Expert: Brenda Martin - 12/18/2008

Question
Were synagogues used during the Babylonian exile since they no longer had the temple? I am getting conflicting information from a few sources.  Thanks again!

Answer
In the case of the Israelites during the seventy years of their exile in ancient Babylon, from 607 to 537 BCE, they were without the active service of the Aaronic high priest and underpriests and of their servants, the Levites, inasmuch as the temple at which they had served was destroyed.

Jehovah had foretold this, at Hosea 3:4, 5, saying:

“It is because for many days the sons of Israel will dwell . . . without a sacrifice and without a pillar and without an ephod and teraphim. Afterwards the sons of Israel will come back and certainly look for Jehovah their God, and for David their king [the Messiah]; and they will certainly come quivering to Jehovah and to his goodness in the final part of the days.”

There was still worship going on in Babylon by the Jewish remnant as we can see from this quote—

Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Volume 4, :.. ‘ King Sennacherib demanded and received as tribute from King Hezekiah many Jewish musicians, male and female. During the exile the Babylonians demanded of their Jewish captives that they should entertain them with their songs.” Psalm 137 gives us to understand that the songs of these exiles were primarily “the songs of Zion,” “the song of Jehovah.”

**It is NOT KNOWN just when synagogues were instituted, but it seems to have been DURING the 70-year Babylonian exile when there was no temple in existence, OR shortly following the return from exile, after Ezra the priest had so strongly stressed the need for knowledge of the Law.

We do know that thousands of Jews chose to remain in Babylon after the remnant returned to Jerusalem, and others had been scattered about because of migrations and for business purposes. Local assembly halls known as synagogues sprang up in different places, and for these scribes had to make handwritten copies of Biblical manuscripts. Ezra himself is identified as “a skilled copyist in the law of Moses” and as “a copyist of the words of the commandments of Jehovah and of his regulations toward Israel.”—Ezra 7:6, 11.

The vast majority of Jews did not return to Israel after the fall of Babylon. Thus, synagogues became the spiritual centers for Jewish communities throughout the Middle East and Europe.
Hence why you’ve received conflicting answers, we don’t know exactly when synagogues started.

All the best
Brenda