Saturday, April 9, 2022

James Tunstead Burtchaell on the reception of the terms synagôgê and ekklêsia in the LXX and Early Christianity

  

THE ASSEMBLY

 

In their own nomenclature, the Jews were an assembly. The cultic and political act of a solemn and formalized convention of the whole population—men, women and children—was felt to be so typical and representative that, by metonymy, it provided the popular designation whereby one referred to the Jews.

 

In the accounts of the premonarchic period the assembly = ‘edah = synagôgê is a common synonym for the people, especially in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Joshua. The expression fades in the literature of the monarchy, where “Israel,” “Judah,” “House of Judah” are preferred. But in the alter postexilic literature an even stronger expression for assembly = qahal = ekklêsia is used to designate the people (For example, Neh 7:66; Mi 2:5; 1 Macc 4:59; Pr 5:14. Several texts in Dt use it in this sense, e.g. 23:2-4). The expression are also current in the apocryphal writings like 1 and 2 Enoch and the Psalms of Solomon (1 Enoch 53:6; 2 Enoch 68:7; Ps Sol 17:44 [17:48 old versification]). And the custom is attested in the Jewish inscriptions (Shürer, History2 2:429). Philo writes: “For when the whole multitude came together with harmonious oneness to give thanks for their migration (the exodus), [The Lord] no longer called them a multitude or a nation or a people but an ‘assembly’” (Philo, Exod. 1:10). There are early rabbinical usages which also designate the people as an assemblage (These include tsibur, keneset, chaberah). Of course there were other, surrogate, expressions used to refer to the people, but the array of terms that depict Israel as a convened assembly (and synagôgê is a very common one) is used with such frequency that there must have been something archetypical and constitutive about such gatherings.

 

And that is the case. The Hebrew scriptures describe critical national events as transacted in plenary assembly = ekklêsia = synagôgê:

 

1 For taking corporate military decisions:
(a) at Mizpah, to avenge the crime at Gibeah of Benjamin (Judg 20:2; 21:5, 8);
(b) attacked by Joab and Ammon, Judah consults the Lord (2 Ch 20:5, 14);
(c) Israel is obliged to release captives and booty from Judah (2 Ch 28:14);
(d) the Maccabean rebels deliberate how to relieve Galilee and Gilead (1 Macc 5;16);
€ Bethulia deliberates how to respond to Holofernes’ siege (Jdth 6:16);
(f) the pioneers return to Judaea face the order to dismiss their foreign wives (Neh 8-10).

 

2 For ratifying the covenant:
(a) under Moses (dt 4:10; 9:10; 18:16; 23:1, 2,; 31:30);
(b) under Ezra (Ezra 10:1, 8, 12, 14; Neh 8:2, 17).

3 For acclaiming rulers:
(a) Solomon (1 Ch 28:2, 8; 29:1, 10, 20);
(b) Jeroboam (2 Ch 10:3);
(c) Josh (2 Ch 23:3);
(d) Simon (1 Macc 14:28).

 

4 For hallowing:
(a) David receives the ark (1 Ch 13:2, 4);
(b) Solomon dedicates the temple (1 Kgs 8:14, 22, 55, 65; 2 Chr 6:3, 12-13; 7:8);
(c) Hezekiah renews Passover (2 Ch 30:2, 4, 13, 17, 23-25).

 

5 For receiving communications:
(a) Moses commands the Law to be read out every seven years (Dt 31:9-13);
(b) Jeremiah delivers his oracle that Babylon will take the lead (Jer 25);
(c) Messages from Rome and Sparta (1 Macc 14:19).

 

6 For bestowing official honors:
(a) on Yahweh (1 Ch 29:20);
(b) on heroic neighbors (Sir 31:11; 39:10; 44:15);
(c) on Judith Jdth 6;14-20).

 

7 For judgment, especially of capital crimes:
(a) adultery (Ezk 23:46);
(b) sabbath-breaking (Num 15:32-36);
(c) folly (Pr 5:14). (James Tunstead Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992], 209-10)

 

[The word ekklêsia was] Originally a virtual synonym for synagôgê = meeting, it had been differentiated by the Greek Bible. Synagôgê served to translate keenest, and was used to designate local communities; ekklêsia translated qahal, and was used to designate plenary gatherings of the community. By metonymy the two terms could be and often were exchanged. Christian usage takes full advantage of the metonymy and prefers to use ekklêsia = assembly to mean community, both local and worldwide. In Christian usage the word rarely designates an actual meeting (1 Cor 11:18; Ac 7:38; ITr, 3:1. Acts sometimes uses to plēthos = the entire group to refer to an assembly: 6:2; 15:12, 22; 21:22; see also Hm, 11:9. In a way this expression supplants their reference, as Jews, to themselves as a people - dêmos). This choice of title seems to be purposeful. The Christian community systematically avoided the continuation of the even more traditional term, synagôgê. Acts 20:28, quoting from Psalm 72, replaces synagôgê with ekklêsia precisely in order to make it applicable to the Christian community. In the gospels and Acts the customary usage is almost entirely suppressed: synagôgê is almost never used to designate a Jewish community (Exceptions: Ac 6:9; 9:2; 26:11; see Hm, 11:9). Instead, following Palestinian usage it refers to Jewish meeting houses. The usual word elsewhere in Jewry for meeting house = proseuchê is, in turn, never used in the New Testament for that purpose. It is rare for these Christians to speak of their own communities or gatherings as synagôgai (Js 2:2; Hm, 11:9; IPol, 4:2; Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses, 30,18,2. The first two documents are found from Judeo-Christian authors). In fact synagôgê is used pejoratively: “the synagôgê of Satan,” “the synagôgê of villains” (Rv 2:9; 3:9; Letter of Barnabas 5:13 [quoting Ps 21:16]; 6:6. By contrast, when a favorable allusion is to be made, the word used is ekklêsia: “the ekklêsia of my brothers,” “the ekklêsia of the holy ones” [quoting Ps 42:3; 22:23], Barnabas, 6:16). Paul, the most frequent user of ekklêsia, never once writes the word synagôgê, nor do the deuteron-pauline letters.

 

Clearly the Christians were beginning to differentiate themselves from other Jewish communities—by nomenclature, not by structure—at a very early date. This was a practice of Jewish sectarian groups which . . . became customary as the Christians chose a distinctive vocabulary to denote institutions which were not all that distinctive. (Ibid., 278-79)

 

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