Great Assembly

The Great Assembly (Hebrew: כְּנֶסֶת הַגְּדוֹלָה‎‎) or Anshei Knesset HaGedolah (אַנְשֵׁי כְּנֶסֶת הַגְּדוֹלָה, "The Men of the Great Assembly"), also known as the Great Synagogue, or Synod, was, according to Jewish tradition, an assembly of 120 scribes, sages, and prophets, in the period from the end of the Biblical prophets since the early Second Temple period to the early Hellenistic period. It comprised such prophets as Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi (who is Ezra), Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, Nehemiah b. Hachaliah, Mordechai and Zerubabel b. Shaaltiel, among others. Sometimes, the Great Assembly is simply designated as "Ezra and his court of law" (Beit Din).

Among the developments in Judaism that are attributed to them are the fixing of the Jewish Biblical canon, including the books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, and the Twelve Minor Prophets; the introduction of the Feast of Purim; and the institution of the prayer known as the "Shemoneh 'Esreh" as well as the synagogal prayers, rituals, and benedictions.

Some modern scholars question whether the Great Assembly ever existed as an institution as such. Louis Jacobs, while not endorsing this view, remarks that "references in the [later] Rabbinic literature to the Men of the Great Synagogue can be taken to mean that ideas, rules, and prayers, seen to be pre-Rabbinic but post-biblical, were often fathered upon them".

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.).

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