Reference Type: Book
Author: Fine, Steven
Year: 1997
Title: This Holy Place. On the Sanctity of the Synagogue During the Greco-Roman Period (Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity Series)
City: Notre Dame
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Number of Pages: 280
Language: English
Keywords: Jewish minority, history, archeology, ancient history, synagogues, Jewish congregation, religion, rite
Abstract: (En) Marshaling a wide variety of literary and archaeological sources dating to the Greco-Roman period, Steven Fine demonstrates how the synagogue came to be seen as sacred, rather than simply as houses of study. Fine argues that the biblical scrolls read, studied, and stored within its walls were the most important source of synagogue sanctity in the minds of the ancients, for the Scriptures offered the physical manifestation of the Divine within local congregations.