ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys music in religious devotion and worship in private homes and households, among associates, in sectarian communities and in the synagogue. Perhaps both the Temple precincts and private dwellings in Jerusalem were used for the Passover meal at some stage in the earlier Second-Temple period. There is only one group of associates for which there is evidence of musical activity in ancient Judaism: Jesus of Nazareth and his immediate disciples. Sources witness to two occasions on which there was song and perhaps also pipe playing among them. One is the solemn religious meal known as the Last Supper. According to two parallel New Testament accounts, the meal concluded with the singing of a 'hymn'. There is no information about the identity of the hymn or the form of the singing, but since it is likely that the Last Supper was a Passover meal, the hymn was probably the Hallel or the latter portion of it.
