The Temple in Early Christianity: Experiencing the Sacred

The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library

by Eyal Regev

A comprehensive treatment of the early Christian approaches to the Temple and its role in shaping Jewish and Christian identity

The first scholarly work to trace the Temple throughout the entire New Testament, this study examines Jewish and Christian attitudes toward the Temple in the first century and provides both Jews and Christians with a better understanding of their respective faiths and how they grow out of this ancient institution. The centrality of the Temple in New Testament writing reveals the authors’ negotiations with the institutional and symbolic center of Judaism as they worked to form their own religion.

Genres: Religion

496 pages, Hardcover

Published April 23, 2019

About the author

Eyal Regev (Hebrew: איל רגב) is professor of Jewish studies in the department of land of Israel studies and archaeology at Bar-Ilan University. His books include The Sadducees and their Halakhah, Sectarianism in Qumran, and The Hasmoneans: Ideology, Archaeology, Identity.

Reviews

[فؤاد]

ایدهٔ کتاب این بود که بر خلاف تصور رایج، جنبش عیسی و مسیحیان نخستین با معبد و پرستش معبد مشکلی نداشتن. گرچه گاهی سعی می‌کردن کارکردهای معبد رو به عیسی و جامعهٔ مسیحی نسبت بدن، اما این به معنی نفی معبد نبود.

اما بعد از دو شورش یهودی و تخریب معبد، امپراتوری روم شروع به سرکوب یهودیان و تحمیل مالیات یهودیت (مالیاتی که پیش از این به معبد می‌دادن رو حالا باید به امپراتوری می‌دادن) کرد. مسیحی‌ها صلاح رو در این دیدن که خودشون رو هر چه بیشتر از قوم مغضوب دور کنن. به خاطر همین اومدن و حرف‌های عهد جدید راجع به این که عیسی و جامعهٔ مسیحی کارکرد معبد رو دارن به مرکز الهیات مسیحی آوردن و نوعی ادبیات ضد معبد رو توسعه دادن و گفتن عیسی و کلیسا معبد و پرستش معبد رو «منسوخ» کردن، چیزی که نویسندگان عهد جدید هرگز نمی‌خواستن بگن.

[Christina]

There is much to learn from this helpful volume. Regev argues (mostly convincingly) that the first-century Jesus-movement was not anti-Temple. I think that a good editor could have helped Regev streamline the arguments in each chapter. Some of the scholarly citations seemed dated.

[JonM]

Prior to reading this book, I never imagined it possible to find a biblical scholar of this caliber whose biases were more pronounced in writing than his ineptitudes in literary analysis. This book is just simply not impressive on any level in its analysis. It’s not that it’s not quotable in various parts, or that there’s nothing helpful or interesting contained in it. It is just not impressive, given the scope of its contents and the prestigious publisher who invested in its author. It’s as though this scholar never really studied New Testament literature honestly or closely, but rather, only studied what was minimally necessary to endorse proclivities of modern Judaism in order to sell a book that highly favors a God who still fawns over and pines after the Jewish temple. The biases in favor of Herod’s Temple and modern Judaism’s emphasis upon God’s love for Jerusalem’s temple are so glaringly obvious that they made me want to puke. This book gushes out the stupidities of people who need a rationalize a text to mean what they want it to mean. The rhetorical gymnastics are absolutely pathetic.