Jewish Synagogues in History, Archaeology, and the Book of Mormon

How Can the Book of Mormon Be True When it Mentions Jewish Synagogues in Ancient America?

Research by Kerry A. Shirts

The entire concept of Synagogues has been misunderstood in the past, and especially concerning the Book of Mormon. Many new studies have enriched our understand beyond our wildest expectations, with the results that the Book of Mormon comes off stronger than ever.

Three types of religious places are mentioned in the Book of Mormon: temples, sanctuaries, and synagogues. These places of worship ought to leave remains, shouldn't they? We gave brief consideration to temples in the previous chapter, but not to the other two types. A sanctuary is usually considered a structure at a revered spot where unscheduled individual and family worship can take place. In Palestine, Bethel was such a place, in use at least from the time of Abraham's worship there (Genesis 12:8; 28:16-22) to Lehi's day (2 Kings 23:15). The Israelites who came to America would no doubt have followed the practice of designating and worshipping at sanctuaries. Some of these would have existed in homes or residential localities; believers in God were expected "to call on his name and confess their sins before him," "watching and praying continually" (Alma 15:17; 17:4). Native homes in many parts of Mesoamerica today continue a pre-Columbian custom of devoting a corner of the house to quiet, daily rituals. Hilltops too have served, and still do, as sanctuaries where individuals leave offerings. Waterholes and lakes are also frequent worship spots. [Evon Z. Vogt, The Zinacantecos of Mexico: A Modern Maya Way of Life. (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1970), p. 98; Tozzer, Landa's Relacion, pp. 182-84.] Pre-Columbian stone monuments themselves are considered sacred today in many localities. People resort there to confess sins and pray for forgiveness. [Robert Ritzenthaler, Recent Monument Worship in Lowland Guatemala, MARI 28 (1967), pp. 107-11, especially figure 7.] Lamanite and Nephite sanctuaries might have taken any of these forms.[1]

What were synagogues? They are mentioned among both Nephites and the Lamanites under dissident Nephite influence (Alma 21:4-5; 32:1-12; Helaman 3:9, 14; Moroni 7:1). Would they have left ruins that might have been discovered? At first glance the very idea seems to pose a problem for the Book of Mormon. Many historians have maintained that synagogues were not known among the Jews until well after Lehi had left Palestine. Another group of experts, however, now argue that the synagogue predated Lehi's departure. They propose that when King Josiah carried out his sweeping reforms of Jewish worship in order to clean out pagan intrusions, he closed the old sanctuaries (2 Kings 23). "The centralization of worship in Jerusalem from 621 B.C. onwards, with many Jews thereby denied a share in temple worship, must inevitably have led to the establishment of non-sacrificial places of assembly"—in effect, synagogues. [William F. Albright and C. S. Mann, Matthew (New York: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1971):CLIII; I. Levy, The Synagogue: Its History and Function (London: Valentine, Mitchell, 1964), pp. 7-14.] So at least the concept of the synagogue could well have been around for a generation by the time First Nephi begins. Later synagogues served as community centers open to any who wished to worship or speak (compare Alma 26:29). According to the Babylonian Talmud, the Jewish synagogue was normally oriented to face Jerusalem and was also located on the highest place in town and near water. [Megilla 4, 23; Berakot 11; Shabbat 1, 11.] A synagogue was not necessarily a building; it might be only an enclosure.[2]

Though scholars generally contend that the synagogue as an institution did not originate until the Babylonian exile, the word synagogue is used throughout the Book of Mormon. It is "quite probable that at its inception the synagogue did not refer to an actual building but to a group or community of individuals who met together for worship and religious purposes." The word may have been used to connote simply a "congregation" or "assembly" of believers. [Eric M. Meyers, "Synagogue," in Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols., ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6:251; see also A. J. Saldarini, "Synagogue," in Harper's Bible Dictionary, ed. Paul J. Achtemeier (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1985), p. 1007.] Nephi testified that the blessings of the gospel are freely available and that God has not commanded any to "depart out of the synagogues, or out of the houses of worship" (2 Nephi 26:26). It seems that the latter phrase—"houses of worship"—is descriptive of the former—"the synagogues." Mormon wrote that "Alma and Amulek went forth preaching repentance to the people in their temples, and in their sanctuaries, and also in their synagogues, which were built after the manner of the Jews" (Alma 16:13). We also learn that apostate groups like the Amalekites, the Nehors, and the Zoramites built their own synagogues (see Alma 21:4, 6; 31:12; 32:2). That there were synagogues after the coming of Christ to the Nephites is also clear. The Master makes reference to hypocrites praying in the synagogue to be heard of men (see 3 Nephi 13:5), and he also asks that transgressors not be cast out of the synagogues (see 3 Nephi 18:32). Finally, Moroni adds the interesting detail that the teachings of his father, Mormon, on faith, hope, and charity were delivered "as he taught them in the synagogue which they had built for the place of worship" (Moroni 7:1). Though the synagogues themselves may have been conducted "after the manner of the Jews," it may be that the word synagogue referred to places of worship, what we would equate with church houses. The word may be used in the Book of Mormon much as it is used in modern revelation, in which the word synagogue seems to denote congregations or churches (see D&C 63:31; 66:7; 68:1).[3]

It is a matter of much scholarly debate when and how the synagogue as known to later Judaism actually developed. As the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible cautions, the specific origins of the synagogue are too faint "to venture a conjecture in this kind of antiquity." ["Synagogue,'' in George Buttrick, ed., The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962), 479-80.] But there are certain possibilities. Some historians see the development of the synagogue occurring during the captivity of the Jews in Babylonia during the sixth century B.C. Others point to the reforms of Josiah in 621 B.C. as giving rise to the use of local congregations for worship, prayer, and instructions among the Israelites. It is, of course, possible that both are right: there is no reason to believe that the Jewish synagogue suddenly came from nowhere and appeared in one instant in its fully developed form as known to later Rabbinic Judaism.[4]

The Book of Mormon, of course, lends credence to the idea that synagogues, at least as places of worship, were known to Israel before the departure of Lehi from Jerusalem (although no specific statement makes that claim). While most scholars focus their attention on the development of the synagogue in postexilic Israel, those who discuss the preexilic origins of the synagogue include Leopold Loew, Julian Morgenstern, Louis Finkelstein (long-time Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America), Azriel Eisenberg, and others. Jacob Weingreen writes: "It would be natural to suppose that, following upon the enforcement of Josiah's edict, religious services continued to be held outside Jerusalem, but now without sacrifices. . . . These must . . . have constituted the basis of the synagogue service of later times." [An extensive treatment of all sides of the history of the synagogue can be found in Joseph Gutmann, The Synagogue: Studies in Origins, Archaeology, and Architecture (New York: KTAV, 1975).[5]

Another interesting point deals with the word synagogue, which is of Greek origin. It is the term used in the Septuagint to translate several Hebrew words, including camp, assembly, community, and congregation. The Hebrew roots involved here should be explored to cast light on the underlying practices of ancient Israel. Of course, we do not know what Hebrew or other word the Nephites or Zoramites used in naming their places of worship. Note, however, that the English word synagogue is made from two parts: the Greek prefix syn, which means together, and the verb ago, which means to gather or to bring together. Interestingly, in Alma 31:12 the phrase "gather themselves together" appears in immediate literal conjunction with the term synagogue: "the Zoramites had built synagogues, and . . . they did gather themselves together."[6]

Synagogue and Church are applied in the Book of Mormon to the institutions most closely resembling them in the Old World. The question is purely one of translation. "The origin of the synagogue," wrote Zeitlin, "dates back to the time when local assemblies were occasionally summoned to consider the needs of a community." [Solomon Zeitlin, "The Origin of the Synagogue,'' American Academy of Jewish Research (1930-31): 79.] The existence of such synagogues, he notes, was by no means restricted to the times after the destruction of the Temple—the synagogue was simply the local Jewish religious assembly, in contrast to the Great Synagogue, which was an assembly "of a national character . . . to consider problems affecting the whole" nation. [Ibid., 79.[7]

The "churches" set up by Alma in Zarahemla, and also the "assembly" of the Lamanites (Alma 21:16), were apparently functional parallels to synagogues. Several Old Testament terms signify "congregation" or "assembly" or the meeting place for such a group, the terms overlapping in translation. One of those words has come to be translated "synagogue," but anciently words like synagogue, ekklesia, kenishta, and 'eda were translated quite freely as though they were equivalent. [Jack Finegan, Light from the Ancient Past, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956), pp. 289-91; John A. Tvedtnes, The Church of the Old Testament (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1967), pp. 24-25.] Thus, we may find that whatever distinguished a synagogue from a local church by Nephite standards was so subtle that we will be unable to tell them apart on the basis of their remains.[8]

Thus synagogues, based on current research and analysis offer no more problems to the Book of Mormon than to historians of the Bible.

Endnotes

1. John Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting For the Book of Mormon, Deseret/FARMS, 1986, p. 234.

2. Ancient Setting, p. 235.

3. Robert Millet, "The Christian Backgrounds of the Nephite Culture," in The Power of the Word, p. 282.

4. John Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon, Deseret/FARMS, 1992, "Synagogues in the Book of Mormon," p. 194.

5. Reexploring, p. 194.

6. Reexploring, p. 194.

7. Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah, Deseret Books, 1967, p. 164.

8. John Sorenson, Ancient Setting, p. 236.