ORIGINS

In the Diaspora exiled Jews, loyal to the one-sanctuary law (Deut. I2:2ff), still looked to Jerusalem as their cultic centre and appear only in Egypt to have provided any substitute for the Temple. Even there the two exceptions are susceptible of explanation. The temple at Elephantine, of which the fifth century papyri tell us, was more than an exception in being syncretistic (Making, p. 38), while that constructed at Leontopolis by Onias III or IV in 167 bc (p. 136) may be regarded as due in the main to the personal demand of an exile who thought of himself as the true high priest of Israel.

Even in Palestine the Temple could not meet the needs of those who lived at a distance from the capital and, when the need to know and obey the Torah was impressed upon them, the system of sacrifices was hardly adequate. It is therefore possible that the need for local meeting-places became acute after the Restoration, but also possible that it had been felt in the homeland before the Exile. Certainly after the destruction of the Temple in 587, both there and in the Diaspora there was a need for places of assembly where children and the unlearned could be taught and the experts could debate and consult. Another and perhaps earlier need was for a place which could be used for prayer.