Jordan Ryan (00:00)
I think probably the biggest one is the idea that synagogues are basically just like churches but for Jews. Or that, and this is an a a related misconception, that ancient synagogues were basically the same as what modern synagogues are today. And the reality is is that they’re they’re very different. especially in terms of layout and function. so yeah, form and function kind of the two big ones, they’re really different from both modern churches and modern synagogues.
Dru Johnson (00:07)
Mm.
Mm.
Jordan Ryan (00:29)
I’d say modern churches are much more similar to ancient churches than ⁓ modern synagogues are, at least in the Western world, to what ancient synagogues look like. And there’s a whole history of architecture behind that. ⁓ but suffice it to say, ⁓ while ancient synagogues were not laid out the way that modern synagogues or churches are, which tend to ha to be, you know, in kind of rows, like pews, ⁓ basically facing
The front, where there’s kind of one main focal point. ⁓ if anyone has ever had a chance to visit an ancient synagogue, one of the first things you notice is that ⁓ it’s it’s kind of this like square or rectangular shape with benches often stepped ⁓ that surround, so they’re on all four walls, and so the focal point is in the center instead of at like the front of the room. There’s sort of no front, it’s just sort of like the center, and everyone’s seated along the sides, and that right away.
Dru Johnson (01:39)
That ⁓ that’s fascinating because I every time I take a Christian group, if somebody stands in the center like a pastor, you you’ll see people stand they’ll stand where they think the front is. ⁓ you know, they’ll stand like it’s in a church. But ⁓ yeah, so it’s a gathering around. ⁓ it’s called a cena I mean, it can be called a Knessid or a bait kinesid, ⁓ a house of a gathering. why do we call it by the Greek name? Do you know ⁓ rather than why didn’t the Hebrew or an Aramaic term catch on?
Jordan Ryan (01:49)
Yeah, yeah.
that that’s a really good question. I mean, obviously in like in modern Israel and you know most Jewish contexts, they would still use Knesset or Bet Knesset and that kind of a thing. I my sense I I don’t n entirely actually know the history of this, but I think it’s a pretty good guess that the reason has to do with the fact that the New Testament’s primary word for synagogue is synagogue. And so because of that, I I think it’s just the impact of the New Testament and possibly
Dru Johnson (02:33)
Yeah.
Jordan Ryan (02:39)
also just the Christian use of the Septuagint where the few times that synagogue shows up, especially in ⁓ in like the Deuterocanonical Deuterocanonicals, it’s usually synagogue. Sometimes it’s ecclesia as well, which can be confusing. But that I think is the reason. ⁓ I I haven’t seen a study of it to be sure, but that’s gotta be why.
Dru Johnson (02:54)
Mm.
Yeah. Well,
it’s always perplexed me, but that that actually that singular idea makes a lot more sense to me, ⁓ hearing it said out loud. Yeah, it’s just Christians who pick it up and propagate it and there became a lot of Christians very quickly. ⁓ so where, you know, there are no well, maybe I should put it as a question, are there any synagogues in the Old Testament? Am I missing them? Or is there are there proto synagogues?
Jordan Ryan (03:26)
Yeah.
So this
is this is like the big debated question in synagogue studies, especially synagogue origins. So traditionally there’s been this idea that synagogues came from ⁓ the the Babylonian diaspora, and that’s kind of where they started. But the reality is we actually just don’t have any ancient evidence for that. ⁓ and it’s I think kind of more of a modern inference than anything else. I mean it’s it’s an it’s an old theory, ⁓ but it doesn’t.
actually stem from the Hebrew Bible or Septuagint or New Testament or anything like that. What we do have in
In Old Testament texts is the city gate. So I’m thinking like specifically Ruth and Job, you have ⁓ the City Gate complex, which in the ancient world isn’t kind of just like an opening between, you know, the walls or something. It’s it’s a whole complex with benches and things like that where the local council meets. ⁓ and it’s the place all also in Nehemiah 8, the first reading, public reading of Torah out
Dru Johnson (04:10)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Ryan (04:36)
Side of the temple takes place in the Water gate in Nehemiah 8. So ⁓ all of the functions that we associate with synagogues in kind of the New Testament period in the early Roman period ⁓ and going forward, all of that seems to already have been taking place. So things like the reading of Torah, the gathering of councils, kind of public gat ⁓ meetings,
Prayer, that sort of stuff all seems to take place in the city gate. And so scholars like Lee Levine have suggested that that’s kind of the origin. And so maybe the earliest, like if you want to say, here’s something that is like so prototypical of what the synagogue becomes, that we could say, yeah, this is like
the synagogue with all but the the architecture, ⁓ then that water gate reading of the Torah in Nehemiah eight is sometimes pointed to as that’s like maybe where it starts.
Dru Johnson (05:31)
⁓ yeah, I had never thought about that, but that that tracks except for I think for a lot of people they’re gonna say, Well you didn’t really mention singing songs of worship and clapping and reading ⁓ script well, except for the reading of Torah in that one passage. ⁓ but you just mentioned a bunch of like what I think we would call municipal functions. so how do you connect that to synagogue?
Jordan Ryan (05:52)
Yeah, so again, this is another way in which modern synagogues and ancient synagogues differ. so ancient synagogues, especially in the Jewish homeland. So we’re talking specifically like Galilee and Judea in the Roman period, ⁓ and also we could say in the late Hellenistic period as well. So
Dru Johnson (06:13)
So roughly ⁓ two
hundred years before Jesus, two hundred and fifty years up to the time of Jesus.
Jordan Ryan (06:17)
Yeah, so it’s a ⁓
We we could kinda go from the the early Hasmonean dynasty, so kind of that era, so I guess one sixties on ⁓ B C E through till ⁓ you know, I guess the Bar Kokba rebellion ⁓ in the second century CE. So in that era you have ⁓ this whole region that’s politically under the control of a mostly independent Jewish state to start with, the Hasmoneans, and then you get ⁓ the Herodian ⁓ kingdoms and then the Roman.
Dru Johnson (06:23)
Okay. Okay.
Jordan Ryan (06:48)
⁓ state. So in that period, you have the whole region mostly still under control Jews, even if they’re not like I know in the Roman period, obviously they’re under the Romans, but they have control over their own cities and villages. And so what’s happening there is you’ll see synagogues playing this function as basically the town hall. So a few scholars have have used the term town halls with Torah for the synagogues in the land of Israel itself.
Dru Johnson (07:15)
Mm.
Jordan Ryan (07:18)
itself. So again, especially Judea and Galilee, that really seems to be their function. They basically are the the local place where your town council meets. ⁓ they’re the place where the law is read and interpreted. And you have to remember, in the New Testament period, so I’d say really Hellenistic, late Hellenistic, and early Roman periods, Torah is functioning basically kind of like statutory law. I know that’s a little bit
different from how it would have functioned earlier. But, you know, if you if you break the law, there are there are consequences in the Roman period. And so because of that, interpreting and reading the Torah out loud, we think of that as religious, but that would have been a really political thing as well. So it sort of makes sense. There are also law courts, that comes up in the New Testament. ⁓ prisons, charity institutions, they perform all those functions.
Dru Johnson (07:51)
Mm-hmm.
yeah, we should stop there because I did put out a book arguing that, you know, biblical law is best understood as common law. And so some people might be ⁓ familiar with that argument. But the the point you’re making excuse me, is by the time you get to the Roman period, like ideas about the law and legalism really become more concrete. They they have their own views of law, and some of that is surely
Blending over into Jewish ideas about the law and their own so they’re reading their own Torah through their own cultural experience as well. Is that what you am I reading you correctly?
Jordan Ryan (08:51)
Yeah, so so I wouldn’t be saying I’m not making any claims about the law as it was, you know, intended or written, but the the way that it functioned at the time, especially of the Hasmonean dynasty on, it begins to take on this function of basically being the constitution for the Jewish state. So y you really see that if if you look like first Maccabees and Second Maccabees, for example. ⁓
So again, not making any claims about earlier periods or anything like that, but interpreting the law definitely has this major sort of like political nature to it in the first and ⁓ centuries BCE and CE.
Dru Johnson (09:31)
I and that has largely stuck. I mean, Christians today will still look at the Old Testament law through that lens of, it’s just a bunch of rules that you either break the rule or keep the rule, and the more righteous person keeps the rules more and the the yeah. So that’s that’s actually probably the one that we’re most familiar with, but that is a newer ⁓ seemingly a newer reading in the Roman period. so there this blending also of the political, the government structure or local governance, you know, town councils, et cetera.
And the reading of the Torah, is there anything that we would call worship going on in the synagogues?
Jordan Ryan (10:07)
Yeah, so this is this is a really funny issue because so one of I would say one of the most influential scholars of the ancient synagogue of the last generation, so Lee Levine, has this kind of famous line where he says that prayer is the most controversial issue in synagogue scholarship. And ⁓ that’s funny because obviously today ⁓ it’s a really big part of synagogue liturgy, and that develops quite quickly in the you know middle and later Roman period. So certainly a not long.
Long
after the New Testament, you get prayer going on in some really structured ways. I would say, so to hedge my bets, I think the best way to put it is there was definitely something going on. We just don’t know that much about it. So there is one reference in the writings of Josephus to a prayer meeting ⁓ that happened in Tiberias in the synagogue there. And
This is a little bit more controversial, but one of the other terms for synagogue that comes up and does appear in the New Testament, in Acts 16, I think, ⁓ in Philippi, is Prosyuchi, which means ⁓ yeah, place of prayer.
So the problem is is that people sometimes see that and then wanna kinda push it a little further. I think the easiest way to put it is that ⁓ prayer was definitely going on and we know a little bit about it, but not very much. Not to the extent that we know ⁓ from the times of the the rabbis and that kind of a thing.
Dru Johnson (11:41)
Yeah, and even from the gospels, you know, prayer is casually mentioned as part of, you know, the regular the ritualized life of of a Jew. So something’s going on there. Okay, maybe we should I want to go back to the question eventually of where did these things come from as best we can. But ⁓ I I wanna just walk through if I’m a man or a woman, and those might be two different ways, and what do I do? Like ha okay, so during the week I might have
some municipal functions. I go and ask an elder to decide some case where I’m struggling with a neighbor or something. On Shabbat, which is where I think most people are thinking about the you know Friday sundown, what am I gonna do to go enter the the synagogue? The best we know, our our best guess. I I realize I’m asking a historian and a guy who does archaeology and so I’m gonna get a lot of caveats. but
But the best you can guess, if I’m a man or a woman going into the synagogue, what what’s gonna happen? Where am I gonna go first? What am I gonna do?
Jordan Ryan (12:40)
Yeah, you mean to sort of prepare like b before you go in or
Dru Johnson (12:42)
Yeah, yeah. Before
can you just walk in the front or side door, ⁓ or yeah, what do you what do you have to do to go in?
Jordan Ryan (12:49)
Yeah, so again, it’s it’s a little bit hard to say, but one thing that a lot of I’d say, especially archaeologists, I think it’s a little bit more debated amongst people who are more text-based, but for a lot of archaeologists, the fact that a number of s of synagogues have been found near to stepped pools that most of us would interpret as ⁓ mikfa’ot or you know ritual baths ⁓ for purity purposes, the fact
That they’re often located nearby has led quite a few people to think that ⁓ typically you’d be expected ⁓ to bathe prior to entering synagogues. Now, again, yeah, caveats. So it is that is heavily debated because ⁓ we’re not sure exactly what the relationship is between synagogue and you know the temple, which certainly purity was required there. ⁓
Exactly what kind of sacred space a synagogue is is also kind of a debated thing. by the time of the rabbis, the Mishnah, you you’re seeing it take on certain s you know, a status of sanctity. ⁓ but
What does seem clear is that there are a number of places where there is a large public mikveh located or I should say stepped pool located next to a synagogue and in the case of Gamla, so that’s a place in the Golan Heights. ⁓ it was destroyed during the first Jewish revolt, and so it’s kind of s it’s kind of been left ⁓ as it was on the day it was sacked by the Romans. And so ⁓
What’s there is all pretty much from the the early Roman period. The synagogue there, the entrance is located right where there is a major, like large installation of a ritual bath. And so a lot of scholars and especially archaeologists think that there’s there has to be a connection between the two.
Dru Johnson (14:54)
Yeah, I can imagine in the summers, or you know, I should say eight months of the year there, it would be no problem to go down to that bath. ⁓ a few months it would it would hurt. Cause it definitely gets cold even up in the Galilee and the Golan Heights. ⁓ and so the thought is that maybe there’s some can I and if you say, well, why do they have a ritual b I think most people don’t realize baptism kind of already exists before the John the Baptist ever comes on the scene or some form of it? ⁓
Jordan Ryan (15:01)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Dru Johnson (15:23)
And presume I’m I’m going to guess the the presumption is here this comes from Levitic ideas of Levitical bathing that and just extend it into like, well, if if I have to do it after I’ve had certain skin conditions, then maybe just better to do like a kind of a rule of duct tape is if one piece holds it then twenty piece holds it really well, just to cover your bases. Is that the idea?
Jordan Ryan (15:43)
Yeah, so you get some development for sure. So, ⁓ it all starts with with the ritual purity passages in Leviticus. that’s kind of the genesis of it. But there is definitely a difference between the way that I think people would have thought of it in, you know, Iron Age or maybe even Persian period, Israel or Judah, ⁓ versus ⁓ like early Roman or late Hellenistic period.
Judea and Galilee. And the big difference seems to be that there’s this concept that that God’s people should live in purity as much as possible. Some of it also seems to be related to the fact that because impurity is transmissible, ⁓ meaning that, like, you know, if I’m impure and I touch you, then you’re also impure. ⁓ and again, it’s not a sin status, it’s just sort of the way the world is. ⁓
Dru Johnson (16:36)
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Ryan (16:41)
And because it’s transmissible, what can happen is is that eventually you’ll touch somebody who goes to the temple and then they’ll render the temple impure. So there’s this idea of trying to keep ⁓
the people in purity as much as possible and that kind of a thing. ⁓ and so the result is is that in the second temple period, but really late the tail end of it. So that’s why I keep saying late Hellenistic, early Roman, you start to get all of these ritual baths just all over, ⁓ to the point where it becomes really a signature for archaeologists of like Jewish settlements. So for example, ⁓ my current activation is at Tel Shimron ⁓ in Galilee near the Jezreel Valley and we discovered a
A ritual bath right away in the first season. ⁓ and so it became pretty abundantly clear that this was probably a Jewish settlement.
Dru Johnson (17:32)
Just from the ritual bath alone. And we’ve been saying stepped because ⁓ presumably you you go down on one side and come back on on the other side. Is that the that’s the thinking? I’m always wondering, okay, that makes sense, but where are people getting this from?
Jordan Ryan (17:34)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, it depends. So they are s it’s because they have so they we call them step pools because they have yeah, because they have steps. And so you you’re yeah, so you’re walking down. ⁓ that’s the thing that they all seem to have in common, ⁓ architecturally. There are some that for sure have two sides. I think especially public ones. ⁓ where because there’s some that are private, like in people’s basements and things like that, especially in Jerusalem. But there are ⁓ these public ones that have they’re really big and so there’s like a divider.
Dru Johnson (17:53)
Steps cut down into them, yeah.
Hm.
Jordan Ryan (18:17)
⁓ going up and down the steps, ⁓ usually made of like plaster. And so you go down one side, enter into the water and ⁓ become pure, then come up the other side. And so the idea seems to be a lot of people think it’s to make sure that you know you don’t bump into the people who are impure who are going in, and then you have to kind of do it all over again. Yeah, exactly.
Dru Johnson (18:37)
Right. Defeat the whole purpose. Yeah.
Yeah. ⁓ i is this the thinking of I I haven’t tracked this closely, but the pool of Siloam Siloam at the the bottom of the hill of the city of David, is it that people would be doing some kind of mikveh baptism as they go up to the Temple Mount?
Jordan Ryan (18:53)
Yeah, ⁓ and I I mean again it’s a step pool and so yeah, typically it’s been seen ⁓ ever since the discovery as a a really large ritual bath.
Dru Johnson (19:04)
Okay. ⁓ okay, so you’re gonna you may ⁓ at some point in in history you may start going into this ritual bath before you come into the synagogue. ⁓ that just means ⁓ does that mean everybody’s wet in the synagogue? Like the synagogue would have been a wet experience? Like you know, like you think of like a day at the water park, I think, okay, you’re like wet and dry, wet and dry.
Jordan Ryan (19:19)
Yeah. Boy.
Yeah, you know, I never I never thought about that before. ⁓ I mean, there mikvas are still in use today in certain forms of Judaism for sure. so you know, I I I don’t know exactly what the what the process is in the modern world, but I’m sure it’s not that different from what it was in antiquity. I I would think they would dry off.
Dru Johnson (19:36)
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Ryan (19:50)
In some cases, I do want to say also that a lot of this is really hedging because there are some synagogues where it’s not clear that there’s a mikveh nearby. ⁓ and I do think there is some difference between different Jews in this period as to like when you enter ritual bath and and you know for what purpose. And ⁓ but let’s say in Gamla, where there is a big ritual bath right next to the synagogue and they seem to be connected, ⁓
Dru Johnson (19:55)
Right.
Hm.
Jordan Ryan (20:19)
You’d you’d think that people would want to dry off first, but there is also in that synagogue at Gamla a water channel inside the synagogue itself, which it is not talked about ⁓ very often, but it’s there in the excavation reports. ⁓ there’s a lot of discussion as to exactly what that was for. It is interesting that you get these references in rabbinic writings, so we’re we’re talking a little later now. ⁓
Dru Johnson (20:45)
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Ryan (20:47)
to the idea that sacred texts soil your hands, that they make your they render your hands impure. Cause there’s this whole debate a as to whether Esther soils the hands. but s and so there’s this idea that maybe there was hand washing involved inside the synagogue as well.
Dru Johnson (20:52)
⁓
Jordan Ryan (21:08)
but that is really uncertain for the early Roman period. But there’s something, some so there’s water inside the synagogue as well for some purpose that we just don’t understand.
Dru Johnson (21:10)
Right.
Wow. I mean I love this because it it demonstrates
all kinds of innovations on some very clear teaching in the Torah about various ways in which you’re supposed to be pure and how you can be purified. Sometimes you just have to wait overnight and it it’s a timeout purity issue and sometimes you have to bathe, sometimes you have to shave and bathe and offer sacrifices. But that they’re extending the logic of those in various ways. And it might not be uniform, right? Different, you know, different traditions and different communities might develop. So you might have some rabbi that’s obsessed with water purification. He brings a water channel into gamla or Qumran.
Down the Dead Sea Scroll community. ⁓ that you know, again, they have the duct tape rule seemingly that you can’t you can’t baptize enough. ⁓ the the other innovation here too is ⁓ for the New Testament is I assume is moving from self baptism to reception baptism as well. ⁓ that would have been the weird, the weirding of baptism for John the Baptist is that you cannot give it to yourself, you have to receive it. Is that your understanding?
Jordan Ryan (22:00)
Yeah. Yeah.
I think well I think the the biggest innovation, you know, that that people point to, and I’m I’m starting to get a little outside my my expertise here, but because I’m not a John the Baptist guy, but I th my understanding is that one of the big innovations is that it’s a baptism ⁓ for remission of sins, which is which is definitely not what the what the mikvah is, right? And I I think that’s also where some some Christian readers sometimes
Dru Johnson (22:39)
Right.
Jordan Ryan (22:48)
misunderstand maybe what a mikvah is. I know certainly my students when we go to Israel and and visit places like Magdala where there’s a couple of really well preserved mikvas, ⁓ they think that, you know, this is this is how you could ⁓ you know, become kind of clean from sin, but it’s really not that purity and impurity is not really a sin state.
Dru Johnson (23:13)
Yeah, the the issue of purity and I wish but I don’t think we have any good English words, but it just gets mixed up in people’s heads because impure just sounds I mean sin sin and impure get lodged together for a lot of people. ⁓ okay, so we’re gonna go into the synagogue now. I just thought your next monograph should be called Moisture in the Synagogue and cause you gotta work that one out. That one’s that’s gonna bug me for a while. Al also if it’s hot, sitting there letting, you know, water wick off of you might not be the worst thing in the world as well.
Jordan Ryan (23:33)
That’d be really interesting.
Dru Johnson (23:43)
⁓ but you’re sitting in the synagogue, then what are you doing on Shabbat? What’s our best guess?
Jordan Ryan (23:49)
Yeah, so there we start to get a little bit more in terms of like hard sources. So we have people like Josephus ⁓ and Philo who talk about things that went on in synagogue settings. ⁓ and we also of course have the New Testament. ⁓
Luke 4 in particular gives us a really good example of what kind of thing might have happened in a synagogue. So there’s a couple things that are ⁓ are pretty common across ⁓ all of our accounts, and one of them is the reading of ⁓ what at the time would be considered Jewish scriptures. so in particular, the Torah seems to all almost always there’s some Torah reading, ⁓ and that’s
Pretty well most of our accounts include this. ⁓ even some of the accounts that don’t directly mention it. So I’m thinking here, John chapter six, there’s ⁓ a story that takes place, it’s the Bread of Life Discourse, Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum. ⁓ and it’s interesting because there’s no it doesn’t tell us directly that they read from a passage of the Torah, but then they’re spending a whole lot of time talking about the mana incident.
Dru Johnson (24:37)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Ryan (25:01)
⁓ and so it seems like in some way what they’re doing is in response to a reading that happened that just isn’t narrated. Torah readings are basically that’s foundational for the Sabbath gathering, so far as we can tell. But there’s also these references, and I mean the New Testament does it too, ⁓ to t either studying or reading.
⁓ allowed the not only the ⁓ the Torah but also the Neviim so the prophets. And so there is also archaeological evidence for this because there’s a synagogue that was discovered at Masada. ⁓ that was so the the rebels who occupied it basically converted a stable or something ⁓ into a synagogue and there’s a a little ⁓ there’s a little area
Dru Johnson (25:38)
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Ryan (25:50)
that was used somebody lived in this little area and and there was a little kind of pit. ⁓ some people like to say that it was a Geniza, but I I don’t know. It’s hard to say. And in that little pit there were some texts so obviously associated with the synagogue. They were in the building just in this kind of little ⁓ closet kind of area.
Dru Johnson (26:00)
Right.
Jordan Ryan (26:09)
And one was a fragment of Deuteronomy, and I think if I remember right, the other one’s a fragment of Ezekiel. So you have actually both Torah and Neviim, they’re actually like directly found in a synagogue context. ⁓ and you know, the New Testament mentions this as well. Jesus reads from Isaiah ⁓ of all texts in Luke chapter four, and you get Paul debating ⁓ in the Diaspora synagogues about the law and the prophets.
Dru Johnson (26:39)
Yeah. Excuse me. So I wonder also if they’re reading the Torah, this is this is a genuine question of mine. So okay, you have the Torah reading and then you know, you can fill in your imagination. And then what do they do? So we finish the last line of numbers or, you know, whatever. And I can’t imagine that they’re just gonna sit there quietly and
Jordan Ryan (26:47)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (27:01)
meditate as we might think of it, ⁓ on the word of God. I in my mind, like, this is when the discussion starts. But maybe not, and maybe it’d be good to talk about the role of the rabbi. Where do rabbis come from and and how is this guided or unguided time or is it just a free for all? What what do you think?
Jordan Ryan (27:08)
Yeah.
Yeah,
so this this is where I think it gets really interesting, actually. So yeah, you’re right. the reading isn’t the end, it’s the it’s just the beginning. They’re just getting started. So after the reading, there does seem to be this expectation. Basically, all of the narratives that we get, there’s some sort of discussion that takes place afterwards, which is kind of like ⁓
I mean today we might call it something like a sermon, but it I mean it’s a little maybe a little different because what it is is so it’s teaching or interpreting, I would say, the passage. Now the thing is, is that ⁓ it seems like the person who reads is expected to interpret. ⁓ and so we see that happening. So the the Luke 4 example, Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah.
Dru Johnson (27:51)
Mm.
Jordan Ryan (28:06)
He seems to choose the passage as well, which is sort of interesting. He’s given the scroll, but he’s not told what part of it to read from. ⁓ and he actually jumps around, which is attested. So there’s ⁓ there’s Isaiah, what is it, fifty-eight and a bit of sixty-one, ⁓ or the other way around.
Dru Johnson (28:09)
Right.
Jordan Ryan (28:25)
61 and a bit of 58 inserted and jumping around in the prophets, at least for the readings attested in the early rabbinic writings as something that people do. You don’t do it in the Torah, but you can do it in the prophets. ⁓ and that’s part of the interpretation as well, right? So
Dru Johnson (28:42)
Hm.
Jordan Ryan (28:42)
I’m
saying this because the reading itself is actually part of the this like interpretive process. ⁓ so it’s it I think it it kind of reminds me when of times, especially in evangelical churches, w where you know the pastor will read ⁓ the main passage and then they’ll like have some other kind of passage that seems unconnected that they want to talk about that they kind of read alongside it, that isn’t necessarily like the lectionary or anything. It’s a little like that. ⁓
Dru Johnson (29:04)
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Ryan (29:10)
And then you get usually it seems like the person who reads then is supposed to interpret, which is again the Luke 4 passage, everyone’s kind of waiting for Jesus to do something after he gives the scroll back, and then he does. So he gives them an interpretation. ⁓ and then discussion follows that. So one scholar, Donald Binder, he has this really memorable line where he says that reading and teaching the Torah was not for the faint of heart.
In the ancient synagogue, because the idea is sort of well, you read it and then you give your interpretation and then everyone’s supposed to come at you ⁓ and to question it. And I I kinda I kinda like that idea personally, because it it it’s a community effort. I mean, very kind of first century Judaism. ⁓ it’s a community effort, and no one sort of gets just to lay down the law for you, you you get checked.
Dru Johnson (29:44)
Right.
Yeah, me too.
Jordan Ryan (30:07)
And ⁓ again, all the New Testament passages you see that going on. Whenever there’s reading or teaching or interpretation of the law of the prophets, there’s extended discussion. And sometimes it can start out going well, like that passage in Luke 4, and then take a turn. ⁓ at the beginning they really like his interpretation, and by the end they really don’t. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, ex exactly.
Dru Johnson (30:21)
Yeah.
Yeah. They might want to run you out of town and kill you. Yeah. ⁓
that’s always yeah, that that is a great way ⁓ to look at it. And no, I I often think, man, what if we just did a little bit of this in a in a church situation? Also, i I you know, if you ever handled a Torah scroll, I don’t think I’ve ever handled a prophet scroll. But I’m just thinking like the awkwardness of the like the pause while Jesus is like
Trying to manipulate the scroll to get to the other place. Like, just give me a second. I know it’s in here somewhere, right? ⁓ and you can’t say turn to Isaiah 58, right? You just have to like shimmy your way over there with the scroll. ⁓ okay, so there’s gonna be some scroll, ⁓ there’s gonna be some Torah, there’s gonna be some prophets, possibly song, psalms, possibly the singing of psalms. do we have, we certainly have.
Jordan Ryan (30:52)
yeah.
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (31:18)
indirect evidence of the singing of psalms in the early Jewish church in the New Testament. Do we have any is that standard practice at that point? I mean we know it’s certainly at the temple we have standard practice, but in the synagogue itself
Jordan Ryan (31:33)
It’s it’s one of those things where, yeah, probab probably, but there’s no direct evidence. ⁓ in the same way. And the other thing to remember is that what they considered Neviim, so we definitely have ⁓ this idea that like you read the the prophets as well as the Torah at times, ⁓ but the the Psalms sometimes are Neviim ⁓ prophets. Right? David is a prophet and all of that, so it it seems like
Dru Johnson (31:44)
yeah.
Jordan Ryan (32:02)
It’s quite likely, I’ll say, that Psalms were read and probably sung and discussed, just like the the prophets were.
Dru Johnson (32:10)
that that makes sense. Okay, so I wanna come back to this this structure because you you opened with form and function, which is a a fantastic way to think about a synagogue, that the form follows the function in some way. ⁓ so where do rabbis come from? And then and then we’ll think about well what’s you know, what are your
thoughts about the form or the sorry, the function that eventually ends up being, you know, which shaped which? Or I mean, obviously they both shape each other over time. But so where are rabbis from? We never hear about rabbis in the Old Testament. The best we get are what elders and maybe judges, but judges are even a little bit too formal for so what’s a what’s a rabbi and where do they come from?
Jordan Ryan (32:49)
Yeah.
Yeah, so this is kind of a complicated issue because, okay, so here’s here’s the big issue that I think a lot of Christians run into when reading the New Testament. So there is this term which means, you know, my great one, you know, Rabuni or Ravi, right? So something like, you know, my great one, which is applied to teachers ⁓ in this period. And so Jesus, you know, gets gets that title at different points in the New Testament and things like that.
However, ⁓ in the Jewish tradition today, but also in antiquity, there is also the rabbinic movement which comes out of the, I mean, they’re they’re really they’re the sages, right? So they’re it’s
It’s the wisdom of the sages and there a specific movement within Judaism that I would say is sort of the the the ancestor of modern Orthodox Judaism. ⁓ that is most scholars think in some way a continuation of Pharisaic Judais Judaism, or kind of a development from Pharisaic Judaism. ⁓ at least that’s the the kind of longstanding scholarly ⁓
default position. And so that movement has so their sages are often called
rabbis ⁓ and so they’re the specific sages often are referred to in in their texts as the rabbis. So when we talk about the rabbis, we’re talking really about the sages. ⁓ And that is a different thing from you know sort of people who were teachers in the late Second Temple period. You know, these people would have been teachers as well, but that doesn’t mean that they’re the same if that makes sense. So they’re
Dru Johnson (34:42)
Yeah. So I if I hear you right, there’s
so I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off. ⁓ there’s kind of a formalization of an office of rabbi that become the collection that end up, you know, and end up in these debates and arguments that form the Mishnah and the Talmud, the you know, the sacred interpretations and arguments about what the Torah means and more. But in the time of Jesus you’re really like there’s a reason why Jesus can just be called a rabbi without seeking out that profession, as it were.
Jordan Ryan (34:47)
That’s okay.
Right. And so there’s no like ordination process or anything like that. It’s and you really see this in the New Testament. Like Jesus sort of just gets up and teaches. And so he becomes a teacher because it’s what he’s doing.
Dru Johnson (35:21)
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Ryan (35:26)
And he wouldn’t have been the only person. ⁓ one thing that is really clear from the New Testament, but also from other sources, is that scribes often performed the function of teacher in the synagogue. And that makes a lot of sense because they’re people who are just professionally literate, right? Their job is to read. So that makes sense. ⁓ and you have also priests. People I think often think the priests in the Second Temple period are just located in Jerusalem. I mean, that’s not true at all.
they’re all over the place and they go to Jerusalem for their specific periods when they’re serving, but they’re all over the land ⁓ the rest of the time. And so they’re also in synagogues. We get references to them in synagogue context and inscriptions and things like that. and we also have references to two different offices, one called the Chazan or
So that’s or the Hipparatis in Greek, again in Luke 4. So that’s still a a position that’s around today. That’s somebody who’s sort of in charge of in the ancient synagogue at least, somebody who’s in charge of sort of ensuring that the service goes well. they’re they’re basically the master of ceremonies.
And then you have the Archisynagogos, which is so that is again, synagogue ruler is the literal meaning. Rosh Keneset in Hebrew, just the head of the synagogue. And that’s like the president basically of the synagogue. It’s
Dru Johnson (36:48)
Hmm. Right.
Who sits is it
the one that sits in the seat of Moses that that we thought was metaphorical but then until they found one, right? Yeah.
Jordan Ryan (36:57)
Maybe. ⁓
Yeah,
yeah, Chorazine. We don’t yeah, we don’t know. ⁓ it’s it’s a high office, but it really seems to be a benefactor. So it’s somebody who’s like paid a lot of money basically and kind of is bankrolling the whole operation. ⁓ so and that comes with a certain amount of respect, ⁓ in the ancient world. So
Dru Johnson (37:10)
Hm.
Jordan Ryan (37:21)
What exactly they did is we’re still not entirely sure ⁓ what their role was. But those are kind of the offices in in the synagogue. So it’s a little bit different from synagogues today and certainly really different from like ecclesial structures in the church today.
Dru Johnson (37:36)
Well and if I hear you right, there’s just a lot more going on in an ancient synagogue than there you know, it kinda kinda like a church today. Synagogues are r ⁓ you know, basically maintained for religious services, ⁓ but not all the other functions as much. I I guess it’s mixed. ⁓ okay, I I wanna come back to that that very first thing, the shape of the synagogue, the fact that they’re spread. I mean, you’ve been talking about synagogues still kind of in the land within pilgrimage, quick pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, how far out do we find synagogues, you know, in the time of Jesus? Like how how far out were Jews building these things and did they look the same everywhere or were there very dra dramatically different synagogues in different places?
Jordan Ryan (38:20)
Yeah, so I mean basically anywhere where there’s a Jewish community there was a synagogue. Now that doesn’t always mean a building, ⁓ but typically, ⁓ kind of older scholarship tend to assume that they weren’t buildings. Nowadays I think we tend to assume that there was likely some kind of building ⁓ as a gathering place. but it doesn’t have to be the case. So anywhere where there is a a Jewish kind of community gathering,
Dru Johnson (38:27)
Mm.
Jordan Ryan (38:48)
You could consider that a synagogue even if it’s in the open air. But you definitely get synagogue buildings all over the place. And you know, I’ve I’ve argued this, but I think a lot of people have now, and I think it’s really become the ⁓ the the most common scholarly position is that synagogue buildings are far more common than we thought. so
We find synagogues in the diaspora all the way out. so for example, there’s been quite a few discovered in Greece. ⁓ there are references, you know, the Bosporan kingdoms and things like that. So basically anywhere where there’s a Jewish community, ⁓ they don’t have to be located in the land of Israel itself. the in terms of form, so
The synagogues in Galilee and Judea, again, the main thing is there’s this main assembly hall that’s this kind of quadrilateral shape, and you have benches along the walls that are often stepped. And that comes from actually the world of Greek architecture comes from the bulleteria, which is the so that’s the Greek council hall, basically. And
That means that you unsurprisingly you find that same architectural form in diaspora synagogues. ⁓ because it’s it’s actually coming not just from ⁓ from, you know, Galilee or Judea or something like that, but from all across the kind of hell Hellenic world. and
You do get some interesting things in the diaspora though, which makes sense. Regional architecture is kind of what it is. And so one of the things that some people have noticed is that there seem to often be a similarity between association buildings, which are kind of like clubs or guilds in the Greco-Roman world and synagogues. So you’ll still get that assembly hall, but one thing that’s really common for clubs and guilds, so associations.
Dru Johnson (40:39)
yeah.
Jordan Ryan (40:52)
is eating areas, like a triclinium, which is a kind of Roman dining hall. That’s super common in in association buildings, and they are attested in some synagogues. So there’s a famous synagogue at Ostia, for example, ⁓ near Rome. Yeah. ⁓ and the date of it is disputed, but let’s say it’s late Roman. ⁓
Dru Johnson (40:57)
Yeah.
⁓ outside of the room, yeah, okay.
Jordan Ryan (41:16)
But still, either way, there’s a really good example there of ⁓ of like a triclinium. Jericho Ehud Netzer found a building. It’s been debated as to exactly if it’s a synagogue, because it’s a little bit weird. ⁓ but it it does have, even though it’s in the land, it has a ⁓ triclinium, a dining area. And that seems to be because it it was also an association. because it was the building seems to be being built for people who
worked in the palace, like for palace workers at Jericho. So yeah. So it seems like there’s there’s some variation, but i a lot of the time it’s based around these different kind of Greco Roman building forms.
Dru Johnson (41:46)
Okay.
Well and it that that makes sense and well at least to me, like Basilica was also a you know, public meeting space that gets adopted by later Christianity after Constantine. ⁓ and maybe it’s just a ⁓ minimally efficient way to get a lot of people in a room together where they can all hear and yell at each other, ⁓ if they need to. the triclenia these are these are the rooms that have like three three benches on each or th on
One bench on each side or three sides, I guess, is tr I think of tri reclinia.
Jordan Ryan (42:30)
Yeah, that I mean that makes sense. Yeah.
Three couches kind of around a table.
Dru Johnson (42:35)
⁓ and early churches in the Roman Empire were often sometimes meeting in these triclinia as well, right? ⁓ from from what I hear. ⁓ well that’s very helpful. So I think you’ve painted a landscape where ⁓ even now watching so can maybe now we can come back to Jesus and have him ⁓ because you’re an expert in the time of Jesus here. ⁓ Jesus walks into a synagogue, not a joke. ⁓ w
Where does he sit? Is it do we know where he sits? Is there a f like some Orthodox communities with a male and a female side or you know, some of the males are in front, the females are in back? and ⁓ I guess is it fair to say that like maybe Jesus took a mikveh bath before, you know, he dipped himself in the mikveh bath and it goes in? Or how far if you’re there with students doing a teaching trip, how far do you push the image of here’s Jesus walking into this synagogue, here’s what he would have done?
Jordan Ryan (43:34)
Yeah, I’m I I guess I’m I’m like always super careful. well the reason is because usually when I’m there with students, they’re not just ⁓ my students at Wheaton College. So I yeah, so I’m I because they’re they’re from our excavation, so we have, you know, Jewish students and sometimes Muslim students and ⁓ often Mormon students as well. ⁓ we work with BYU ⁓ on our site. So so yeah, I’m always super careful but what I say but about Jesus. But
Dru Johnson (43:54)
Yeah.
There.
Jordan Ryan (44:02)
⁓ if I was to kind of imagine it, what I think so I think Jesus, you know, going into a synagogue, it’s it’s a little tricky because Jesus is ⁓ there’s a certain kind of person, and we see this again in some of the rabbinic texts, these teachers who kind of go around like these peripetita guys who just kind of, you know, ⁓
But he goes into a in in the synagogue in his hometown in Nazareth and also where he’s living in Capernaum. So, you know, if we imagine it’s a place that he’s familiar with, typically I think what you would do is, again, you’ve got these these buildings that are laid out with these different benches. You know, why are the benches along the walls instead of all facing one direction like we have in modern basilicas or a lot of even, you know, ancient basilicas? Well, the answer seems to be, ⁓ that form of the synagogue facilitates one thing in particular.
which is discussion. And remember how we mentioned that earlier. Not discussion with the people who are seated next to you, but what the forum facilitates is discussion with people seated across from you. And I’m Canadian. And so I I’ve said this a few times in publications, but it always reminds me of the Canadian House of Commons. I’m sure you know if anyone’s ever seen that on TV or the British House of Commons, or whatever they call it their House of Parliament.
Dru Johnson (45:15)
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Ryan (45:22)
Where you’ve got the back and forth, ⁓ you know, people seated on on two different ends, and it facilitates that kind of like cross-room discourse. So, what I think is you probably went into the synagogue and you sat with the people you were most likely to agree with, ⁓ and across from the people that probably you didn’t. and but it this is a testament to the fact that I’m not saying that all Jewish communities were super divided. you know, they all got together.
Dru Johnson (45:39)
Hm.
Right.
Jordan Ryan (45:52)
In the same place and hash these things out. And you know, sometimes they were all of one accord and things like that, and other times they weren’t. ⁓ but it seems like they’re kind of, you know, you’d sit with your your clan and or your you know your party, so to speak, ⁓ and across from the people that you disagreed with. And that gets at another thing that you mentioned. So this question of seating for men and women,
So in modern Orthodox synagogues, there is, you know, differentiated seating for men and women, so they don’t sit together. There’s like often a gallery or something like that. there’s no archaeological evidence for that until the medieval period.
Dru Johnson (46:34)
Hm.
Jordan Ryan (46:35)
And so there’s also not really textual evidence in the Second Temple period for the division of men and women in ancient synagogues at all. And actually there’s evidence to the contrary, including in the New Testament. So just to take a New Testament example, you get this reference in Luke 13, ⁓ Jesus just runs into a woman in the synagogue,
Somewhere in Judea, we’re not told exactly where, who has it bent back, and he heals her. ⁓ that presumes that whole story turns on them being in the same space. We also know that women could serve in some of those ⁓ offices. So there’s a few different inscriptions
Dru Johnson (47:06)
Yeah.
Jordan Ryan (47:13)
of that that name female Archisynagogai, ⁓ so female heads of synagogues. so it seems like they’re sort of all just together ⁓ there in those spaces. Exactly when this this tradition of separating out men and women comes into practice, we’re not sure. Probably the medieval period, maybe late Byzantine.
Dru Johnson (47:35)
Okay, one last question. I I have many more, but I’m gonna r restrain myself. ⁓ Jesus grows up in Nazareth in eyeshot of the city of Sepphorus. ⁓ do you think he went down to Sepphoris? Tiberius is being, I guess, under construction and during his lifetime. But he he’s a builder, ⁓ and there’s a big city where there’s work. You have Tiberius where they’re building it. Do you think he visits these cities? ⁓
And or why do you think it’s just they’re not even mentioned in the New Testament? I’m g I’m looking for your hot take here too.
Jordan Ryan (48:06)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think I mean this this has been like a perpetual question in New Testament studies. It it is weird. Tiberius is mentioned like once because the lake of Tiberias. So they’re yeah, there are these major cities in the area and Jesus doesn’t s seem to care that much about going to them, or they’re not mentioned at least. So I I do think I mean I’m pretty convinced, based on just like narratives that we get of this period, ⁓ and even you know rabbinic texts, people seem to be going all over the place. ⁓ I mean the
Dru Johnson (48:14)
Right. Right.
Jordan Ryan (48:36)
Just to use the rabbis as an analogy, there are like traveling rabbinic teachers in those texts. ⁓ it seems to be pretty common. ⁓ people certainly traveled for work. ⁓ in the ancient world, too, there’s references to people who live in cities but work on farms or own farms that they also work on that are outside the city. So we know people are traveling all over the place. ⁓ and you know, even just the pottery that travels around, we know comes.
From different places and things like that. So my guess is it’s close. At some point, I’m sure Jesus, I think it’s a good inference, maybe is a better way to put it, that Jesus probably went there. ⁓ Tiberius is ⁓ maybe different because ⁓ so the road that takes Jesus along actually goes through, so Magdala ⁓ was Tarakia.
Dru Johnson (49:15)
Okay.
Jordan Ryan (49:30)
in the ancient world and the road actually goes through there, going from Isa either Nazareth or Cana. He would have had to done a detour to go to Tiberius. So it might just not have been convenient. but the hot take has always been that but those are also kind of the places where ⁓ Herodian soldiers would have been, ⁓ and s who are
Dru Johnson (49:38)
Right.
⁓
Jordan Ryan (49:55)
the Roman military and we know that Herod Antipas is looking for Jesus. So we do there’s that narrative in Luke about that.
And he also thinks that he’s John the Baptist, come back to get him something from the dead. So and and you know he executed John the Baptist. So it does also make some sense to try to avoid places where there are definitely soldiers present or you know, members of the military. ⁓ John the Baptist has a ministry to soldiers, but I actually can’t think of a narrative where Jesus does. ⁓
Dru Johnson (50:09)
Right.
Hmm.
Jordan Ryan (50:34)
And I I’m this I’m just this is just off the cuff, so I you know, maybe I’m I’m just not thinking of something. But well there’s the Centurion. Yeah. So there’s the Centurion at Capernaum. so there’s there’s that, but again that’s that’s he’s he’s not seeking that guy out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and he’s he seeks Jesus out, not the other way around.
Dru Johnson (50:43)
Centurions and the Roman guard, yeah.
Romans aren’t gonna care about what Herod is trying to get, right. Yeah.
Jordan Ryan (51:03)
Whereas John the Baptist specifically is like preaching to soldiers. so there’s a slight difference there. So I I do wonder if because of the whole Herod Antipass thing, I mean, that’s the hot take. I think the safe answer is it’s they’re not on the on the right roads that we know he’s traveling on. but Magda is.
Dru Johnson (51:07)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Right.
And yeah, coming out of Nazareth, like, you know, it’s pretty physically speaking, it’s pretty dead obvious that the road is going straight dumping straight into Magdalene. You can actually say it would have almost been impossible for Jesus to have missed this town, right? ⁓ Well, Doctor Doctor Jordan Ryan, thank you so much. I have so many more questions and maybe other people do too. And maybe we can have you back on if we if people want to email us questions more, ’cause I think you you can you can free fire here.
Jordan Ryan (51:33)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (51:47)
thank you for your wisdom and guiding us through ancient synagogues.
Jordan Ryan (51:50)
Yeah, my pleasure. Always always a pleasure.
