Synagogue Life in Jesus' Time

The synagogue back in Jesus’ time was more analogous to the pilgrims’ town hall than it is to a modern-day American church. There was no decorative equivalent to a steeple or a cross, such as religious carvings, because it wasn’t designed to be a religious building.

The main room in the Capernaum synagogue. The tourists are sitting where worshippers would have sat for the Sabbath service. It must have been a bit difficult to see around the columns.

Education for both children and adults was a primary function, as were legal proceedings and punishments, banking, town meetings, civic duties,any form of a library that the town or village might have and communal meals. Jesus warned the disciples that they would be flogged in the synagogues (Mark 13:9), and records of slaves being manumitted there still exist.

Education for both children and adults was considered paramount. Boys between five and 10-12 were probably schooled for five hours a day, six days a week, although it is difficult to know how much of this originated later in the century with the high priesthood of Joshua ben Gamla. ‘Adult ed’ was also popular.

The Capernaum synagogue annex room, from approximately the 4th century. Perhaps adult ed and town meetings were held here.

The Synagogue Building
The average synagogue had a large room lined with stone benches styled like bleachers, and there is no evidence that men and women sat separately. Columns lined the remaining floor, and the elders probably sat at the front, facing the congregation.

Many synagogues had inscriptions on them honoring rulers or patrons in accordance with the patron/client culture. A patron was someone who helped the client out in either a personal or business sense, and town-wide favors that could never be paid back often had inscriptions dedicated to their patrons. For example, the town of Capernaum (client) may have dedicated an inscription to the centurion that built their synagogue (patron, Luke 7:5), as a gesture of appreciation to someone they could never repay on an equal basis.

The ‘Moses seat’ was a prominent chair at the front, which brings light to Matthew 23:2-3: The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.

The Moses seat at the Chorazin Synagogue. Photo courtesy of bibleplaces.com.

Synagogue Leaders
The Sabbath service appears to have included, at least, a reading from both Torah, (the Christian Pentateuch, which Jews considered God’s instructions on living a holy life, the Prophets, and a sermon. The common language was Aramaic, and a translator from the Hebrew Scriptures sometimes whispered into the speakers ear. This gives possible background to Jesus’ command in Matthew 10:27: What is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.)

There is a good chance that the leaders of the synagogue service, the leaders of the other synagogue functions, and the town elders were all the same people (Scott, 142). Throughout the sources and regions two positions (mostly) predominate: the priest and the archisynagogos (say it fast!) I’ll leave the priest as self-explanatory; the archisynagogos was a leader of the community, possibly wealthy, that probably oversaw the non-religious aspects of the institution (Levine, p.137-38). Some of the synagogue positions appear to have been hereditary, though not all.

Sources
DeSilva, David A., 2000, Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture, InterVarsity Press

Levine, Lee I., 2005, The Ancient Synagogue, Yale University.

Scott Jr., J. Julius, 1995, Jewish Backgrounds of the New Testament, Baker Books