The foundation of Jewish community life is the synagogue. It is what we see in the horoscope in every weekend newspaper on earth, generally the stuff of amusement. Stack Exchange network consists of 182 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. It has been a number of years since a rabbi chaplain in the U.S.Army gave several of us chaplains a tour of some synagogues and schools in Brooklyn, NY. WRONG! The truth is: the universe is neutral; youre on your own. Unhappily, it is in a very bad state of preservation and most scenes are only fragmentary. Sinai? That is, the zodiacs were important and meant something to the people who made them. The primary study text is from the Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses.This text has been written on the parchment of the Torah scrolls by a specially trained scribe. In case you are wondering, I have been a Christian for over forty-five years. http://astrotheology.net/star-worship-of-the-ancient-israelites/. Having a zodiac in the synagogue merely portrays it as part of G-ds plan and order in creation. I don't see it in the articles you linked to. Sign up to receive our email newsletter and never miss an update. For if the cosmos is like that, why do we need God giving the Law to Moses on Mt. Nearly a century later, the 1976 platform said: We are privileged to live in an extraordinary time, one in which a third Jewish commonwealth has been established in our people's ancient homeland. I see a different solution: The `dogma it had to be Jewish; everything was written in Hebrew and Aramaic is wrong. Its construction gradually adopted a basilica form with a nave and two aisles. The second commandment can be read in several ways because the Hebrew original of this text is entirely without vowels and punctuation points. Psalms 147:4, He made all the stars and calls them by name. [2] Panorama of Nave Mosaics Excavations The seed look like what they would be if they survive to adulthood. Synagogues provided a place of comfort and understanding in a new land foreign to the religion. [1] Excavations began in 1929 under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and were led by Israeli archaeologist, Eleazar Sukenik. The head and breast of the woman is Virgo the Virgin and the body of the Lion is Leo the Lion. In between the arguments they could torture and abuse men, and seduce women as they liked. Catholic Lay Saints Who were Economically Well Off When They Died. 14. We welcome applications from synagogue professionals, clergy, or lay leaders with the support of their congregations. See Josephs dream, Gen. 37:8-11. Visit the Ancient Art of the Biblical World Special Collection. . 1. We are in front of the Ark, the dwelling place of Gods Torah. The bulk of Jews (with the exception of Messianic Jews) have missed it entirely. Thank you for this in-depth amount of history thus found. Didnt they know the second commandment? In the close-ups at top, Scorpio shares a panel with the month Heshvan (above), while Sagittarius is together with the month Kislev. Were there synagogues before the Romans destroyed the Temple, or did they develop only afterward? 18. The church claims this Queen represents and symbolizes the bride of christ, the church. In December 1928, a work crew from kibbutz Beth Alpha was digging a drainage channel when mosaic pieces began to appear in their shovel loads. Please,this is real,it is now. Very odd. [6][7] The Greek inscription thanks artisans "Marianos and his son Hanina", who were also listed as the artisans of the nearby Beth Shean synagogue. Nor were they attempts at astrology (predicting the future) or astronomy. 7. Once the Nazis invaded Poland and the war truly erupted, the word shoah began to spread to the daily newspapers. The evidence indicates that we are in the presence of a mystical Hellenistic-Byzantine Jewish tradition, a tradition that Talmudic Judaism either ignored or suppressed,29 a tradition we would not know anything about (for it left no literature) were it not for the discovery of this artwork, these symbols.30 The mosaics are in fact the literature of the movement. There are, of course, many groups of 12 in the Bible and throughout ancient literature: 12 sons of Jacob, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples of Jesus, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 months of the year, etc. Who indeed? [6][8] The inscriptions are flanked on either side by a lion and a buffalo, who serve as the synagogue's symbolic guardians.[9]. See Moshe Dothan, Hammath Tiberias, (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983). The inscription, which is incomplete, reads (shalom al yisrael), and is on display in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. The mosaic they uncovered was almost complete, its astonishing preservation caused by a layer of plaster, thrown down from the ceiling by the earthquake that destroyed the building, that covered and protected the floor from the damage of falling stones. Judaism is the world's oldest monotheistic religion, dating back nearly 4,000 years. The Christians also had their own very strong reservations. Carmel.27 A mosaic synagogue inscription, flanked by two candelabra,28 was discovered during construction, together with one corner of a zodiac wheel. Indeed, one of the ways to say pagan in rabbinical Hebrew is by the abbreviation [ (ovedei kokhavim u-mazalot, worshipers of stars and constellations). There is a lot more to all this but I am tired and need to take a break. And like absolutely everything else the Torah says, what it MEANS is subject to interpretation. This is made clear by both the etymology and usage of the term in . And how fortunate we have been to have found Beth Alpha so perfectly preserved! Each issue of Biblical Archaeology Review features lavishly illustrated and easy-to-understand articles such as: Fascinating finds from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament periods, The latest scholarship by the world's greatest archaeologists and distinguished scholars, Stunning color photographs, informative maps, and diagrams, Reviews of the latest books on biblical archaeology, 45+ years of Biblical Archaeology Review, 20+ years of Bible Review online, providing critical interpretations of biblical texts. In addition, we have found hundreds of Jewish tombstones and catacombs from all over the Roman Empire. Access to 50+ curated Special Collections. Its the gospel in the stars and has been described very well by many commentators, including D. James Kennedy. rev2023.7.24.43542. BAS Library Members: Visit the Ancient Art of the Biblical World Special Collection. Virgo the Virgin Mary and ending with Leo the Lion of the tribe of Judah. From the pool, the spring makes its weary and meandering way east down the valley for some 18 km, passing through Beth-Shean to empty into the Jordan River. Only the works of Philo and Josephus, together with some mystical apocalypses, survive as the literature from the Hellenistic Jewish world. The flimsy straw theoretical edifice constructed by this author is ridiculous. 9. The people who wrote the Bible did not know that Earth was a planet orbiting the Sun. Why? Synagogues may designate or employ a professional or lay hazzan (cantor) for the purpose of leading the congregation in prayer, especially on Shabbat or holidays. Its very thought -provoking to say the least. It is beyond even the strongest and most fearful of all natural powers, the sun. One may find remains of the claws of Cancer, the Crab, and at least one other sign, Aries, is identifiable because the caption is preserved even though the picture is gone.24 Old Helios is gone too, but we find one wheel of his chariot (older pictures by archaeologists show two wheels) in the central circle. Check out Brooklyn! I do not think that these are the only places where these signs can be found. 37. Here, in the very heart of the synagogues, is a representation of Helios, the Greek sun god, in the form of a charioteer, whip in hand, riding his four-horse quadriga across the sky. Period. And because Beth Alpha is the best preserved of the seven synagogues we know, we use it here as the basis for our discussion.5. Unlike much of the rest of the Zippori mosaic, the synagogue panel, divided here into three sections, is quite well preserved. Obviously some have been more strict than others over history, but this is normative Talmudic law and would certainly fit into what the schuls were doing. Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico began in the 15th century, though the community could not flourish as Judaism was prohibited by the Spanish Inquisition and the first synagogue was not established until a few hundred years later. 36. Credit: Art Resource, NY, What had they found? [14] The outer circle consists of twelve panels, each of which correspond to one of the twelve months of the year and contain the appropriate Greco-Roman zodiac sign. Very little is left of the synagogue at Naaran, now in the Palestinian Authority area some 5 km northwest of Jericho.22 Hardly surprising, the mosaic floor was discovered when the British army was camped in Naaran during the First World War and a Turkish artillery shell fell on the spot, uncovering the mosaic!23 There was a zodiac wheel here once, and one sees the lines dividing the panels, but the panels themselves have been defaced. Before the Deluge, Egypt was not Egypt as he was Noahs grandson. As has been said in these comments, astrology was part of the Jewish cosmology at least since the Second Temple, if not earlier. Reform synagogues are generally called "temples" after the Hamburg, precedent, probably to indicate that they take the place of the temple in Jerusalem, which Orthodoxy looks forward to as the to-be-restored sanctuary. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [] think it may have more to do with what they found in some synagogues Jewish Worship, Pagan Symbols Biblical Archaeology Society God is not the God of the dead, but the living. Reform conceives of the destiny of Israel as not bound up in the return to Palestine, and as not involving national political restoration under a Messianic king with the Temple rebuilt and the sacrificial service reinstituted. Although poorly preserved, the Zippori synagogue mosaic clearly contained a panel of the binding of Isaac to complete the righteous ancestors theme. Belief in one omnipotent god or many still leaves us with the problem of free will vs. predestination. It is, in this way, similar to the most common fortune-telling of our day, i.e., meteorology; when you listen to the weather forecast, you are not usually subscribing to the view of a mechanistic universe, you are simply deciding whether or not to wear a coat. Documentation about naming practices that early is hard to come by, but we might find hints in the official "platforms" published by the Reform movement (as it formed into an actual movement). Moses god, probably Aten (also grew into the canaanite Adon), and/or Amun-Re (with Seth/Satan as an anti-god, or just a god of mischief).. 2. The Torah and Psalms is full of celebration of this world and nature and all that is in it. God told us the end from the beginning. Why on Earth invent a new heresy on such scant evidence? A synagogue, [a] sometimes referred to by the Yiddish term shul [b] and referred to by Reform communities as a temple, [c] is a Jewish house of worship. The scenes are very poorly preserved, but we have a fragment of the ram caught in the thicket and at least part of the picture of two servants holding the ass (Genesis 22:5) while Abraham and his son went off to Moriah. they could have used, the fact is that they all use the same 10-12 symbols.13 We are forced to conclude that these were more than pretty pictures. So its not pagan but goes back further when God created all the stars. Here is your ticket to join us as we discover more and more about the biblical world and its people. [1] As a symbolic marker of its importance, the lower register of the Torah Shrine is flanked by two roaring lions and is surrounded by Jewish ritual objects such as the lulav, etrog, shofar, and incense shovel. Josephus knew it as Nearah (Antiquities. One more site is left, and it is so obscure that only the smallest fraction of the synagogue mosaic remains. Mesopotamian creation myths, Josephs relationship with Egyptian temple practices and 3 tales of Ur, the birthplace of Abraham. See endnote 6, above. Jewish people worship in holy places known as synagogues, and their spiritual leaders are called rabbis . For a survey of scholarly opinions see Hachlili. I love all you and hope for all. There are three others that are very fragmentary indeed-some destroyed or changed in antiquity, others looted and destroyed in modern times, some both. There are no pictures here at all. [19], The southern panel, which was laid before the synagogue's Torah Shrine, is a liturgically oriented scene that emphasizes the centrality of the Torah Shrine. Also the zodiac calendar was used to keep the time of year it was, the Hebrews used the Constellations as forms of signs from God and to tell what season it was. 23. Why is that? Or did you miss that tile fresco at the ongoing excavation at a synagogue in Huqoq? The bad news is that the regular cycle of nature was pretty grim, not to mention completely predestined. The two candelabra flank the Ark of the Covenant with the rams horn, palm frond and citron, and incense shovel in place below. There is a stronger case outlined in The Bible to prove her actual historical existence than there is to disprove it. http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2015/01/what-are-pagan-deities-doing-on-the-floors-of-ancient-synagogues/. You can read in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary Reader (Mendez-Flohr and Reinharz, Oxford Univ. Did not Solomon send ships to Ophir to fetch gold? Gilboa. More important, these signs are too loaded with meaning. 8Astronomical Symbols, 167195; Magness identifies Helios with the angel, Metatron, see Magness, "Heaven on Earth: Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues", 2, 3032. Thus it happened that at the end of December 1928 a work crew from kibbutz Beth Alpha (founded 6 years earlier) was digging yet another drainage canal when someones shovel started picking up pieces of mosaic. speaks about the synagogues of Naaran, Beth Alpha, Jeresh, and of Delos, Miletus, Priene and Aegina in Greece. They are the 3 children in the fiery furnace, Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego, in the book of Daniel. This is wordwide. Your email address will not be published. A thousand years of neglect had resulted in a valley full of silted and blocked-up waterways creating a marshy and swampy landscape as the spring of Harodand half a dozen other springs that empty into itfilled the land with water faster than the natural outletsnow blockedcould drain it. The ancient synagogue was a place of worship, study and assembly. The cosmos was chaotic at first. Is not listing papers published in predatory journals considered dishonest? This produces the natural process called precession [sometimes called precession of the equinoxes]. Interested in Biblical art? And it was going a different way.31 We might say that Talmudic Judaism was moving horizontally: A man walks a path, with God giving him the Law to tell him what to do and what not to do, how to stay straight on the path and not stray off. The first of these, from 1885, explains their views on Zionism and messianism: We recognize, in the modern era of universal culture of heart and intellect, the approaching of the realization of Israel's great Messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among all men. 25. They cling to the demands of the Law and miss out on the supply of grace! At the same time that we consider the State of Israel vital to the welfare of Judaism everywhere, we reaffirm the mandate of our tradition to create strong Jewish communities wherever we live. 13. The beast from the sea is Islam and the beast from the earth is the U.S. government. This formulation, from Goodenough (q.v. The main prayers happen in the. It is true that one who goes through Jewish literature with a fine-tooth comb can find a citation here and there that seems to recognize the phenomenon of mosaic decoration, presumably zodiac, in synagogues. It presents Jews as the string-pulling puppet masters behind the world's political, economic, and social . We are bound to that land and to the newly reborn State of Israel by innumerable religious and ethnic ties. But between them you have the zodiac sign of Cancer, the Crab, which falls in mid-summer, not early spring. In the days of Rabbi Abun they began depicting figures in mosaic and he did not protest against it.7 More to the point, we find a line in Aramaic translation, you may place a mosaic pavement impressed with figures and images in the floors of synagogue; but not for bowing down to it.8 There is even a Midrash that attempts to justify the zodiac phenomenon: The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him [Abraham]: just as the zodiac [mazalot] surrounds me, and my glory is in the center, so shall your descendants multiply and camp under many flags, with my shekhina in the center.9. We progress even higher, through the stars and constellations (the Hebrew word mazal, constellation, means luck). We have nearly reached the end of our survey. All we need in order to understand the earth (that is, about our destiny) is to understand the stars. Beit Alfa Synagogue National Parks Website. We need to learn how to read them. The zodiac consists of two concentric circles, with the twelve zodiac signs appearing in the outer circle, and Helios, the Greco-Roman sun god, appearing in the inner circle. Your email address will not be published. The word Temple was first introduced in the title of the organazation which drove to found the Hamburg Temple: The New Isaelite Temple Association of Hamburg, a group of 66 layman (not the leading Reform Rabbis of the time) which arranged for the opening of the Hamburg Temple in 1818. The churchs interpretation of Psalm 45 is pure speculation and guess work. That position was argued by Prof. Avi-Yonah, among many others, and by the excavator of Hammat Tiberias. This is by far the most helpful discussion of synagogue zodiacs in the ancient world that I have found so far. We see the worshipers climbing the mystical ladder from the mundane and transient things down here at the entrancewho made the floor, when, and how much it costto a union with God at His holy Ark up there at the far end. The term synagogue is of Greek origin ( synagein, "to bring together") and means "a place of assembly." The Yiddish word shul (from German Schule, "school") is also used to refer to the synagogue, and in modern times the word temple is common among some Reform and Conservative congregations. One way to do that is to refer to those local centers as "temples". Im not sure why youre trying to invent a new religion there There is no indication that there ever was such a religion, whether or not suppressed by the Talmud (which does nothing to suppress the Sadducees or Sicarii, among others). Jews celebrate on the full moon. It is, and has always been, a part of Judaism. When Mohammad decided to start a new religion, he took his basis from Monotheistic Judaism and selected one of the gods, Allah, from the pantheon of polytheistic Arabian culture. And one that was supposed to be parallel to normative Judaism all along (since you gave it such hoary credentials). In the square panel of the Beth Alpha mosaic was a zodiac wheel with all 12 symbols and names of the zodiac, surrounded by four female figures at the corners, identifying the seasons of the year. Their knowledge of the stars was on a priestly scale, since they were among the most knowledgable in this field. the 3 Giza Pyramids are a witness of God and built by Seth and his descendants and inscribed in the denderah temple and the temple of Hathor is the Zodiac. I have been unable to chase the source of that idea down. A bent Lotus means a man and a duck means woman. Beth Israel ( Hebrew: "House of Israel") may refer to: Synagogues Canada (by province) Beth Israel Synagogue (Edmonton) Congregation Beth Israel (Vancouver) Beth Israel Synagogue (Halifax, Nova Scotia) Beth Israel Congregation (Kingston, Ontario) Beth Israel Anshei Minsk (Toronto, Ontario) 8. Tue 18 Jul 2023 14.20 EDT. The iconographic significance of the "Binding of Isaac" is unclear. Subject Matter: The Future Queen of Israel ), ch. The well-built synagogue at Sussiya lasted for a long time, which was ultimately the downfall of some of its mosaics. The All-Access membership pass is the way to get to know the Bible through biblical archaeology. [10] In the lower center of the composition, immediately below the hand of God, the ram that served as Isaac's substitute is positioned standing sideways, trapped in the nearby thicket. How to create a mesh of objects circling a sphere, Use of the fundamental theorem of calculus. Then perhaps its all just decoration, pretty pictures, the common designs of the era. It isnt any more ridiculous to believe that the stars control our destiny than that a single supernatural power does. Key Points Jews, like other early religious communities, were wary of art being used for idolatrous purposes. [25] Additionally, the Menorah also maintained a practical function, as the primary light source for the area around the Torah Shrine. In Orthodox synagogues, you will also find a separate section where the women sit. 20. Thus the new JPS Tanakh. Still have questions? And that understanding brought the worshiper to the holy symbols of the synagogue, which is Gods house. You must be joking truely, not serious are you? The Reform movement does not seek a third temple but believes that such centers of life are necessary everywhere that Jews live, and also that maintaining a connection with our national history and land is important. [17] Some interpret the popularity that the zodiac maintains within synagogue floors as evidence for its Judaization and adaptation into the Jewish calendar and liturgy. E.L. Sukenik, The Ancient Synagogue of Beth-Alpha, (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1932) E.g.. What is the origin for Reform to call their synagogues a "Temple"? Goodenoughs 13 volume study, E.R. Look for Tabor and Wray on YouTube! The odd line here and there accounts for nothing in view of the overwhelming opposition in rabbinic literature to anything related to the making of pictures of any sort, and doubly so the fierce opposition to anything suggesting idolatry and pagan worship. 1st Kings 9:26,27,28. During this time, the Jewish temple was . The earliest possible candidate was a major quake that hit the country on July 9, 551. Why do so many synagogues have the same name? This is the God who rules over the moon and the seasons, the rain, the land and the elements. We, writing English, have put in a period after the word earth.6 But if the period werent there, the verse could be read as a long conditional clause: make no graven images which you worship. In this case its not the making that is prohibited, but the worshiping. Some ancient synagogues, as in Beth-Shean, show only the synagogue panel without any of the other elements. Judaism has many many many ideas in it that can be seen or perceived by someone unfamiliar with Judaism in one way even though it is not that way. Instead of glorifying them we should rather speak out against them and guard our own souls and minds from these apostate things, lest we fall under the same condemnation!
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