Temple Themes in Christian Worship

Description

For a long time scholarship has been seeking the origins of Christian worship in the synagogue. In this new major book, Margaret Barker traces the roots of Christian worship back to the Jewish temple. By proposing a temple setting, a great deal more can be explained, and the existing rather limited resources can be more fruitfully used. By working with a great variety of sources (canonical, extra-canonical and Fathers, all presented here in tranlsation), it is possible to reconstruct something of the early Christian world view, which shows the Church as the conscious continuation of the temple worship. Fundamental practices such as baptism and the Eucharist had Temple Roots, and familiar words in the liturgy of the church such as Maranatha and Hallelujah derived from the ancient belief that the Lord appeared in the Temple. Jesus was the God of Israel manifested as a the Great High Priest, and the Christians were his new angel priesthood, singing the angelic liturgy to restore and renew the earth. The chapters in this book cover baptism, in theology and practice, the Eucharist, with special emphasis on the symbolism of the elements, the significance of music and hymns, festivals and pilgrimage, use of the Scriptures, both what the early Christians used and how they read them, prayers, including the Lord's prayer, and the shape of church buildings.

Margaret Barker is a former President of the Society for Old Testament Study, and author of numerous works, including The Older Testament, The Lost Prophet, The Gate of Heaven, The Great Angel.

"A short review cannot hope to do justice to the richness and complexity of this book, which is full of intriguing suggestions." - Church Times, 2008 Mention - New Testament Abstracts, Vol. 52 No. 3, 2008 "Baker moves seamlessly between Older Testament, Apocryphal, New Testament, and Patristic writings...There are many insights in this book that help us appreciate the theology of worship in the ancient church. We need not be drawn into the enthusiasm that suggests that temple theology answers all questions about ancient Christian worship." -Frank C. Senn, Worship, November 2008 "For the last decade, Margaret Barker has been publishing intriguing books about the biblical foundations of Christian worship. Her latest, Temple Themes in Christian Worship...is her most comprehensive to date. Her thesis is that early Christian worship, as evidenced by the New Testament and patristic writers, derives from the worship of the temple, rather than, say, from Hellenistic mystery religions or the Jewish synagogue...Barker gets a lot into her book, and a lot is right. Alongside Danielou's The Bible and the Liturgy and Jeff Meyer's The Lord's Service, it's a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Old Testament roots of Christian worship." -Peter J. Leithart, Credenda, Summer 2008 '[This book] serves to synthesize [Barker's] previous work as well as add fresh material and suggestions ... She manages to integrate texts/translations from greatly differing contexts to show their possible interconnectedness in the realm of Temple worship, and consequently can present with creative persuasion the links between early Christian worship and the worlds of the first and second Temple.' Theological Book Review, Volume 20, No 2, 2008 "This fascinating book moves beyond conventional wisdom and opens up new vistas." International Review of Biblical Studies, vol. 54:2007/08 "...an impressive array of evidence." USUS Antiquor, Vol 1 January 2010 The book will mainly be of interest to scholars but the more general reader can benefit from a detailed and intriguing account of both temple and early church worship. -- The Good Bookstall