The Temple in Early Christianity: Experiencing the Sacred by Eyal Regev

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Temple in Early Christianity: Experiencing the Sacred by Eyal Regev Margaret Barker eyal regev, The Temple in Early Christianity: Experiencing the Sacred (AYBRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019). Pp. xiii + 480. $65. “This book discusses the Temple, its meaning and function, and how it was viewed by the early Christians” (p. 2). This how Eyal Regev describes his book, and he begins with the assumption that he is exploring “the creation of a new belief system in first century Judaea” (p. ix). He considers each area of the NT in turn: Jesus himself, Paul’s letters, Mark, Q and Matthew, Luke-Acts, the Gospel of John, the Book of Revelation, Hebrews, and then some thoughts relating to Judaism. In each section he takes “temple” passages and surveys the work of a number of NT scholars, most of a Protestant or post-Protestant persuasion. He offers his own evaluation of their work, making clear that so much has been written on the subject that he has chosen only information that he deems relevant (p. 3). The “cleansing of the temple” is the first major exploration. If the church saw itself as the new spiritual temple (1 Pet 2:4–8), why was Jesus angry? After surveying the many explanations offered by scholars, R. concludes that Jesus was angry at the money used in the temple: “Jesus protests neither against the Temple itself, nor the priests, but against the unrighteous activity that employs or generates corrupted money” (p. 33). He then considers Jesus’s trial, and the accusation that Jesus said he would destroy the temple and rebuild it (Mark 14:58–62), concluding that the account is probably inauthentic: “The idea that the Messiah will first destroy the temple before he rebuilds it is, to say the least, unfounded and strange” (p. 39). He supports this by saying that one has to distinguish between rebuilding Jerusalem and rebuilding the temple, as in, for example, 1 Enoch 90:28–29. R. has a similar argument for the parable of the tenants of the vineyard (Mark 12:1–12), which he says is about the temple authorities, not about the temple (p. 112); and the prophecy of destruction (Mark 13:2) was also about the city and not the temple (p. 115). Regev sees the temple in a good light and finds that the Gospel writers agree with him: Matthew is favorable toward the temple; Mark has a positive attitude; and John uses the temple as an explanatory model for understanding Jesus. R.’s observations about Luke are interesting: Luke shows that the temple belongs to Christians as well as Jews and has a favorable attitude toward the priests (pp. 173–74). The section on Hebrews illustrates well the difficulties of R.’s task with respect to Jesus as the great high priest, the role of Melchizedek, and the nature of the atonement sacrifice. R. notes that Hebrews does not mention the temple, only the tabernacle, and he argues that the author of Hebrews uses a variety of arguments for the high priesthood of Jesus, suggesting that “this is a new idea for his readers” (p. 256). He concludes that Hebrews’ christology “is not a direct continuation of the earliest understanding of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus’ high priesthood does not explain his crucifixion and death.” Jesus’s death and resurrection were interpreted in cultic terms, and the author drew on various external traditions about a high priest serving in heaven (p. 263). How do we know what constituted “external traditions” for the first Christians? Presumably there must have been such traditions if the Christians were creating something new. Regev seems overly influenced by the residual sola scriptura of his largely Protestant sources, and he uses “ransom” rather often in the context of the death of Jesus. R. then develops his ideas about sacrifice in Hebrews and shows how Jesus’s self-sacrifice differs from the sacrificial system of the Pentateuch, “which assumes that humans will always [End Page 522] commit sin, making the cult repetitive” (p. 269). He draws important conclusions: “In Hebrews the priestly system continues in a new and better format when it serves as the...