The Synagogue

This chapter seeks to characterize the institution of the synagogue as it is known from the first-century-CE evidence—textual and archaeological—and subsequently to search for indications that something resembling this institution might have existed prior to this time. The portrait of the synagogue that emerges from the ample first-century-CE evidence is one of an institution whose primary function was the public dissemination of Torah at the local, communal level. Communities of Judeans would assemble together in a purpose-built structure every Sabbath in order to listen to the reading of the Pentateuch and other sacred texts, accompanied by a more dynamic explanation or address presented orally. Assemblies of this sort were to be found throughout the Judean heartland—even in rural towns and villages—and in cities scattered throughout the Judean diaspora. The synagogue would have been the primary vehicle for the widespread dissemination of the Torah among Judeans wherever they might have been found living in a communal setting. Evidence for the existence of the synagogue prior to the first century CE is spotty at best, and nothing clearly resembling the educational institution which was the first-century synagogue is known prior to the Hasmonean period.