File:Reconstructed First-century Synagogue (5806655244).jpg

This building (at the Nazareth Village living museum in Nazareth) reproduces a typical synagogue from the first century CE, based on sites excavated so far in the Holy Land. The banked seating would wrap around three or four sides of the single large room. The placing of columns (and parallels with similar structures) suggests that light was provided by clerestory windows around a central raised section of the ceiling. It seems there were no permanent tables or "pulpits" in these buildings, so torah and haftorah readings were probably done from a small portable table and chair/stool like the wooden ones pictured here.

The one major inaccuracy here (as the museum historical advisors admit) is the lack of colour inside the building. The recent excavations at Gadara confirm that Galilean synagogues were decorated with brightly coloured frescoes. The pillars may also have been painted in part or in whole (perhaps with red on the bottom half of each). The synagogue at Gadara also has a mosaic floor with a monochromatic (black and white) geometric pattern typical of first-century Roman fashions. We do not know whether any figurative or representational designs were used in the wall frescoes or whether they were strictly geometric. The floral motifs associated with Herod's temple and with some ossuaries may suggest that a similar mix of floral and geometric patterns was used in some first-century synagogue frescoes. On the other hand, the walls might have been decorated with the kind of faux-marble painted panels that decorated parts of the palace and bath-house at Masada. In any case, first-century synagogues were much less austere places than this photo would suggest!