This piqued my interest. I've always been taught the "traditional" (cliched) view that synagogues were founded in the exile, that Ezra was a key figure here, etc. etc. Can you provide some more info or a recommended source here?
I really don't know what to say, aside from dealing with the biblical evidence and giving it priority
over historical and extra-biblical claims and evidences. There were holy assemblies appointed for the Sabbath in the Law. And unless one accepts the JEDP or other "developmental hypothesis," along with rejection of essential Mosaic authoriship of the Pentateuch, we must assume these were original and have inception in the wilderness experience of the children of Israel (a traditional view also accepting the history of Israel as an accurate record).
The (controlled) speculation that follows then asks: how did the wilderness experience translate into settled experience in the Promised Land after the conquest and distribution of inheritance? What do the commands and expectations (and scant evidences gleaned from history and text) inform us as to the manner Sabbaths might have been kept? Should we assume a "ghost town" aspect to every house, village, and city where Sabbath was honored? Did people get up on their roofs and suntan? Did they have conversations with neighbors?
I realize the rabbinic rules that came out of the exile--some of which traditions have hints recalled in NT passages) set forth all kinds of regulation, like how far was a "Sabbath-day's walk" (Act.1:12), or whether carrying one's mat on the Sabbath was "work" (Jn.5:10)--these were claimed to have their same origin in Moses and an oral tradition back to the start. But we cannot respect these, as Jesus did not and called into question their authority (e.g. Mt.15:1-9). The same rules taught a pattern for synagogue worship, to which both the Bible and extrabiblical texts (and archaeology) lend further support in terms of liturgy and traditions that were live in the days of the NT.
There was always some kind of distributed worship in Israel, the only question concerns the nature of it. We know (and is beyond any dispute even from unbelieving scholarship) that there was
unlawful distributed worship, for the OT biblical text bears constant refrain of the need to dismantle it. But there must also have been legitimate distributed worship, so then we ask what it might and should have looked like. The archaeology alone will not explain itself. Always, there are the starting assumptions of the students and scholars involved and writing about the findings.
Consider an article like this one (less than a year old):
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org...eligious-reform-in-the-bible-and-archaeology/ It is hard to sift the raw facts from the interpretive grid that tries to render the relics into something approaching a story, especially when some elements presented as fact are (in truth) "settled conclusions" of those who agree with the last lines of the article that frankly deny explicit claims of the inspired text. But what else would one expect from scholars who are not firstly committed to supernaturalism and a preserved plus accurate text of Scripture, and who believe religion is just another social phenomenon constantly evolving?
Despite the difficulty and the need to make estimates of the raw material of excavation, one thing is beyond dispute: there were distributed worship locations in Judah in Hezekiah's day, after his instituted reforms, even before Josiah's day and his reforms (and the alleged creation of Deuteronomy). Again, what was the nature of these gathering places? Were they simply original or repurposed "high places" bound to the Canaanite religious milieu? Were "incense altars" in such places meant for convenience of use, or as placeholders and signs?
In other words, could these locations have been lawful places of worship, where locals were oriented toward the one altar and proper worship location in Jerusalem? If one believes the synagogue's true origin was in Babylon, among the desperate exiles trying to maintain some kind of religious identity and unity, then all such "meetinghouses" in the land can be safely relegated to an evolutionary myth-laden prehistory, before the kings in Jerusalem imposed their totalitarian dictat on the ordinary folk-religious people of the far hills and valleys, towns and regions.
The religious expression come back from the Exile shouldn't (in my opinion) be divorced from that which came before, not simply in connection to the Temple (and an assumed late-date for imposing centralized worship practice) but also tied to the priestly duties we regard as founded at Sinai in the 14th century B.C. We have to separate the wheat from the chaff. We have to decide what our primary interpretive lens for the data (written and residue) is bound to be. We need not be slaves of any tradition, old or new, but dedicated to a faithful interpretation of Scripture--one that is neither hidebound and blinkered nor rationalist-empiricist philosophically.
I may be wrong in my own assumptions, and am willing to take a dose of correction. I may be guilty of misprioritization. There may be biblical certainties I am not granting due to ignorance, blindness, and prejudice. Someone feel free to bring further data and alternative interpretations into the discussion. This is about all I can offer.
