SYNAGOGUE 3 : 670 SYNAGOGUE. he institution of the synagogue had a pivotal role in the development of Judaism both be- fore and ater the destruction of the temple of Jerusa- lem, which occurred in AD 70. he synagogue had numerous functions, which were not only religious: readings and study of the law, communal prayer, res- olution of legal questions, civic administration, com- mon meals and a hospice for foreigners. he origin of the synagogue, both as an institu- tion and as a building, is still unclear. he irst refer- ences to an assembly are found in the Bible, which in many passages mentions a group of Jews who gath- ered to listen to the prophets (Ezek 11:16). Some au- thors from the 1st c. BC referred to the synagogue by comparing it to the Roman collegia. Around 45 BC the collegia were prohibited by Julius Caesar, with the exception of those of the Jews, because they were considered among the most ancient. In sources from the 1st c., there are reports of synagogues both in Palestine and in the Diaspora. *Philo tells us about the synagogue of *Alexandria (Ad Gaium 156 Vita Mosis 2,216; De Somniis 2,156), Flavius Josephus mentions the synagogue of Tiberius, in which gath- erings were held ater prayer (Vita 77). In the NT frequent mention is made of the synagogue. he term synagōgē occurs 56 times in the NT, a good 34 of which occur in the Lukan corpus (i.e., the gospel and the Acts of the Apostles). he term proseuchē is found therein with the most common meaning of “prayer”; only in two places could it refer to a place of gathering (Acts 16:13-16). he birth of a building for gathering within Juda- ism is a debated topic among scholars. Some main- tain that one must go back to the period before the Babylonian exile, even to *Moses, acc. to a common idea starting from the 1st c. AD. On the origin of the synagogue, various hypotheses have been formu- lated in modern times. Some date the institution before the exile, to the time of the prophet Jeremiah. Others push the date back to the period of the re- form made at the time of King Josiah, around 621, who prohibited worship in the temples on the high places in favor of the temple of Jerusalem (2 Kgs 23; Ps 74:8). Others hold that the synagogue arose dur- ing the Babylonian exile. he destruction of the temple in 586 and the subsequent deportation brought about the birth of the religious assemblies, which were not tied to cultic sacriice, thanks to the rise of charismatic igures like the prophet Ezekiel. he synagogue, which arose in Babylon, then devel- oped in Palestine. Finally, one can conclude, on the basis of epigraphic and archaeological evidence, that the irst synagogues were seen in Egypt and the rest of the Diaspora starting from the 3rd c. BC, although in *Palestine they can be detected only from the Hasmonean era. he synagogue deinitively was born as part of a gradual process during the period of the second temple. Its remote origins are perhaps to be sought in the assemblies that were held near the city entrance, which during the entire biblical period was the place of many activities, similar to those that were then held in the synagogue. he transferral of these activities from one open place to an enclosed building gradually occurred during the Hellenistic era, probably in the late 2nd or early 1st c. BC. herefore, one can come to some irm conclu- sions: starting from the 2nd c. BC, one can verify a deinite bond between the sabbath and the commu- nal reading of the law, starting from the account of the assembly that gathered to listen to the biblical reading made by Ezra the scribe (Neh 8–10), which became a model to imitate, in an assembly diferent from that of the temple, but not at all opposed to the latter; substantial transformations to the institution of the synagogue occurred over the course of the 2nd c. AD, when the synagogue assumed a specii- cally liturgical role in replacing the sacriicial cult of the temple of Jerusalem, which by that point had disappeared (Perrot, DBS 13,686). Starting from the 3rd c. BC, certain epigraphic testimonies attest to the existence of the proseuchai, buildings in which the Jews gathered in an assembly, in *Egypt as well as in *Rome, and even at Tiberias (Flavius Josephus, Vita 277). Only starting from the 1st c. AD was the term synagōgē imposed to refer to the building for the assemblies. he birth of the proseuchai is to be framed within the Hellenistic cultural context. here existed, in fact, in the Hellenistic world associations, corpora- tions, groups of various types with cultural, religious and social ends. he Jewish proseuchai, therefore, responded to a twofold demand: that of setting themselves up as a well-deined entity, from the legal point of view, like the pagan corporations, and that of gathering the Jewish community that was far from the temple of Jerusalem together for prayer. In Egypt, irst Ptolemy III and then Ptolemy V under- took a political action of restoration of the temples and the various cults. his had an inluence on the numerous Jewish communities in Egypt. Scholars are aware of more than one Jewish temple from this period in Egypt. he most famous is that of Yaho at Elephantine, but there is also information from tem- ples in Cyrenaica, at Leontopolis, at Iraq el-Amir, at Lakish, and esp. from the Samaritan temple on Ger- izim. It is likely that these temples were built at the behest of the Ptolemies, who intended to oppose the centrality of the temple of Jerusalem and to weaken C. Pappalardo, “Synagogue”, in A. Di Berardino (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity 3:670-678, IVP Academic, Downers Grove, IL, 2014.