worship 61
[ruler of the synagogue], son of the archisynagogos, grandson of the
archisynagogos ’. It is clear that a priest could be a ruler of a synagogue,
and since the inscription states that the synagogue was built ‘for the read-
ing of the Torah and the study of the commandments’, it is worth recalling
the assertion by Josephus in Against Apion that instruction in the Torah
was carried out by priests. Theodotus’ inscription had been set up to
record a synagogue building, but it is unknown how many synagogues
were purpose built for religious use by his time. The term synagoge in
Greek means ‘assembly’, and could be used to refer either to the commu-
nity or to its building. There was no obvious need for a specific building.
According to the biblical book of Nehemiah, the law of Moses had been
read ceremonially by the scribe Ezra in the fifth century bce in the open
air: ‘the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly ... He read from
it facing the square before the Water Gate ... So they read from the book,
from the law of God, with interpretation.’^33
Reading the Torah of Moses to the people as a whole was the main
purpose of this teaching, and over time a system evolved whereby the
whole Pentateuch would be read in sections on consecutive Sabbaths to
ensure that the full text was completed each year. Quite when this proced-
ure was inaugurated is uncertain, but the Mishnah implies an established
order for reading the texts liturgically when it notes the instances of
breaking off from that order to mark special occasions: ‘on the first days
of the months, at Hanukkah, at Purim, on days of fasting ... and on the
Day of Atonement’. A tradition in the Babylonian Talmud records that
in Palestine the cycle of reading the Torah was devised for completion
in three years rather than the annual cycle which became standard in
later rabbinic Judaism, and possible traces of this triennial cycle have
been noted in the medieval scribal tradition of the masoretes (see Chap-
ter 10). But evidence of its origins, and of the annual cycle, are elusive,
and it is not impossible that communities felt free to select the reading
of the week as they saw fit all the way through the Second Temple
period and beyond.^34
What does seem clear is that regular readings from the other books
of the Bible were also standard. The Acts of the Apostles refers to the
reading of ‘the law and the prophets’, and according to the Gospel of
Luke, Jesus encountered trouble in his home town of Nazareth when ‘he
went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom’ and ‘the
scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him’, whereupon he unrolled
the scroll, read the passage from Isaiah proclaiming good news to the
poor and oppressed, rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant