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The Meaning of the Temple in the Lukan Writings*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Klaus Baltzer
Klaus Baltzer
Affiliation:
Theologische Hochschule Bethel, Germany
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Extract

It is certainly unusual for an Old Testament scholar to write on a New Testament subject. The reader may want to repeat the German proverb “Schuster, bleib bei deinen Leisten.” But if we agree that the two Testaments should not be separated — and this is the Church's accepted doctrine since the days of Marcion — then we have to give evidence for the character of the relation between the two. As an example of this question I want to trace the transition of the concept of the Temple from the Old Testament to the New.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , July 1965 , pp. 263 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1965

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References

1 See P. L. Garber, Reconstructing Solomon's Temple, B.A. 14 (1951), 2–24. Cf. JBL 77(1958), 123–33. A. Parrot, Le Temple de Jérusalem, Cahiers d'Archeologie Biblique 5(1954), 5–94 [Eng. Tr. (1955)]. L. H. Vincent — M. Steve, Jérusalem de l'AT II, Archéologie du Temple (Paris, 1956). G. E. Wright, Biblical Archeology (1957), 136ff. K. Gailing, RGG3 VI (1962), 684–86.

2 Cf. The Significance of the Temple in the Ancient Near East, by Harold H. Nelson (I), A. Leo Oppenheim (II), G. Ernest Wright (III), Floyd V. Filson (IV); in The Biblical Archaeologist Reader, G. Ernest Wright and D. Noel Freedman (eds.), (Garden City, N.Y., 1961), 145–85 [reprint from B.A. 7 (1944), 41–88].

3 Cf. Deut. 12:2ff.

4 E.g., Hag. 2:11–13.

5 In Deut. 17:8ff. it is said: “If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns which is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God will choose, and coming to the Levitical priests, and to the judge who is in office in those days, you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision. Then you shall do according to what they declare to you …”

6 Cf. 1 Ki. 1:50; 2:18ff.

7 According to 2 Ki. 22:8 for example, Hilkiah the high priest found the book of the Law of the Lord there.

8 See M. Delcor, Le trésor de la maison de Yahweh dès origines à l'Exil, VT 12 (1962), 353–77. Sometimes this treasure was used as ransom for Jerusalem in time of war.

9 It is different in Babylon, for example. In the epic of creation, Enuma Elis, the creation and the building of the temple by the gods are linked together. Thus the building of the temple is not thought of as a historical event but stems from the mythology and has its origin together with creation: “The Anunnake (the celestial gods as well as those of the lower regions) applied the implement. For one whole year they moulded bricks. When the second year arrived, they raised high the head of Esagila equaling Apsu. Having built a stage-tower as high as Apsu, they set up in it an abode for Marduk, Enlil, (and) Ea. In their presence he adorned (it) in grandeur.’ ANET, 68f.

10 I Ki. 8:12f., according to the LXX.

11 Deut. 12:5, 11; 14:23f.; 16:2ff.; 26:2.

12 There is no question that the concept of the “name” of God was not always such an “abstract” idea.

13 1 Ki. 8:27,29. Cf. the exilic and post-exilic additions in 1 Ki. 8:46ff.: “If they sin against thee … and thou art angry with them and dost give them to the land of the enemy, far off or near … if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart in the land of their enemies … and pray to thee, toward their land which thou gavest to their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen and the house which I have built for thy name, then hear thou in heaven, thy dwelling place, their prayer …”

14 B. Stein, Der Begriff Kebod Jahweh und seine Bedeutung für die alttestamentliche Gotteserkenntnis, Theol. Diss. (Münster, 1939). G. v.Rad — G. Kittel, art. δόξα, ThWbNT II, 236–56. G. v.Rad, Studies in Deuteronomy (1953), 39f. G. v.Rad, Theologie des AT (München, 1957), I, 239f F. Hesse, RGG3 III, 273f. R. Rendtorff, Die Offenbarungsvorstellungen im Alten Israel, in Offenbarung als Geschichte (Göttingen, 1961), 21–41, esp. 31f.

15 F. M. Cross, Jr., The Priestly Tabernacle, B.A. 10(1947), 45–68. A. Kuschke, Die Lagervorstellung der priesterschriftlichen Erzählung, ZAW 63(1951), 74–105. M. Haran, The Nature of the ʼOhel Moʻedh, in Pentateuchal Sources, JSS 5(1960), 50–65. L. Rost, Die Wohnstätte des Zeugnisses, in Festschrift F. Baumgärtel (1959), 158–65.

16 Ez. 1:4; see W. Zimmerli, Ezechiel, in Biblischer Kommentar (Neukirchen, 1956ff.), esp. 57ff.

17 In 43:3, this vision is explicitly related to the previous one, described above: “And the vision I saw was like the vision which I had seen when he came to destroy the city, and like the vision which I had seen by the river Chebar …’

18 “And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing” (47:12ff.). A similar conception is found in Ps. 46:5: “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.” This picture is used also in Rev. 22 where the stream of life flows out from the throne of God and from the Lamb.

19 “Because of my house that lies in ruins, while you busy yourselves each with his own house, therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew … And I have called for a drought upon the land and the hills, upon the grain, the new wine, the oil, upon what the ground brings forth, upon men and cattle, and upon all their labors.” (1:9b ff.).

20 Zech. 8:3ff. On the day when the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts, the temple, is laid (8:9) prosperity is promised, “… the vine shall yield its fruit and the ground shall give its increase, and the heavens shall give their dew” (cf. Zech. 1:16; 2:14).

21 Enoch 90:28f., 33, 35 (R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the O.T. II, 259).

22 CD iii.21–iv.7 (ed. Schechter-Rost). This interpretation is contrary to the assumption of H. Wenschkewitz, Die Spiritualisierung der Kultusbegriffe Tempel, Priester und Opfer im Neuen Testament, Angelos Beiheft 4 (1932), who supposed that the spiritualization of the temple concept is to be explained as the result of Hellenistic influence and minimized the Jewish elements in this development (p. 19). Of special interest in Qumran is the sudden change from a very high standard of temple-cult to a quite “spiritualized” form, when the practice of cult is no longer possible. [See now B. Gärtner, The Temple and the Community in Qumran and the New Testament (Cambridge U.P., 1965). Ed.'s note.]

23 Test. Joseph 10:3 (Charles): Ὅπον δὲ κατοικɛῖ ὁ ὕψιστος … ὁ Κύριος κατοικῶν ἐπ' αὐτόν…

24 On its later development, see Gershom G. Sholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1941; 19543).

25 This is evident in the Targumim. — “Dass die Schekina und der Kabod auf das engste zusammengehören, zeigte sich schon an den Umschreibungen von Tg J [Targum Jonathan]. Wenn die Schekina zum Zion kommt, wird der Kabod sichtbar für ganz Israel, Tanch Buber [Tanchuma ed. S. Buber, 1884], כפדכד 20, p. 18” (G. Kittel, ThWbNT II, 249). J. Abelson, The Immanence of God in Rabbinic Literature (London, 1912), App. II, On the Connection between ‘Kabod’ (Glory) and Shechinah, 380f.

26 See J. Abelson, op. cit., App. I, On the Interchanging of the Terms ‘Shechinah’ and ‘Ruaḥ Ha-Kodesh’, 377f. Not all traditions agree on this point.

27 Midrash Rabba to Lamentations, Introd. 25, 39a; T. B. Rosh Hashana 31a; Aboth de R. Nathan 34 (see Abelson, p. 106). Pesiqtha 114b; 115a; Pesiqtha Rabbathi 31, 143b; Midrash Ps. 10 §2, 46b (see Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum NT aus Talmud und Midrasch I, 841f.).

28 See Yoma 9b.

29 See Midr. Ps. §90, 19, 198a; Pes. Rab. 26, 132a; 28, 135a. See Strack-Billerbeck, I, 1005.

30 1 Cor. 3:9,16f. (cf. 6:19f. about the individual Christian). 2 Cor. 6:16f.; Eph. 2:19–22. See also H. Wenschkewitz, op. cit.; O. Michel, art. ναός, ThWbNT IV, 884–95.

31 Die Mitte der Zeit, Studien zur Theologie des Lukas (Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 17; Tübingen, 1954; 19624); references in this article are to the page numbers of the English translation, The Theology of St. Luke (1960).

32 R. Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (1963), 115.

33 G. Schrenk, art. τὸ ἱɛρόν ThWbNT III, 232.

34 καὶ ἐξῆλθɛν δόξα κυρίου ἀπὸ τοῦ οἴκου. Cf. Ex. 23:19; 34:26; 1 Ki. 6:5; Ez. 41:7ff.; Mic. 3:12; Hag. 1:8.

35 Luke 2:27, 37, 46; 4:9; 18:10 etc. Acts 2:46; 3:1, 2, etc.

36 Cf. Acts 7:47.

37 In this context a notice in Josephus is of interest. Josephus describes the omina of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, de bello judaico vi.5(288): “Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend, nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but like man infatuated without either to see, or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them.” One omen was the following event (299): “Moreover, at the feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner (court of the) temple as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that in the first place they felt a quaking, and heard a noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, ‘Let us remove hence’.” (Flavius Josephus, The Great Roman-Jewish War, De Bello Judaico, The William Whiston Translation, rev. by D. S. Margoliouth, ed. by W. R. Farmer; New York, 1960.) It is a theophany which is described here (viz. the quaking; for the noise cf. Ez. 1:24; 3:12f.; 10:5; 43:2). The tradition of the departure of the “Shekinah” is still recognizable. The value of this Josephus passage is also that it is earlier than the Rabbinic texts.

38 Op. cit., 35.

39 Conzelmann, op. cit., 75.

40 Ibid., 76.

41 Ibid., 78.

42 19:47; 20:1; 21:37.

43 The motives of this text are investigated by H. Riesenfeld, Jésus Transfiguré, Acta Seminarii Neotestamentici Upsaliensis (Lund, 1947), see especially 97ff., 130ff. For δόξα, cf. also ThWbNT II, 245ff.

44 Die Apostelgeschichte (Göttingen, 1959), 118f.

45 Also of relevance is Acts 1:2, if we have to connect the phrase διὰ πνɛύματος ἁγίου with “until the day, when he was taken up” rather than with “the apostles whom he had chosen.” Such interpretation is strongly suggested by Hans Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte (1963), 20. Thus, Luke also here reflects a peculiar understanding of the “Spirit” as the agent of a transportation to another place; see especially Ulrich Luck, Kerygma, Tradition und Geschichte Jesu bei Lukas, ZThK 57(1960), 51–66. This would be easily understood on the basis of the above mentioned (see p. 270) identification of kābôd, šekînāh, and rûaḥ haqqōdeš.

46 Acts 7:2–53. A special problem is the relation between the speech and its context, 6:8–15, especially verses 13–14, and 7:54–60.

47 3:1 “Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer.” 3:8 the lame entered the temple with them. 4:1f “And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them … and they arrested them and put them in custody …” The presence of God is with the apostles. When they enter the temple “signs of wonder are performed” (3:10, 12ff.; 4:8, 16, 22, 30). Then they are driven out. But a theophany happens: 4:31 “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.” Cf. 5:20f. where the apostles are in the temple by a miracle (5:17–19, 23) before the council of the high priest.

48 21:36 Paul went into the temple. 21:30 “They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut.” 22:30ff. trial before the Sanhedrin. 23:11 theophany: “The following night the Lord stood by him …”

49 7:55 … ἀτɛνίσας ɛἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ɛἰδɛν δόξαν θɛοῦ καὶ Ἰησοῦν ἑστῶτα ἐκ δɛξιῶν τοῦ θɛοῦ …

50 9:3–5; 22:6–7; 26:13–15.

51 See 2:1–4.