Prof Peter Oakes presents at Early Synagogue Archaeology Conference
Prof Peter Oakes recently gave a paper at the Early Synagogue Archeology Conference in Lausanne.
The last decade has seen a mushrooming of our awareness of remains of First- and early Second-Century synagogues in Galilee and Judaea.
On 10-11 April 2019, an international conference at University of Lausanne brought leading archaeologists together with historians and textual specialists to investigate these early Jewish meeting halls, so different from the prayer-hall type synagogues of the later, Byzantine period.
One controversial question was whether sacred meals took place in the early synagogues – an idea at odds with Rabbinic texts.
Prof Peter Oakes, from the Centre for Biblical Studies and the Department of Religions and Theology at ¼â½ÐÊÓƵapp, contributed to this question and others with a paper exploring the relationships between meeting, eating, and types of first-space in use by the earliest Christian groups which were, in many ways, akin to synagogue gatherings.