The clear historical dividing line demarcating “ancient Israelite religion” from early Jewish worship is easy to identify: the period of Babylonian exile from 587–538 bce. The national culture located in a particular geographical region with a common language, a national god, and a religion centralized in Jerusalem was radically disrupted. With the destruction of the Temple as a central site of communication between God and Israel, the displacement and traumatization of its literate elite and other members of the central palace-temple establishment required a radical rethinking of religious beliefs and practices. The six centuries between the Babylonian Exile and the destruction of the Second Temple conventionally mark the period in which the ritual and worship practices associated with Judaism emerged and evolved.
During the Second Temple period, from the Persian era through the Roman period, the diaspora population was dispersed throughout the Mediterranean region and beyond. Not only were there developments in regard to the big religion, but also in popular religious practices. The two features of life and practice that mark a distinct difference from ancient Israelite religion arise from the loss of the Temple’s sacrificial system and the rise of scripture in the post-exilic era. The first is the emergence of the synagogue as a place of communal gathering in which the Torah of Moses was studied. Alongside this development was the regularized offering of prayer both by individuals and communities. The second, equally important cultural shift occurred with the textualization of Jewish religion, as we see the emergence of scriptures and their ongoing interpretation as a primary means through which individuals and communities came to shape their identities. Scripture in the post-exilic period is marked by an inclusion of prayers and references to prayer practice sometimes led by ritual experts. The entwinement of worship with authoritative texts resulted in its ritualization and marks the means by which texts accrue status as sacred scripture in the sense of being ultimately divinely derived. In this essay, we can trace only some trends in scholarship about the most prominent features of Jewish ritual and worship that developed.
Early Jewish ritual and worship cannot be discussed without some consideration of the body and embodied experiences that lie at the experiential and conceptual heart of liturgy and ritual. The concept of the “mindful body” (Scheper-Hughes and Lock 1987) can help to situate our discussion. Modern anthropology identifies three senses of the body: there is the “phenomenological lived experience of the “body-self.” This is the body as a biological phenomenon that senses and interacts with its physical environment. The “social body” is a second sense in which the body is understood through its interaction with other bodies. Such a “body” is socially constructed and thus, unlike the biological body that is a given universal, differs from culture to culture. The third is the body politic, which they describe as “an artifact of social and political control.” This is the way in which the body comes under the control of political or institutional entities. Foucault’s focus on the institution of the prison and its disciplinary system serves as their prime example of the body politic at work in controlling individual bodies. The identification of three “bodies,” the biological, the social, and the political-analytical, allows for a more multi-disciplinary way of analyzing the embodied character of ritual and worship in early Judaism. While Second Temple Judaism witnesses a rich diversity both in Palestine and throughout the Diaspora, there were several ritual practices and observances that can be said to be universally held: the practice of ritual circumcision, the observance of Sabbath, and purity and dietary law (Sanders 1992). To qualify Sanders’s claims, this does not mean all Jews were observant or equally so, but these were recognized and debated ritual practices. The differences among them in the degree and kind of observance surely mattered as much if not more than the common practice. Arguing over shared common “goods” is such a matter of group differentiation even within a larger group. Terminology can sometimes be clues to such differentiation. Someone attending a “temple” on Saturday in 21st century America rather than a shul would be reflecting both a commonly shared practice but a subgroup distinction, just as Christians who attend services conducted by a priest rather than a minister or a pastor belie deeper social, not to mention, theological differences in perspective.
No sign of covenant relationship between the people Israel and their God was as clear as the ritual mark of male circumcision. The priestly account of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 17) portrays circumcision as a visible sign of the eternal covenant relationship, a ritual to be performed on the eighth day after birth (Gen 17:12, 21:4; Lev 12:3). Inclusion in the social body of the people of Israel was thus determined by a sign on the male body alone. While circumcision was likely practiced before the exile, the ritual practice took on heightened significance as an identity marker during the Babylonian exile and onwards. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the account of the Hasmonean uprising against the Seleucid Greeks in 1 Maccabees. According to that narrative, the main reason for the revolt of Mattathias and his sons was the banning of their ancestral customs by Antiochus IV Epiphanes including outlawing of circumcision (1 Macc 1:48, 60–63). Although scholars differ in assessing the historicity of this account, the authorial and cultural perspective on the importance of circumcision is clear. Both 1 and 2 Maccabees blame Jason, the son of Onias, for embracing Hellenism by building a gymnasium. The gymnasium, a signature cultural institution of the Hellenistic polis in which bodies and minds received training, required nudity during athletic contests. The visibility of circumcision or its absence was readily apparent and might signal a rupture not only in the social body but also the body politic. Whether one understands Judaism already as a discrete religion at this time separable from ethnic identity (Cohen 1999) or, as Steve Mason has vigorously argued (Mason 2007), Judeans must be seen as comprising an ethnic category with concomitant ways of life and laws, the issue of right and appropriate practices stands apart.
During the Hellenistic era, proselytes (referred to as gerim “sojourners” in the literature) also were to be circumcised. One case in point is the character Achior the Ammonite in the book of Judith who at the end of the narrative confesses belief in Israel’s God, is circumcised, and joins the house of Israel (Jdt 14:10). While Judith does not directly reflect historical events, Josephus also attests to this practice at a later date. Indebted to the account of 1 Maccabees, Josephus recounts the forcible circumcision not only of fellow Jews but also of the Idumeans and Itureans (Josephus, Ant. 12.278; 13.257–58, 318–319; cf. 1 Macc 2:46).
The book of Jubilees stands at the other end of the spectrum in regard to the desirability of making proselytes. According to Jubilees, circumcision was something built into creation and a practice reserved only for those descended from the patriarchs through Jacob, that is, a genealogical stipulation for native-born Jews. Their circumcised status places them on a par with angels in regard to sanctity, that is, as creatures who are created circumcised (Jub 15:27). Thus circumcision in Jubilees is regarded as a transformative practice that changes the very nature of the body as well as a sign of the eternal covenant. Failure to become circumcised does not simply cut one off from the people (Exod 17:14) but places the uncircumcised in the company of the “sons of destruction” and the “sons of Beliar,” that is, effectively a demonic status.
Alongside the physical mark of circumcision, a metaphorical usage developed so that the human heart or the lips might be “circumcised.” The exilic framing of Deuteronomy foresees a time when God will circumcise the hearts of the Israelites and their descendants that will enable their total obedience to the divine covenant (Deut 30:6). Philo argues for the importance of physical circumcision at the same time highlighting its allegorical significance as a means of purging the heart and soul from excessive desire, whether that be in the form of gluttony, lust, or other sinful dispositions (Spec. Leg. 1:1–11; QG 3:46–52, 61–62). The Qumran Yahad incorporated the metaphorical idea of circumcision as well. Those joining the community must have their wicked inclination (yetser) circumcised (1QS 5:5). Such metaphors also appear in the abundant liturgical material from Qumran. The poetic prayer in Barkhi Nafshi (4Q434 1 i 4) acknowledges that God has circumcised the heart of the pray-er (Seely 1996). The daily prayers include a petition to God to circumcise the hearts of those praying (4Q504 Divrei Hame’orot frg 4 11).
Like circumcision, observing the Sabbath was a practice that both united the people of Israel but also divided them according to the stringency with which the day was observed. Sabbath observance did not require being present in the ancestral land but could be observed anywhere in the diaspora. Even more than circumcision, the Sabbath was timebound, not a one-time affair marking entry into the covenant people, but a recurrent observance that ensured a continuing remembrance of the divine creator. The seventh day of the week is depicted in the Priestly account as originating in the created order itself (Gen 1:1–2:4), a day in which the divine cessation from work after the labor of speaking the world order into being is complete. In the Priestly source, the Sabbath is portrayed as a mobile “sign” of the covenant with Israel (Exod 31:13–17; Ezek 20:12). Sabbath observance through abstaining from work is also included in both versions of the Decalogue (Exod 20:8–11; Deut 5:12–15). Be that as it may, the Sabbath does not figure in the Deuteronomistic History or other clearly pre-exilic narratives. It does not seem to have been observed to any great extent in the pre-exilic period.
During the Hellenistic-Roman period, Sabbath observance, like the practice of circumcision, came to be widespread and a distinguishing marker of Jewish ethnicity, both in Palestine and throughout the diaspora. The practice of ceasing from work for an entire day was regarded by some non-Jews as a sign of Jewish indolence and thus a source of condemnation (Tacitus, Histories 5.4.3; Juvenal Satires 14.96–106; Goldenberg 1979). However it may have been understood by non-Jews, the Sabbath was not simply a time of desisting from something, but a time set aside for positive commandments, most centrally the reading and study of the law of Moses (Doering 1999). Heather McKay has argued that no special communal worship occurred on the Sabbath in custom-built synagogues among common people (McKay 1994) but this has not been met with wholehearted scholarly assent (van der Horst 1999). McKay’s argument hinges on strictly defined criteria, that “worship” (dancing, playing music, singing hymns or psalms, reading or reciting sacred texts, prayers, and blessings) was done specifically because it was the Sabbath. Stefan Reif offers a less restrictive understanding of worship and the liturgical that includes the “ . . . whole gamut of worship in and around the study of sacred texts, the acts of eating and fasting, and of course, benedictions, prayers and amulets.” In his judgment, “Liturgy was expressed in many ways within Jewish society as a whole” (Reif 2004). Thus the reading and discussion of such texts, can also be considered worship. Moreover, the discovery of the “Words of the Heavenly Lights,” a set of daily prayers found at Qumran (4Q504–506), which have no distinctively sectarian markers that would link them to the Yahad alone, reveals a distinct difference between the prayers for the days of the week, and the prayer for the Sabbath. Whereas the prayers for Sunday through Friday recount the history of Israel’s relations with God throughout history and include both corporate confession of sins and petitions, the prayer for the Sabbath is of a different character. Sabbath prayer includes only praise of God, thanksgiving, and blessing of his name along with the angels (Chazon 1993). The Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q 400–407; 11Q17, Mas 1k), which are prescribed for the first thirteen sabbaths of the year, provide an even more overt and elaborate window into angelic worship. At least among some quarters, the Sabbath was considered a proleptic experience of the heavenly sphere (Frennesson 1999).
No Second Temple work has a higher and more stringent view of Sabbath observance than the book of Jubilees. Not only does it make the Sabbath the most fundamental unit of calendrical time by affirming the 364 day calendar, but it also envisions strict Sabbath laws (Jub 2:17–32; 50: 6–13). Restrictions go beyond those mentioned in scripture to include a prohibition on sexual intercourse as well as fasting. The Sabbath is to be a day of feasting and rejoicing, but it is restricted to Israel alone. The Qumran Yahad, which seems to have viewed Jubilees as authoritative scripture, developed its own set of Sabbath laws that were even more strict (Doering 1999; Falk 1998).
Philo enshrines quite a different perspective (Leonhardt 2001). He views the Sabbath as a universal principle as part of the natural law, and Gentiles are welcome to observe it. He acknowledges that not all Jews observe the Sabbath, but he stresses its importance. Philo discusses both prohibited actions that are derived from scripture, such as kindling fire, cultivating the soil, carrying burdens, conducting business activities or exchanging money (Spec. Laws 2.65–68; Moses 2:21–22, 211, 219–220, 251; Creation 128) and the positive activities that were enjoined, such as assembling to study and reflect, to relax and to be joyful.
In addition to the widespread practice of ritual circumcision and Sabbath observance throughout the Mediterranean region, there is also evidence of what can be called “popular” religion that was not necessarily sanctioned by central elites. This might also be conceived as localized practices of a broader or great tradition. In contrast to the Jerusalem Temple or the scribal activity of copying and maintaining sacred texts, such popular forms of religion generally required no ritual specialist, as did circumcision or sacrifice, or any commitment to literacy, as did the study and discussion of the Torah of Moses as part of Sabbath worship.
The practice of “magic” was one such form of popular religion. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, “magic” had a bad name in scholarship. J.G. Frazer (1922) made a, strong distinction between “magic” and “religion” with the former reflecting a more primitive and superstitious form of belief. More recent scholarship has recognized the continuity between such popular, individual forms of religious practice and more communal and institutionally sanctioned forms (Angel 2009; Schafer 1997). In a similar way, earlier scholarship distinguished between “Jewish” or “Christian” and pagan or other kinds of magical practices. Among Jews, magic sometimes took on shared forms with others throughout the Mediterranean region but also might have some distinctive elements. Marcel Simon understood Jewish magic to have three aspects: a heightened appreciation for Hebrew words that were not necessarily understood but were regarded as having a special power; the power of the divine name of Israel’s God (although this was recognized by pagans as well); and a high regard for angels and demons, which was sometimes coupled with a clear angelolatry (Simon 1986 [1948 orig]). Be that as it may, it can be difficult to discern the provenance of any given text, and who used it, whether Jews, pagans, or later, Christians (van der Horst 2006).
One text that illustrates the continuity between prayer and magic is the first century Prayer of Jacob, which was found in a collection of Greek magical prayers (van der Horst and Newman 2008). The collection of magical recipes probably belonged to an itinerant “magos” or magician, that is, a ritual practitioner who was not recognized as part of any official institutional cult. The prayer invokes the “God of the patriarchs” who is “enthroned on Mt. Sinai,” and the prayer requests both wisdom and transformation into an immortal angel. It includes instructions to repeat the prayer seven times while facing north and east. The person offering the prayer was to be “from the nation of Israel” and so the prayer was probably used for Jewish clients. Like many of the other Greek prayers in the collection that betray no other Jewish elements, the Prayer of Jacob contains “voces mysticae,” that is, arcane and mysterious words, in this case, unintelligible syllables that include play on the Tetragrammaton or other divine names. Scholars have differed on their view of the role of these words, whether for example they serve to provide “credentials” for the expertise of the magos (Graf 1991) or as a means of speaking to the gods in the gods’ own language, as a kind of “alphabetic nonsense—rhythmic, incantatory, persuasive” (Cox Miller 1986, 495).
The hoped-for potency through the ritual use of the divine name also appears in many later amulets, lamellae, and curse tablets. The bi-syllabic transcription of YHWH commonly appears as “Iao” in Greek texts. While no amulets were found at Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide plenty of evidence that the Yahad movement had a heightened reverence for the divine name and its power, reflected in scribal practices relating to its avoidance in manuscripts and to severe penalties for misuse in uttering the divine name within the community.
Another genre of magical ritual is apotropaic prayer texts. These prayers or hymns request divine protection from evil spirits. Though such prayers are known from ancient Israel (e.g., Psalm 91), they became more frequent in the Second Temple period. Many were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Early work on these prayers sought to differentiate between a common or “mainstream” Judaism and the Qumran community (Nitzan 1994). The predominate view now distinguishes not only between works of sectarian origin, those of the Yahad, but also non-sectarian prayers reflecting the beliefs and practices of a broader swath of early Judaism (Eshel 2003). Sectarian apotropaic prayers are 4Q510–511, 4Q444, 6Q18, and 11Q11. Some of these prayers were to be pronounced by the Maskil, a ritual specialist who was a central community leader, to “frighten and terrify” the demons. Non-sectarian texts include prayers imbedded in the Aramaic Levi Document (4Q213a), two psalms in the well-known 11QPsa Scroll, and two in the book of Jubilees (Jub 6:1–7, 12: 19–20).
A common perspective on embodiment underlies apotropaic prayer, that demons or evil spirits can invade the physical body. Miryam Brand has argued for two main understandings about the origin of sin in Second Temple Judaism, one that locates sin’s origin within the human inclination itself and another that locates sin in terms of demonic influence (Brand 2013). This raises questions about anthropological differences in understanding how the “social body” (Scheper-Hughes and Lock 1987) is constructed by a given community. It also raises questions about differing theological perspectives on how God can be conceived in relation to evil in the world. Ben Sira and Philo, for example, conceive human beings to be in control of their own actions, and neither one mentions apotropaic prayer. Whether or not all Jews believed in the existence of such spiritual beings, practices to protect from demonic forces continued to play a role in Jewish life in the Roman period and beyond. In late antiquity, unglazed pottery bowls were inscribed with Aramaic incantations that often included biblical citations in Hebrew with pictures of demons. They also often make reference to mythical stories from both Jewish and non-Jewish materials. They were buried in and around the house in order to afford protection for the dwellers (Levene 2003; Naveh and Shaked 1998).
Blessings are a kind of pronouncement that exhibits a range of forms in the Second Temple period. There is as yet no synthetic or comprehensive scholarly treatment of blessings and their development. Any such work would need to include the witness of the Septuagint, which has its own liturgical “idiolect” that seems to have developed among Greek-speaking Jews (Joosten 2011). One kind of blessing served as a kind of counterpoint to curses and is found juxtaposed as part of a covenant ritual to seal commitment to a law code (e.g. Lev. 26, Deut 28). Pronouncement of blessing in the Hebrew Bible could issue from God (Gen 1:27–28) or humans (Ruth 2:4). In the Second Temple period, other kinds of blessings develop that are not related to covenant, such as a ritual practice of speech that is oppositionally related to apotropaic prayer. Like the apotropaic prayers, they presuppose a world filled with live and potent spiritual powers (Fröhlich 2010). Curses and incantations typically invoked the name of a particular male or female demon (like Lilith) in order to expel them from the body of the suffering person (Alexander 1999).
Some blessings use the name of God either to protect humans from evil or to invoke a positive spirit on someone. The priestly blessing of Num 6:24–26 served as such a blessing. The book of Numbers provides no context for the use of this blessing in time and space but refers only to those who are to pronounce it: the descendants of Aaron. Two tiny silver amulets discovered in a tomb at Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem, thought to date between the seventh and fifth centuries bce, offer the earliest extra-biblical evidence for this Priestly blessing. Designed to be worn around a person’s neck, amulets were intended to serve an apotropaic function in protecting the individual body, or perhaps the entire tomb site (Smoak 2015). There is a paucity of evidence for amulets in the Second Temple era in contrast to the late antique period when they are abundant. One prominent exception is the gold plate inscribed with the divine name said to have been worn by the high priest. This is described in a range of sources (Let. Arist. 98, WisSol 18:24; Philo Vit Mos 2:113, Josephus War 5.235; Ant 3.178; Bohak 2008, 116–117).
We cannot complete a discussion of individual practices during the Second Temple period without attending to the emergence of daily prayer, which becomes a required practice in rabbinic Judaism and is central to Christian life in all of its diverse branches as well. The pre-exilic literature of the Hebrew Bible depicts individuals praying spontaneously or on particular occasions, for example, Jacob’s prayer in Gen 32:10–12 as he is about to encounter Esau.
In contrast to ancient Israel, in the late Second Temple period daily prayer came to be practiced by a variety of Jews (Falk 1998). Daniel is described as praying three times a day (Dan 6:10–11; cf. Ps 55). Ben Sira mentions praying and confessing sin each morning as part of a scribe’s daily activity (Sir 39:5–6). There is no legal mandate for daily prayer in the Pentateuch, and it is difficult to pinpoint a particular time for the beginning of this practice. According to Jeremy Penner, daily prayer was a diverse phenomenon without as yet universally fixed texts (Penner 2012). He has identified three different rationales for its practice: that prayer was modeled on sacrificial times; grounded in scripture (especially Deut 6:7); and connected to the luminary cycles. His concern is with finding prescribed times for offering prayer and for fixed wording. A less strict definition of “fixed” prayer allows for the possibility of regularized daily prayer with one particular prescribed liturgy. Such a practice would in fact accord with what we know of scriptures during the Hellenistic-Roman period. The books of scripture were still fluid and although the Torah of Moses and the prophets were regarded as scriptures, the canonization process had not been finalized.
The question of when the statutory Jewish liturgy, the Amidah and its blessings, crystallized remains an open question. The methods for addressing this issue have been primarily philological and historical. Joseph Heinemann argued for a gradual and evolutionary process, and Ezra Fleischer argued strongly that the Amidah was created de novo after the Temple destruction. The “Words of the Luminaries” (4Q504–506) found at Qumran provide the earliest extant communal set of daily prayers to be said during the course of a week (Chazon 2007). These prayers show no signs of being sectarian, that is, containing the distinctive ideas and terminology related to the Yahad’s beliefs and organization.
Josephus also provides evidence for the offering of daily prayers. As a Hellenistic Jew, Josephus was comfortable with Greek mores and customs while maintaining his own Judaic perspective. He mentions that it was customary to pray while sacrifices were being performed at the Temple (Contra Ap., 2.193–198). He also mentions their ideal content, that people should pray for the community and give thanks. His description of the character of prayer matches the content of some of the prayers that he composed to put in the mouths of characters in the retelling of Jewish history in the Antiquities (Jonquière 2007). He also mentions the obligation to pray twice daily, as well as the custom of wearing tefillin and the posting of mezuzot on door frames (Ant. 4.212–213). The ritualized wearing of scripture is attested much earlier than Josephus. The earliest tefillin and mezuzot discovered at Qumran, which contain not yet standardized scriptural passages, offer another example of liturgical practice at the intersection of embodied practice and scriptural reworking, a way of being entangled in text (Cohn 2008). So, too, in the diaspora setting of Egypt, this practice is attested in the Letter of Aristeas §168–170 (Wright 2007).
Not all Jews had access to the Temple during the Hellenistic-Roman era and to its daily system of atoning sacrifices, not to mention the three yearly festivals that were celebrated there. We can see that “temple alternatives” emerge during the Second Temple period. These alternatives anticipate in some respects the eventual replacement of the sacrificial system with the rabbinic emphasis on torah study, prayer, and observance of commandments after the destruction of the Temple. The connection between the temple and the development of prayer is undisputed in broad terms (Regev 2014). The finer tuned questions such as the relationship of prayer to sacrifice, whether institutionalized prayer originated in the Temple, and the timing of prayer and its orientation remain under discussion.
The manuscripts from Qumran offer one such alternative to the temple. A number of scholars have argued that the Qumran Yaḥad community rejected the Jerusalem Temple and saw their own activities as a substitute for it (Gärtner 1965; Harrington 2004). The community understood its worship to serve an atoning function in place of sacrifice (1QS 8–9, especially 9:3–6; Sarason 2003). In fulfilling this function, the community itself was set aside as holy, akin to the central sanctuary. The pesher 4Q174 (Florilegium) depicts the community as a “miqdash adam,” which has been interpreted as a human sanctuary or a “temple of men” (Brooke 1985; Dimant 1986). Indeed, the conception of a temple is used symbolically in at least ten ways in that priestly oriented movement (Brooke 2007). The activity of the community members was understood to be like that of the priests in the temple (García Martínez 1999). For example, the male members of the sect wore white linen garments like temple priests. Not all scholars agree with this portrayal of the Yaḥad as offering an adequate substitute for the Temple’s function of purification and atonement (Haber 2008; Klawans 2000). Scholarship that engages theories of embodiment and conceptual metaphor theory would likely be salutary in advancing this discussion.
Another feature of life in the community was its heightened concern for both holiness and purity. Purity is a prerequisite for holiness (Klawans 2000). The Qumran Yaḥad ranked its members on the basis of their degree of purity. The sectarian works 4QMMT (Some Works of the Law) and 11QT (Temple Scroll) advocate stringent purity laws.
Ritual purity was of concern more broadly in early Judaism beyond that of priests in the Temple who were necessarily concerned with maintaining a pure state while in a space considered holy. The interest in individual purity can have social implications, both for demarcating social groups and for relative status and prestige. In that regard, the polemic of Jesus against Pharisaic strictness has been interpreted not so much as a criticism of purity laws and their observance, per se, but as a critique aimed at “the Pharisees’ use of halakhic boundaries and scrupulousness in observing the law in order to attain position and reputation within society” (Regev 2000, 201). More than three hundred miqva’ot, stepped ritual baths, have been found at archaeological sites in Palestine in both domestic and public places. The Qumran site has ten stepped baths. Roland de Vaux viewed the pools only as cisterns for collecting water in the desert (de Vaux 1961), but he was writing before the discovery of ritual baths throughout the land. The large size and number of miqva’ot found at Qumran suggest a heightened concern for ritual purity through bathing (Magness 2002).
Those in the diaspora could certainly not participate in daily sacrifice. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and attendance at festivals might be a rare opportunity if it happened at all. The origin and role of synagogues in relation to the Jerusalem Temple has long been debated. For limitations of space, we refer readers to other essays in this volume. One longstanding point of scholarly difference, however, concerns the status of the synagogue while the Temple in Jerusalem was still standing. Diaspora synagogues, particularly in Egypt, were regarded as places of worship, as suggested by the word found in inscriptions to designate them as proseuche or a place of prayer. Some scholars have argued that synagogues in the land served primarily social and political purposes but were not considered to have an inherent sacred status as did the Temple (Richardson 2002) or only gradually came to have a sacred status in late antiquity (Levine 2005). Another position has held that the synagogues were places viewed as holy themselves (Fine, 1997) or even acquiring the sanctity of miniature temples (Binder 2001). The recently excavated synagogue in the Galilean town of ancient Magdala dating to the first century ce adds ballast to the “holy synagogue” perspective. A limestone ashlar carved with imagery from the temple/tabernacle, including a seven-branched menorah, was discovered in the center of the synagogue. The stone is thus unique, to date, in that it contains cultic imagery from the Temple-tabernacle in the land not far from Jerusalem. The function of this stone is not yet clear. A platform for reading the torah has been suggested (Aviam 2013; Binder 2014), but in the absence of other exemplars of such a stone, other scholars are more reluctant to pinpoint a particular ritual use (Fine 2017). Theoretical frameworks such as spatial theory for understanding the conceptualization and experience of synagogues and their space offer one promising new avenue of research for understanding this phenomenon and others (Krause 2017).
Up to this point, we have discussed issues such as Sabbath and circumcision that have had a long trajectory of scholarly interest and discussion. In the space remaining, we turn to a new approach still in its adolescence that relates to the intersection of scripture formation and worship. Jewish liturgical practices can fruitfully be understood in relation to the textualization of Jewish cultural life in the post-exilic period.
In Israelite antiquity, unlike the sacrifices whose offering was restricted to ritual specialists, prayers could be offered by anyone (Greenberg 1983). One characteristic feature of prayer texts in the Second Temple period was the tendency to include wording and interpretations of earlier scripture (Berlin 2003; Falk 2007; Kugel 2006; Newman 1999). Indeed, such re-ingestion and reworking of the scriptural tradition, through allusion, interpretation, and citation was a hallmark of all early Jewish literary texts in the time well before the Bible came into being. Scripturalized prayers thus seem to reflect a learned milieu rather than a strictly “popular” phenomenon. While anyone might learn to recite the scriptural passages of the Shema or a simple Jewish prayer like the Lord’s Prayer, these longer prayers found both within narratives and as collections such as the Qumran Thanksgiving Hymns, represent an innovation. How can we account for this innovation in worship and ritual?
In thinking about how texts, prayers, and worship are related, the work of Catherine Bell is instructive. She has called attention to the social and performative aspects of the texts in constituting a social reality:
What is the significance or functional effect of writing ritual down, both vis-à-vis ritual, and as a written text? How does writing a text or depicting ritual in a text act upon the social relations involved in textual and ritual activities? Ultimately, how are the media of communication creating a situation rather than reflecting it; how are they restricting social interactions rather than merely expressing them? (Bell 1988, 368–369)
She refers to this process as the “textualization of ritual” and the simultaneous “ritualization of text.” Thinking in terms of Bell’s ritualization can help us better appreciate the complex and subtle relationship between text and rite in its larger social world over time.
A current scholarly consensus is that the scriptures were still fluid throughout the Hellenistic-Roman era. This includes the Torah of Moses and the prophets but extends to other works seemingly regarded as scripture by different Jewish groups such as Tobit, Jubilees, or 1 Enoch. In learned communities such as the Qumran Yahad, the scribal school envisioned in Ben Sira, or in Philo’s depiction of the Therapeutae (Vit Cont.), and even in the weekly gatherings to study the Torah, and presumably other works, one can envision the generative potential of scriptural interpretation and communal prayer for shaping communities.
A ritual innovation writ large during the centuries after the exile was the inclusion of interpretive scriptural tradition as part of life devoted to study and prayer. Worship practices and growth of text and scripture are intertwined. Indeed, this dialectical entwinement is crucial for understanding the matrix in which text becomes scripture, texts that come to be accepted as revelatory and formative for shaping the identity of individuals and communities (Newman 2018). Two examples of such ritualization may be offered briefly to provide a sense of the breadth of this phenomenon in early Judaism, one from the Qumran corpus, and one relating to confessional prayer in Baruch.
A first example of the textualization of ritual concerns the entry ritual into the Qumran Yaḥad, described at the beginning of the Community Rule (1QS 1:16–2:18). The daily study of scripture, its interpretation, and communal prayer was central to the life of the community (1QS 8:12–16). The Yaḥad was centered around texts in a way that shaped the self in relation to the tight cohesion of the movement. The community is described as gathering for a third of each night “to read in the scroll, to explain the regulation, and to bless together” (1QS 6:6–8). The Yaḥad’s formation was both communal and internally ranked.
The covenant renewal ceremony with its blessing and curses is largely modeled on the crossing of the Jordan and the covenant making ceremony at the end of Deuteronomy 27–28. One innovation was that the Yaḥad reconstrued a one-time event marking entry into the land by crossing over the Jordan into an annually reenacted ceremony of crossing into the covenant of the Yaḥad (Fraade 2003). Another innovation pertains to the leadership depicted. Deuteronomy considers all Levites to be priests; the Yaḥad distinguishes them with a hierarchical differential in obligations. Three groups of people are included in the entry ritual: the priests, the levites, and the “ones crossing over into the covenant.” There are three parts to the rite: entrance of new initiates; blessings and curses; and the crossing over into the covenant (1QS 1:16–2:21–25). Scholars have long observed the adaptation of the Priestly Blessing of Numbers 6:24–26 in both the blessings of the priests and the curses of the Levites. The blessing pronounced by the priest in 1QS 2:2–4 expands each clause of the Aaronic blessing with a phrase from scripture, primarily from the prophets and psalms. This reworking results in a scripturalized prayer that endorses a particular community perspective through its own interpretation (Brooke 2015).
We have thus considered the textualization of the ritual, but not yet the ritualization of the text. The Community Rule is one of a number of sectarian texts that carry a superscription, “le-Maskil.” The Maskil was the chief leader of the Yaḥad, an official who served as the chief priest responsible for the annual spiritual evaluation of the Yaḥad (1QS 3:13–4:26), for teaching esoteric knowledge, and liturgical training (1QS 9:12–10:5). He serves as a pious exemplar by offering a psalm (1QS 10:6–11:22). 1QS thus helps both to secure and promote his status as a priestly ritual leader in the text while at the same time incorporating and indeed mandating the performance of scripturalized prayer in its entry rite.
A second example of ritual innovation offers perhaps a more demonstrable example of the ritualization of text and the entwinement of worship and scriptural interpretation. Baruch was probably written in the first century bce so it reflects a narrative retrojection to the sixth century exile. The book of Baruch as it appears in modern Bibles includes five chapters. The narrative introduction (Bar 1:1–16) provides the frame for contextualizing a long confessional prayer (1:15–3:8), a wisdom poem (3:9–4:4), and a poem of consolation to and about Zion (4:5–5:9). The ritual innovation is that Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch provides liturgical instruction from his place of exile in Babylon to the high priest and people in Jerusalem. The book thus provides an etiology for confessional prayer to restore people from the diaspora. The book also secures the scribal figure Baruch as the liturgical leader of the Jewish community who institutes this practice.
The prayer in Baruch 1:15–3:8 is part of a larger body of confessional prayers evident in the Persian and Greco-Roman eras. The number and identification of these confessional prayers varies, but the following prayers are usually included: Ezra 9:5–15; Neh1:4–11; 9:6–37; Dan 9:4–19, Bar 1:15–3:8; the Prayer of Azariah; Tob 3:1–6; 3 Macc 2:1–10; 4Q393 (Communal Confession), and 4Q504 2 v–vi (the Words of the Heavenly Lights). The trauma of the Babylonian exile played a crucial role in stimulating the development of a confessional prayer tradition in the Persian period. A good deal of scholarship has been devoted to these prayers. Such confessions, cast in the first-person plural even when offered by an individual, are characterized by their extended and repeated confession of sin in the context of reviewing the history of Israel and including a petition for forgiveness (Balentine 2006). A renewed phase of scholarship has focused in particular on the tradition history of the “penitential” prayers of the post-exilic period, assessing among other elements, their compositional use of scripture (Boda, Falk, and Werline 2006–2009). A more recent study questions whether the ancient Israelite self was conceived with an interiority like the modern self and argues that “repentance” and a penitential process are post-biblical conceptualizations (Lambert 2016). In any case, the prayers acknowledge guilt for wrongdoing in a corporate confession and recognize divine righteousness for punishment using in particular wording from Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, which was thought to ensure the reversal of the covenant curses of Deuteronomy. Most of the confessional prayers thus seek to put an end to negative conditions resulting from the exile, or implicitly in a later era, to the situation of the diaspora population.
According to the narrative at the beginning of Baruch, the scribe read “the words of this book” to the king and exiles in Babylon. He then sends the scroll to the high priest and people in Jerusalem with instructions to pray for Nebuchadnezzar and to pray for the exiles. Baruch introduces the prayer by designating the time and place for its recitation as well as making it a communal obligation for festivals and other appointed times.
Like all other confessional prayers, Bar 1:15–3:8 is thickly allusive to scripture. The prayer itself begins as the explicit instruction from Baruch of the appropriate words to say, starting with an acknowledgement of divine righteousness and the guilt of the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem (1:15–2:10). A unique feature of Baruch’s prayer are the four citation formulas that introduce Mosaic or prophetic oracles (Bar 2:2–3; 2:20–23; 2:24b, and 2:29–35). Baruch weaves Jeremianic language into the composition of his confession. Jeremiah is, however, never mentioned. One oracle (Bar 2: 29–35) recognizes the fulfillment of the prophecy of destruction related to disobedience concerning the Mosaic law (Bar 2:29) and includes wording from Jeremianic oracles of hope that foresees the repentance of the people in exile, the end of the diaspora, and the creation of an everlasting covenant. The inclusion of such “prophetic” oracles in the prayer is important rhetorically in relation to the status of Baruch. As the exilic leader cast as the author of the prayer, Baruch the scribe is the one understood to identify and discern both those prophetic oracles that have been fulfilled and those still imminently awaiting fulfillment. At the same time, the wording of these oracular prophecies represents a creative conflation of authoritative language, both from the prophets and from the prophecy of Mosaic torah. “Baruch” is thus also writing his own prophetic oracles within a prayer. This is ritual innovation.
Such a scripturalized prayer depicts the one who composes it as adept at learning. Baruch becomes an explicit liturgical maestro, who teaches not only his community in Babylon, but also his compatriots in Jerusalem, implicitly even the temple establishment, how to pray. From a narrative perspective, Baruch also provides an etiology for the practice of confessional prayer. This was the “first” such confession offered, five years into the exile (Bar 1:2) as a means for bringing an end to the exile and for reconstituting the people both in Babylon and Judah. Baruch transforms and overwrites the prophetic voices of old with his oracles in this prayer; he also trumps the high priest in Jerusalem by giving him liturgical instruction in order to secure the well-being and return of Israel. Such sapiential innovation in effect ritualizes a new form of Jeremiah because the text of Baruch circulates as the book of Jeremiah in some quarters. What now circulates separately in Bibles as “Baruch” was consistently cited as part of Jeremiah in the Latin Church Fathers at least through the eighth century.
My discussion of the ritualization of text and the textualization of ritual may augur a new focus on ritual innovation not only in early Judaism but also in considering the Hebrew Bible (MacDonald 2016). A more interdisciplinary approach to issues of worship and ritual, as called for by Lawrence Hoffman (Hoffman 1987) would enrich the scholarship in the area of Judaism in the Second Temple period, which is increasingly rich with liturgical manuscripts and archaeological finds, not to mention, new approaches to this material.
There is no recent synthetic treatment of worship and ritual in the Second Temple period. Groundbreaking and seminal as it was for scholarship, the work ofE. P. Sanders (1992) is concerned primarily with the Roman era. It is also now outdated because of the wealth of scholarship that has been produced on different fronts. With few exceptions, scholarship on ritual and worship in early Judaism has employed traditional philological, literary, and historical methods. The use of methods from the social sciences, including the sub-category of ritual studies, pioneered by a few scholars working on the Qumran material, could be fruitfully extended to all areas. Considerable work has been completed on Qumran materials. For an overview, see Falk (2010), who focuses especially on prayer but also lays out important issues for thinking about early Jewish liturgy more broadly. For purity issues in early Judaism, see Klawans (2000). Kiley (1997) offers a welcome anthology of prayer texts from the Greco-Roman era. A similar project to be edited by Rodney A. Werline and Daniel K. Falk is in the gestational stages. More work awaits the eager scholar of worship and ritual.