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University of Groningen Paul and God's Temple Hogeterp, Albert University of Groningen Paul and God's temple Hogeterp, Albert Livinus Augustinus IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2004 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Hogeterp, A. L. A. (2004). Paul and God's temple: a historical interpretation of cultic imagery in the Corinthian correspondence. s.n. Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. Download date: 27-09-2021 CHAPTER 3 THE EARLY JESUS-MOVEMENT AND THE TEMPLE 1. Introduction 1.1 Problems of historical criticism This chapter will explore the traditions about and attitudes to the Temple which can be connected to the early Jesus-movement prior to the Jewish War (66-70 CE). In the decades from Jesus’ ministry up to the eve of the Jewish War, the early Jesus-movement developed into a manifold missionary movement which spread from Israel to the Diaspora. This development has to be taken into account when we deal with the issue of the earliest Christian traditions about the Temple. The historical problem of identifying such early traditions is twofold. First, except for Paul’s letters, our earliest Christian sources about Jesus and his first followers are of a later date. The canonical Gospels as well as other canonical and apocryphal early Christian texts were presumably written between the last years of the Jewish War and several decades afterwards.1 These texts primarily reflect the communal concerns and standpoints of their audiences with regard to the preaching of the gospel of Christ.2 Since the texts which have come down to us mainly address congregations in the Diaspora, they are in various ways at a distance from the historical milieu of Jesus, that is, Israel and Palestinian Judaism.3 In order to reconstruct pre-70 CE Christian perspectives on the Temple, we therefore have to deal with the difficult question of which sources from the historical milieu of Jesus, both written and oral, underlie the earliest Christian writings. Second, the vast difference between the pre-70 CE and the post-70 CE situation poses a further problem of historical criticism which is also a basic concern of the present chapter. After all, the Romans captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple in 70 CE at the end of the Jewish War. The majority of the earliest Christian writings which refer to the ministry of Jesus and to the social setting of the early Jesus-movement were written down after 70 CE The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple coloured post-70 CE Christian polemics against Judaism, because Christianity separated its ways from Judaism.4 It may reasonably be wondered whether these changed historical circumstances after 70 CE also coloured the perspective on the Temple. 1 Cf. e.g. U. Schnelle, Einleitung in das Neue Testament (UTB 1830; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: Göttingen, ²1996) 237-239, 261, 285, 538-541; G. Theißen & A. Merz, Der historische Jesus. Ein Lehrbuch (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: Göttingen, 1996) 41-69; H. Conzelmann & A. Lindemann, Arbeitsbuch zum Neuen Testament (UTB 52; Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen, ¹³2000) 321, 331, 343-344, 364-367, 373. Cf. my discussion in section 3.1. 2 Cf. Theißen & Merz, Der historische Jesus, 25 about this point of the primary kerygmatic character of Jesus- tradition made by form-critical studies of M. Dibelius, K.L. Schmidt, R. Bultmann and others. 3 Cf. e.g. passages in Mark (7:3-4) and John (5:1, 6:4) which reflect a distance to the Jews and their religious practices. Schnelle, Einleitung, 262 refers to scholarly studies about the idea that ‘your/their synagogues’ in Matt 4:23, 9:35, 10:17, 12:9, 13:54, 23:34 implies a distance. Cf. G. Theißen, Lokalkolorit und Zeitgeschichte. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (Freiburg Switzerland / Göttingen ²1992) 264-270 about textual evidence in Luke which suggests that the author of this Gospel would have a foreigner’s perspective on the geography of Israel. Cf. Theißen & Merz, Der historische Jesus, 51-69. 4 Cf. e.g. Ignatius, To the Magnesians 8-10; Letter of Barnabas 4, 9-10, 15-16; Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 22:11, 40:2; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History II, 6, 23. Paul and God’s Temple An important example of the question whether post-70 CE circumstances have coloured the picture of Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels is the synoptic tradition about Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction of the Temple. This prophecy stands at the beginning of an eschatological passage (Mark 13:1-2.3-37, Matt 24:1-2.3-36, Luke 21:5-6.7-36). This eschatological passage concerns the interpretation of signs about events in the future and the expected end of the age. Certain ‘future events’, like persecution and the flight of followers of Jesus from Judaea, concern contemporary experiences of the early Jesus-movement. However, do they directly relate to Jesus’ words or rather to an interpretation of Jesus’ words in light of later events? What part of the passage can be isolated as an early tradition which relates to the historical milieu of Jesus, and what part consists of elaborations by the evangelist in his editorial framework? This is a methodical problem which we need to deal with in order to identify pre-70 CE levels of Gospel tradition. In our search of pre-70 CE traditions, we need to distinguish between different levels of tradition which may all be important for our understanding of the Jesus-movement contemporary to Paul. One level of tradition centralises the words and deeds of Jesus with regard to the Temple as they were remembered by the direct environment of his followers. A second level of tradition emphasises interpretations of Jesus’ words by his followers in light of later, but still pre-70 CE, experiences and circumstances. An important example of this is the witness to and preaching of the resurrection of Jesus Christ (cf. e.g. John 2:21-22). A third level of tradition concerns the attitudes of Jesus’ followers to the Temple and may in some way be related to their gospel preaching (cf. e.g. Luke 24:52-53, Acts 3:1.11, 7:44-50f.). In our analysis of the different sources about the early Jesus-movement we will need to distinguish between these levels of tradition. 1.2 The conceptual starting point: the early Jesus-movement before 70 CE An important aspect of the historical analysis of pre-70 CE traditions is the way in which we conceptualise the early Jesus-movement. The term ‘Christians’ ( ) is a relatively late marker for the collective identity of the early Jesus-movement. According to several scholars it originates from a negative, external way of designating the earliest followers of Jesus as a political threat to the status quo.5 The term only appears in three passages of the canonical New Testament (Acts 11:26, 26:28, 1 Pet 4:16). The earliest documents of the canonical New Testament, that is, Paul’s Letters which are dated between ca. 49 and 61 CE,6 do not comprise the term ‘Christians’ at all. Paul instead refers to believers in Christ, addressing both Jews and Greeks (cf. e.g. Rom 1:16, 1 Cor 1:21-24). In Galatians 2:15-16, Paul calls himself and possibly to other co-workers ‘we Jews by birth’, E ˆÂ‚sÍ, who know that they are justified through faith in Jesus Christ. Co-workers of Paul, like Prisca, Aquila and Apollos, are each individually described as Jews (E ˆÂ‚sÛ) in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 18:2.24). 5 Cf. J. Taylor, S.M., ‘Why were the disciples first called “Christians” at Antioch (Acts 11,26)’, RB 101 (1994) 75-94, critically supports the idea first put forward by E. Peterson that the Roman authorities in Antioch first coined the term ‘Christians’ in the context of political connotations of sedition and criminality. Cf. É. Nodet, ‘James, the Brother of Jesus, was never a Christian’, in S.C. Mimouni (ed.), Le judéo-christianisme dans tout ses états. Actes du colloque de Jérusalem 6-10 juillet 1998 (Cerf: Paris, 2001) 75: “The word ‘Christian’ was first coined by Roman authorities to qualify Jewish messianizing rebels outside Judea”, and 76f. about Acts 11:26, 18:1f; Suetonius, Claudius § 25. 6 Cf. e.g. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul. A Critical Life, 1-31; M. Hengel & A.M. Schwemer, Paulus zwischen Damaskus und Antiochien. Die unbekannten Jahre des Apostels (Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen, 1998) 2-3. 98 The early Jesus-movement and the Temple The early Jesus-movement started as a Jewish movement in Israel. Terms such as ‘Galileans’ for the apostles in Jerusalem (e.g. Acts 1:11, 2:7) and ‘the sect of the Nazoreans’ (e.g. in Acts 24:5) attest to this beginning of the missionary Jesus-movement as a Jewish movement.7 Although the Jesus-movement eventually attracted both Jewish and Gentile converts,8 the spreading of the mission initially depended on the first followers of Jesus, who were most of all Jewish.9 In my view the traditional scholarly construct ‘Jewish Christianity’ is problematic as a descriptive term for the early Jesus-movement.
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