ABSTRACT
Synagogues are principally designed for a single special occasion, the morning service on the Sabbath. This chapter aims to visualise this service in its building, but this aim is bound to raise some architectural questions. To some of these there are answers. Year by year the body of archaeological evidence is growing. But there is a lack of ancient documents about ancient synagogues and their services. 1 A general book called The Ancient Synagogue has just appeared by my colleague Professor Lee Levine, with an enormous and impressive number of documentary sources. But hardly any of the serious questions the book raises give rise to any definite answers. This is not because Levine has been lazy. He has taken account of the ancient documents about the synagogue. But unfortunately most documents play no role in illuminating its purpose. So for instance the earliest synagogues in Israel come from the Herodian period, 2 but the general shape of the liturgy only starts to become clear in Jewish sources in a document published in about 200 Ad. Most answers about the earlier period are therefore no longer within reach. I hope to suggest some additional answers by assuming that some Jewish practices were inherited by Christians, but these should be taken as tentative suggestions rather than as evidence.
