Synagogue, The Great
On the return of the Jews from Babylon, a great council was appointed according to rabbinic tradition, to reorganize the religious
life of the people. It consisted of 120 members, and these were known as the men of the Great Synagogue, the successors of
the prophets, themselves, in their turn, succeeded by scribes prominent, individually, as teachers. Ezra was recognized as
president, Their aim was to restore again the crown, or glory, of Israel. To this end they collected all the sacred writings
of the former ages and their own and so completed the canon of the Old Testament. They instituted the feast of Purim organized
the ritual of the synagogue, and gave their sanction to the Shemoneh Esreh, the eighteen solemn benedictions in it. Much of
this is evidently uncertain. The absence of any historical mention of such a body, not only in the Old Testament and the Apocrypha,
but in Josephus, Philo, etc., has had some critics to reject the whole statement as a rabbinic invention. The narrative of
(Nehemiah 8:13) clearly implies the existence of a body of men acting as councillors under the presidency of Ezra; and these may have been
an assembly of delegates from all provincial synagogues-a synod of the national Church.