The meaning of Synagogue, The Great in the Bible
(From International Standard Bible Encyclopedia)
A college or assembly of learned men, originating with Ezra, to whom Jewish tradition assigns an important share in the formation of the Old Testament Canon, and many legal enactments (see CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT). One of its latest members is said to have been Simon the Just (circa 200 BC). The oldest notice of the Great Synagogue is in the tract of the Mishna, Pirqe 'Abhoth (circa 200 AD); this is supplemented by an often-quoted, passage in another tract of the Mishna, Babha' Bathra' (14b), on the Canon, and by later traditions. It tells against the reliabe of these traditions that they are late, and are mixed up with much that is self-evidently unhistorical, while no corroboration is found in Ezra or Nehemiah, in the Apocrypha, or in Josephus. On this account, since the exhaustive discussion by Kuenen on the subject (Over de Mannen der Groote Synagoge), most scholars have been disposed to throw over the tradition altogether, regarding it as a distorted remembrance of the great convocation described in Neh. 8 through 10 (so W. R. Smith, Driver, etc.; compare article by Selbie in HDB in support of total rejection). This probably is an excess of skepticism. The convocation in Nehemiah has no points of resemblance to the kind of assembly recalled in this tradition; and while fantastic details may be unreal, it is difficult to believe that declarations so circumstantial and definite have no foundation at all in actual history. The direct connection with Ezra may be discounted, though possibly—indeed it is likely—somebody associated with Ezra in his undeniable labors on the Canon may have furnished the germ from which the institution in question was developed (see the careful discussion in C. H. H. Wright, Ecc. 1 through 10, and Excursus III, "The Men of the Great Synagogue").
For the rabbinical quotations and further important details, see C. Taylor's Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, 11 f. and 110 f.
James Orr
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