Jewish Concepts of Scripture

15

Chapter 2

Concepts of Scripture in the

Synagogue Service

Elsie Stern

For most contemporary Jews, the “Jewish Bible” is a single volume contain-
ing the twenty-four books of the Tanakh, which is readily available and ac-
cessible through the process of reading. While totally familiar to us, these
paired phenomena — the Bible as a book and reading as the primary means
of accessing it — are relatively new developments in the history of Jewish
encounters with scripture. Until the onset of printing, most Jews would
never have encountered a “Bible.” Th ey might have encountered a Torah
scroll in the synagogue or scrolls or volumes containing selections from
other parts of the canon. However, manuscripts of the entire biblical cor-
pus, bound together in a single volume, would have been quite rare. In ad-
dition, while it is diffi cult to gauge past rates of literacy with any precision,
it is likely that most premodern Jews would not have “read” the Bible.1
Rather, they would have heard texts contained in the Bible either recited
or retold in various settings. Of these settings, the synagogue was, by far,
the most common. Since as early as the fi rst century CE, the synagogue has
been a site for the encounter between Jews and Torah.2 By the mid-third
century, the authors of the Mishnah were already advocating the regular
recitation of biblical texts in the synagogue.3 Th e rudimentary practices
outlined in the Mishnah became the foundation for a lectionary practice
that continued to grow and develop throughout the medieval period and
continues to be a central part of synagogue practice today.4 While there
have always been opportunities for more educated Jews to encounter texts
of scripture in school settings, since the earliest days of Judaism, the major-
ity of Jews have encountered scripture primarily in synagogue.