Invention of the First-Century Synagogue

This work critically reevaluates the scholarship surrounding the identification of first-century synagogues at five key sites: Delos, Jericho, Herodium, Masada, and Gamla. These sites are consistently used in modern scholarship as comparators for all other early synagogues. Matassa reviews the scholarly discourse concerning each site, inspects each site, and thoroughly examines the excavation reports. Through close inspection of the material evidence she uncovers misunderstandings of the site remains and concludes that excavators incorrectly identified synagogues at Delos, Jericho, Masada, and Herodium. In the case of Gamla, however, the identification may be correct.

Lidia D. Matassa was an independent scholar and founding president of the Irish Association for the Study of the Ancient Near East. She participated in a number of excavations in Israel and helped organize multiple interdisciplinary conferences in Dublin. She coedited Text, Theology, and Trowel: Recent Research into the Hebrew Bible (2011). Matassa passed away suddenly in January 2016.