The synagogue does not appear in the Old Testament and is not a Hebraic word: the first mention in the Bible is in Matthew 4:23: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.”

James, the brother of Jesus, speaking at the Council of Jerusalem, said “Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.” He obviously didn’t know the origin of the synagogue, but he knew it went back a long way in history. But there is no record of synagogues in Israel until after the exile.

Meeting Places

In the early days of the settlement of the tribes in Israel, the Tabernacle (or ‘Tent of Meeting’) and the Ark of the Covenant were moved around the land until David established Jerusalem as his capital, paving the way for Solomon to build the Temple. But in every town, there was a meeting place for the elders near the town gate, where they dealt with taxes and community issues. Boaz went to the town gate to settle the legal issue of making Ruth his wife (Ruth 4:1). But worship took place on the high places that had been established by the Canaanites.

Individual Prayer

In Babylon, in the first 10 years of the exile, the captives relied upon the daily sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem to provide forgiveness for the sins of the people. But after the destruction of the Temple in 586 BC, Ezekiel taught them that through prayer each one could find forgiveness from God. He said that if the wicked man “turns away from his sin and does what is just and right…He will surely live; he will not die” (Ezek 33:14-15).

Although the homes of the people became the centre for prayer, for recounting the faith at Shabbat meals, and for teaching children, there was still a need for the wider community to come together in each of the village settlements in Babylon. This is where the synagogue began. There were three Hebrew terms for these meeting places (or 'knessets'), which show their functions. They were beit knesset ('house of assembly'), beit tefillar ('house of prayer') and beit midrash ('house of study').

There is no record of synagogues in Israel until after the Babylonian exile.

Talmudic Academies

Separation from the land of Israel and Judah created a great desire among the exiles in Babylon to rediscover the faith of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The hunt began for scrolls containing the records from the towns and cities of Judah; and many of the scrolls from the Temple were smuggled out of Jerusalem and taken to Babylon during the siege, prior to the destruction of the city.

This was the beginning of the knessets as a place of study. One of the knessets became the central place of study, where the scribes spent their days editing the scrolls and making copies to be distributed around the whole community in exile. This central knesset became known as the ‘Great Assembly’ where the history of Israel was compiled and scrolls such as Judges, Kings and Chronicles were written.

Places of Worship

The first reference to a knesset being a place of worship is found in Ezekiel 11:16, where God said, “Although I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.” The meeting place in each village was a simple quadrilateral building with three entrances and a portico. Traditionally, the central feature of the synagogue was the ark or cupboard containing the scrolls of and writings of the prophets, wrapped in embroidered cloth.

There would also have been a lectern for reading and a chair for the speaker as well as a row of seats for the local elders. The seats would have been on a platform facing the people, who sat on mats or seats – men and women together, which was still the practice in Jesus’ day – with men and women worshipping together with their children.

The president, or ‘Ruler of the Synagogue’, appointed readers from the local community to read the Torah portion for the week. If there were an important visitor, he could choose a scroll of the prophets from which he would stand up and read and then sit down to expound some of its teaching, as Jesus did in the synagogue at Nazareth.

Separation from the land of Israel and Judah created a great desire among the exiles in Babylon to rediscover the faith of their fathers.

Luke’s account says: “He went to Nazareth where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah was handed to him…Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, 'Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing'” (Luke 4:16-17, 20-21).

Worship in Babylon would also include reading the Shema, a priestly benediction (such as “Blessed art Thou, Adonai, our God, King of the Universe, who didst form the light and create darkness”) and the recitation of a psalm and prayers, during which the congregation were encouraged to lift their hands and repeat the ‘Amen’ at the end of each prayer. Worship would end with the final blessing.

The knessets, renamed ‘synagogues’ during the Greek period, were so popular among the people in Babylon that when they returned after the exile, synagogues were built in every town and village, hence their presence at the time of Jesus.

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