Holy Synagogue

In a NYT piece on a recent Galilean artifact, Isabel Kershner writes, “Experts have long believed that in the period before Herod’s Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, synagogues were used as a general place of assembly and learning, something like a neighborhood community center. The more formal conception of a synagogue as a sacred space reserved for religious ritual was thought to have developed later, in the Jewish diaspora after the Temple had been destroyed.”

The artifact, known as the Magdala Stone, throws that into question. Dug up in 2009, the Stone is carved all around with reliefs of the furnishings and rooms of Herod’s temple, “including its most sacred inner sanctum, known as the Holy of Holies.” It has a depiction of the menorah, utensils, an altar, steps, arches and columns. It’s a small stone temple, found in a synagogue.

Archaeologists think that the Stone “might have been intended to give the space an aura of holiness ‘like a lesser temple’ even while Herod’s Temple still existed.”

The Stone neatly supports the notion that the holiness structures of Israel were modified both during and after the the exile. The sanctity of the temple spread out to encompass the city of Jerusalem, and the land itself was “upgraded” in holiness. In this context, it makes sense that the synagogues would be considered “forecourts” of the temple. For more, see Donald Binder’s study, Into the Temple Courts.

(Photo by Hanay.)