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Acts 15/Galatians 2 To C or not to C

PeteR said:
I've written multiple articles concerning this topic that I will link below. Here, for those who prefer, is a video from 119Ministries addressing the topic. (I love their willingness to tackle, very Biblically, the hard topics.)


Other sources for this issue:

Yep. Sacrifice is an Ordinance.

Has the Application of the Law Changed?

Sacrifices in the Millennial Kingdom
Click to expand...

I did not take the time to watch their video as every time I have in the past, it becomes very obvious to me that they have a very custom set of spectacles that add things to the word that just aren’t there, and somehow ignore things that are as plain as light and dark in whatever language you could examine them in. I got enough of that in Corporate Christianity.

However, I did take the time to read all of the links you posted. You are a very gifted and gracious writer, Pete. That being said, you failed to address the issue in real time of sacrifices, today. Yes, they were commanded before Christ as a physical, non metaphorical sacrifice. Yes, they will be utilized in some physical, non metaphorical form in the Millenium.

But what about now? Your logic for why not now revolves around Christ being the sacrifice. This is a Christianity bias that accepts the (at least temporary) cessation of a Torah command that is at the forefront of Torah observance. This is the nucleus of righteousness in Torah.

So the premise and challenge remains. If God and Christ hold the Torah to the level you and others have claimed, (that not one jot or tittle would change til heaven and earth pass away) there is no way, that the sacrifice of Christ changes anything regarding animal sacrifices, by your own position. OTOH, IF the sacrifice of Christ = the cessation of animal sacrifice for whatever reason, there is a big problem with your position.
 
Verifyveritas76 said:
I did not take the time to watch their video as every time I have in the past, it becomes very obvious to me that they have a very custom set of spectacles that add things to the word that just aren’t there, and somehow ignore things that are as plain as light and dark in whatever language you could examine them in. I got enough of that in Corporate Christianity.

However, I did take the time to read all of the links you posted. You are a very gifted and gracious writer, Pete. That being said, you failed to address the issue in real time of sacrifices, today. Yes, they were commanded before Christ as a physical, non metaphorical sacrifice. Yes, they will be utilized in some physical, non metaphorical form in the Millenium.

But what about now? Your logic for why not now revolves around Christ being the sacrifice. This is a Christianity bias that accepts the (at least temporary) cessation of a Torah command that is at the forefront of Torah observance. This is the nucleus of righteousness in Torah.

So the premise and challenge remains. If God and Christ hold the Torah to the level you and others have claimed, (that not one jot or tittle would change til heaven and earth pass away) there is no way, that the sacrifice of Christ changes anything regarding animal sacrifices, by your own position. OTOH, IF the sacrifice of Christ = the cessation of animal sacrifice for whatever reason, there is a big problem with your position.
Click to expand...

If God cast us into the nations and says that when we begin to obey Him in the nations where He has banished us (Deu. 31:1-4)
and if some commands can only be carried out in the Land
then part of His judgment is to limit how much of the Torah we can keep.

If God commands sacrifice, and
If Yeshua said not one jot or tittle will pass from the Torah, and
Then, sacrifice and the whole of Torah still stand.

If sacrifice is commanded,
But the conditions for sacrifice (Temple and Levites) do not exist,
Then, sacrifice is still an ordinance that is simply suspended, and
The suspension is part of the judgment against us. (Same as being cast out of the Land)

If sacrifice is commanded, and
If sacrifices were lawfully being made AFTER Yeshua's resurrection (Hebrews 8:4),
Then, future sacrifice, according to prophecy, is a correct expectation.

If every jot and tittle remain until heaven and earth pass away, and
If heaven and earth do not pass away until after the millennial reign, and
If He is not a priest on earth (Heb. 8:4),
Then, it is the complete Mt. Sinai Torah He will teach from Zion and write on our hearts.

If every jot and tittle remain until heaven and earth pass away, and
If heaven and earth do not pass away until after the millennial reign, and
If it is the sons of Zadok who stand before Him in the Millennial Temple (Eze. 44:15ff)​
Then, The Levitical order is the one in charge in the Millennium.



God clearly says that sacrifice is only to be done at the place that He set His name, by a Levitical Priesthood at the gate of the Temple. Because those conditions do not exist does not mean He has changed or that His Word has failed, particularly in light of the fact that He tells us that sacrifice will return. HE says His Torah is forever and that not a jot or tittle will pass. That is not me holding Torah in such high regard. That is Elohim.
 
Verifyveritas76 said:
It is a mitzvah of Torah that all Jews either write or have written a copy of the Torah for their home.
Click to expand...
Citation?

There was not a Torah scroll in every home... It takes about a year for a scholar to hand write a copy. Very expensive. Even today. Gutenberg didn't come along until the 1400s or some such...

Gentiles did not have Torahs and in a given city there likely were only a couple kept at the synagogue that doubled as a yeshiva.
Verifyveritas76 said:
Even if one was too poor to have their own copy, a synagogue was not needed as it was written in the common language, Greek.
Click to expand...
I'm looking forward to the summer retreat... bring me some of whatever you're smoking, 'cuz it must be good stuff! You really think there were just copies of the Septuagint laying around? Maybe at the public library? DUDE!! These are Torah scrolls we are talking about. Regarded as holy... they did not just fall into the hands of the Greeks... Honestly, this is straight up laughable.
 
Almost no one had books. They were very rare. I reae one time that one of the great libraries had 35 books in it. They simply were too expensive. Imagine that you would have to support a scribe for months, maybe a year or more, to get one. It would cost a year's wage for a learned man plus expenses.
 
I only found one that says the King must write one.

Duet. 17:18 'When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests.'

I cant find one that says everyone must write and owned? Duet 6:7 says to learn it and teach it. Duet 31 says that every 7 years it must be read before all of Israel.

Talmudic laws says that all Jews either write or have written a copy of the Torah for their home and quote
Duet 31:19 "Now write down this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it, so that it may be a witness for me against them.
To justify this command. Medieval Rabbinical law.
 
Ding, ding, ding...

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
 
One of the original tenants of the Sinai Covenant was that the entire nation was to be a kingdom of priests. Exodus 19:6

At that time in history, only priests (or very rarely wealthy) were literate. Partially because cuneiform and hieroglyphics took a lifetime of study to be proficient at, and partly because the priests guarded that info to protect their status.

Sinai changed all of that. God gave them the Law in the form of an alphabet that was so simple, a child could learn it easily, not to mention illiterate slaves. To make it even better, this alphabet was also a numeric system whereby the same alphabetic symbols could be used for mathematical equations. Sinai gave Israel literacy and mathematics.

The book of Numbers is a mathematics primer as well as a history of the Exodus. Any man who taught his children that book would of necessity be teaching addition, subtraction, division, fractions etc.

Deuteronomy 6:1-9 is instruction to the heads of household, to take the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded [Moses] to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: (verse 1)

Moses is responsible to teach the whole nation Torah. But not as the pagan priests teach where knowledge is restricted to a very small literate class. Rather this knowledge was to be disseminated to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.

Moses commands the fathers, and they are to disseminate the knowledge to their son, and their son’s son. Then he gives the method of teaching. This is literally the first national homeschool movement.

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, [literacy is the fathers responsibility] and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

So the Torah given by Moses were to be taught to the fathers, and from the fathers to the sons. It was to include teaching them diligently, having conversations about it, and writing it.

Obviously, they didnt do a very good job of it in the performance of it, because by the time Judges 17:9 rolls around, the Levites appear to be the substitute schoolmasters or tutors for the fathers.

That does not change the fact that they were commanded to learn it, read it, teach it and write it, and to make sure that their sons were literate in it so they could teach their own sons.

So the origin of the command for fathers to write Torah is not medieval, but Torah.
 
ZecAustin said:
Almost no one had books. They were very rare. I reae one time that one of the great libraries had 35 books in it. They simply were too expensive. Imagine that you would have to support a scribe for months, maybe a year or more, to get one. It would cost a year's wage for a learned man plus expenses.
Click to expand...
  • Hattusa (1900 B.C. – 1190 B.C.) (modern Bogazkoy)
    This archive constituted the largest collection of Hittite texts discovered with approximately thirty thousand inscribed cuneiform tablets.[2] The tablets had also been classified according to a precise system.[2]

  • Royal Library of Antioch (221 B.C. – 363 A.D.) (Modern Antakya)
    The library was commissioned in the third century B.C. by Euphorion of Chalcis by the Greek sovereign Antiochus III the Great.[3] Euphorion was an academic and was also the chief librarian.[4]

  • Library of Pergamum (197 B.C. – 159 B.C.) (modern Bergama)
    The Attalid kings formed the second best Hellenistic library after Alexandria, founded in emulation of the Ptolemies. Parchment, a predecessor of vellum and paper, was widely used in the library, and came to be known as pergamum after the city. The library had collected over 200,000 volumes and the reason why the library was so successful was because of Pergamum's hegemony which was a purveyor of scholarship.[5]

  • Library of Celsus (135 A.D. – 262) (located within the city of Ephesus)
    This library was part of the triumvirate of libraries in the Mediterranean which included the aforementioned Library of Pergamum and the great Library of Alexandria listed below. The library was actually a tomb and a shrine for the deceased Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus for whom the library is named.[6] 12,000 volumes were collected at this library which were deposited in several cabinets along the wall.[6]
  • The Royal Library of Alexandria, Egypt, fl. 3rd century BC (c. 295 BC).
    Founded by Ptolemy, this library was said to have amassed an estimated 400,000 manuscripts and was considered the leading intellectual metropolis of the Hellenistic world.[5] The Serapeum in Alexandria served as an extension of the library.

  • Serapeum of Alexandria, offshoot collection of the great Library of Alexandria
  • Temple of Edfu Archive/Library (237–57 B.C.)
    This library was an extension of the Temple itself. The walls of this chamber are bestrewn with engravings and captions depicting numerous receptacles filled with manuscripts of papyrus as well as scrolls bound in leather.[8] These documents chronicled the circadian workings of the temple, but also detailed construction drafts and directives on how the temple walls should be decorated.[8]
  • The Library of Aksum
    The kingdom of Aksum, by the first century CE, was a noted trading hub for Europe, Asia, and Africa.[5] By the third century, it was the equal of the Roman, Persian, and Chinese empires.[5] Aksum had a unique written language, Ge'ez, and their libraries held their own translation of the Christian Bible, and other important early Christian works. It is believed that Coptic monks translated many of these works.[5] Notably, the Book of Enoch, a pre-Christian religious text, was originally written in Ge'ez.[5] By the 7th century CE, the kingdom of Aksum fell due to Islamic expansion, agricultural difficulties, and a trading shift away from the Red Sea in favor of the Persian Gulf, but it is remembered as a society that celebrated literacy, education, and libraries.[5]
  • The Library of Aristotle (Athens) (384–321 B.C.)
    The Library of Aristotle was a private library and the earliest one reported on by ancient chroniclers. It is not known what books nor the number of books that were included in the library. Accounts in antiquity state that the library formed part of the later Library of Alexandria in Egypt.[9]

  • Kos Library (Kos) (100 A.D.)
    The library was a local public library situated on the island of Kos and known as a crossroads for academia and philosophical faculties.[10] A record of individuals who were supposedly responsible for the establishment of the library are acknowledged in an inscription near the monument.[10]

  • The Library of Rhodes (Rhodes) (100 A.D.)
    The library on the island of Rhodes was a distinct component of the larger gymnasium structure. An enclosure that had been excavated revealed a section of a catalog analogous to modern library catalogs. The catalog, which classified titles by subject, displayed an inventory of authors in consecutive order together with their published efforts. It has also been determined that the library employed a qualified librarian.[10]

  • Hadrian's Library (Athens) (132 A.D.)
    It was created by Roman Emperor Hadrian on the north side of the Acropolis of Athens. The library was seriously damaged by the Herulian invasion of 267 and repaired later. During Byzantine times, three churches were built at the site, the remains of which are preserved.
  • The Academy of Gondishapur in western Iran, established during the Persian Sassanid Empire in the 3rd through 6th centuries.
    The breadth of this institution was enormous and included a university, teaching hospital, and a library filled with over 400,000 titles.[14] The academy was the epitome of the Sassanid Empire with its faculty highly proficient in the conventions of Zoroastrianism and ancient Persian as well as classical Indian scholarship.[14]
Israel

Syria
  • Ebla (2500 B.C. – 2250 B.C.)
    Constitute the oldest organized library yet discovered: see Ebla tablets.[24]

  • Ugarit (Modern Ras Shamra) (1200 B.C.)
    Several thousand texts consisting of diplomatic archives, census records, literary works and the earliest privately owned libraries yet recovered.[25] Even though the tablets were written in several different languages, the most important aspect of the library were the 1400 texts written in a previously unknown tongue called Ugaritic.[25]

  • Tell Leilan (Northeast Syria) (1900 B.C.)
    This archive housed over a thousand clay tablets [26]

  • Mari (Modern Tell Hariri) (1900 B.C.)
    The archive held approximately 15,000 tablets which included works on litigation, letters, foreign negotiations, literary, and theological works [27]

  • Sufiya Mosque Library, Grand Umayyad Mosque (Aleppo) (12th Century)
    More than 10,000 volumes were housed in this library which were entrusted to the mosque by Prince Sayf al-Dawla.[28]
 
PeteR said:
Citation?

There was not a Torah scroll in every home... It takes about a year for a scholar to hand write a copy. Very expensive. Even today. Gutenberg didn't come along until the 1400s or some such...

Gentiles did not have Torahs and in a given city there likely were only a couple kept at the synagogue that doubled as a yeshiva.

I'm looking forward to the summer retreat... bring me some of whatever you're smoking, 'cuz it must be good stuff! You really think there were just copies of the Septuagint laying around? Maybe at the public library? DUDE!! These are Torah scrolls we are talking about. Regarded as holy... they did not just fall into the hands of the Greeks... Honestly, this is straight up laughable.
Click to expand...
And yet an Ethiopian eunuch had a copy of Isaiah, Daniel had a copy of Jeremiah at the least, and an uncircumcised Timothy was trained in the scriptures. We know that the original Septuagint was commissioned specifically for the Alexandrian Public Library and that copies of the books there were being commissioned for satellite public libraries within the Greek Empire almost 300 years before Christ. The Essenes had multiple copies of many OT books stored up 200 years BC. Who knows how many they had in use at any given time. Paul had his own copies and Josephus records an uncircumcised king named Izates (in the area of Turkey today) who was found reading the law of Moses in his palace (Ant. Of the Jews 20.2.5) around the time of Claudius. Roughly 40 AD.
 
Verifyveritas76 said:
  • Hattusa (1900 B.C. – 1190 B.C.) (modern Bogazkoy)
    This archive constituted the largest collection of Hittite texts discovered with approximately thirty thousand inscribed cuneiform tablets.[2] The tablets had also been classified according to a precise system.[2]

  • Royal Library of Antioch (221 B.C. – 363 A.D.) (Modern Antakya)
    The library was commissioned in the third century B.C. by Euphorion of Chalcis by the Greek sovereign Antiochus III the Great.[3] Euphorion was an academic and was also the chief librarian.[4]

  • Library of Pergamum (197 B.C. – 159 B.C.) (modern Bergama)
    The Attalid kings formed the second best Hellenistic library after Alexandria, founded in emulation of the Ptolemies. Parchment, a predecessor of vellum and paper, was widely used in the library, and came to be known as pergamum after the city. The library had collected over 200,000 volumes and the reason why the library was so successful was because of Pergamum's hegemony which was a purveyor of scholarship.[5]

  • Library of Celsus (135 A.D. – 262) (located within the city of Ephesus)
    This library was part of the triumvirate of libraries in the Mediterranean which included the aforementioned Library of Pergamum and the great Library of Alexandria listed below. The library was actually a tomb and a shrine for the deceased Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus for whom the library is named.[6] 12,000 volumes were collected at this library which were deposited in several cabinets along the wall.[6]
  • The Royal Library of Alexandria, Egypt, fl. 3rd century BC (c. 295 BC).
    Founded by Ptolemy, this library was said to have amassed an estimated 400,000 manuscripts and was considered the leading intellectual metropolis of the Hellenistic world.[5] The Serapeum in Alexandria served as an extension of the library.

  • Serapeum of Alexandria, offshoot collection of the great Library of Alexandria
  • Temple of Edfu Archive/Library (237–57 B.C.)
    This library was an extension of the Temple itself. The walls of this chamber are bestrewn with engravings and captions depicting numerous receptacles filled with manuscripts of papyrus as well as scrolls bound in leather.[8] These documents chronicled the circadian workings of the temple, but also detailed construction drafts and directives on how the temple walls should be decorated.[8]
  • The Library of Aksum
    The kingdom of Aksum, by the first century CE, was a noted trading hub for Europe, Asia, and Africa.[5] By the third century, it was the equal of the Roman, Persian, and Chinese empires.[5] Aksum had a unique written language, Ge'ez, and their libraries held their own translation of the Christian Bible, and other important early Christian works. It is believed that Coptic monks translated many of these works.[5] Notably, the Book of Enoch, a pre-Christian religious text, was originally written in Ge'ez.[5] By the 7th century CE, the kingdom of Aksum fell due to Islamic expansion, agricultural difficulties, and a trading shift away from the Red Sea in favor of the Persian Gulf, but it is remembered as a society that celebrated literacy, education, and libraries.[5]
  • The Library of Aristotle (Athens) (384–321 B.C.)
    The Library of Aristotle was a private library and the earliest one reported on by ancient chroniclers. It is not known what books nor the number of books that were included in the library. Accounts in antiquity state that the library formed part of the later Library of Alexandria in Egypt.[9]

  • Kos Library (Kos) (100 A.D.)
    The library was a local public library situated on the island of Kos and known as a crossroads for academia and philosophical faculties.[10] A record of individuals who were supposedly responsible for the establishment of the library are acknowledged in an inscription near the monument.[10]

  • The Library of Rhodes (Rhodes) (100 A.D.)
    The library on the island of Rhodes was a distinct component of the larger gymnasium structure. An enclosure that had been excavated revealed a section of a catalog analogous to modern library catalogs. The catalog, which classified titles by subject, displayed an inventory of authors in consecutive order together with their published efforts. It has also been determined that the library employed a qualified librarian.[10]

  • Hadrian's Library (Athens) (132 A.D.)
    It was created by Roman Emperor Hadrian on the north side of the Acropolis of Athens. The library was seriously damaged by the Herulian invasion of 267 and repaired later. During Byzantine times, three churches were built at the site, the remains of which are preserved.
  • The Academy of Gondishapur in western Iran, established during the Persian Sassanid Empire in the 3rd through 6th centuries.
    The breadth of this institution was enormous and included a university, teaching hospital, and a library filled with over 400,000 titles.[14] The academy was the epitome of the Sassanid Empire with its faculty highly proficient in the conventions of Zoroastrianism and ancient Persian as well as classical Indian scholarship.[14]
Israel

Syria
  • Ebla (2500 B.C. – 2250 B.C.)
    Constitute the oldest organized library yet discovered: see Ebla tablets.[24]

  • Ugarit (Modern Ras Shamra) (1200 B.C.)
    Several thousand texts consisting of diplomatic archives, census records, literary works and the earliest privately owned libraries yet recovered.[25] Even though the tablets were written in several different languages, the most important aspect of the library were the 1400 texts written in a previously unknown tongue called Ugaritic.[25]

  • Tell Leilan (Northeast Syria) (1900 B.C.)
    This archive housed over a thousand clay tablets [26]

  • Mari (Modern Tell Hariri) (1900 B.C.)
    The archive held approximately 15,000 tablets which included works on litigation, letters, foreign negotiations, literary, and theological works [27]

  • Sufiya Mosque Library, Grand Umayyad Mosque (Aleppo) (12th Century)
    More than 10,000 volumes were housed in this library which were entrusted to the mosque by Prince Sayf al-Dawla.[28]
Click to expand...
Nice copy and paste but I was unclear. I was referring to private libraries. I am thinking specifically of someone who's name I can't remember who died and left his "massive" library of 35 books to some institution or another.

You kind of proved my point though. Books were quite valuable and they were kept in large and wealthy places. They simply weren't that common.
 
ZecAustin said:
Nice copy and paste but I was unclear. I was referring to private libraries. I am thinking specifically of someone who's name I can't remember who died and left his "massive" library of 35 books to some institution or another.

You kind of proved my point though. Books were quite valuable and they were kept in large and wealthy places. They simply weren't that common.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure I’m following you. The copy and paste I did was from a simple search of ancient libraries. I basically removed anything after 100 AD (except for the one in Caesarea) and showcased libraries, especially in Syria, that existed as much as 2500 years before Christ. Many of them with 1000+ tablets, documents etc. One of them was a private collection that was inundated when Vesuvius erupted and there were 1800 scrolls from that private collection, just in the top floor that they had unearthed. The Alexandrian Public Library had upwards of 400,000 docs in it and no telling how many its two primary satellite Libraries had, not to mention its others. That was approximately 300 BC ish.

The point is that regardless of the cost or time involved, knowledge and information was available to the masses. Including religious and theological documents like the law of Moses.

Paul had his own copies and Josephus records an uncircumcised king named Izates (in the area of Turkey today) who was found reading the law of Moses in his palace (Ant. Of the Jews 20.2.5) around the time of Claudius. Roughly 40 AD. Also king Agrippa was noted as being an expert in all the customs and questions of the Jews.
 
Verifyveritas76 said:
The point is that regardless of the cost or time involved, knowledge and information was available to the masses. Including religious and theological documents like the law of Moses.

Paul had his own copies and Josephus records an uncircumcised king named Izates (in the area of Turkey today) who was found reading the law of Moses in his palace (Ant. Of the Jews 20.2.5) around the time of Claudius. Roughly 40 AD. Also king Agrippa was noted as being an expert in all the customs and questions of the Jews.
Click to expand...
It was available to the wealthy, not the masses. Eunuch? Royal connection. Daniel? Royalty and Prime Minister. Paul? Wealthy family. Josephus? Wealthy. Agrippa? King, wealthy.

The average people, Jew or Joe, did not have a bookshelf in their house. And, for non-Jews, they didn't have a Torah scroll on their Amazon wishlist, nevermind on the shelf.

BTW, have you ever held a Torah scroll or helped reroll it on Shmini Atzeret? It is so long and detailed it takes a scribe a year or more to copy it. Expensive!
 
2 Kings 22:8-20 (KJV) 8 And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. 9 And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, Thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of the LORD. 10 And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. 11 And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes.

23:1-2 (KJV) 1 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. 2 And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD.

Doesn’t seem like there was an abundance of copies at that point.
 
PeteR said:
It was available to the wealthy, not the masses. Eunuch? Royal connection. Daniel? Royalty and Prime Minister. Paul? Wealthy family. Josephus? Wealthy. Agrippa? King, wealthy.

The average people, Jew or Joe, did not have a bookshelf in their house. And, for non-Jews, they didn't have a Torah scroll on their Amazon wishlist, nevermind on the shelf.

BTW, have you ever held a Torah scroll or helped reroll it on Shmini Atzeret? It is so long and detailed it takes a scribe a year or more to copy it. Expensive!
Click to expand...

So, I get that point, that it was expensive, took a while to produce and not everyone had one or four just lying around attracting dust. But the libraries were intentionally available to the masses, and as I have shown, several of those had the Septuagint translated and copied to give access.

OTOH, I also see evidence that uncircumcised non Jews had them (at least in the biblion format if not in the membrana format), circumcised Jews had them personally, that there were Temple copies, and less perfect “authorized” copies by multiple groups as well as common copies, and that these documents were available at venues outside the synagogues.

Which all goes to show that in Acts 15 there were multiple ways available to study and learn the laws of Moses, though the most common and least expensive would be to hang out at the synagogue. It just wasn’t the only way to study Torah by any means.

I think there is a joke in there about a bookshelf. Wasn’t it a scroll shelf?
 
Great points everyone. Truth will be somewhere in the middle.
Few people could afford Torah scrolls.
If they wanted to read one they had to visit a synagogue, or a rich man, or a public library, or a bureaucrat with access to royal libraries.
Early churches no doubt made acquisition of copies of the scriptures a high priority, and early literate converts probably immediately set to work producing copies for use in each church. They certainly had people literate enough to read and write letters, the same people could readily make copies of the scriptures if given the time to do so.
So many people probably did go to the synagogue to hear Torah in the early days - but that doesn't translate into a command to visit the synagogue, it's just a practical fact.
 
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