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ANDERS RUNESSON, The Origins of the Synagogue: A Socio-Historical Study (ConBNT 37; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2001). Pp. 573. Paper N.P.
For the last thirty years, the synagogues of Palestine in the Roman and Byzantine periods have been the focus of intense archaeological activity. But, as is usually the case with biblical sites, the excavation of synagogues has raised more questions than it has answered. Rather than helping to clarify the origins and early history of the synagogue, excavations have led to controversies of their own. For example, though first-century A.D. literary sources mention synagogues, the identification of several first-century buildings as synagogues is disputed. In fact, the first ancient structures that are undeniably centers of Jewish worship in Palestine date from the third century A.D. It is not surprising, then, that students of early Judaism continue to develop hypotheses regarding the origins of the synagogue.
This is the fourth major work on the synagogues of Roman and Byzantine Palestine to be published in the last five years. The others are Steven Fine, This Holy Place: On the Sanctity of the Synagogue During the Greco-Roman Period (Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 11; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997); Donald D. Binder, Into the Temple Courts: The Place...