Sabbatical Year Known in Hebrew as Shemitah (release), the Sabbatical Year refers to every seventh year, when Israel was commanded to leave their fields fallow (Lev. 25:1–7) and to forgive debts (Deut. 15:1–11). After seven Sabbatical Years Israel was to celebrate the Year of Jubilee. See also Jubilee Year.
Sadducees Political-religious party and movement that arose during the Second Temple period. The precise origin of the Sadducees is unknown, but they likely arose from the leading priestly families of Jerusalem, who had supported the Hasmonean priest-kings after the Maccabean revolt. As part of the aristocratic upper class, the Sadducees were often viewed as out of touch with the common people. Their chief opponents were the Pharisees, who had broken away from the Hasmoneans because of the latter’s increasing hellenization. The Sadducees accepted as authoritative only the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, and rejected the oral traditions of the Pharisees. According to Josephus, they also rejected belief in predestination, the immortality of the soul, and the final resurrection. The Sadducees appear to have had special influence over the priestly aristocracy, the Jerusalem temple, and the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court. While Jesus clashed with the Pharisees especially during his Galilean ministry, when he came to Jerusalem he faced severe opposition from the priestly leadership and the Sadducees. The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 ended Sadducean influence, and in the years that followed, the group disappeared from history. See also Hasmoneans; Hellenism, Hellenistic; Josephus; Pharisees; Sanhedrin; Second Temple Judaism.
salvation history See Heilsgeschichte.
Samaria, Samaritans Samaria can refer to the ancient city that served as the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel in the ninth and eighth centuries BC. As a region, Samaria is the area west of the Jordan River between Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. While Samaritans viewed themselves as the true heirs of Israelite religion, from the perspective of first-century Jews, the Samaritans were a half-breed race, the descendants of colonists who intermarried with the people of the northern kingdom of Israel after the Assyrian conquest. They viewed Samaritan religion as heretical, combining pagan religious traditions and idolatry with Israelite worship (2 Kings 17:24–41). Conflict between the two started early, when attempts by the Samaritans to aid in the rebuilding of the temple were rebuffed by the Jews who had returned from Babylonian exile (Ezra 4). The Samaritans subsequently built their own rival temple on Mount Gerizim (John 4:20). They considered only the first five books of Moses, the Torah, to be authoritative and had their own version, the Samaritan Pentateuch. Hatred between Jews and Samaritans reached its zenith in the second century BC, when the Hasmonean king John Hyrcanus burned the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim and forced many Samaritans to convert to Judaism. This is the background to the animosity between Jews and Samaritans we see in the NT (John 4:9; Luke 9:52–55; 10:25–37; 17:16–18). See also Hasmoneans; Samaritan Pentateuch.
Samaritan Pentateuch The version of Scripture considered authoritative by the Samaritans. The Samaritan Pentateuch contains only the first five books of Moses, written in the Samaritan alphabet. Samaritans do not recognize as authoritative the other books of the Hebrew canon. Like the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, the Samaritan Pentateuch is a helpful resource in OT textual criticism, which seeks to determine the original text of Scripture. While most differences with the Hebrew text are small matters of spelling and grammar, others are more substantive, such as the command given to Moses to build the altar on Mount Gerizim rather than in Jerusalem (the Samaritan Pentateuch has an additional instruction to that effect at Exod. 20:17). See also Samaria, Samaritans; Septuagint; Vulgate.
Sanders, Ed Parish (1937–) NT scholar whose important research on Paul and first-century Judaism helped to launch the movement known as the “new perspective on Paul.” Among his most influential works are Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977), Paul, the Law and the Jewish People (1983), and Jesus and Judaism (1985). See also new perspective on Paul.
Sanhedrin The Jewish high council and highest judicial and legislative body in Judaism. It was this body that tried and condemned Jesus (Matt. 26:59 // Mark 14:55; Mark 15:1; John 11:47; cf. Acts 4:15; 5:21, 27; 22:30; etc.). While this is the traditional view, there is considerable scholarly debate today concerning the history, makeup, and function of this council in Jesus’s day. Was this assembly the supreme judicial and legislative court, the high priests’ political council, or simply an ad hoc assembly of Jewish leaders? The Greek term (synedrion) can be used of various local councils and assemblies (Mark 13:9), and it is only in the Mishnah (ca. AD 200) that we find details of the Great Sanhedrin as the supreme assembly made up of seventy members plus the high priest as president (cf. Num. 11:16). Yet the great majority of the passages in the Gospels and Acts seem to agree with the Mishnah, identifying the Sanhedrin (synedrion) as the supreme Jewish council in Jerusalem—made up of the leading priests, elders, and the teachers of the law. See also rabbinic literature.
satrap In the Persian period, the name of a regional leader of a province.
Schweitzer, Albert (1875–1965) French-German Lutheran scholar and man of many talents—physician, professional organist, philosopher, theologian, and biblical scholar. Schweitzer is most famous in biblical studies for his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906), which chronicled the late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century rationalistic search for the historical Jesus. His conclusion was that these so-called biographies of Jesus essentially created him in each author’s own image, turning Jesus into a modern philanthropist, espousing the nineteenth-century liberal values of the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the eternal value of the human soul. Schweitzer claimed, on the contrary, that Jesus must be understood from the perspective of first-century Judaism, as an apocalyptic prophet expecting the soon end of the world. See also quest for the historical Jesus.
scribe, scribal The Greek word commonly rendered “scribe” (grammateus) originally referred to one who worked with documents, either a secretary/copyist who transposed manuscripts or a government official/clerk (Acts 19:35). Yet in the NT the term is used almost exclusively of Jewish experts in the Mosaic law, who rendered rulings on legal issues. They are called variously “scribes” (grammateis), “teachers of the law” (nomodidaskaloi), and “lawyers” (nomikoi). They are often allied with the Pharisees, no doubt because of their similar interest in faithfulness to the Mosaic law, both its written and oral forms. While being a Pharisee meant affiliation with a political-religious party, being a scribe was a vocation. Many scribes were also Pharisees (see Mark 2:16; Acts 23:9), meaning they were trained as scribes but identified with the beliefs of the Pharisees. The scribal office was not gained through inheritance but through knowledge and giftedness. Potential students would come to a respected teacher and seek entrance into his “school.” After a period of examination, students would be accepted or denied. The apostle Paul was trained under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), one of the leading scribes of Jerusalem. The most famous leaders of scribal schools in the first century were Hillel and Shammai. See also Hillel; Pharisees; rabbinic Judaism; Shammai.
scroll Before the advent of the codex, biblical compositions were written on scrolls, rolls of parchment or some other writing material placed on two cylinders. See also codex.
Second Temple Judaism The first temple had been built by King Solomon around 960 BC and destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC. “The Second Temple period,” therefore, refers to the period from the rebuilding of the temple after the Babylonian exile (ca. 516 BC) to its destruction by the Romans in AD 70. Though King Herod the Great massively expanded and remodeled the temple, this temple is still referred to as the Second Temple. “Second Temple period” is therefore roughly synonymous with “intertestamental period,” which refers to the time from the completion of the last OT book (Malachi, ca. 433 BC) to the coming of Jesus and the writing of the NT. Scholars more commonly use “Second Temple period,” since it is an acceptable designation for both Christians and Jews.
Semitism Linguistic term meaning a lexical or syntactical feature in a language that indicates the influence of a Semitic language (usually Hebrew or Aramaic). For example, Mark’s Gospel has a tendency to start sentences with the Greek kai (“and”). This is often identified as a Semitism, since Hebrew verbal clauses tend to be parallel, connected with a waw (“and”). See also hypotaxis.
sensus plenior Latin term meaning “fuller sense” and referring to a deeper meaning of Scripture intended by God, which goes beyond the author’s intended meaning. The Roman Catholic scholar Raymond E. Brown popularized the term in his influential work The Sensus Plenior of Sacred Scripture (1955). The fuller sense usually becomes evident through the advent of later revelation. For example, the application of Hosea 11:1 to Jesus’s family in Matthew 2:15 would be impossible to discern from Hosea alone, apart from Matthew’s later interpretation. The concept of sensus plenior is controversial since it would appear to open up the biblical text to subjective interpretations unavailable through grammatical and historical analysis. See also Brown, Raymond E.
Septuagint The most widely used ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew OT. The name Septuagint means “seventy” (abbreviated LXX, the Roman numeral for 70) and refers to the legend about the translation recorded in the Letter of Aristeas. According to the letter, the translation was commissioned by the king of Egypt (likely Ptolemy II) at the prompting of Demetrios, chief librarian of the great library of Alexandria. Ptolemy made a request to the high priest in Jerusalem, who sent seventy-two Jewish scholars (six from each tribe) to Egypt. These seventy-two produced the text in precisely seventy-two days. How much, if any, of the legend is true is unknown, but it is likely that the Hebrew Torah or Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy) was translated into Greek in Alexandria in the third century BC and that the rest of the Hebrew Bible followed over the next two centuries. The Septuagint was the primary Bible of the early church, and most OT quotes in the NT follow its readings.
Sermon on the Mount Jesus’s famous sermon in Matthew 5–7, which serves as the inauguration of his public ministry in Matthew’s Gospel. The sermon contains some of the most memorable of Jesus’s teaching, including the Beatitudes (5:3–10), his fulfillment rather than abolition of the law (5:17–20), the antitheses (“You have heard that it was said . . . But I say to you . . .”; 5:21–48), commands to love enemies (5:44) and turn the other cheek (5:39), the Lord’s Prayer (6:9–13), commands not to judge (7:1–5), teaching on the narrow and wide gates (7:13–14), the parable of the wise and foolish builders (7:24–27), and so on. The sermon has a (shorter) parallel in Luke 6:17–49. It is debated among scholars whether Matthew is recording a single sermon or a sampling of Jesus’s teaching.
Servant Songs In the second part of Isaiah (chaps. 40–55), Israel as a nation is repeatedly referred to as Yahweh’s “servant” (41:8; 42:19; 44:1–2, 21). Yet in four passages (42:1–4; 49:1–6; 50:4–9; 52:13–53:12), designated “Servant Songs,” there are references to an individual servant. This servant is endowed with God’s Spirit (42:1), brings light to the Gentiles (42:6), and gives himself as an atoning sacrifice for his people (53:4–6, 8, 11–12). Christians have historically viewed Jesus as the fulfillment of the Servant (Matt. 8:17; 12:18–21; Luke 22:37; Acts 8:32–33; 13:47; 1 Pet. 2:22, 24). Interpretations by critical scholars range from the nation Israel (or its righteous remnant), to the prophet himself, to a messianic figure. The identification of the individual servant songs was first made by B. Duhm in his commentary on Isaiah, Das Buch Jesaia (1892).
settlement period After the conquest under Joshua, God directed the high priest to cast the sacred lots (see Urim and Thummim) in order to distribute the land to the various tribes of Israel (Josh. 13–24). At the time of the distribution of the land, much of the land remained under the control of the Canaanites.
Shammai Famous rabbi of the Second Temple period (ca. 50 BC–AD 30) who was strongly influential in the development of the Mishnah, the code of Jewish law. The school of Shammai (meaning the disciples who gathered around him and the body of teaching he promoted) was more conservative in its interpretation of Torah than its chief rival, the liberal school of Hillel. For example, while Hillel said a man could divorce his wife for almost any reason, the stricter Shammai limited the grounds for divorce to adultery (m. Gittin 9.10). According to the Talmud, Shammai was elected vice president of the Sanhedrin while Hillel was president. When Hillel died (ca. AD 10), Shammai gained the presidency, and his views came to dominate the Sanhedrin. After the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, however, rabbinic Judaism came to favor the teaching of Hillel. See also Hillel; rabbinic literature.
Shekinah From a Hebrew verb that means “to dwell,” a rabbinic term used to refer to the cloud representing God’s glory that filled the tabernacle during the time of Moses (Exod. 40:34–38).
Shema The most important affirmation of faith in Judaism, affirming belief in the one true God. Faithful Jews are taught to recite the confession twice a day, in the morning and evening. Shema is Hebrew for “hear,” which is the first word of the confession. It consists of three OT passages: Deuteronomy 6:4–9; 11:13–21; and Numbers 15:37–41. The confession begins, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:4–5 NIV). In times of suffering and persecution, these were often the last words on a martyr’s lips.
Shemoneh Esreh (Eighteen Benedictions) One of the most important prayers in Judaism, the Shemoneh Esreh is the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy. Also known simply as Ha-Tefillah (“the prayer”) and Amidah (“standing”—the posture for prayer), it is to be recited three times a day by all faithful Jews. Most scholars consider the prayer to have originated before the time of Christ, making its themes important for NT as well as Jewish studies. See also Birkat Haminim.
Sheol This Hebrew term is sometimes left untranslated, but when it is translated it is often rendered “grave” or, rarely, “underworld.” As grave or underworld, it is the destiny of all people, godly and ungodly. A more developed understanding of the afterlife, with different fates for the righteous (heaven) and the wicked (hell) awaited the NT. See also gehenna; hades.
sherd A broken piece of pottery. Sherds litter archaeological sites both on the surface and in the dirt. Sherds, though partial pottery, do reveal the process of manufacture and perhaps style. Since pottery types change over time (see stratigraphy), the study of sherds will often help establish a chronology for a site.
Siloam tunnel inscription In 2 Kings 20:20 (2 Chron. 32:3–4, 30; Isa. 22:11; Sir. 48:17), we learn that in response to a threat from the Assyrian king Sennacherib, King Hezekiah of Judah (727–698 BC) built a water conduit from the Gihon Spring outside the walled city of Jerusalem into the pool of Siloam, a distance of approximately 1,750 feet (533 meters). In 1880 an inscription was discovered in the wall of the tunnel that celebrated its completion (dated to ca. 700 BC). The tunnel was built by two teams of workers, starting from opposite sides and meeting in the middle, where the inscription was found. The inscription thus provides striking confirmation of the biblical account of the building of the tunnel at the time of Hezekiah.
simile A figure of speech that, like metaphor, compares two things that are essentially unlike except in certain key traits. Unlike metaphor, simile uses the adverb “as” or the preposition “like” to make the comparison. Authors use simile in order to throw light on something that is unknown by comparing it to something better known by the reader. In Song of Songs, the woman asks the man: “Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm” (8:6 NLT). Here she compares herself to a cylinder seal that marks an object as one’s possession; thus she asks her beloved to mark himself as possessed by her and her alone. Such striking comparisons catch readers’ attention, as they must think carefully as to how the two objects of comparison are like (and unlike) each other. See also metaphor.
Sinai, Mount Also known as Mount Horeb, the mountain on which God made his presence known to Moses and the Israelites and the place where he gave them the law (Exod. 19–24). The location of this mountain is disputed, but it is traditionally associated with Jebel Musa, a mountain approximately seven thousand five hundred feet tall near the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula.
Sirach A Jewish book of wisdom also known as Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira. It was originally written in Hebrew in Jerusalem about 180 BC by the Jewish scribe Shimon ben Yeshua, who was inspired by his father, Yeshua ben Eliezer ben Sirach. The work was translated into Greek with a prologue by the author’s grandson in Egypt around 130 BC. Sirach was widely respected as a book of Jewish wisdom. Though not considered part of the Hebrew canon, it was read and studied by Jews and Christians alike. Some copies of the Septuagint include it. It is part of the Roman Catholic Apocrypha and accepted as canonical by the Eastern Orthodox church. See also Apocrypha, the; Septuagint.
Sitz im Leben A German phrase meaning “setting in life” and referring to the life situation in which a biblical passage or book was composed. The term was first introduced with reference to form criticism, where it referred to the context in which particular oral forms arose and developed. Hermann Gunkel used it with reference to the various literary forms of the Hebrew Bible, such as psalms, prophetic oracles, and liturgical formulas. New Testament form critics like Martin Dibelius and Rudolf Bultmann applied the term to the life setting of gospel forms, such as miracles, parables, and pronouncement stories. See also Bultmann, Rudolf Karl; form criticism (Formgeschichte); Gunkel, Hermann.
social-scientific interpretation Recent approaches that seek to interpret the biblical text based on its anthropological, social, and cultural context. Particularly significant has been research into the social values of the ancient Near East related to such things as purity/defilement, group versus individual mentality, social status, shame and honor, and patron-client relationships. One general tendency among social-scientific exegetes is to emphasize how much social and cultural factors, rather than merely theological ones, lie behind biblical imperatives.
source criticism Historical-critical method that seeks to discern the sources behind the biblical books. In the OT, the greatest focus of source criticism has been on the Pentateuch (the first five books of the OT). The Documentary Hypothesis proposes four sources behind the Pentateuch: the Yahwist source (J), the Elohist source (E), the Deuteronomic source (D), and the Priestly source (P). In the NT, source criticism has focused especially on the Synoptic problem, the question of the sources behind and relationships between the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. See also Documentary Hypothesis; historical criticism; Synoptic problem.
southern kingdom See Judah.
speech-act theory A theory of communication developed by John L. Austin and John R. Searle that views language as performative, not just saying things but doing them. Speech acts have a variety of functions, such as requesting, commanding, inviting, warning, promising, greeting, and congratulating. Speech-act theorists distinguish between locutions (what is said), illocutions (what is performed), and perlocutionary intents (what is the expected response). For example, the question (locution) “Is there any salt?” is actually a request (illocution), expecting an action (perlocution). Speech-act theory is important for biblical studies since any act of communication implies intentionality on the part of the speaker or author. If the biblical text contains speech acts, then there is a definable meaning in the text.
stanza, strophe Hebrew poets composed poems by creating parallel lines (see parallelism). In a poem, two or more parallel lines, united by subject matter or separated by a refrain, can compose a stanza. Psalm 98 can be divided into three stanzas: verses 1–3 call on Israel to praise God, who rescued them in the past; verses 4–6 call on all the inhabitants of the earth to praise God, who is king in their present; verses 7–9 call on the entire world, animate and inanimate (by way of personification), to praise God, who is the judge coming in the future. See also refrain; personification.
stele, stela A block of stone bearing writing and/or pictorial representations. See also Merenptah/Merneptah stele.
Stoic, Stoicism Philosophical school of thought founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the third century BC. Stoicism viewed reality as essentially pantheistic; all that exists is one, and all is divine. The highest good is to live a virtuous life, which comes through knowledge. The goal of the Stoic is to seek harmony with nature and with divine Reason and to suppress all excess of desire. The Stoic seeks to rise above the fleeting fortunes of wealth and power and of pleasure and pain. Some scholars have seen parallels between Stoicism and Pauline theology as well as conceptual links between Stoic divine Reason and Johannine Logos Christology. Paul encounters Stoic philosophers in Athens in Acts 17:18.
Strack-Billerbeck Abbreviated title given to the multivolume commentary Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch by Hermann Leberecht Strack (1848–1922) and Paul Billerbeck (1853–1932). The work draws connections between the NT and rabbinic literature. It is sometimes abbreviated Str-B. The work has never been translated into English, though in 2015 Logos Bible Software announced that they would produce an English translation if enough preorders were received.
stratigraphy A term pertaining to archaeology. Long-term habitation of a location will often result in the formation of a tel (or “tell”; Arabic for ruin), a raised mound, since ancient inhabitants in the ancient Near East, including Israel, tended to build on top of the ruins of previous inhabitants. Thus, an archaeologist digging into a tel from the surface cuts through different occupation layers (called strata [sg.: stratum]), going from the most recent to the most ancient times. These strata will contain pottery sherds and other material remains that will allow the archaeologist to date the various time periods of the location. Such determination of time period is called stratigraphy. See also archaeology; sherd; tel/tell.
Strauss, David Friedrich (1808–74) German theologian and biblical scholar, whose work Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet (1835; English translation: The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined [1835]) shocked the scholarly world of his day with its radical view of the Jesus tradition. Strauss claimed that the miracle stories of the Gospels were neither supernatural events nor natural events misperceived by naïve observers—the two common views of his day. Rather, the stories were myths and legends created by the early church to confirm their developing view of Jesus’s deity. Strauss’s perspective paved the way for Rudolf Bultmann and the form critics of the next century, who saw the church as a creative community freely inventing events about Jesus. Together with the later work of Albert Schweitzer and others, Strauss’s book contributed to the demise of the nineteenth-century “life of Jesus” movement. See also Bultmann, Rudolf Karl; form criticism (Formgeschichte); Schweitzer, Albert.
Streeter, Burnett Hillman (1874–1937) British NT scholar and textual critic, whose influential work The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (1924) ably defended the two- and four-source theories of Gospel origins. The four sources are Mark, Q (the material common to Matthew and Luke), L (Luke’s special material), and M (Matthew’s special material). Streeter also proposed a Proto-Luke behind the Gospel of Luke. The book was also groundbreaking in proposing the idea of “local texts” in the textual transmission of the NT. Streeter argued for four families of manuscripts: Byzantine, Alexandrian, Western, and Caesarean. See also Alexandrian text type; Byzantine text type; source criticism; textual criticism.
strophe See stanza, strophe.
structuralism A philosophical approach developed in the early 1900s based on the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure and the anthropological studies of Claude Lévi-Strauss. It has since been applied to many fields, including sociology, political science, and literary theory. Structuralists claim that human culture must be understood with reference to overarching patterns or structures. As a literary theory, structuralism asserts that literature functions in conventional patterns. Just as there are rules of grammar in language, so there is a “grammar” of literature that determines how narratives operate. All stories have “deep structure,” set patterns that operate below the surface structure of diverse plots, settings, and characters. Certain types of plot movements, character types, and kinds of action are common to all stories. By identifying and categorizing these structures, we can objectively analyze stories. Structuralism was applied to biblical studies especially by Daniel Patte in the 1970s and ’80s.
Sumer An advanced civilization located in southern Mesopotamia starting at least in the fourth millennium BC. The Sumerians invented writing for the first time in human history sometime in the thirty-first century BC. Sumerian was a cuneiform language where each sign represented a morpheme (carrier of meaning). Economic tablets, myths, legends, royal inscriptions, hymns, laments, and many other types of literature were written in Sumerian during the Sumerians’ dominance in southern Mesopotamia, which lasted through most of the third millennium. Other languages (Akkadian, Hittite, Ugaritic) all adapted a cuneiform writing system to their language. During the third millennium, Sumerian city-states, the most famous of which for biblical studies is Ur, were organized into a league of sorts where one of the citys’ kings was the dominant figure. The Sumerians were devastated by attacks from the Iranian plateau toward the end of the third millennium, and eventually the Semitic Babylonians rose in their place as the dominant power in southern Mesopotamia. See also Akkadian; Babylon; cuneiform; Hittites; Mesopotamia; morpheme; Ugaritic.
Sumerian See Sumer.
superscription As used in biblical studies, a superscription is text written above a composition. Superscriptions occur at the beginning of most, but not all, of the psalms. They may ascribe authorship, historical setting, genre, musical arrangement, and liturgical settings.
suzerainty treaty See covenant.
Symmachus A translator of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. His translation, produced in the late second century AD, was included in Origen’s Hexapla (six translations side by side). Only fragments survive today. While the Greek translation of Aquila of Sinope was very literal, Symmachus’s was more idiomatic Greek. Jerome used it while translating the Vulgate. Little is known about Symmachus as a person. The church historian Eusebius identified him as an Ebionite (a type of Jewish Christian). Epiphanius claims he was a Samaritan who had converted to Judaism. Still others identify him with a certain rabbi named Symmachus ben Joseph. All of these are speculative. See also Aquila of Sinope; Eusebius of Caesarea; Hexapla; Jerome; Septuagint; Theodotion; Vulgate.
synagogue A Jewish assembly hall used for worship, teaching of the law, the education of children, judicial rulings and punishments, and community gatherings. Wherever ten Jewish males could gather, a synagogue could be established. The term was used both for the building and for the community that gathered there. The synagogue likely arose as an institution during the Babylonian exile, after the temple was destroyed in 587 BC and Jews were scattered. Most large cities would have multiple synagogues. We know of at least eleven in Rome. The earliest record of synagogue sermons comes from the NT: Jesus’s synagogue sermon in Luke 4 and Paul’s message to the synagogue in Antioch Pisidia in Acts 13. From these and other, later sources, the basic components of a synagogue service can be determined: the recitation of the Shema, various liturgical prayers, readings from the Law and the Prophets, a homily, and a benediction. Psalms may have been chanted or read liturgically, and in Palestine and Syria, an Aramaic Targum would be read after the reading in Hebrew. In the diaspora synagogues, the Law and the Prophets would likely be read in Greek, from the Septuagint or another Greek translation. Synagogues were usually segregated, with men and women worshiping separately. See also Shema; Shemoneh Esreh (Eighteen Benedictions).
synchronic See diachronic, synchronic.
syncretism The mixing or merging of two different things. Religious syncretism is the amalgamation of one religious tradition with another. Inscriptions have shown, for example, that the Judaism of Asia Minor was at times syncretistic, drawing elements from popular superstition and magic.
synecdoche A literary device where a part of something stands for the whole or the whole for a part. In the sentence, “He’s got fast wheels,” “wheels” stands for a car. Psalm 44:6 reads, “For I do not trust in my bow, and my sword does not bring me victory.” Both “bow” and “sword” are synecdoches, referring to all one’s weapons. In Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,” “flesh and blood” stands for human beings. Synecdoche is a subcategory of metonymy, in which one thing is named for something related to it. In the saying “the pen is mightier than the sword,” “the pen” refers to persuasive writing and “the sword” to military action or brute force. See also metonymy.
synonymous parallelism See parallelism.
Synoptic Gospels Designation given to the first three of the NT Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—because of their many common stories and sayings of Jesus and verbal parallels. The term “synoptic” means “viewed together.” The question of their literary relationship is known as the Synoptic problem. See also Synoptic problem.
Synoptic problem The question of the relationship between the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Scholars use the historical-critical method known as source criticism to identify the sources behind the Synoptics and their relationship to one another. The most widely accepted view is Markan priority, that Matthew and Luke both use Mark as a source. A majority of scholars also hold to the two-source theory, which supplements Markan priority with another source, “Q,” or the “Synoptics Sayings Source.” Q stands for Quelle, the German word for “source,” and includes material common to Matthew and Luke. B. H. Streeter subsequently expanded the two-source theory to propose the four-source theory, which adds two sources, “M” (Matthew’s unique material) and “L” (Luke’s unique material) in order to account for the rest of the Synoptic tradition. Other, less widely held solutions to the Synoptic problem include (1) the Farrer hypothesis (also known as Farrer-Goulder-Goodacre hypothesis), which holds to Markan priority but eliminates Q, suggesting that Luke used Matthew for the material they share in common; (2) the Griesbach hypothesis (or two-Gospel hypothesis), which holds to Matthean priority, Luke’s use of Matthew, and Mark as an abbreviation of both. See also historical criticism; source criticism; Synoptic Gospels.
Syriac The ancient language of Syria, a western dialect of Aramaic. Classical Syriac arose as a distinct language in the first century AD. Together with Latin and Greek, it was one of the most important languages for early Christianity. We have many early manuscripts of the NT in Syriac, and many works from the early church are written in Syriac. See also Aram, Aramaic; Peshitta.