I meant to bring up the patriarch story when making my first post but wasn't satisfied with it, so it's not surprising it might be confusing.
Mostly I put it in because it's the most interesting thing from the Torah relating to this subject that my Rabbi expounded on. The sources are all Talmudic so it sort of supports the Rabbinic era point I made in the first post. Also quite fascinating (or coincidental I suppose) is that the patriarch verses match up well with the prayer services.
I'm not clear on the actual date that the three daily prayers started. It seems it could have been before the destruction of the second temple but I'd want odds to take that position in a bet.
Basically the services are composed of some psalms, the
Amidah, the
Shema_Yisrael (with an * for Maariv), and several recitals of the
Kaddish. Except for the psalms, these are all (sort of) Rabbinic prayers.
The language of the Amidah most likely comes from the mishnaic period,[9] both before and after the destruction of the Temple (70 CE) as the probable time of its composition and compilation. In the time of the Mishnah, it was considered unnecessary to prescribe its text and content. This may have been simply because the language was well known to the Mishnah's authors.[10] The Mishnah may also not have recorded a specific text because of an aversion to making prayer a matter of rigor and fixed formula, an aversion that continued at least to some extent throughout the Talmudic period, as evidenced by the opinions of R. Eliezer (Talmud Ber. 29b) and R. Simeon ben Yohai (Ab. ii. 13). R. Jose held that one should include something new in one's prayer every day (Talmud Yerushalmi Ber. 8b), a principle said to have been carried into practice by R. Eleazar and R. Abbahu (ib.). Prayer was not to be read as one would read a letter (ib.).
However, even the talmudic sources reflect such diverse opinions including the one attributing the formulation of the Amidah to the "men of the Great Synagogue" (Ber.33a, Meg. 17b), namely to the early Second Temple period, as opposed to one that explicitly ascribes the arrangement of the prayer to the activity of Rabban Gamliel in the post-destruction era at Yavneh (Ber. 28b).[11]
Great Synagogue refers to the
Great_Assembly. My guess is that this never happened, although I don't consider myself a "modern scholar" as mentioned in the quote.
an assembly of 120 scribes, sages, and prophets, in the period from the end of the Biblical prophets since the early Second Temple period to the early Hellenistic period. It comprised such prophets as Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi (who is Ezra), Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, Nehemiah b. Hachaliah, Mordechai and Zerubabel b. Shaaltiel, among others.[1] Sometimes, the Great Assembly is simply designated as "Ezra and his court of law" (Beit Din).[2]
Among the developments in Judaism that are attributed to them are the fixing of the Jewish Biblical canon, including the books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, and the Twelve Minor Prophets; the introduction of the Feast of Purim; and the institution of the prayer known as the "Shemoneh 'Esreh" as well as the synagogal prayers, rituals, and benedictions.
Some modern scholars question whether the Great Assembly ever existed as an institution as such. Louis Jacobs, while not endorsing this view, remarks that "references in the [later] Rabbinic literature to the Men of the Great Synagogue can be taken to mean that ideas, rules, and prayers, seen to be pre-Rabbinic but post-biblical, were often fathered upon them".[3]
Originally, the Shema consisted of only one verse: Deuteronomy 6:4 (see Talmud Sukkah 42a and Berachot 13b). The recitation of the Shema in the liturgy, however, consists of three portions: Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37–41
The oldest version of the Kaddish is found in the Siddur of Rab Amram Gaon, c. 900. Shira Schoenberg observes that "The first mention of mourners saying Kaddish at the end of the service is in a 13th century halakhic writing by Isaac ben Moses of Vienna, the Or Zarua (literally "Light is Sown"). The Kaddish at the end of the service became designated as Kaddish Yatom or Mourner's Kaddish (literally, "Orphan's Kaddish").[1]
Just brought it up because it's interesting to me and seemed pertinent. It seems probable that the three prayer interpretation came first and that the three temple interpretation was dreamed up later - maybe much later - always something to look up.