28 Elsie Stern
understanding of the text. Even with these uncertainties about actual lec-
tionary performances in late antiquity, it is clear from the Mishnah’s man-
dates that the authors envisioned the torah received by the synagogue audi-
ence as a hybrid of scriptural and nonscriptural discourse.
While the Mishnah only discusses the targum, later rabbinic and medi-
eval evidence bears witness to the performance of other forms of nonscrip-
tural torah discourse in the ancient synagogue. Th e Talmud testifi es to the
performance of homilies by rabbinic sages, and scholars have hypothesized
that at least some of the material preserved in the extant midrashim might
have corresponded to material preached in synagogues.18 Even if we can-
not determine with certainty the content of any given sermon, it is proba-
ble that the content of the sermons was an infl uential component of the au-
dience’s understanding of the scripture. One need only think of the impact
that contemporary preachers have on their congregations’ understanding
of biblical texts to appreciate this point. In addition to the midrashic lit-
erature, there are extant hundreds of liturgical poems that are undoubtedly
relics of actual synagogue practice. Th ese poems ( piyyutim) are highly styl-
ized compositions that blur the boundary between the lectionary service
and the statutory liturgy. Th e poems correspond to the main prayers of the
Sabbath liturgy and, in some contexts, may have been performed as, or in-
stead of, the statutory prayers. While their structure is determined by the
liturgy, their content is deeply saturated with biblical language, allusions,
and litanies of biblical verses. If, in fact, these piyyutim were performed
instead of the statutory prayers, then the synagogue congregation would
not have experienced the Torah service as their sole encounter with the
week’s lectionary texts. Rather, the surrounding prayer experience would
also have been saturated with the language and themes of the week’s read-
ings. Th e piyyutim especially are another example of the diff usion of scrip-
ture in the synagogue setting. Th rough the piyyutim, the statutory liturgy
became saturated not only with biblical language and allusion but oft en
specifi cally with correspondences to the weekly readings. Th e existence of
these performance genres — intralinear translation, homily, and liturgical
poetry — demonstrate that the scripture that was performed in the syna-
gogue was, from its inception, not a discrete and highly demarcated corpus
that corresponded precisely to the canonical Tanakh. Rather the synagogue
performance of torah was a hybrid discourse which contained both scrip-
tural and nonscriptural elements. Th e boundaries between these elements
were porous, as the three genres that interweave biblical citation and extra-
biblical discourse demonstrate. In addition, while the actual recitation of