The Synagogue

The Word read every Sabbath

The house of gathering, reading and prayer of Jewish communities. There Jesus read Isaiah in Nazareth, and there Paul began his preaching in each city.

An assembly before a building

Synagogue comes from the Greek synagōgē, a gathering, an assembly. The word first meant the community that met and only later the building. Another common name was proseuchē, place of prayer, which appears in Philippi, where Paul finds women gathered by a river on the Sabbath (Acts 16:13). No one knows for sure when the institution began. An old tradition links it to the Babylonian exile, when Jews were left without a Temple, but the earliest evidence is inscriptions from Egypt in the third century BC dedicating Jewish prayer houses on behalf of King Ptolemy. In the land of Israel, the known buildings appear later, around the first century BC. In many Galilean villages the assembly may have met in a square, a larger house or a public building also used for other purposes. What mattered was not the walls but the people gathered around the Law of Moses.

What happened on a Sabbath

The heart of the gathering was the public reading of Scripture. Josephus explains that Moses ordered the people to leave their work each week to hear and learn the Law (Against Apion 2), and Philo calls synagogues schools open every seventh day, where virtues and duties were taught (The Special Laws 2). Acts confirms the sequence: reading from the Law, then from the Prophets, followed by a word of exhortation from someone present (Acts 13:15). In Judea and Galilee the Hebrew text was probably accompanied by an Aramaic translation or explanation; in the Diaspora it was read in Greek. Communal prayers existed in many places, but the fixed form of the rabbinic prayers is later, and scholars debate how much of it existed before 70. The synagogue was also a local court, the village meeting place, a collection point for aid to the poor and, in some cases, a guesthouse for travelers.

Stones that speak: Theodotus, Gamla and Magdala

Archaeology has confirmed that there were synagogues in the land of Israel before 70. In the 1913–1914 excavations on the Ophel hill in Jerusalem, a Greek plaque came to light: Theodotus, son of Vettenus, priest and synagogue leader, son and grandson of synagogue leaders, built the building for the reading of the Law and the teaching of the commandments, with a guesthouse and water installations for those coming from abroad. Most scholars date the inscription before 70, though some propose a later date. At Gamla, in the Golan hills, a town destroyed by the Romans in 67, there is a hall lined with stone benches. And in 2009, during construction of a pilgrim center at Magdala on the Sea of Galilee, a first-century synagogue emerged, with benches, a mosaic floor and a stone carved with a seven-branched lampstand. That Jesus taught there is possible, but not proven.

A Sabbath in Nazareth

Luke 4 gives the oldest description of a synagogue service. Jesus enters the synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath, as was his custom, and stands up to read. The attendant hands him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah; he finds the passage in chapter 61 about the anointed one who brings good news to the poor and freedom to captives, which Luke presents combined with a line from Isaiah 58. Then he rolls up the scroll, gives it back to the attendant and sits down, because a teacher taught seated. Every eye is fixed on him. We do not know whether there was already a set reading from the Prophets for each Sabbath; the choice may have been his. What is striking is the next sentence: today this has been fulfilled. The scene shows Jesus as a practicing Jew, part of his village’s life, and also explains why the assembly moved from admiration to fury (Luke 4:28-29).

Leaders, attendants and the best seats

Each synagogue had recognized leaders. The synagogue ruler, archisynagōgos, organized the meetings and chose who would read or speak; in the Gospels we meet Jairus, by the Sea of Galilee (Mark 5:22), and a ruler annoyed by a Sabbath healing (Luke 13:14); in Corinth, Crispus believed with his whole household (Acts 18:8). The attendant, hypēretēs, kept the scrolls and helped with the service (Luke 4:20). Elders represented the community, like those who plead for the centurion of Capernaum (Luke 7:3-5). In buildings like those at Gamla and Magdala, benches ran along the walls so everyone could see one another, and the best places were a mark of honor: hence Jesus’ criticism of those who loved the best seats in the synagogues (Matthew 23:6). The synagogue also exercised discipline. Jesus warns that his disciples would be flogged in synagogues (Matthew 10:17), and John speaks of people expelled for confessing Jesus (John 9:22).

Paul and the Empire’s network of synagogues

In the first century there were Jewish communities in nearly every major city of the Mediterranean, from Alexandria to Rome, and each had its assemblies. James recalls that Moses was read in the synagogues of every city every Sabbath (Acts 15:21). This network explains Paul’s method: arriving in a city, he went first to the synagogue, as was his custom (Acts 17:2). There he met Jews and also sympathetic Gentiles, called God-fearers (Acts 13:16), who attended the meetings, knew the Scriptures and sometimes funded the community. An inscription from Acmonia, in Phrygia, from the time of Nero, records that Julia Severa, a priestess of the imperial cult and apparently not Jewish, built a synagogue building. Many of the first Christians came from this audience. The church was born, to a large extent, inside these halls, and inherited from them the reading of Scripture, preaching and common prayer.

Did you know?

• The earliest evidence of synagogues comes not from Israel but from Egypt: third-century BC inscriptions dedicate Jewish prayer houses on behalf of King Ptolemy III and Queen Berenice. Schedia inscription, Egypt, 3rd century BC
• The Theodotus inscription, found in Jerusalem, says the synagogue had a guesthouse and water installations for visitors from abroad. Some scholars link it to the Synagogue of the Freedmen in Acts 6:9, an unproven hypothesis. Theodotus inscription, Jerusalem, 1913–1914; Israel Museum
• The Magdala Stone, found in 2009 at the center of the first-century synagogue, bears a carved seven-branched lampstand, one of the oldest depictions of the menorah outside the Temple. Magdala synagogue, 2009; Israel Antiquities Authority
• The white limestone synagogue visitors see today in Capernaum dates from the fourth or fifth century. Beneath it lie basalt foundations that some archaeologists assign to the synagogue of Jesus’ time, which is still debated. Franciscan excavations at Capernaum, since 1968
• A first-century inscription from Acmonia, in Asia Minor, records that a pagan woman, Julia Severa, a priestess of the imperial cult, built a synagogue building, just like the centurion of Capernaum. Acmonia inscription, Phrygia, 1st century; Luke 7:5

Where this shows up in the Bible

• Lucas 4:16-21: Every gesture follows synagogue custom: standing to read, receiving the scroll from the attendant, sitting down to teach. It all looks like an ordinary village Sabbath, until the final sentence. Jesus does not just comment on Isaiah; he declares that the promise of liberation is being fulfilled before them. The place of the weekly reading becomes the place where the Kingdom is announced.
• Marcos 1:21-22: The synagogue allowed a visitor or community member to teach after the reading, and Jesus uses that space from the start of his ministry. The people notice the difference: the scribes taught by citing traditions and earlier teachers; Jesus speaks with his own authority. Synagogue custom opened the door to the newness of his teaching.
• Lucas 7:1-5: The Jewish elders of Capernaum plead for a Roman centurion because he loved the nation and built the synagogue. Inscriptions like Julia Severa’s in Asia Minor show that non-Jewish benefactors really did fund synagogues. The historical detail sets up the surprise: Jesus finds in this foreigner a faith he has not found in Israel.
• Atos 13:14-16: Luke describes the order of service in a Diaspora synagogue: reading from the Law and the Prophets, then an invitation from the leaders to give a word of exhortation. Paul takes the invitation and addresses two audiences, Israelites and God-fearers. The structure of the synagogue gave the gospel a ready audience that knew the Scriptures.
• Atos 15:21: At the Jerusalem council, James recalls that Moses was read in every city, every Sabbath. The line reveals a network of synagogues across the Empire, where Jews and sympathizers heard the Law week after week. That is why the guidance for Gentile Christians took the sensitivities of their Jewish neighbors into account.
• Atos 6:9: Jerusalem had synagogues of Jews from the Diaspora, like that of the Freedmen, with people from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia and Asia. The Theodotus inscription, with its guesthouse for those from abroad, shows a place of this kind. It is in this setting of Greek-speaking Jews that Stephen debates, and from here comes the opposition that will lead to his death.

To go deeper

• Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (2nd ed., 2005)
• Anders Runesson, Donald D. Binder and Birger Olsson, The Ancient Synagogue from Its Origins to 200 C.E.: A Source Book (2008)
• Theodotus inscription, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
• Philo of Alexandria, Embassy to Gaius; The Special Laws, book 2
• Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, book 2

Where to read in the Bible

• Lucas 4:16
• Atos 17:1-2

Connections

• was in Nazareth · factual · Lucas 4:16
• was in Capernaum · factual · Marcos 1:21
• linked to Paul · factual · Atos 17:1-2
• linked to The Sabbath and Purity · factual · Lucas 13:10

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