SYNAGOGUE, THE GREAT. According to Jewish tradition the Great Synagogue was the council first appointed by Ezra after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity to reorganize the religious life, institutions, and literature of the people. It consisted originally of 120 men, and lasted until the beginning of the Gr. period.

The expression “Great Synagogue” as relating to Nehemiah 8-10 is found only in Talmudic writing (e.g. Pirke Aboth 1:1, 2) c. a.d. 200. The expression in 1 Maccabees 14:28 (μεγάλη συναγωγή) is to be taken simply as a great gathering, and not in the technical sense involved here.

Quite interestingly, the Great Synagogue is not noted in the Apoc., or in Josephus, or in Philo; neither does the OT make mention of it.

In the judgment of many, scholars have shown that the tradition of the Great Synagogue is unhistorical, and is a distortion of the general assembly of Nehemiah 8-10. There seems to be evidence that there was such an institution, a council of scribes, organized by Ezra, which perhaps for one and one-half centuries or more handled theological and allied matters, and, according to uncertain traditions, even wrote some books (Ezek; Dan; Esth; the Minor Prophets), and fixed others in the canon (Prov; S of Sol; Eccl).

Bibliography C. Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (1877), 124, 125; H. E. Ryle, Canon of the OT (1892), 250ff.; C. A. Briggs, Study of Holy Scripture (1899), 120-122, 252ff.