Friends, I have tried & failed to find really firm documented evidence of 2nd temple period Liturgy used either in Temple services or among the Judean or extra-Judean synagogues. What I find instead, even within seminary works, is repetition of assumptions mixed with pre-2nd Temple scriptures or extra-canonical writings.
Can someone point me to any hard evidence of form or substance of the Liturgies in use from the time of Ezra to the destructions of 70ad and 130ad? I do understand that the very notion of any widely accepted synagogue “Liturgy” is controversial but surely Temple proceedings were orderly.
Links and bibliographical references are so welcome!
Richard
At this point [February 1 2018] it appears we won't answer this, which is about the same stopover that scholarship has take on the topic up to this point, in my observation.
Since posting this I have read a number of Margaret Barker's works and listened to her lectures/presentations for hours - some of them 3 or 4 times to make sure I captured what she is saying. Why Barker? Because she at least acknowledges the importance of trying to connect Temple Liturgical practices to the early/primitive Christian movement's own practices. Though the outtakes or bullet points of some of her work seem to point in that direction, real source/evidence of linkage or Christian "borrowing" of such practices, to be incorporated into Eucharistic Liturgy, is lacking. I still have a couple of questions outstanding to her and I am hopeful she will respond when she can. I will update this if so. Virtually all of her works except for videos/audios are referenced, and some articles available, can be found at her site: http://www.margaretbarker.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Barker/e/B001IQWG34
I have also consulted the works of Paul F. Bradshaw https://www.amazon.com/Paul-F.-Bradshaw/e/B001IQW9E0/ and will be spending a lot of hours reading more of his. But directly pertinent to my question posted here, Dr. Bradshaw guardedly [my word] indicates that evidence is not found of early Christian borrowing from Judaic practices for purposes of codifying a set Eucharistic Liturgy. Dr. Bradshaw suggests what we have in primitive days is the Didache, possibly the early forms of East Syrian Eucharistic prayers, prayers referenced in Book 7 of Apostolic Constitutions, possible primitive form of the Sanctus, and nothing else. If any of you have sourced reference to ANY other primary, primitive evidence pre-dating c.3rd Century AD, pls post.
Here is an example of the maddening nature of the void, found in the Wiki for the East Syrian Rite, which supposedly incorporates early East Syrian Eucharistic prayers of antiquity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Syrian_Rite#History Quote from the section "History", first sentence: "The Chaldean rite originally grew out of the Jerusalem–Antioch liturgy". There is no footnote, no reference. The other date references in the paragraph leap to the 4th century and later. There is no sourced evidence of borrowing from Jewish sources [Temple or synagogal].
The partial response re tefillin given below is good guidance on the topic of the Daily Hours/Canonical Hours/Opus Dei/ observances but has nothing to do with Eucharistic Liturgy so far as any extant study might show. "The Hours" is an important topic and in that study there is good linkage, it seems, quite directly to the Jewish Daily Prayers. Good topic for another post another time. Dr. Bradshaw, btw, has done awesome work on that topic which I am pursuing. For those interested, Dr. Bradshaw also recommends Stefan C. Reif’s book, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer, Cambridge University Press 1993 for a scholarly look at the origins of synagogue prayer and essays by Reif and by Richard Sarason in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Esther G. Chazon (Leiden: Brill, 2003)
There is no evidence that I can find that there even WAS a common worship form to Sabbath Synagogue meetings. There does seem to be an order/protocol. We have some great study done on the Synagogue emergence, very much of the scholarly work being fairly recent history, thanks to archaeological findings that ignited the area of interest. But no one has shown that the Sabbath meetings [which were not specified in the Law, BTW] had a commonly-accepted Liturgical [cap L] form. Little l, maybe so; cap L, no. Remember that the term 'liturgy' is derived from Athenian community service work usually taken on as noblesse oblige by those of higher social status. Religious adaptation of the term includes all the gods, not just one or two.
Dr. Bradshaw's Liturgy work points out what other scholarly work triangulates, that Liturgy is largely a product of the Nicene era, not owing its form to Judaic practices. To me, that truth needs to form into a Conclusion to be written about PLAINLY. Instead we still have the echo-chamber effect of "liturgical forms copied over from Jewish practices". Having said that, Margaret Barker would seem to have the most keen interest in hammering out an evidence-based case for Christian Liturgy indebted to TEMPLE forms, specifically 1st/Solomon's Temple praxis. She may do so yet, but the case she set forth to this point is speculative and rather controversial. Jesus's inner-circle had no "Liturgy" to pass along to the downstream Christian movement. The highly-ritualized regimented forms of the old "liturgical faiths" is largely found rooted not in 1st century CE Apostolic or Jewish praxis but was a 'professional clerical' effort solidifying in the era of Emperor-supported Christianity.
