The Temple Within: The Embodied Divine Image And Its Worship In The Dead Sea Scrolls And Other Early Jewish And Christian Sources

Abstract

The celestial temple is a central motif of Jewish apocalyptic literature and the merkava mystical traditions preserved in the hekhalot writings. Ezekiel's visions of the enthroned kavod, drawn on awesome wheels by the mysterious hayyot, who are clearly identified with the temple keruvim, occurred in response to this situation and provided an assurance that the heavenly reality was still accessible by other means. The Qumran sectarians, who believed the temple in Jerusalem to have been defiled and its cult perverted by a corrupt and illegitimate priesthood, evidently attached great significance to the prophecies of Ezekiel. In the central texts of the hekhalot corpus, the process of the heavenly ascent consists entirely of the journey through the seven hekhalot, which, like the devirim of the Sabbath Shirot, are identical with the celestial levels.Keywords: celestial temple; hekhalot corpus; Jerusalem; Jewish apocalyptic literature; merkava mystical traditions