ABSTRACT
We do not have much precise information about what happened when the local Jewish community met to celebrate the Sabbath in the first century CE. The most common assumption is that the community gathered for the public reading of the Scriptures, a notion supported by the New Testament account that portrays Jesus as someone who, in his home town of Nazareth, ‘as was his custom went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day’ where he is invited to read from the scroll of Isaiah (Luke 4:16-17). But there were other activities going on, especially where the community had its own synagogue building. Recent research has pointed out that communal dining, mentioned in ancient sources, must have figured prominently in the life of the synagogue.1 Some early synagogue buildings, such as that found in Ostia near Rome and the one excavated in Jericho, actually included dining rooms with stone benches around the walls for reclining upon, the typical posture of those eating and drinking on formal occasions in Hellenistic and Roman times. Communal meals no doubt were social rather than specifically religious gatherings; nevertheless, it is unlikely that they were not given some religious meaning. One can safely assume, at least, that benedictions were said over food and drink. The most interesting evidence for the communal meal’s religious dimension comes from the apostle Paul, known as the founder of specifically Christian synagogues in a number of Hellenistic cities including Corinth.
