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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: 1st century synagogue meetings - what were they like?
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South Coast Kevin
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# 16130
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Posted
I'm an ardent (and occasionally tedious!) campaigner for more participation and every-member ministry in our church services, as a faithful expression of what the New Testament teaches about how we should meet together.
But people - here on the Ship, in particular - point out to me that the 1st century church would have modelled many of its practices on the synagogues of the time, where the meetings were led by one person and weren't particularly open / participative.
Well, I've just read this (full text here) and would like to know what folks think. Is it reasonable?
quote:
Synagogue worship allowed great freedom and participation. Philip Schaff has aptly noted, "As there was no proper priesthood outside of Jerusalem, any Jew of age might get up to read the lessons, offer prayer, and address the congregation." (Philip Schaff, History Of The Christian Church, Hendrickson, 1:459.) Indeed, we find Jesus constantly teaching in the synagogues on the Sabbath, (Lu.4:18-30; Mt.4:23; 13:54-58; Mk.1:21; Jn.18:20) even though he was neither a Levitical priest nor the ruler of a synagogue. Moreover, those who spoke in the synagogue meetings were not "pre-screened" as to what they were going to say, for Paul, directly upon his conversion, preached in the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God to a group of hostile Jews (Acts 9:20)...
In the larger and more institutionalised synagogues we know that the main function of the ruler of the synagogue was to preside over services and to encourage the participation of those present. This is likely to have been the way the first leaders of house-churches functioned. The early Christians avoided the title used by Jews (ruler of the synagogue) and chose instead the neutral, but equally appropriate term episkopos [overseer]; yet they continued to hold that the chief duty of those who presided over assemblies was to facilitate widespread participation and not do everything themselves.
That all paints a far more participative picture of 1st century synagogue meetings than is normally suggested, and thus IMO adds weight to the argument that the early church meetings were also strongly participative (by which I mean everyone being able to bring an encouragement, a prayer, an insight from the scriptures, a song etc.). And hence, that our church meetings should be similarly participative. What say you?
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L'organist
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# 17338
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Posted
... unless, of course, they were women and St Paul was about ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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Honest Ron Bacardi
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# 38
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Posted
I think there needs to be consideration of what meetings and services we are talking about. For example, what we now call the communion service combines elements of passover ritual (home, not synagogue) and atonement ritual (temple, not synagogue).
No doubt the other services of the time (such as the lighting of the lamps which seems to have been current at the time) would have had an element of formality to them.
I don't know enough about this to comment further, but it seems to me that you would need to look at the whole range of meetings that the synagogue was used for - generalisations could be dangerously simplifying.
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Cara
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# 16966
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Posted
Also, in the first century, weren't many Christian gatherings in private houses? So this might have affected the way the gathering went...less formal than in a temple??? Though a wealthy citizen's private house could be quite imposing....but it seems thought (Wayne Meeks, "The First Urban Christians, " etc) that the early church was mostly made of of tradespeople, artisans, not the wealthy for the most part....
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Zach82
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# 3208
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Posted
Should we make Christian services more "paticipative" because everyone's insights into Christian doctrine and the Scriptures are equally valid or something?
[ 20. July 2013, 11:19: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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South Coast Kevin
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# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
I don't know enough about this to comment further, but it seems to me that you would need to look at the whole range of meetings that the synagogue was used for - generalisations could be dangerously simplifying.
It's just that some people point to the relative formality of synagogue meetings in order to suggest what the earliest church meetings / services were like. I hadn't realised until reading the post I linked to, that perhaps most synagogue meetings were actually informal and participative. This board isn't the place to get into questions of what that might mean for church practice today, hence why I just asked what people knew / thought about 1st century synagogue meetings.
quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
Also, in the first century, weren't many Christian gatherings in private houses? So this might have affected the way the gathering went...less formal than in a temple???
So I gather, yes!
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Should we make Christian services more "paticipative" because everyone's insights into Christian doctrine and the Scriptures are equally valid or something?
Probably a discussion for another thread, as it's getting into questions of contemporary church practice. Do you have any thoughts about 1st century synagogue practice, putting aside for now what that might mean for us in the 21st century?
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Vade Mecum
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# 17688
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Posted
Read James Burtchaell's book "From Synagogue to Church" on the difficulties of reconstructing 1st century synagogal worship, and an excellent historiographical survey.
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Zach82: Should we make Christian services more "paticipative" because everyone's insights into Christian doctrine and the Scriptures are equally valid or something?
Good idea!
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Ad Orientem
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# 17574
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Posted
But did the early Christians base their worship on the synagogue, the Temple or something else? Is Christian worship just its own tradition? When the Church met in houses or "aula" of more well off Christians, these were consecrated places.
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I can understand the reason for your question and your position on this, South Coast Kevin, but would suggest that we are all - to some extent - imposing our own value-judgements of what constitutes formality and informality onto the 1st century.
I suspect that society in general was more 'formal' back then - after all it was very heirarchical and practised slavery and so on.
If you watch documentaries about some tribal or so-called 'primitive' societies you'll find that they have very ritualised practices too ... I once saw a fascinating speeded up clip of film shot in a West African village where everyone went through an elaborate greeting ritual whenever they met anyone else in the course of their daily routine.
Because something looks or appears 'formal' doesn't mean that it is non-participative.
Contemporary synagogue worship is quite 'formal' in some ways but you talk to the participants and you'll find that they don't feel at all 'excluded' by that.
I don't think that anyone is saying that 1st century synagogue worship was like High Mass at the Brompton Oratory, but neither would it have particularly resembled what goes on in a contemporary charismatic setting such as the Vineyard.
If you want to have services that you regard as more participative and interactive, then that's fine, but I don't see why you have to insist on finding precedents in 1st century Jewish worship.
It's certainly fair to say that all Christian worship has evolved from 1st century home and synagogue practice - arguably with some Temple elements in there too. And most Christian traditions allow scope for small group studies and interaction - even those which go in for a more formalised or ritualised liturgy do so to some extent. I've attended RC lectio-divina sessions that are highly participative - and still very RC flavoured - and I've attended Orthodox Bible studies where there have been a wide range of questions, discussion and debate. In neither setting did this in any way detract from the more formalised approach taken during the liturgy.
I suspect your ideal vision of how a church service should be conducted would appeal to certain people and not others. That's the reality of it. As a young Christian I'd probably have thoroughly enjoyed the kind of meetings you have in mind. Now, I wouldn't be so interested. Not because I think I know it all, but because I get irritated by random thoughts and cod-informality.
The next time I'm handed a pencil and a piece of paper in a supposedly informal church service and told to write down my thoughts on this that or the other I'm liable to do something very un-Christian and unneighbourly with the pencil ...
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
But to answer your qualification to the OP, as far as I can gather 1st century synagogue worship would have been participative in the sense that any of those present who could read or were in good standing would have been able to do the set readings or prayers.
I'm not sure that the prayers would have been extemporary as such - the Jews had a well developed selection of prayers for all eventualities - as indeed the Orthodox Christians do to this day.
I've been to services in the Orthodox Easter cycle where attendees have been called upon to read the prescribed passages and readings without prior notice or warning - and the Bible or the pages from the prayer books/missals have been passed around accordingly.
Those that are used to it chant the passages, those that aren't used to that simply read them aloud. Nobody bats an eyelid whether they do it 'properly' or not. The whole thing is formally/informal as it were.
I'd imagine it would have been the same in the 1st century synagogues. People would be familiar with the material and comfortable with the setting. They would have felt very 'at home' there.
In Orthodox settings us Westerners can find the demeanour of the Greeks and other 'cradle' or ethnically Orthodox to be somewhat irreverent from our point of view - they wander around, nip outside to the loo or for a cigarette ( ![[Biased]](wink.gif) ), they nurse babies, chat, light candles, venerate icons, sometimes join in with the prayers or chant or at other times look as if they would be rather be anywhere else ...
That's just how it is. That's how they do these things.
I suspect it would've been similar in the synagogues and in the early church services too ... I've often heard it said that the apostle Paul's injunction for women to remain silent was because there'd be knots of them stood around chatting to their friends ... although that begs the question as to what the blokes might have been doing.
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Honest Ron Bacardi
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# 38
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Posted
South Coast Kevin wrote: quote:
It's just that some people point to the relative formality of synagogue meetings in order to suggest what the earliest church meetings / services were like. I hadn't realised until reading the post I linked to, that perhaps most synagogue meetings were actually informal and participative.
I get the impression that the writer in your OP is taking an example of a modern evangelical Sunday service, of a type that probably came to fruition in the 20th century, and is comparing that with the evidence taken from the gospels, epistles etc. - and then concluding that modern services of his type don't cover all those things.
Well, they don't, but how realistic a comparison is it? My understanding of synagogues were that they were places that taught the scriptures, held social functions, conducted quasi-judicial business, and held meetings of many kinds. This being first century, all would have revolved around scriptural considerations.
Just as a short summary, here's an article on some important points about the diversity of 1st C. synagogues and what went on there. I guess that the procedures getting compared with modern church services are those that involved a sort of framework involving readings from Torah, exposition and discussions on application. That's fine, but much of what went on in synagogues is not what we would understand by "services", and much of what we understand as "services" were not conducted in the synagogues. I mentioned homes and the temple earlier.
In a sense we have reconfigured some of those things. But we still sing psalms (three of them tomorrow), we have members of the congregation reading scripture and leading the prayers, and although clergy normally do the sermons, there is plenty of space for all to contribute insights and applications. It's just that the last of these things we now do in smaller groups midweek. But bear in mind that those smaller groups are probably a similar size to an early church.
I suppose I could infer that if the pastor in the OP is relying on his Sunday worship service to do everything then yes, he is missing a lot out. But this way of doing things is probably not the way that 1st century Jews or indeed Christians
went about things. It's a bit unrealistic to be honest.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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Zach82
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# 3208
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Posted
It so happens that the New Testament has an account of a synagogue service in it.
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The Silent Acolyte
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# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
...the 1st century church would have modelled many of its practices on the synagogues of the time...
I think it would be much closer to the truth to say that 1st century "church" services were Jewish prayer meetings. And, 2nd century, too.
The word "church" and, certainly, "synagogue" have an anachronistic imprecision to them.
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tclune
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# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It so happens that the New Testament has an account of a synagogue service in it.
A favorite late 20th century scholar who specialized in second temple Judaism, David Flusser, became quite an authority on the NT precisely because he thought that it was about the best source extant for the life and religious practices of that time and place. FWIW
--Tom Clune
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Bostonman
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# 17108
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
...the 1st century church would have modelled many of its practices on the synagogues of the time...
I think it would be much closer to the truth to say that 1st century "church" services were Jewish prayer meetings. And, 2nd century, too.
The word "church" and, certainly, "synagogue" have an anachronistic imprecision to them.
Given that "synagein" is a Greek verb meaning "to gather together" and "synagogue" means a gathering place (e.g., a bucket or basin), a place of assembly, a body of assembled people, or the assembly or gathering, it's virtually undeniable that early gatherings of the church in X would have been synagogues. Note, of course, the total semantic overlap between the last few definitions and our modern English word "church": although Kevin will gripe about all but one usage, it's completely standard English to say that the church goes to the church for church. Ekklesia of course has different origins, but I think synagogue is closer to the way we use "church" today.
(I stole the different areas of meaning from the BDAG lexicon.)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I suspect it would've been similar in the synagogues and in the early church services too ... I've often heard it said that the apostle Paul's injunction for women to remain silent was because there'd be knots of them stood around chatting to their friends ... although that begs the question as to what the blokes might have been doing.
They were outside smoking, of course. Paul's injunction, IIRC, concluded with "let them ask their husbands at home" which I have always heard glossed to mean that they were not so much "chattering" as asking their husbands to explain bits of the service they didn't understand, or perhaps to translate the scripture readings into the vernacular (if there is a big difference between Alexandrian Greek and the dialect spoken in Corinth at the time).
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Gextvedde
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# 11084
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Posted
quote:
That all paints a far more participative picture of 1st century synagogue meetings than is normally suggested, and thus IMO adds weight to the argument that the early church meetings were also strongly participative (by which I mean everyone being able to bring an encouragement, a prayer, an insight from the scriptures, a song etc.). And hence, that our church meetings should be similarly participative. What say you? [/QB]
I'm not qualified or knowledgeable enough to agree or disagree with the idea that these meetings had more participation in them than the average modern church meeting/service but I would question the idea that because the early church did something a particular way then that has to be how we do things now.
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Galloping Granny
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# 13814
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
... unless, of course, they were women and St Paul was about
Sorry, no time just now to check my references, but AIUI:
Paul did appoint women to responsible positions in his churches
and
Such passages as instruct women to keep silent in meetings etc are now largely understood to come from Pauline followers who hadn't been able to throw off their patriarchal conditioning.
A friend in the Progressive synagogue tells me that their services are more participatory than in the Orthodox synagogue.
GG
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MSHB
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# 9228
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Posted
First century Christians sometimes engaged in highly liturgical worship, by attending the Temple: as they do often enough in Acts until Christians are expelled from fellowship with Jews. Temple worship could involve priests, sacrifices, consecrated buildings, choirs, vestments, incense, etc - Zacharias for example was a biblical character who met an angel while taking a liturgical service. Many priests became Christians, and presumably continued their priestly services. Just as Jesus often preached in the courts at the Temple, so the apostles attempted the same during their time in Jerusalem. Both Jesus and the apostles would have attended "high" temple worship.
First century Christians also attended synagogues where the ruler would allow visitors and local members to read the scriptures and speak about them. It was participatory, but structured - women and children did not lead services or teach the congregation, and the adult men were invited or allowed to speak by the ruler (as far as I understand).
First century Christians also met in houses - presumably the houses of wealthier Christians. There the structure is largely unknown - we have a possible sample in the house meeting in Acts where a young man fell out of a window and was taken up dead - until Paul prayed for him. Like many aspects of the NT church, it is mostly speculation as to how those house meetings were ordered. Jews of course also had their domestic rituals - such as the Passover meal, often with a number of visitors.
I sometimes think these three types of NT worship look a bit like catholic/orthodox (temple), classic protestant (synangogue), and independent/pentecostal (home meetings) - although that is imposing 20th-21st century ideas onto an altogether different period of social history. 1st century Jews and Christians would have attended all three types of worship - although getting to the Temple was a long journey for Jews in the Diaspora, and a much more optional pilgrimage for Christians (well, in later times than the NT). But the church started out with temple, synagogue and house meetings, where the houses were common property, it seems, in the beginning.
[ 21. July 2013, 08:12: Message edited by: MSHB ]
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I reckon that's pretty on the money MHSB.
I'd venture to suggest - and this is a purely subjective response for a moment - that the three forms that you describe could well provide a suitable and, for me at least, highly conducive model today.
So there'd be the eucharistic aspect (more liturgical), the 'synagogue' aspect, more teaching/reading and fellowship and the 'charismatic' or closer-fellowship aspect ... the smaller group.
The reason I feel a disconnect with the way these things are often undertaken in contemporary evangelical or evangelical/charismatic circles is that the eucharistic aspect can be rather slip-shod and the other two aspects prone to highly subjective and pietistic responses.
Bluntly, it's a case of crap in, crap out.
The thing that impresses me about the lectio-divina small group at our local RC parish is that the material used isn't crap in the first place.
In fact, the only person I've heard talking crap there on the two Lenten seasons when I attended it was a visitor from our evangelical/mildly charismatic Anglican parish.
In each instance this lady didn't stick to the text under consideration but veered off into some wild and whacky charismatic world of her own imagining.
I'd be more than happy to attend a house-group or similar small study group at our local evangelical/charismatic Anglican parish but I know darn well that much of what I'll hear there will be complete pants.
Rather than the structures and principles of small groups and interactivity - which I think are incontrovertibly applicable and which can be helpful - I'm more conscious of the content. If the content is crap then you're not going to get me along.
I've been to enough charismatic/evangelical small groups over the years to suggest that by-and-large the content has become increasingly dire. Or perhaps it's just me who has changed ...
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It so happens that the New Testament has an account of a synagogue service in it.
The account of Jesus' visit to the Nazareth synagogue in
Luke 4 sounds fairly informal (within certain structured limits) -- there's a synagogue "attendant"; a visitor (albeit a local boy who at that point might have been thought to have done pretty well for himself as a rabbi in the wider world) is invited to read the Scripture; following the reading it seems like general discussion of the text and the reader's interpretation of it breaks out. Of course, there's no way to know how typical this would have been.
In the next scene Jesus is presumably again teaching in the Capernaum synagogue and is interrupted to perform an exorcism, but I don't suppose you can take the actions of the demon-possessed as a reliable guide to synagogue practice.
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
That all paints a far more participative picture of 1st century synagogue meetings than is normally suggested, and thus IMO adds weight to the argument that the early church meetings were also strongly participative (by which I mean everyone being able to bring an encouragement, a prayer, an insight from the scriptures, a song etc.). And hence, that our church meetings should be similarly participative. What say you?
The big issue with drawing a parallel - as MSHB alludes to - is that synagogue worship didn't stand alone. Until 70CE the synagogue would have served as an adjunct to the temple rather than an end in and of itself.
More recent work than Schaff has found liturgical prayers that were probably had their origins during the Babylonian exile and were used during synagogue worship - other materials suggest that extempore prayer was the exception rather than the rule.
We also see people from outside the immediate circles of the disciples refer to Jesus as 'Rabbi' and as such what could more formal than asking the visiting Rabbi (not a random visitor) to bring a few words?
We also know of synagogues meeting in houses as well as the 'chavurot' home meetings which were formal prayer fellowships - which would often end in a meal together.
All this to say that I don't think we can point to any of this and read in particpatory informality in the way you suggest.
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It so happens that the New Testament has an account of a synagogue service in it.
The account of Jesus' visit to the Nazareth synagogue in
Luke 4 sounds fairly informal (within certain structured limits) -- there's a synagogue "attendant"; a visitor (albeit a local boy who at that point might have been thought to have done pretty well for himself as a rabbi in the wider world) is invited to read the Scripture; following the reading it seems like general discussion of the text and the reader's interpretation of it breaks out. Of course, there's no way to know how typical this would have been.
In the next scene Jesus is presumably again teaching in the Capernaum synagogue and is interrupted to perform an exorcism, but I don't suppose you can take the actions of the demon-possessed as a reliable guide to synagogue practice.
One hopes that the service didn't usually conclude with an attempt to murder the preacher.
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
Yes, I was going to mention that that was probably a diversion from the normal order of service.
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Net Spinster
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# 16058
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MSHB:
Many priests became Christians, and presumably continued their priestly services.
I assume this is from Acts 6:7; however, it seems a bit dubious. None of these priests are named nor do they seem to have done anything to defend the early followers. Also according to Acts the Temple leadership was persecuting the followers of Jesus but no mention is made of them going after the priests (the group they had the most control over) who had become followers. Note also that 'priests' refers to both all men entitled by descent to act as priests in the Temple (male line descendants of Aaron) and also to the subset that are active. Converts described as priests may never had been in the service of the Temple.
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
[qb] ... unless, of course, they were women and St Paul was about
Sorry, no time just now to check my references, but AIUI:
Paul did appoint women to responsible positions in his churches
and
Such passages as instruct women to keep silent in meetings etc are now largely understood to come from Pauline followers who hadn't been able to throw off their patriarchal conditioning.
/QB]
Participation of women in synagogues was a debating topic at the time.
Quoting myself (sermon about Mary and Martha this morning) quote:
Why does Luke write like this? There’s something going on behind the text. There was a debate within Judaism about women’s roles. Some rabbis said: "It is better to burn the Torah than to teach it to a woman," and "It is better to teach a daughter to be a prostitute than to teach her the Torah." Yet women's leadership in synagogue services was nothing extraordinary. It is well attested by inscriptions. Women held the offices of 'ruler of the synagogue,' elder and 'mother of the synagogue'“. Even ‘priestess’ is found in an inscription dated back to 27 BCE
source
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Participation of women in synagogues was a debating topic at the time
Yes indeed, and women's participation in other aspects of Judaism (e.g. as prophets) was a debating topic for several centuries before the Common Era.
I think we sometimes tend to underestimate how diverse Judaism was in the first century. The "classical" Rabbinic tradition of Judaism familiar today didn't really become the dominant norm until around the time the Babylonian Talmud was written.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Ricardus
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# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
The big issue with drawing a parallel - as MSHB alludes to - is that synagogue worship didn't stand alone. Until 70CE the synagogue would have served as an adjunct to the temple rather than an end in and of itself.
Indeed, and for the same reason it seems to me problematic to draw a parallel "church = synagogue", because there is then no real Christian equivalent of the Temple.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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Knopwood
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# 11596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
A friend in the Progressive synagogue tells me that their services are more participatory than in the Orthodox synagogue.
That surprises me rather. In North America at least (and I realize the movements don't exactly translate across the ocean), the Progressive (i.e. Reform and Reconstructionist) branches tended to incorporate more "churchly" structure, with pipe organs and congregational responses and cantors functioning like ministerial officiants. Meanwhile the Orthodox and (to an extent) Conservative/Masorti liturgy continued along lines to dissimilar to what's described in the Gospel passage, where a variety of prayers may be led by anyone (or any man) in good standing, with a gabbai (attendant) to keep the sequence going.
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LQ:
That surprises me rather. In North America at least (and I realize the movements don't exactly translate across the ocean), the Progressive (i.e. Reform and Reconstructionist) branches tended to incorporate more "churchly" structure, with pipe organs and congregational responses and cantors functioning like ministerial officiants.
Meanwhile the Orthodox and (to an extent) Conservative/Masorti liturgy continued along lines to dissimilar to what's described in the Gospel passage, where a variety of prayers may be led by anyone (or any man) in good standing, with a gabbai (attendant) to keep the sequence going.
I've taken the liberty of splitting your post into two paragraphs, to ask, what your basis is for saying that the latter is too dissimilar to what is being described in the New Testament to have anything to say to our understanding the New Testament context?
And what is your argument (if you are suggesting such) that a more "churchly" way of doing things with pipe organs, cantors etc is more consistent with our own foundations?
Everybody, from Catholic missiologists to the Plymouth Brethren, projects onto the New Testament church the ecclesiology they would like to see there and then pleads their own projection as incontrovertible authority for their current practice.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
I think this paints a fascinating picture:
quote:
1 Corinthians 14:26-40
26 What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. 28 If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.
29 Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30 And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31 For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32 The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. 33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.
34 Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35 If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
36 Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? 37 If anyone thinks they are a prophet or otherwise gifted by the Spirit, let them acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command. 38 But if anyone ignores this, they will themselves be ignored.
39 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. 40 But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.
A couple of comments:
1. "Each of you": This strongly suggests a wide participation - it seems they bring the contribution with them, or it comes to them, as it were, during the worship and 'each' contributes it, rather than following a set liturgy.
2. "If anyone": Implies spontenaity rather than pre-planning (though I'm sure it doesn't preclude pre-planning of course).
3. "...the first speaker should stop." Again, an expectation and encouragement of spontenaity and wide participation. I wonder if this instruction to 'sit down' is a way of preventing someone from monopolising the meeting.
4. "...as the Law says." I would be very interested to discover what exactly the Torah does say. Paul seems anxious merely to maintain the Jewish traditions of worship (he was a Pharisee after all). It's unfair to label him as a mysogenist merely for carrying on the tradition that all other Jews accepted.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Kevin, I would recommend Richard Ascough's What are they saying about the formation of the Pauline churches? for your 'further reading list'; the book IIRC delves significantly into 1st century synagogue practice, albeit in the setting of the Hellenistic diaspora.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by LQ:
That surprises me rather. In North America at least (and I realize the movements don't exactly translate across the ocean), the Progressive (i.e. Reform and Reconstructionist) branches tended to incorporate more "churchly" structure, with pipe organs and congregational responses and cantors functioning like ministerial officiants.
Meanwhile the Orthodox and (to an extent) Conservative/Masorti liturgy continued along lines to dissimilar to what's described in the Gospel passage, where a variety of prayers may be led by anyone (or any man) in good standing, with a gabbai (attendant) to keep the sequence going.
I've taken the liberty of splitting your post into two paragraphs, to ask, what your basis is for saying that the latter is too dissimilar to what is being described in the New Testament to have anything to say to our understanding the New Testament context?
Sorry, it was late. I mean to say, "not too dissimilar." Orthodox services more closely resemble the NT passage discussed, while Reform tend to have more formal leadership with a single quasi-clergy rabbi or cantor up front.
quote:
And what is your argument (if you are suggesting such) that a more "churchly" way of doing things with pipe organs, cantors etc is more consistent with our own foundations?
Nope, I attend a traditional synagogue myself so if anything the kind of service I'm more accustomed to is decidedly un-churchly - the opposite of my Christian experiences and preferences. Indeed, even contemporary Reform Judaism has scaled back from its ethical monotheist or Germanic unitarian days and is more recognisably Jewish now.
Note that it's not the participation of "cantors" (which just means singers - hard to imagine worship without) as such, but the number and the scope of their role, which is the operative distinction. In my shul, anyone who is competent to do so (i.e. not me, of course) might lead prayers, whereas "temples" I have visited were more likely to have a rabbi and/or cantor who acted as Protestant-minister-style officiant. My point was just that IME that distinction is inverse to what GG's friend describes.
It might be helpful to remember that the Jewish daily services contain certain portions which require a minyan (quorum) but are otherwise more or less like daily offices. So the "person up front" is more of a co-ordinator and can be anyone. Latecomers will often begin to make their way through their own quiet recitation of the prayers in order to catch up with the group. So there's a sort of individuality-in-common dimension to it.
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Honest Ron Bacardi
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# 38
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Posted
Mudfrog
That passage is about getting some order into whatever meetings they were having trouble with. It is Paul responding to a litany of problems he has been told about, though we can only infer what they might have been. All we can really say is that they all involved disorderliness. He doesn't want to close down contributions, but they seem to have been running amok and causing mayhem. His guidance is to limit the contributions to a certain number, get people to yield when someone from the floor feels they have a word to contribute, stop being unintelligible.
quote:
4. "...as the Law says." I would be very interested to discover what exactly the Torah does say. Paul seems anxious merely to maintain the Jewish traditions of worship (he was a Pharisee after all). It's unfair to label him as a mysogenist merely for carrying on the tradition that all other Jews accepted.
Well, I've seen more ink spilled over this passage than most others. Thanks to the KJV and subsequent English translations everyone seems to think Paul is forbidding women from speaking in church. I mean, that's what he says, right?
How could he be saying that when it flatly contradicts what he says elsewhere? Perhaps he forgot. Or perhaps we've entirely misread it, Paul being one of the systematic thinkers of the NT period.
Laleo, the verb used, just means talking in general. So what is this talking about? "If they need to know, explain it to them at home". They want to know what's going on. Why can't they just ask their other half quietly then? This is the point where we really like to know what current practice was. Many churches have segregated their congregations by sex. Quite a number still do. If they were doing that then the women wouldn't have been able to ask quietly. Were they shouting across to them? Speculating among themselves? We just don't know. All we do know is that it was disruptive - that's why it's in this section.
And we also need to ask why they didn't know in the first place. Here is Paul expecting them to be part of the proceedings, but they don't seem to understand what's needed. This is where an understanding of current synagogue practice might help. You sometimes see assertions that contemporary synagogue practice was that women would be separated from the men by a curtain, so would not fully understand the proceedings despite hearing the readings an discussion. Unfortunately, the rabbinical texts are not much help in the matter, nor is there any conclusive evidence either way. There's plenty of internet assertion going on, but works like the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Judaism simply say there is no conclusive evidence either way.
Perhaps some places ran separated synagogues and others didn't. Certainly those records cited by leo existed. What we don't know is how variable the practices were. I've read, for example, that even up to the 19th century there was no fixed arrangement about seating even in orthodox Jewish congregations. And as several shipmates have pointed out, first century Judaism was wa-a-ay more diverse than 21st century Judaism is. perhaps there were all sorts of different practices going on back then.
In any event, for whatever reason they didn't know what was going on and how as participants they could fit in. Paul is surely saying something like "...as for the women talking all the time - what's so special about Corinth? They wouldn't get away with this anywhere else. You really do need to tell them to toe the line on this. I know they need to know what's going on, but they can have that explained at home."
As for which bit of the law - which bit do you want? We could be here all day. About a quarter to a third of the pentateuch is about orderly worship, in glorious, nit-picking detail. Not, I think, that Paul is suggesting a return to the Levitical norms, but orderly worship was one of the two constituting factors of Judaism (the other being the covenant of course). To chat your way through worship is highly disrespectful and chaotic, the very opposite of what the law points to.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
yes, I understand all the arguments about women talking in church - I'm in The Salvation Army; we've had women preachers since 1861!
My question is about the phrase that I confess I never noticed before: '"as the Law says..."
What exactly does the Law say?
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Sorry, Mudfrog, I wasn't trying to teach my granny to suck eggs! I just thought it might be useful to make the point about synagogue practice as that's what the thread is primarily about.
But to your question "What exactly does the Law say?"
Well - Paul is not a Judaizer, so he won't be talking about the raft of Levitical type stuff that applies to Jewish holiness. And to the best of my memory I can't think that there is any universal law outside that that touches on this.
So far as Genesis is concerned, creation establishes bounds out of chaos. Creation was seen to be good. Sin breaks this, and lets chaos back into creation. The Corinthians are behaving chaotically, which is a particularly ironic problem in the worship of God. Laws lay out boundaries - even Roman law (cf. Romans 13) to stop this chaos. So surely he is saying they are without any law and need to be subject to one (i.e. they need order). Since Paul is presumably replying to an overseer or elder, then we are back to inferring what the question was, but as the answer is "insist they shut up", I guess it's not too difficult to infer the general nature of the complaint.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LQ:
Sorry, it was late. I mean to say, "not too dissimilar." Orthodox services more closely resemble the NT passage discussed, while Reform tend to have more formal leadership with a single quasi-clergy rabbi or cantor up front.
That makes sense to me. Sorry. I thought there might have been a misprint in your earlier post but guessed incorrectly as to what it was.
Curiously, some Jewish friends once said that Orthodoxy (in the Christian meaning of the word) was more like what they were used to. However, I don't know whether they were tapping into something about Orthodoxy that went back to the earliest times, or to a shared Eastern European cultural heritage.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
...the 1st century church would have modelled many of its practices on the synagogues of the time...
I think it would be much closer to the truth to say that 1st century "church" services were Jewish prayer meetings.
Yes. The first churches were synagogues.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I've visited a synagogue and can see what your Jewish friends meant. I mentioned to the elders there that it reminded me of Orthodoxy (in the Christian sense) and they readily agreed.
I think it's more than a shared Eastern heritage.
Ok, so the Jewish people tend not to go in for figurative art - although the Orthodox cite early examples of synagogue paintings and mosaics as antecedents for their own iconographic tradition - but the way that the Torah and the scrolls are venerated is somewhat reminiscent of Orthodox practice.
Equally, the services are chanted and there are set prayers.
Another similarity is that not everyone arrives on time ( ) and people are free to wander around or chat to their pals once they've finished their set prayers. There is an atmosphere of informal formality. Both the Orthodox Christians and the Jews are comfortable in church/synagogue and don't act any differently during services than they do outside ... they aren't given to what I call 'spiritual gurning' or the pulling of facial expressions that denote piety ... still less the kind of demonstrative or emotional responses that you find in charismatic worship.
That said, I wouldn't say that either Jewish nor Orthodox Christian worship was cold and unemotional. It operates beyond the purely cerebral in both instances.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Knopwood
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# 11596
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Posted
Yes, what Gamaliel says resonates with my experience of both synagogues and Byzantine churches. I'm sure common Levantine origins are a part of it.
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Gamaliel. Truly WOL. Spiritual gurning.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
A short while ago my wife and I were invited to a Barmitzvah and a wedding on a Sabbath and a Sunday respectively.
I had to wear the yarmulke that was preovided and we were all given a prayer book. Being a reform synagogue men and women sat together.
The femal rabbi took the readings and prayers at an olympic pace. one hardly had time to find the pages she called out in quick succession before everyone started singing, responding, speaking, etc.
It was breakneck!
After the service the chairs were cleared, the tables were set up ass if my magic and we sat down. But before the buffet was opened, more prayer books were distributed and a man led the prayers, sitting at his table where not everyone could see him. He did the same: page 5 der der der der. Page 8 der der der der. In fact, so quick was it all that at one point, from a table behind me, as soon as a paragraph had been chanted someone called out "Tiddly on pom pom!"
I kid you not !
Anyway, I wondered about all this and the seeming lack of reverence, thoughtfulness, meditiation. I could imagine the CofE rattling through the liturgy and finding it an impossible thought!
Then a Christian aquaintgance who is Messianic told me that to the Jew the most important thing is 'community'. It isn't what is being said that is impoortant; it's not the thinking carefully about the prayers and the readings that is regarded, it is the simply fact of reciting words together. THAT is what makes the Jewish worshipo experience so profound: the simply physical recitation of words that every one else is reciting and has recited for years. Content? irrelevant. Communal act - that;'s what makes it special.
I bet half of them neither believed not remembered half of what they recited that day. But they valued the communal experience.
I don't think Jesus would have been impressed: "They think they will be heard because of their many words."
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Then a Christian aquaintgance who is Messianic told me that to the Jew the most important thing is 'community'. It isn't what is being said that is impoortant; it's not the thinking carefully about the prayers and the readings that is regarded, it is the simply fact of reciting words together. THAT is what makes the Jewish worshipo experience so profound: the simply physical recitation of words that every one else is reciting and has recited for years. Content? irrelevant. Communal act - that;'s what makes it special.
I bet half of them neither believed not remembered half of what they recited that day.
If they have all been reciting these words for years, they must know them by heart now. They have been steeped in them.
This form of worship does not appeal to me at all, but I don't have to participate in it.
The effectiveness and value of people's worship is shown in their daily lives.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Well, you are not Jewish are you, Moo? Unless I'm very much mistaken.
I think Mudfrog is broadly in the right ball-park with the community aspect in Judaism but I'm not sure that applies right across the board - Judaism is pretty broad and has 'high', 'low' and 'MOTR' equivalents.
What can appear as lack of reverence to outsiders isn't necessarily lack of reverence to those taking part ... I suspect it varies from individual to individual.
I can see what Mudfrog is getting at and I'm not criticising him, but I'd be wary of making ad hominem remarks about anyone's approach to worship - although I do that myself at times ... mea culpa.
I mean, whilst I'm quite partial to Sally Army style worship and understand that there is a greater variety there than the familiar brass bands, some people might find that rather irreverent too.
I can't speak for Judaism, of course, but I was struck by an occasion recently after I'd organised a reading for a Buddhist poet in London. There were representatives there from Christian, Muslim and Judaism as well as people from non-faith backgrounds. The next day I bumped into one of the Jewish representatives. He said some insightful things about the poems, about Buddhism and about Christianity - then said that Buddhism would never 'do' for him because it lacked any sense of a personal deity and to him God was nothing if not personal and this he believed to be the great Jewish contribution to the world of faith.
I could not but agree.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
Pepys's response to his visit to the Bevis Marks synagogue in London (he went on Simchas Torah, FWIW) was very similar to Mudfrog's.
Both give a terrific insight into what it is to view someone else's religous observance entirely and absolutely from the outside. Probably this is why both Mudfrog's and Pepys's observations seem disrespectful to those who can imagine only too easily how their own religious observances might look to someone who has, on the one hand, a sense of devotional superiority ('Ick! I couldn't pray like that! Those people have no sense whatsoever of either decorum or holiness!') and on the other a lack of self-awareness ('Naturally I do not look like a prat! And my own worship is objectively better than this farrago of gibberish!') Likewise, speaking from my own Jewish background, I'd guess that my many Jewish relations and friends would take strong, unanimous, issue with Mudfrog's 'Messianic' pal. Both the content and the form of prayer do matter to Jews. While worship style differs from one branch of Judaism to another, it's taken very seriously in and out of the home. In and out of the synagogue too. It is generally true that Jews say their prayers more rapidly than Christians do. To Jewish ears, Christians praying sound as though someone is making an embarrassing show of pseudo-sincerity (which isn't going to fool God anyway). This isn't generally the case--it's just the way your prayers, Mudfrog, probably would sound to the Jews whose prayers you overheard.
To get back to the OP--I think this part of the thread was thoroughly relevant to the question of what the worship of the first century synagogue would have been like: to both Greeks and Romans, it would have appeared weird and undignified.
PS I am about | | far away from calling Mudfrog to Hell. But I'm also feeling lazy and have a lot of admin to get done.
[ 27. July 2013, 13:56: Message edited by: Amos ]
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
To get back to the OP--I think this part of the thread was thoroughly relevant to the question of what the worship of the first century synagogue would have been like: to both Greeks and Romans, it would have appeared weird and undignified.
Forgiven me for repeatedly banging this drum, but I think the point needs to be hammered home again and again.
Weird and undignified to both Greeks and Romans of the first several centuries, yes. And they both wouldn't have been able to distinguish so-called Christian worship from Jewish worship. This is partially true because much so-called Christian worship was happening in the Jewish synagogues.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
He did the same: page 5 der der der der. Page 8 der der der der.
I've noticed while attending Kabbalat Shabbat the tendency to monotone the page numbers to keep people on track (since I can't read the script, it serves mainly to tell me how far through we are). I always imagine how much less annoyed I'd be by similar interpolations in Christian liturgy if the priest chanted, "The Lord be with you ... our service begins on page 185, let us pray ... "
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I bet half of them neither believed not remembered half of what they recited that day.
Now now, I'm sure that's not so - that would be Reconstructionist! ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
Just to ask: while all this anthropological analysis of Jewish worship is terribly interesting, do we have good reason to believe that contemporary Jewish services are a good guide to 1st century practice? Just because we're conditioned to think of Judaism as the precursor of Christianity doesn't mean that the living Jewish community has been frozen in aspic for two millenia...
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
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