Lee I. Levine on the Ancient Synagogue
Lee I. Levine, author of “The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years, and one of my favorite teachers and someone who was very helpful years ago when I was in college and planning my future studies in Israel, was recently interviewed in Reform Judaism Magazine about the synagogue in the first centuries of the common era. The interview can be found here. It is well-worth reading the entire interview, but I just wanted to point out one series of questions.
What about the existence of actual synagogue buildings in the post-70 era?
There is no question that synagogues existed then, as they are regularly mentioned in second- and third-century rabbinic sources. However, there is scant archaeological material for the 200 years following the Temple’s destruction. Of the 150 or so synagogues known from Late Antiquity, fewer than a half dozen can be dated to the two centuries following the destruction.
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What then is your opinion?
It seems most plausible that the synagogues of the post-70 C.E. era were destroyed or reused in later construction, i.e., in the third to fourth centuries and onward. It is well known from archaeological excavations that later buildings invariably obliterated earlier remains. Such was the case in Jerusalem, for example; medieval remains are far more prominent than those from the earlier Muslim and Byzantine eras, and the latter are more numerous than the Roman or Hellenistic strata, and all these together have almost completely erased any significant remains from the biblical period.
This is not a universally accepted explanation, and compare Prof. Levine’s opinion with the following from Seth Schwartz’s “Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E.. “Despite the absence of archaeological evidence, it is certain that synagogues existed in second- and third-century Palestine” The literary evidence from the Mishnah and Tosefta makes this point clear, so how can Schwartz explain the paucity of archaeological evidence? Rejecting the possibility that synagogues were then housed in private dwellings and thus left little evidence, Schwartz concludes that “It is more plausible to suppose that the synagogue was still not widespread in the second and third centuries, that it was found, as earlier, only in the largest settlements.” (p. 226).
Update: See this article from Haaretz which discusses a recent archaeological find.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:41 am
Levine makes sense. I also bring to your attention a review article by Stuart S. Miller in the Nov. ’07 AJS
Review. Miller responds to three relatively recent books, including Schwartz’.
Although I agree with Shwartz’ view of the relatively marginal status of the Tannaitic and early Amoraic sages, his view of extreme Jewish assimilation in Late Roman Palestine, the paucity of archaeological evidence for synagogues, and the refusal to accept the possibility of worship in homes forces him into a very weak explanation of the resurgence of Judaism in the fourth century C.E.
In this substantial article, Miller objects to Schwartz’ assertion, which I also have questioned, that homes did not function as synagogues. He presents, IMO, a sound heuristic model of Jews practicing what he calls a “complex common Judaism” (a modification of Sander’s “common Judaism”), meeting in homes for liturgical and other communal purposes. This is especially likely in the villages, which lacked the resources to build a freestanding building dedicated to communal life. It is unlikely that remains of houses from that period would bear the marks of synagogue worship. But ongoing and widespread communal worship in homes (analogous to the chavurah movement) explains the fourth century Jewish resurgence that Schwartz struggles to explain.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Thanks for your comments. I had seen Miller’s review article over the weekend and haven’t been able to read it yet. See the recent article from Haaretz linked above in the update.