This essay is a general overview of synagogue life shaping the Jesus story. Runesson writes:

These Jewish institutions, which were ubiquitous in the ancient Mediterranean world and, importantly, can be reconstructed based on sources both beyond and within the New Testament texts, thus provide us with a critical entry point into the world of Jesus, as he shared it with his contemporaries. Indeed, it is within these types of settings that we should locate his earliest followers too, as well as the transmission and textualization of traditions preserving his memory; “synagogues” offer us nothing less than access to important clues not only about the person but also about how his memory and message were preserved and shaped. Elsewhere, I have called this approach, through which we may also learn about ancient theology and ideology based on the institutional contexts within which they were formed, “institution criticism.” … The bottom line is that it is hardly possible to ask the questions “who was Jesus and what did he want to achieve?” without also having to respond to the query “what was a first-century synagogue?” …My point is simple: the terminological diversity and interchangeability that applies to institutions designated by synagogue terms means that context becomes key for the interpretive endeavor… The most important for our purposes here is the communal reading and teaching of Torah followed by debate or discussion. While it is difficult to say exactly when such readings, which were unique to the Jews in antiquity, began to take place on a weekly basis, public readings of Torah as a phenomenon originated in civic settings in the Persian period, the time when we, indeed, may place the forerunners of the “public synagogues” we find in the first century. While, as shown by the Theodotos inscription and Philo’s and Josephus’s descriptions of the Essenes, reading, expounding, and teaching Torah stood at the center of activities linked to “association synagogues.”

This line of thought by Runesson seems to echo ideas previously floated by Spong. Imitative midrash/typology writing in the New Testament may be the result of Oral traditions about Jesus being shaped in the synagogue. References to the synagogue appear 11 times in Mark, 9 times in Mattthew, 16 times in Luke, and five times in John.

Lets consider this with Spong. Mark says “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ ; as it is written in the prophets.” Mark immediately interprets John the Baptist as a forerunner of the Messiah (a la Elijah in II Kings 1:8). Mark then clothes John similar to Elijah (Mark 1:6. II Kings 1:8.) He then says John ate locusts and wild honey, the food of the wilderness in which Elijah lived (and so on and so on). The story was crafted around Jewish scripture.

Spong indicates in the synagogue people heard scriptures read, taught, discussed, or expounded. The vast majority of first century people could not read. So people didn`t own bibles. The Jews had access to their sacred stories in the synagogue. The memory of the historical Jesus could have been recalled, restated, and passed on in the synagogue. And the gospel stories may also be shaped in terms of Jewish liturgy. The crucifixion may be shaped against the Passover. The transfiguration echoes Hanukkah. Many things are reminiscent of Rosh Hashanah.

So, Spong notes as it says in Acts, they would read from the Torah, then from the former prophets (Joshua through Kings), and finally from the latter prohets (Isaiah through Malachi). At that point the synagogue leader would ask if anyone would like to bring any message or experience that might illumine the readings. So followers of Jesus may have then recalled their memories of him which that Sabbath elicited. This could be where all the imitative midrash is coming from. This is what Paul does in Acts (13:16b-41). They went through this process for about forty years before the gospels were written.

Bibliography

Runesson, Anders. Synagogues in Crossley, James; Keith, Chris. The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus (pp 416-437). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition (2024).