Synagogues were not religious prayer houses in the way we know them today. In Jesus’ time, they were primarily places for public gatherings. That is what Anders Runesson points out in his chapter in The New Quest for the Historical Jesus (2024).
Why is that important for our images of Jesus? Well, perhaps most of all in relation to how Jesus went about his work. It may well have been more strategic than we tend to think.
What do we know about the locations where he spoke about his vision of the kingdom? About his God who does not break into our lives one day, but dwells within us, who calls us today—in the here and now—to love our neighbor?
Many historians seem to agree that his mission ended in the temple. In contradiction to the Gospel of John the synoptic gospels tend to set his turning of the tables at the end of his life. But where does it begin? According to the Gospel of Luke it was in the synagogue, his local synagogue in his home town Nasareth (which, incidentally, has never been found). Ruins of 1st century synagogues have been found, the one in Magdala to be the most exquisite example. But this is also what the author seems to suggest. His mission moves from the local synagogues to the central temple, from the local gathering to the grand stage in Jerusalem. From village to great city.
Did he, then, first seek followers before taking the major step onto the temple square, as befits a good prophet? At times, I toy with the thought that, following in Jeremiah’s footsteps, he expected nothing more than a minor reprimand doe his actions. But did he expect death, the changing, brutal death by crucifixion? That was far from anticipated.
Local synagogues could have two functions. Either they were public places where all sorts of people proclaimed their message, often under the supervision of scribes of various stripes. These did not have to be Pharisees; more often they were head of the synagogues (archesynagoge).
These, initially, together with scribes are Jesus’ enemies, not the Pharisees, whose views in many ways stood close to his own (resurrection and proximity to ordinary people). We see James, the brother of Jesus, after Jesus’ death, remaining very close to the temple and, as a Pharisee, carefully studying and applying the law.
The synagogue in which Jesus speaks according to Luke 4 could therefore have been a public synagogue, but perhaps more likely it was the second type: the private synagogue, or the “synagogue of association.” These were more clearly defined in religious, and therefore also political, terms. In that time, the two domains cannot be separated. Religion is politics, and politics is religion.
This may well be the writer’s most important lesson. Whoever acts religiously also steps into the political domain. And then we better understand Jesus’ words, the mystery surrounding his role, and the opacity of his parables. You cannot simply step forward and say that you are the Son of God. Locals hear blasphemy; the Romans hear treason against the emperor.
Jesus may very well have practiced his parables in local synagogues, the public and private places of gathering, before preaching on land (the mountains) and at sea (from a boat), and finally in Jerusalem itself. On the temple square, in the court of the Gentiles, protesting that a house of prayer had become a den of robbers.
Location matters. And so does timing. It was the busiest time of the year. It was intentional, deliberate, and carefully thought out, to move from the village meeting house to the urban palace where the priests held power, and where he deliberately rubbed them the wrong way.
Jesus was not naively going around towns preaching what came up in his mind. He could have been deliberately dosing his message from the synagogues toward his grand gesture in Jerusalem. A strategic Jesus. What even the study of insignificant synagogues can uncover.
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