Temple and Identity in Early Christianity and in the Johannine Community: Reflections on the “Parting of the Ways”

Abstract

This chapter provides a brief and general sketch of the relationship between the Jerusalem Temple and early Christian identity formation. For that purpose, it mainly draws on the distinction between pre-70 and post-70 writings. The chapter focuses on the Johannine corpus, as a test case for identity formation in Asia Minor in the post-70 period. It discusses what factors contributed to the split between the local synagogues and the Johannine communities and what was decisive for the particular. The chapter attempts to trace the interplay between Temple, temple imagery, and cultural context in early Christian writings, particularly the Gospel of John. It gives some brief and necessarily superficial glimpses of the relevance of the Jerusalem Temple for the emerging Jesus movement. Keywords:Christianity; Epistles; gospel; Jerusalem Temple; Johannine Community; synagogues