as a kind of “rallying around the flag” phenomenon—at least not from Philo’s point of view: while reflecting upon one of his own pilgrimages to the Temple, Philo attests to widespread participation in the Temple cult:
Countless multitudes from countless cities come, some over land, others over sea, from east and west and north and south at every feast . . . Friendships are formed between those who hitherto knew not each other, and the sacrifices and libations are the occasion of reciprocity of feeling and constitute the surest pledge that all are of one mind (Spec. 1.70; cf. Acts 2:5–11).
Other documents similarly attest to the importance of the Temple cult among Jews. The so-called Letter of Aristeas (II B.C.E.), for example, goes to great lengths to praise the work of the priests and the beauty of the Temple edifice (Ep. Arist. 41–120). 3 Maccabees (I B.C.E.) narrates a tale about how God miraculously saved the Temple and thousands of worshipers from the wrath of Ptolemy IV. Ben Sirach (II B.C.E.) elevates the role of Aaron and his high priestly progeny above that of Moses (Sir 45:1–22, 50:1–21) and advises his readers to “fear the Lord, and honor his priests” (Sir 7:29).(61) The flow of the Temple tax and the contribution of votive offerings to the Temple from all over the diaspora are so well-documented that they constitute one of the few things we can say with certainty about Jewish practices in the Second Temple period.(62)
Beyond this widespread support of the cult during its existence, in the aftermath of the Temple’s destruction, as best as we can tell, great shock and sorrow erupted among Palestinian Jews. 4 Ezra (c. 100 C.E.) and 2 Baruch (II C.E.) serve as moving statements of this deep despair.(63) Yet even then the cult was not abandoned: during the Bar Kokhba revolt, hopes were rekindled that the Temple would be rebuilt, as is attested by various coins from this period depicting the Temple façade.(64) Similar ambitions reemerged more than two centuries later during the brief reign of Julian the Apostate (361–363 C.E.).(65)
The few dissenting voices such as the Essenes and the author of the Psalms of Solomon were opposed not to the Temple cult itself, but rather to what they perceived to be a corrupt priesthood. The Essenes, while holding the Hasmonean priesthood in contempt, nevertheless hoped to supplant the existing dynasties and inaugurate their own new Temple in Jerusalem.(66) Similarly, the composer of the Psalms of Solomon (I B.C.E.), writing in the aftermath of Pompey’s desecration of the Temple in 63 B.C.E., lays blame for this catastrophe on the Hasmonean priesthood, stating, “with pomp they set up a monarchy because of their arrogance; and they did not glorify your honorable name” (Pss. Sol. 17:6). Despite these criticisms—inspired because the author hallowed the sanctity of the Temple—the psalmist goes on to predict that Jerusalem will be purged and made holy again (Pss. Sol. 17:30).(67)
The Samaritans, of course, serve as somewhat of an exceptional case, since they disdained the Jerusalem cult in favor of their own worship center on Mt. Gerizim.(68) Yet this was not a rejection of a sacrificial mode of worship, only a dispute over the location of the cult. The same can also be said of the Temple of Onias in Leontopolis, which, as best as we can tell, had only a very limited following.(69)
In view of the overwhelming evidence demonstrating the centrality of the Temple to Jews both in Palestine and in the diaspora, it is difficult to conceive of the early synagogues being in opposition to the Temple cult. The fact that first-century Jews such as Philo and Josephus could hold both institutions in high esteem strongly suggests that such a perceived oppositional relationship is illusory.
Why then the persistence of this view in proposals such as the one recently proffered by Paul Flesher? Why then do other recent reconstructions tend to play down possible connections between the Temple and the synagogue and present the early synagogues instead as privatized, domestic gatherings of the pious? Is it possible that what we have behind these proposals is a rationalistic bias which views the destruction of the Temple cult as a step already destined within the evolution of religions? Or perhaps it may be something related to this. In his celebrated book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, E. P. Sanders, noting a prominent Law/Grace dichotomy in earlier reconstructions of ancient Jewish and Christian theologies, suggested that these were largely “the retrojection of the Protestant-Catholic debate into ancient history, with Judaism taking the role of Catholicism and Christianity the role of Lutheranism.”(70) Is it possible that this Protestant-Catholic debate may have been rejoined on another level, this time with the Temple cult assuming the role of Catholicism and “the common-folk inhabiting the synagogues” bearing the standard of Protestantism? If so, then instead of the debate centering around the issues of law and grace, in this instance the chief antipodes are sacramentalism and pietism. It is not my intention to explore this possibility at any length, except to observe that a number of both the old and the more recent historical reconstructions of the Second Temple synagogues bear a striking resemblance to seventeenth-century pietistic movements. This, of course, does not mean that the reconstructions are necessarily wrong; the observation only serves as a possible explanation for why the well-attested prominence of the sacrificial cult in the first century is frequently ignored in the work of many scholars of this period.
If we endeavor to set such potential biases aside and examine the evidence more evenhandedly, it should come as no surprise that sacrificial worship was central to first-century Judaism. In subscribing to a sacrificial cult, Jews of the first century were little different from the rest of the peoples encompassing the Mediterranean. Greeks and Romans, Egyptians and Nabateans, Scythians and Parthians—all these and many others participated in sacrifice.(71) Indeed, up to the start of the Jewish War, Gentiles from around the Greco-Roman world presented sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple.(72) Additionally, the Temple priests offered sacrifices daily on behalf of the Roman emperor. In return, the imperial family donated golden vials, libation bowls and “a multitude of other sumptuous offerings” to the cult.(73)
Thus there was a great deal of commonality between the Jewish cult
and the cults of the surrounding nations. Of course Judaism’s spurning of idolatry
and the adherence to monotheism kept the exchange rather one-sided: while Gentiles could
and did worship in the Jewish Temple, most Jews would adamantly refuse to sacrifice at any
cultic site except their own. Nevertheless, any first-century Gentile entering the outer
court of the Temple in Jerusalem would not have considered the mode of worship exercised
within the Temple’s inner courts totally foreign to his or her own experience. The
Jerusalem Temple would merely have been perceived as one among many of the sacrificial
centers found throughout the Roman Empire.
The foregoing observations now lead us finally to a proposal. Given the evidence for the widespread practice of sacrifice in antiquity and the sweeping support of Jews for the centralized cult, the hypothesis naturally emerges that the synagogues should not be viewed as being in opposition to the Temple, but rather as extensions of it. Specifically, I will argue that the synagogues in both Palestine and the diaspora served as subsidiary sacred precincts that extended spatially the sacrality of the Temple shrine and allowed Jews everywhere participation within the central cult. This hypothesis should not be construed as suggesting that all synagogue congregations held identical religious beliefs or were under the tight control of the centralized high priesthood. Such a position obviously could not be maintained in light of the multiplicity of viewpoints found within the various Jewish documents from the pre-70 period. Nevertheless, the evidence surveyed above suggests the Temple with its cult served as a unifying institution for Jews in both Palestine and the diaspora.
In developing this thesis, the concept of the sacred must be recognized as all-important, for the ancients divided their world into zones of the sacred (hieros) and the profane (bebelos). Regarding this conceptualization, Walter Burkert writes:
Hieros was without doubt the decisive concept for demarcating the sphere of the religious from Mycenaean times. In fact this word does have a delimiting, defining function, but it is thereby almost exclusively a predicate of things: the sacred as such is the sacrifice, especially the sacrificial animal, and the sanctuary with temple and altar. Sacred, too, are the votive gifts in the sanctuary; the money that is donated to the god; the land which cannot be cultivated; further, everything which has to do with the sanctuary, from the sacred way to Eleusis to the sacred war for Delphi . . . . Hieros would accordingly have to be defined as that which belongs to a god or sanctuary in an irrevocable way. The opposite is bebelos, profane. Man consecrates something, some possession, in that he takes it away from his own disposal and surrenders it to the god.(74)
Consonant with this worldview, as a way of extending the sacrality of a temple shrine (naos), the ancients would dedicate the surrounding sacred precincts (hieros periboloi/temen/hiera) or other, more distant sacred places (hieroi topoi/hiera) to the god or goddess believed to be resident within the central shrine. In the minds of the ancients, the holiness and the power of these divine beings flowed out from the central shrines and into the sacred areas, blessing the activities transpiring therein.(75) This was powerful medicine that evoked a measure of reverence within those entering these sacred places. Or at least that was the general expectation—one that could be violated by unscrupulous persons of poor upbringing. Hence Philo was able to complain that the debaucheries of pagans took to new heights when they spilled over from private abodes into sacred areas:
So long as they [the Gentiles] confine their unseemly doings to houses or unconsecrated places [oivki,aij h’ cwri,oij bebh,loij], their sin seems less to me. But when their wickedness like a rushing torrent spreads over every place and invades and violates the most sacred temples [i`erw/n toi/j a`giwta,toij], it straightway overturns all that is venerable in them, and as a result come sacrifices unholy, offerings unmeet, vows unfulfilled, their rites and mysteries a mockery, their piety but a bastard growth, their holiness debased, their purity impure, their truth falsehood, their worship a sacrilege (Cher. 94).
The problem with the pagans, in Philo’s view, was not merely their behavior, but their violation of sacred space. And here it mattered not that it was pagan sacred space being dishonored: however misguided the Gentile worship of idols might have been, the larger point was that these areas were still consecrated to a deity and must therefore be treated with reverence. To the ancient mind, failure to honor the sanctity of a sacred place threatened to provoke the wrath of the possessor deity against the entire populace.(76) In Philo’s case, while he may not have been worried about baiting the anger of Zeus—who in his mind did not exist—simply the semantic association between pagan “gods” (theoi) and the Jewish “Most High God” (Theos Hypsistos) was enough to give him pause. Hence he warned his readers: “We must refrain from speaking insultingly of these [pagan gods], lest any of Moses’ disciples get into the habit of treating lightly the name ’god’ in general, for it is a title worthy of the highest respect and love” (Mos. 2.205).(77)
With regard to city or community planning, the essential difference between the Jewish situation and that of the Gentiles was the deuteronomic prohibition against erecting other shrines (naoi) or altars (thysiastria) apart from the one in Jerusalem (e.g., Deut 12:13–14, 16:5–6).(78) This left Jews removed from the Temple in a quandary, since they certainly desired all the benefits that accrued from having a temple nearby.(79) Even Jews living in the various suburbs of Jerusalem, unlike their Gentile counterparts, could not build subsidiary shrines or altars to consecrate the civic activities of their borough. Their solution, as will be argued throughout this study, was to erect synagogues. Like the courts surrounding the Temple shrine in Jerusalem, these structures were also dedicated to the Jewish God. Taken out of the realm of human possession (bebelos), they passed into the hands of the deity (hieros) and became sacred edifices. Effectively, they served as distant Temple courts—sacred precincts in miniature where worshipers could gather and look to the center, to the shrine of the Holy One in Jerusalem.(80)
In presenting this hypothesis, it should be noted that even among researchers who accept the existence of early synagogue buildings, there is a reluctance to appreciate the sacred nature of these structures. Joan Branham, for example, while correctly noting the centrality of the Jerusalem Temple for ancient Jews, maintains that the emergence of the synagogues as sacred edifices was a post-70 development: “The Temple’s unique association with the Divine Presence and its sacrificial means of communicating with God are deferred after its destruction—spatially, temporally, and formally—to the liturgy and space of the synagogue.”(81) Despite this conclusion, it is noteworthy that in making her case for the sacred nature of the Late Antique synagogues, Branham refers to sources not only from the Talmudic age, but also from the period predating the Temple’s destruction.(82) This suggests that the association of which Branham writes was one that originated during the Second Temple period, becoming more overtly manifested during the era with which her essay is concerned.
In a similar vein, Peter Richardson, who has recently compared Second Temple synagogues to collegia or “voluntary societies,” also arrives at a negative verdict both with respect to the structures’ sacrality and their connection to the Jerusalem Temple:
None of the synagogues was decorated with symbols reminiscent of the Temple in Jerusalem. Such symbols—found profusely in later synagogues in mosaic floors, capitals, lintels, and other architectural features—were completely absent in pre-70 buildings . . . No elements in pre-70 synagogues directed attention to the Temple in Jerusalem, not even orientation, for the synagogue had not yet replaced the centre of worship in Jerusalem, and none of its features needed to call the Temple to mind. Quite the contrary, synagogues had an architectural character radically different from the Temple. They provided spaces intended for multiple community functions, not for functions modeled on the Temple’s highly articulated functions and notions of holiness.(83)
Several points need to be made in response to this conclusion. To begin with, during the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, there was clearly a more liberal interpretation of the Second Commandment than during the period of the Second Temple: as Richardson rightly notes, whereas iconic symbolism abounds in the later synagogues, it is absent in the earlier structures. Yet this was true not only in the synagogues, but also in the Temple, where excavators have uncovered architectural fragments bearing only geometric and floral motifs.(84) As Rachel Hachlili observes, the subdued use of symbolism during this period was “a defense against the Hellenistic assault on [Jewish] religion and culture at a time when the Hellenistic rulers were attempting to force Jews into idolatry.”(85) Consequently, synagogue researchers of the earlier period must recalibrate their criteria of sacred iconography, adjusting it to the more conservative attitudes of the times. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, symbols found within the ruins of Second Temple synagogues or with excavated inscriptions closely match those found in the excavations of Temple area. Furthermore, we will discover that these same symbols are alluded to within the Hebrew scriptures and clearly carry a cultic significance.(86)
A second, related point is that, while we will find some diversity among early synagogue architecture—particularly in the diaspora—we will also note the recent proposal of archaeologist James Strange, who argues that the early Galilean-type synagogue found in Palestine was modeled upon the Temple courts.(87) In addition, we will observe that the early evidence regarding synagogue orientation, while fragmentary, suggests an adherence to two separate traditions, both related to the placement of the Jerusalem Temple.(88)
Thirdly, by contrasting the synagogues’ “multiple community functions” with the Temple’s “highly articulated” ones, Richardson apparently adopts a minimalist view of the Temple’s role within Jewish society.(89) As we will see, however, the Jerusalem Temple, like all Near Eastern temples, served a variety of community functions. Moreover, these closely match those attested within the early synagogues—with, of course, the important exception of animal sacrifice. As for this last, our study will discover that the early synagogues commonly served as collection places for monies to be used for offering sacrifices at the central sanctuary on behalf of the local congregations.(90)
Finally, while this study would tend to agree with Richardson’s conclusion that “[Second Temple] synagogues functioned as—and were perceived as—collegia”(91) (at least in certain parts of the diaspora),(92) it would also point out that the examples of collegia (scholae) which Richardson cites are all cultic structures dedicated to a pagan deity.(93) These too served as “miniature temples,” often replete with idols, altars and votive offerings. Consequently, if such pagan structures served as the architectural models for certain diaspora synagogues, it is likely that the builders sought to adhere to the local conventions of what constituted a sacred edifice, while at the same time adapting them to cohere with Jewish (or Samaritan) beliefs regarding the erection of idols and altars. Indeed, the absence of the latter in itself suggests an allegiance to a central cult.(94)
In addition to James Strange, one synagogue researcher who recently has subscribed to the view that the early synagogues were sacred places modeled after the Jerusalem Temple is Israeli scholar Areyah Kasher. Following a survey of the early Egyptian evidence, Kasher concludes:
The Jewish synagogues in ancient Egypt were erected on the basis of similarity to the Temple in Jerusalem as a place of prayer and gathering together in festive convocations on Sabbaths and festivals. Since all the communal institutions clustered around them . . . they stood at the center of the daily Jewish communal life.(95)
While we will draw upon Kasher’s analysis in our treatment of the Egyptian synagogues, the present study may be construed as an expansion of his hypothesis: that Second Temple synagogues not only in Egypt, but also in Palestine and the rest of the diaspora, while removed from the centralized cult geographically, nevertheless served as spatial vortices, allowing Jews everywhere to be connected with the Temple. In support of this conceptualization, we will consider evidence showing that the synagogues shared with the Temple courts common functions and functionaries, common terminology, and in some cases, even common architecture. Along the way we will note how circumstances may have led to the adoption of supplementary functions. Nevertheless, in no case do these functions appear to be at odds with the sacrificial worship of the centralized Temple cult.
The examination will proceed in the following manner. In chapter one, we will explore the nature of the various sources relevant for our inquiry of Second Temple synagogues, particularly noting the issues of dating, identification and interpretation. Chapter two will involve a detailed study of the many ancient referents to the synagogues in an effort to gain an initial understanding of the variety of functions of these buildings. Chapters three and four will constitute an exploration of the synagogues’ origins and development in Palestine and the diaspora, respectively. In these chapters we will examine at length the early site remains which have been identified as synagogues by archaeologists and assess the claims made about these structures. The various synagogue functionaries and functions will be considered in detail in chapters five and six. These in turn will be compared with those of the Temple courts in order to see what degree of correlation existed. In chapter seven, we will treat the evidence for the synagogues of the Essenes, Therapeutae and Samaritans, paying close attention to the peculiarities of these groups. A concluding chapter will sum up the results of the study and explore briefly its implications for research on both the evolution of the synagogues in the Rabbinic period and the formation and evolution of the Christian ekklęsia.
