The Sermon on the Mount in the Light of the Temple

by John W. Welch

No religious text has influenced the world more than has the New Testament's Sermon on the Mount, and yet this crucial text still begs to be more clearly understood. Why was it written? What unifying theme or purpose holds it all together? Should it be called a sermon? Or is it some other kind of composition? How would its earliest listeners have heard its encoded allusions and systematic program? This book offers new insights into the Sermon on the Mount by seeing it in the shadow of the all-pervasive Temple in Jerusalem, which dominated the religious landscape of the world of Jesus and his earliest disciples. Analyzing Matthew 5-7 in light of biblical and Jewish backgrounds, ritual studies, and oral performances in early Christian worship, this reading coherently integrates every line in the Sermon. It positions the Sermon as the premier Christian mystery.

Genres: New Testament, Theology

272 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2009

About the author

John W. Welch is the Robert K. Thomas Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, where he teaches various courses, including Perspectives on Jewish, Greek, and Roman Law in the New Testament. Since 1991 he has also served as the editor in chief of BYU Studies. He studied history and classical languages at Brigham Young University, Greek philosophy at Oxford, and law at Duke University. As a founder of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, one of the editors for Macmillan’s Encyclopedia of Mormonism, and codirector of the Masada and Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at BYU, he has published widely on biblical, early Christian, and Latter-day Saint topics.

from http://deseretbook.com/auth/420/John_...

Reviews

[Adam Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a the perfect book to stumble across. It takes the context of the Jewish temple seriously, and helpfully notes that words we turn into abstractions (righteousness, justice, mercy, light, house, peace, etc.) were most closely connected to Temple observance in Israel at the time Jesus ministered. He then goes through the whole Sermon and shows how Israel would have heard Jesus' words as a presentation of Himself as the New Temple around which a New Israel would be constituted. Yet, because no book can do everything, he does not really connect his observations to the work of scholars like N. T. Wright on Israel's story and how Jesus interacts with that story in the rest of His ministry, and so the observations are often left disjointed and unconnected.

[Christian Larsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Welch's book looks at one of the most important texts in world history, Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount" in the light of Jewish liturgy and temple ceremonies. He puts forward a convincing and well argued thesis which, if true, is ground breaking as it not only provides the first coherent, unifying theory for the Sermon, but represents a paradigm shift in our understanding of early Christian beliefs and their Judaic context.

Welch is a Latter-day Saint (Mormon) but does not write this book as a Latter-day Saint, nor does he write it for a Latter-day Saint audience. This book represents the best of academic Biblical research and is best suited for an academic reader. The average Latter-day Saint interested in this topic may wish to read the more accessible "Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple & Sermon on the Mount: An Approach to 3 Nephi 11-18 and Matthew 5-7" (FARMS 1998) which is also by Welch. That being said, "The Sermon on the Mount In the Light of the Temple" has been hailed as "possibly the most significant contribution to Biblical studies by a Latter-day Saint author ever."

This volume could not possibly garner higher recommendations: 5 Stars all around.