stephan huller

It took me over a year to convince my friend Harry Tzalas (http://www.underwaterarchaeology.gr/HIAMAS/) to investigate the possibility that the fabled Jewish synagogue of Alexandria might be located deeper in the water than his discovery of the Martyrium of St. Mark. He sent divers down last month investigating a strange formation he had noticed some time ago. The waters were very rough (they almost always are in this part of the Mediterranean). His divers told him it might just be a 'natural formation' but they took some photos anyway. We just looked at the photos and now my friend has written me back:

I have been thinking about the submerged terrace west of the Chatby Casino. There is no doubt in my mind that it is related with the structures that stood on what was considered to be St. Marc Martyrium (mentioned in Clement's Letter to Theodore as well as the Passio Petri Sancti)

I thought about the possibilities of having a thorough survey of this area. Because it is an area exposed to the winds and swell it cannot be surveyed using zodiac type crafts -- to properly use an airlift we need a more stable boat of at least 20 m in length.

If it is your belief that the Martyrium is related with the Alexandria Synagogue please let me have as much information as possible.

He just received approval from the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt to start a survey with a dual aim: The Martyrium and the Synagogue. Now we need money. Harry thinks he can get the funding but I want to bring something to the table too. This is going to be a big discovery, my friends. I can't promise that I am right about anything or everything. The first part of my response to Harry's question of the location synagogue is as follows:

It's late over here and I was just about to go to sleep but there are a number of reasons why I would locate the synagogue there. The most obvious is in Philo's Flaccus where the great synagogue is (a) located near the water and (b) close enough to the official residence that the Jews who are standing in front of the closed synagogue can hear the horses come to arrest him on the other side of the walls.

Here is reference (a) from Philo:

And when they had spent the whole night in hymns and songs (i.e. outside the locked synagogue), they poured out through the gates at the earliest dawn, and hastened to the nearest point of the shore, for they had been deprived of their usual places for prayer, and standing in a clear and open space, they cried out, "O most mighty King of all mortal and immortal beings, we have come to offer thanks unto thee, to invoke earth and sea, and the air and the heaven, and all the parts of the universe, and the whole world in which alone we dwell, being driven out by men and robbed of everything else in the world, and being deprived of our city, and of all the buildings both private and public within the city, and being made houseless and homeless by the treachery of our governor, the only men in the world who are so treated. You suggest to us favourable hopes of the setting straight of what is left to us, beginning to consent to our prayers, inasmuch as you have on a sudden thrown down the common enemy of our nation, the author and cause of all our calamities, exulting in pride, and trusting that he would gain credit by such means, before he was removed to a distance from us, in order that those who were evilly afflicted might not feel their joy impaired by learning it only by report, but you have chastised him while he was so near, almost as we may say before the eyes of those whom he oppressed, in order to give us a more distinct perception of the end which has fallen upon him in a short time beyond our hopes." [Flaccus 123 - 125]

My interpretation of (b) is supported by van der Horst (Philo's Flaccus: the First Pogrom). I am just grabbing this English translation off the web but it is old and inaccurate. Van der Horst's is better (you should read the original Greek for the proper nuance). Remember the description of the Jews 'hearing' what was going on in the royal palace continues throughout even when they are standing outside the locked synagogue:

And they (the Jews) thought that this was to try them, and was not the truth, and were grieved all the more from thinking themselves mobbed, and that a snare was thus laid for them; but when a tumult arose through the city, and the guards of the night began to run about to and fro, and when some of the cavalry were heard to be galloping with the utmost speed and with all energy to the camp and from the camp, some of them, being excited by the strangeness of the event, went forth from their houses to inquire what had happened, for it was plain that something strange had occurred. When they heard that Flaccus had been arrested and was already ensnared within the hunter's nets, they stretched out their arms to heaven, they sang a hymn, and began a song of praise to God, who presides over all the affairs of men, saying, "We are not delighted, O Master, at the punishment of our enemy, being taught by the sacred laws to submit to all the vicissitudes of human life, but we justly give thanks to thee, who hast had mercy and compassion upon us, and who hast thus relieved our continual and incessant oppressions." [ibid Flaccus 120, 121]

The point is that the Jews have all gathered at the large synagogue and are continuing to hear what's going in the royal palace even as they stand in front of the locked door.

Van der Horst writes "One may assume that Philo reports this from his own experience for he may have heard 'their shouts and galloping horses'"

The point is that Philo was intimately connected with the synagogue. You have to find a place that was (a) right on the water and (b) close enough to the walls that you hear everything. It also has to be away from buried dead bodies owing to Jewish religious prohibitions.

When I get up I will go through my reasons for connecting the location of the synagogue with the Martyrium. For the moment here are my friend Birger Pearson's reasons for identifying the Martyrium with your location (although he doesn't know you)

There can be no doubt as to its location. According to the account in the Acts of Mark “in the eastern district” (10) “beside the sea, beneath the cliffs” (5) But since some confusion was introduced by Jorge Juan Fernadez Sangrador it is useful to take up his arguments in light of the evidence

A description of Sangrador’s argument follows:

Sangrador acknowledges that the Martyrium of St. Mark was located in the northeastern section of the city but argues that the earliest seat of the Alexandrian community, the area of Boukolou was located in the Rhakotis district in the southeastern section, near the ancient Serapeum.

Pearson disposes of Sangrador’s arguments based on the reference to ‘herdsmen’ noting that:

Strabo’s reference to herdsmen is of no use, however for Strabo mentions boukoloi in connection with other areas of Alexandria and the Delta as well.

Pearson then emphasizes once again that the Acts of Mark identifies the martyrium of St. Mark as the Church in the Boucolia. Then he moves on to the Passio Petri Sancti and concludes:

The topographical references in this account matches those of the Acts of Mark with additional amplifications. Ta boukolou, where the Martyrium of Mark was located is specified as a suburban area, but also near the sea. There are also tombs in that area. The tombs in question are clearly those now known as the Shatby Necropolis (fourth-third centuries BCE) part of the eastern necropolis that had been covered over during the city’s eastward expansion and no longer in use by the first century … There can be no doubt as to the location as to the area our texts refer to as to boukolou. By the fourth century, after massive destructions suffered by the city in the second and third centuries, this area was a suburb, located well outside the city. It could very well have been used for cow pastures (if that is what ta boukolou means). The cliffs referred to in the Acts of Mark are probably one of the hillocks that rose inland from the seacoast east of the city in the area around Shatby, long since obliterated by the cutting and filling associated with the construction projects in the modern city of Alexandria but known from old maps.

The bottom line is that I will develop a case tomorrow regarding why we should expect the martyrium to be located near the synagogue. In the meantime consider this strange fact. Severus of Al'Ashmunein says quite explicitly that there was only one Church in all of Egypt until the end of the third century. Eutychius writes that there was only one bishop until Demetrius "He was the bishop, according to the tenth-century annalist Eutychius who appointed other bishops, for the first time, in the land of Egypt" {1957:II.385; a Latin translation from the original Arabic of the Annals, by Eutychius, the Melkite or Chalcedonian patriarch of Alexandria [877-940, from 935; cf. ODByz II.760 (SHGriffith)], is presented in Patrologiae Graeca CXI columns 907-1156, with this specific reference at column 982; cf. column 989}.

There was a sizable Christian population in Egypt already at the end of the second century. The image that comes forth is a very centralized religion where pilgrims had to come into the Boucolia on holy days. It would also necessitate a rather large building.

It is difficult to say anything definitive about the Jewish synagogue/temple or the Christian Church of St Mark in the period. The Jewish temple/synagogue of Egypt was not destroyed in the first Jewish War. There are references to its continued existence in the early second century. One might suppose that it was destroyed in the Jewish revolts of the Trajanic period but who knows. Maybe it was taken over by Christians. There are many examples of this. Maybe the first Church of St. Mark was built on top of the synagogue. But where did the money come to finance such an enterprise? One would think this real estate would be quite valuable and already occupied.

I will give better reasons than this but the most likely scenario in my mind is that it was the original site of the Jewish synagogue and it may have been taken over by the Christians at some point either with a new construction or taking over the old building.

It is worth noting that the Jewish building has been accurately described here in Levine's book on ancient synagogues.

Anyway glad you've come around. Let's think about the best way to approach this. Sometimes as I am sure you would agree, you have to be able to talk out of both sides of your mouth for different people.

Jewish synagogues were often located near bodies of water. It's the natural place (let's not forget that the Imperial powers would like to keep the troublesome Jews under the watchful eye of the governor too!) The palace in Alexandria proper as I recall is literally looking down at this area.

For those who would like to put some money up for the expedition (I have no idea how any of this works so I just want to see if I can interest right now, no taking any checks right now) I will show you the PDF's of the underwater site. If someone can tell me how to turn PDF's into photos I can post here I would love to hear from you!

http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/20...st-jewish.html

stephan huller

God, you know you must be a cool when you comment on your own post! But I thought I would mention that I was engaged in a small debate with a professor who has written extensively on the location of the Jewish synagogue of Alexandria. A number of people claim that the synagogue would have been closer to the Via Canopica, near the ancient Gymnasium. The primary sources are given on pp. 147-48 of Pearson-Goehring, The Roots of Egyptian Christianity (or via: amazon.co.uk).

The bottom line is that the opinion is very widespread and based primarily on what Philo says in Leg. Gai. 132-35

The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: the struggle for equal rights By Aryeh Kasher on google books

The basic idea is that everyone agrees that the location of the synagogue was in the eastern part of the city. Everyone reference that the Jews could hear the arrest of Flaccus but those who hold the aforementioned location say that because the Greeks take a chariot out of the Gymnasium and place it in the great synagogue the latter must have been located close to the Gymnasium.

Here is the original passage in Philo:

(132) But as the governor of the country, who by himself could, if he had chosen to do so, have put down the violence of the multitude in a single hour, pretended not to see what he did see, and not to hear what he did hear, but allowed the mob to carry on the war against our people without any restraint, and threw our former state of tranquillity into confusion, the populace being excited still more, proceeded onwards to still more shameless and more audacious designs and treachery, and, arraying very numerous companies, cut down some of the synagogues (and there are a great many in every section of the city), and some they razed to the very foundations, and into some they threw fire and burnt them, in their insane madness and frenzy, without caring for the neighbouring houses; for there is nothing more rapid than fire, when it lays hold of fuel.

(133) I omit to mention the ornaments in honour of the emperor, which were destroyed and burnt with these synagogues, such as gilded shields, and gilded crowns, and pillars, and inscriptions, for the sake of which they ought even to have abstained from and spared the other things; but they were full of confidence, inasmuch as they did not fear any chastisement at the hand of Gaius, as they well knew that he cherished an indescribable hatred against the Jews, so that their opinion was that no one could do him a more acceptable servlce than by inflicting every description of injury on the nation which he hated;

(134) and, as they wished to curry favour with him by a novel kind of flattery, so as to allow, and for the future to give the rein to, every sort of ill treatment of us with-mit ever being called to account, what did they proceed to do? All the synagogues that they were unable to destroy by burning and razing them to the ground, because a great number of Jews lived in a dense mass in the neighbourhood, they injured and defaced in another manner, simultaneously with a total overthrow of their laws and customs; for they met up in every one of theni images of Gaius, and in the greatest, and most conspicuous, and most celebrated of them they erected a brazen statue of him borne on a four-horse chariot.

(135) And so excessive and impetuous was the rapidity of their zeal, that, as they had not a new chariot for four horses ready. they got a very old one out of the gymnasium, full of poison, mutilated in its ears, and in the hinder part, and in its pedestal, and in many other points, and as some say, one which had already been dedicated in honour of a woman, the eminent Cleopatra, who was the great grandmother of the last.(Embassy to Gaius)

Again the argument that comes from those who say that the synagogue HAD TO BE close to Gynasium because the Greeks just pulled it out of storage.

I don't see how the argument is so persuasive. If the Greeks were trying to demonstrate that the Jews were disloyal to Caesar because they refused to have images of Caligula in their synagogue the physical reality of where the chariot was kept and where the synagogue was located have very little to do with one another.

It's like if I want to plant a murdered body in your house to prove that you were the killer it can't be supposed that I murdered the victim across the street from you! Scholars make bad detectives in my mind.

I would focus instead on the qualifying term that is rarely mentioned:

All the synagogues that they were unable to destroy by burning and razing them to the ground, because a great number of Jews lived in a dense mass in the neighbourhood, they injured and defaced in another manner, simultaneously with a total overthrow of their laws and customs

Just look at the description carefully and you will see that it EXPLICITLY says after referencing 'synagogues that they were unable to destroy' (i.e. because they were too big and so 'the great synagogue' is the most prominent) Philo says explicitly that the great synagogue which wasn't burned to the ground was located in the same Delta area (the Boucolia) that Jews were crammed into at the start of the revolt. It was this synagogue (or 'synagogues') IN THE JEWISH QUARTER which ultimately received the chariot from Gymnasium. The distance is irrelevant when you have explicit testimony like this. These people would have to argue that the Jewish population was crammed into the area around the Gymnasium which is silly

Now I am aware that a document was uncovered recently which questions Philo's and Josephus's identification of the Jewish quarter as the Delta. Nevertheless there have been attempts to explain this situation. The bottom line nevertheless is that everyone identifies the Jewish quarter as being located in the eastern part of the city in Τὰ Βουκόλου. The fact that our two earliest sources identify this eastern area as Delta is a problem for everyone.

I don't see an argument for placing the synagogue in the main city. Any comments welcomed.

bacht

Stephan you seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the ancient world, truly impressive.

stephan huller

Thank you for being so kind (I personally think you can spot another Canadian; heading to TO this Tuesday actually)

On the subject of the location of the Jewish quarter its actually a lot more complicated than I present here. Those who claim that the Jewish quarters were in the western part of the city have a very strong argument too.

They would argue that the reference in papyrus (BGU 1151, lines 40-41) to Kibotos harbor, the inner harbor of Eunostos, in Delta district from a document from 13 BCE settles the question of the location of the Jewish quarter. The rest of the argument put forward by Pearson would follow like this

Philo's description of hasty attempt to place the chariot in the great synagogue that the Jewish building must have been close to the Gymnasium which is where the Greeks got the chariot. When Philo and the Jews seem to hear the horses coming to get Flaccus they weren't in the Delta district that everyone assumes was in the eastern part of Alexandria because of Against Apion and the characterization of the Jewish quarter as being located on a sea shore without a harbor and crashing waves. Pearson would probably argue with Gambetti that Apion's description was recycled from the early period when there was no harbor in the western part of the city. She points to the likelihood that the Ptolemies established their palace here and the Jews lived here beside them originally. When Philo says that the Jews were forced to cram into Delta district where there were lots of graves would be the Necropolis.

Two possible objections - the first again that Philo makes implicit reference that the great synagogue was in the area where the Jews were crammed:

All the synagogues that they were unable to destroy by burning and razing them to the ground, because a great number of Jews lived in a dense mass in the neighbourhood, they injured and defaced in another manner, simultaneously with a total overthrow of their laws and customs

This would seem to indicate that the great synagogue was in the Jewish quarter called Delta whether in the east or the west and not where the Gymnasium was located. If you argue that the Jews were in the western part of the city it would have been impossible for them to hear the horsemen come to arrest Flaccus.

Haas (Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict p 400) says "Josephus states that the quarter called Delta was the sector of the city "where the Jews were concentrated," probably in the eastern part of Alexandria since the garrison camp of Nicopolis seems to have been close at hand (BJ 2.494-95)." But I look at that same story and wonder how this works with the Jewish district being located in the west. Some Jews get trapped in the theater and then a large body comes to rescue them. This makes sense if the Jews were located in the east but in the west? They ran through the city, the Library, the Museum, the Mausoleum, the Gymnasium, the Caesareum and then the Theater?

The same thing can be pointed out time and time again in the discussion of the parading of the elders of the Alexandrian Jewish community for public humiliation and other details they all make better sense if the Jewish community was located in the east. Nevertheless there is that papyrus which Pearson says is 'incontrovertible' (Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt p.110 and again elsewhere) evidence to the counterargument.

It really is a stalemate with Haas and Nagy and other good scholars presenting the evidence in such a way that either proposition could theoretically work. I tend to side with Fraser's suggestion that the districts could have been renamed so what was Delta in 13 BCE might not have been identified as Delta in 38 CE but if someone were doing that against a position I held I would think that was implausible.

The one thing that Haas brings up is that it 'makes sense' that Christianity developed from Jewish community and even Pearson will acknowledge that the martyrium of St. Mark was located in the eastern part of Alexandria. The truth however is that there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence which has led a number of scholars have argued for the Martyrium being located in the West near the Serapeum.

Pearson is absolutely correct for locating the Martyrium in eastern Alexandria but he does so with the same kinds of arguments that people use to identify the Delta district as being in the east. What settles it is that all the maps of Alexandria from the fifteenth century identify the Church of St. Mark as being located in the east and our historical records keep mentioning that the Christians were always rebuilding the Church of St. Mark on the site of a previous incarnation dating back to Cyril.

Even with this though you wouldn't believe the confusion. It's really hard to explain.

stephan huller

Here I am responding to my own post again but I have the culmination of a series of emails exchanged with one of the true greats in modern scholarship who has written extensively on the subject of Alexandria and the location of various religious buildings in the city (I will leave his name out of the conversation because I don't think he wants to admit we speak on a regular basis). I just sent this off to the people in Alexandria to give them the only two opinions that are possible for the location of the great synagogue.

The professor emeritus explains his position as follows:

I do not think that the martyrium of St. Mark and the main Jewish synagogue of Alexandria were located in the same place. The latter would have been closer to the Via Canopica, near the ancient Gymnasium. According to Philo, there two of the five "letters" which made up Alexandria were Jewish. I surmise that they were in the east, east of Lochias, and in the west, in the area of Kibotos harbor. The latter was "Delta." The main Jewish quarter in the east would have extended from the sea southward, probably all the way down to Via Canopica. I assume that the Gymnasium was located in the Greek section, west of the main Jewish synagogue.

I do not agree with assessment as it places too much emphasis on the Gymnasium needing to be near the great synagogue (the Gymnasium was where the chariot was kept which eventually 'defiled' the synagogue). I argue the Greeks could have walked down the Via Canopica and then made a left and continued to walk to the synagogue. There is no reason for anyone claiming it had to be within a certain radius. The description in Philo does not require this at all.

The chief arguments for locating the synagogue near the martyrium are:

(a) the description in Philo of events in Flaccus (where the synagogue is located near the sea and near the palace)

(b) the fact that Jewish synagogues were preferably located near large bodies of water. Levine writes in the Ancient Synagogue:

Of particular interest here is the explicit statement that many Jews built synagogues near bodies of water, a phenomenon we have already encountered in Egypt, Delos, and Ostia. A similar reference appears in Acts.(Acts 16:13) The reason for this practice is not entirely clear, although one obvious possibility is the need to be close to water for purification purposes, a practice already attested in the Letter of Aristeas (Letter of Aristeas 304 - 306). There may also have been other reasons for this preference, eg, the Jews' desire to distance themselves from the pagan city generally in order to avoid, or at least reduce, tensions with their neighbors stemming from their different practices and behavior, or to allow for a less ''polluted'' worship environment, far from pagan places of idolatry (p. 114)

It is worth noting that Levine assumes that the great synagogue described in Flaccus was located by the sea (see his footnotes). He also cites rabbinic texts that say that bathing in the Mediterranean rendered one ritually pure.

(c) Christopher Haas explicitly identifies the synagogue as being at the very same place as the martyrium - "close to the shore in the eastern most sector of the city." (Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict p. 400)

The bottom line is that the synagogue doesn't make any sense being placed on the Canopic Way. The narrative of Flaccus doesn't make any sense when the Jews gather in front of the locked synagogue and then in the next instant are by the sea. Nothing is sacrificed from the chariot incident by making the Greeks turn down one of the arteries and end up by the sea.

Indeed Philo is likely attributing the whole incident to a bunch of crazy Greek rather than admit that the Jews were resisting an official order from Flaccus. The actions of the Jews seem less like disloyalty. Philo is always clever that way.

bacht

Heh, you missed our big G20 party...

stephan huller

Yeah I head that it was like Trudeau's October Crisis only this time in Toronto. Just a Canadiana reference to prove I am a real Canadian (and an old Canadian at that). Do they still have these boring courses on Canadian history when you spend a week deciding whether Trudeau should have called in the military after that FLQ kidnapped those people. God, I don't miss Canadian history classes. Next week, Louis Riel ...

Anyway I sent the material to the archaeologist in Alexandria and he noted a new wrinkle to our discussion which I hadn't figured (by the way you can't imagine how much more enjoyable it is to talk to people who deal with 'reality.' Most philologists and theologians have a puffed up sense about what they do.) Any way he notes today in an email:

For your information: The Gymnasium site has been much debated. At the end of 2009 a Greek archaeologist excavating at the Shallalat gardens (at less than 100 m from the Old Jewish cemetery) found a beautiful white marble Hellenistic statue of an athlete. This is probably Ptolemy IV or Ptolemy VII in a wrestling or pancreas competition. Jean-Yves Empereur feels that this find confirms the location of the Gymnasium. It is in fact very near to the Via Canopica. If you draw a straight line from there, going North, you reach Cape Lochias in 5 or 10 minutes.

The point is that it looks like everyone had the Gymnasium in the WRONG place so all the calculations were wrong. Cape Lochias is the narrow promontory now called Silsileh ("the Chain") that forms forms the opposite jaw of the Eastern Harbour (you've all seen it before)

http://www.underwaterarchaeology.gr/...mages/map2.jpg

Anyway my theory is even more workable under this arrangement.

stephan huller

New question and response from Harry.

I asked Harry "I am looking at Google Earth. Doesn't the road from Shallat Gardens now lead directly to the Martyrium of St Mark?" I am arguing of course with Haas that the 'great synagogue' mentioned in Flaccus was also there. Harry responds.

Yes, it is the road that lead from Shallalat directly to the Chatby Beach
where the Martyrium once stood.

The point should now be obvious. The Gymnasium mentioned in Flaccus was ALREADY in the same district (the one everyone but Pearson calls 'Delta') as the synagogue where it is later placed. The Gymnasium was basically at the corner of 'the Canopic Way (the main street in Alexandria) and the artery that led to the great synagogue.

Remember my reconstruction is based ON THE MOST RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL INFORMATION and all others - well - they're stuck in the 1950's.

I hope and pray that something of this synagogue will be found. It will literally change history. It might even destroy the testimony of Josephus. I'll mention why next post ...

stephan huller

So why am I so interested in the so-called 'synagogue' of Alexandria? The fact that almost no reliable information has come down to us about this amazing archaeological wonder from Christian sources makes me highly suspicious that there is more lurking beneath the surface as it were. This is not going to be a 'synagogue' my friends. The first thing that everyone seems to forget is that the word 'synagogue' is almost never used to describe a house of worship in the period. Josephus is the exception and I have ALWAYS argued that Josephus was edited at a later period.

Only once in Philo we find the word synagogue for house of worship. In the period we are discussion (early first century CE) the term proseuche meant the equivalent of our understanding of the term synagogue.

But there is a catch here too. The temple could just as easily be described as an oikos proseuches (Isa 56:7). It is worth noting also that this identification of the Jerusalem temple as an ooikos proseuches makes its way into Christianity (Mark 11.17). Synagogue in this period means 'gathered Jewish community.'

The reason I bring this up is that the massive building that is now underwater in Chatby Beach Alexandrian is called proseuche by Philo. If you read any account of this building however it will simply refer to the building as 'the great synagogue of Alexandria.' It is worth making this absolutely explicit so that the reader will see that our inherited assumptions about what is a 'temple' and what is a 'synagogue' really don't work in ancient Alexandria.

Philo isn't telling us that the large building in Alexandria ISN'T a temple. He uses proseuche because all houses of prayer - big or small - were called 'proseuche' at the time. As such there is no reason for arguing that the great proseuche featured in Flaccus WASN'T the same 'altar of Alexandria' mentioned throughout the rabbinic writings.

So it is also that when we read that after the Jerusalem priests put Onias in women's clothes and tried to kill Onias "he fled to Alexandria in Egypt, where he built an altar to offer burnt offerings to idols" [Tosefta Menahot 13.II.1] there is absolutely no reason for us connecting the 'great proseuche' of Flaccus and the Egyptian temple of Philo with this same narrative. Indeed the rabbinic literature also has detailed instructions for the re-admittance of priests from the Alexandrian temple. This was a real phenomenon (unlike our slavish devotion to Josephus with its conflation and introduction of Isa 19:18 into its narrative)

Davka

Which period are you referring to? The Synoptic Gospels refer repeatedly to the synagogues, and to people praying and reading the Torah in the synagogues.

Or are you distinguishing between the respective roles of a post-2nd Temple synagogue and a pre-2nd Temple synagogue when you say "house of worship"?

Is it then your contention that the Great Synagogue of Alexandria was, in fact, an alternate Temple - i.e. a place of ritual sacrifice and offering similar to the Temple in Jerusalem? There is certainly precedence for alternate centers of worship, but something like this would indeed be a bombshell.