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 Manchester, 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.