The synagogue in Luke 21:12: not just a synagogue?

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FransJVermeiren
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The synagogue in Luke 21:12: not just a synagogue?

Post by FransJVermeiren »

As part of the synoptic Apocalypse, Luke 21:12 provides more information than its parallel in Mark (13:9), while the parallel verse in Matthew (24:9) is quite different. Maybe Luke’s information enables us to point to concrete historical events.

Nestle-Aland translates this verse as follows: But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.

The ‘before all this’ at the beginning of the verse most likely refers to the preceding verses (10 and 11), which describe a war and some of its constituting elements: the trembling (σεισμοι) caused by ballista stones and battering rams, and famines and epidemics as the effect of prolonged sieges. Taking the whole of the synoptic Apocalypse into consideration, it is clear that the war of the Jews against the Romans (66-70 CE) is discussed. Maybe from the inversed chronology between verse 10-11 and verse 12 we can infer that verse 12 describes events from (just) before the war, from its outbreak or from an early stage of it.

A crucial word in verse 12 is συναγωγὰς, because at face value it points to a religious building, thereby creating a context of religious prosecution of the first Christians. This does not have to be the case, and in my opinion it is not, as I will try to show below based on the information of the whole verse. In general a συναγωγἠ is a place of assembly or a meeting room, and I will translate it as such. In the translation below I will also put a different emphasis on some other words:
• ‘To lay one's hands on someone’ implies violence (BDAG p. 367), so I translate as ‘to attack’. Josephus uses the same expression in War II:491, describing ethnic violence in Alexandria between Jews and Syrians.
• ‘To persecute’ is quite a flat translation of διὠκω; this verb can more specifically be translated as ‘to drive out’.
• In the context of the war against the Romans I will translate the ‘kings’ and ‘governors’ more specifically as ‘emperors’ and ‘procurators’.

My translation goes as follows: But before all this they will attack you and drive you out, delivering you up to the meeting rooms and prisons, and you will be brought before emperors and procurators for my name’s sake.

It is remarkable that all the elements of this verse are present in Josephus’s War II:284-292, the fragment which Cornfeld entitles ‘The uprising at Caesarea in AD 66 leading to war with Rome’: the emperor Nero, procurator Florus, the Jews and Syrians of Caesarea attacking each other (with the Syrians getting the upper hand), the Jews driven out to Narbata saving the Torah scrolls from the Caesarean synagogue, the leading Jews meeting Florus in Sebaste, and finally the imprisonment of these leading men. In my opinion Luke 21:12 describes the incident (or one of the incidents) which provoked the war. Compared to the War fragment there is only a difference in the chronological staging of Nero. In Josephus he is staged at the beginning of the fragment, while Luke stages him together with the procurator. We can read the second part of this verse (meeting rooms, prisons, emperors, procurators) in singular. The plural is an element of apocalyptic camouflage, just like in Revelation.

Laying Josephus and Luke 21:12 together we can comment as follows. After previous ethnic tension in Caesarea, a delegation of both parties was sent to Rome to defend their case – the control over the city – before the imperial tribunal. The Syrians won, and this led to new mutual provocations, which Josephus describes as ‘the pretext for war’. The mutual harassment ended in violence with the Syrians getting the upper hand. The Jews didn’t feel safe anymore in the city, so they left for the nearby fortified town of Narbata, taking their Torah scrolls with them. Florus summoned the twelve Jewish leaders to his ‘synagogue’ in Sebaste, and imprisoned them.

Or staying closer to the text of Luke 21:12: After a negative verdict of the emperor, the war was ignited by an attack of the Syrians of Caesarea on their Jewish co-citizens, the Syrians driving the Jews out of the city. The leaders of the Jews were summoned by procurator Florus to (the meeting room of the palace in) Sebaste. Florus imprisoned them.

I am looking forward to your comments.
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The practical modes of concealment are limited only by the imaginative capacity of subordinates. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance.
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