The Temple in Early Christianity
Experiencing the Sacred
Eyal Regev
A comprehensive treatment of the early Christian approaches to the Temple and its role in shaping Jewish and Christian identity
The first scholarly work to trace the Temple throughout the entire New Testament, this study examines Jewish and Christian attitudes toward the Temple in the first century and provides both Jews and Christians with a better understanding of their respective faiths and how they grow out of this ancient institution. The centrality of the Temple in New Testament writing reveals the authors’ negotiations with the institutional and symbolic center of Judaism as they worked to form their own religion.
The first scholarly work to trace the Temple throughout the entire New Testament, this study examines Jewish and Christian attitudes toward the Temple in the first century and provides both Jews and Christians with a better understanding of their respective faiths and how they grow out of this ancient institution. The centrality of the Temple in New Testament writing reveals the authors’ negotiations with the institutional and symbolic center of Judaism as they worked to form their own religion.
Eyal Regev is professor of Jewish studies in the department of land of Israel studies and archaeology at Bar-Ilan University. His books include The Sadducees and their Halakhah, Sectarianism in Qumran, and The Hasmoneans: Ideology, Archaeology, Identity.
“In this stimulating book, Eyal Regev rightly places the Jewish temple at the center of the new messianic movement that will eventually become known as Christianity. The Temple in Early Christianity makes a fresh and original contribution to a very important topic.”—Craig A. Evans, Houston Baptist University
“Far too many scholars still read the New Testament in a way that is shaped by the arguments of generations of Christian writers engaged in anti-Jewish polemic. In these disputations the temple has played a major role. In this must-read book, Eyal Regev shows how the temple played a major positive role in many of the early Christian texts that were eventually canonized as the New Testament.”—Adela Yarbro Collins, Yale Divinity School
“This is a valuable scholarly work that shines new light on the relation of early Christianity to its Jewish matrix.”—Donald Senior, Bible Today
