Worship

Variety in Worship

Variety in Texts

The worship Yeshua and his disciples participated in at the Temple or at a syngagoue primarily drew from three texts.

The book of Psalms was the primary text. People read entire psalms. A verse or two could also be recited as a prayer. Archeological evidence records that the worship services for at least some of the annual appointed times had certain Psalms traditionally associated with them.

Jewish culture of that time was also beginning to develop liturgy. The point of liturgy is to lead the worshippers through all many ways of thinking about Adonai, his Kingdom, his covenants, and our relationship with him. If the liturgy fills this role any other activities during the time of worship are freed from this responsibility and may simply enhance the worship by their own merits.

Prayers aside from the Psalms that scholars have found used in first century liturgy include:

• Deuteronomy 6:4-9 with an additional line (the Shema and V'ahavta)
• a series of eighteen blessings (the Amidah)
• a short responsive blessing (the Barchoo)
• a longer blessing petitioning for the Kingdom (the Kaddish)
• Numbers 6:24-26 (the Priestly Blessing)

Liturgy in the first century was organized, but it was not fixed. Even the Talmud, written later, records multiple debates about whether fixed prayers that are not verses of scripture have any merit.

Recovered copies of the Amidah from this time have the final sentence of each blessing standardized but different sentences earlier in each blessing. Scholars do not know if the eighteen paragraphs were improvised with standard concluding sentences or if different geographical areas each had their own established traditions.

The Kaddish was said only once in a first century service, after the sermon. It was probably only the first paragraph of the modern version of that prayer.

The third text used during worship services was the repertoire of b'rachot (traditional blessings) established since the days of Ezra. Please refer to the concept essay about "blessing" for more information about the b'rachot.

Eventually the followers of Yeshua composed their own texts. As examples, their oldest known hymnal is the Odes of Solomon, and their oldest known congregational manual is the Didache.

Finally, it should be noted that the early followers of Yeshua were a multilingual community. The languages used during worship services changed from place to place to reflect the native languages of the worshippers. Even the greeting Paul commonly used acknowledged this fact: his phrase "Grace to you and peace..." referred to the words charis and shalom used by the Greek-speaking and Hebrew-speaking members of Paul's audience. (Some scholars believe Acts 15:21 records an expectation in that time for any followers of Yeshua who did not know Hebrew to learn it, to better study scripture.)