The Jerusalem Temple in Luke-Acts

N.H. Taylor

doi:10.4102/hts.v60i1/2.505

Abstract

Luke-Acts was written during the period after the destruction of the second temple, when, for most Jews, hopes for future restoration were conceived largely in terms of rebuilding the temple and city of Jerusalem and resuming the cultic life associated therewith. Against this background Luke poses an alternative vision, in which the divine presence associated previously with the [foreign font omitted] is seen no longer as localised but as dispersed. The Holy Spirit manifested in the life and expansion of the Church transcends and supersedes the notion of sacred space associated with the Zion traditions.

Highlights

It was for much of the twentieth century a canon of scholarly orthodoxy that Luke is the most gentile of New Testament authors (Conzelmann 1982; Dibelius 1956; Haenchen 1971; Maddox 1982; Sanders 1987; Wilson 1973; 1983)
This position is a more debated issue in scholarship (Brawley 1987; Koet 1989; Tiede 1983), but the author’s interest in and commitment to the gentile mission is indisputably central to the narrative of Acts, and the gentile mission is clearly anticipated in the gospel of Luke (2:31-32; 4:25-47; 7:2-10; 11:29-32)
Given that four terms are used of the Jerusalem temple in Luke-Acts, and that Luke is clearly dependent on sources for most references, the question needs to be asked whether we can speak of a single, unified conception and theological position vis-à-vis that institution

Summary

INTRODUCTION

It was for much of the twentieth century a canon of scholarly orthodoxy that Luke is the most gentile of New Testament authors (Conzelmann 1982; Dibelius 1956; Haenchen 1971; Maddox 1982; Sanders 1987; Wilson 1973; 1983). References to the temple in Luke-Acts, along with other central and distinctive features of Jewish identity and culture, serve to define the continuing significance of Jewish institutions in the light of the Christian Gospel, and the relationship of the Church to Judaism, and merit particular attention (Brawley 1987:107-32; Juel 1983; Tiede 1983). The notion of the temple as the inviolable earthly residence of God was utterly destroyed (Josephus, BJ 5.219.439; 6.285-86) Those Jews who revered the prophetic traditions would have been able to interpret their experience in terms of previous occasions of divine judgement, and thereby to have derived their hopes of eventual restoration (Grabbe 1991:561-64; Longenecker 1991:40-157). Before proceeding to develop this point, we need to consider whether it is possible to describe a single and coherent lukan position on the temple

TERMS USED OF THE TEMPLE IN LUKE-ACTS

A SINGLE CONCEPTION OF THE TEMPLE IN LUKEACTS?

THE TEMPLE IN THE KEY EPISODES IN THE NARRATIVE OF LUKE-ACTS

THE TEMPLE AND THEOLOGICAL MOTIFS IN LUKEACTS

CONCLUSION