Great Assembly - Inclusion of The Last Hebrew Bible Prophets

Inclusion of The Last Hebrew Bible Prophets

The members of the Great Assembly are designated in the Mishnah (Ab. i. 1) as those who occupied a place in the chain of tradition between the Prophets and the earliest scholars known by name.

"The Prophets transmitted the Torah to the men of the Great Synagogue. . . . Simon the Just was one of those who survived the Great Synagogue, and Antigonus of Soko received the Torah from him." (Ab. i. 1 et seq.).

The first part of this statement is paraphrased as follows in Ab. R. N. i.;

"Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi received from the Prophets; and the men of the Great Synagogue received from Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi."

In this paraphrase the three post-exilic prophets are separated from the other prophets, for it was the task of the former to transmit the Law to the members of the Great Synagogue. It must even be assumed that these three prophets were themselves included in those members, for it is evident from the statements referring to the institution of the prayers and benedictions that the Great Synagogue included prophets.

According to R. Johanan, who wrote in the third century,

"The men of the Great Synagogue instituted for Israel the benedictions and the prayers, as well as the benedictions for Kiddush and habdalah" (Ber. 33a).

This agrees with the sentence of R. Jeremiah (4th cent.), who states (Yer. Ber. 4d), in reference to the "Shemoneh 'Esreh," that

"one hundred and twenty elders, including about eighty prophets, have instituted these prayers."

These one hundred and twenty elders are undoubtedly identical with the men of the Great Synagogue. The number given of the prophets must, however, be corrected according to Meg. 17b, where the source of R. Jeremiah's statement is found:

"R. Johanan said that, according to some, a baraita taught that one hundred and twenty elders, including some prophets, instituted the 'Shemoneh 'Esreh.' "

Hence the prophets were in a minority in the Great Synagogue.

Another statement regarding the activity of this institution alludes to the establishment of the Feast of Purim according to Esth. ix. 27 et seq., while the Babylonian Talmud (Meg. 2a) states, as a matter requiring no discussion, that the celebration of the Feast of Purim on the days mentioned in Meg. i. 1 was instituted by the men of the Great Synagogue. But in the Jerusalem Talmud, R. Johanan (Meg. 70d; Ruth R. ii. 4) speaks of eighty-five elders, among them about thirty prophets.