Temple Themes in Christian Worship
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Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9780567032768
Number of Pages: 304
Published: 24/01/2008
Width: 15.6 cm
Height: 23.4 cm
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.
1. The Temple: A brief history and why there was controversy over the true temple.; Temple world view, introducing key terms such as covenant, atonement, resurrection, incarnation.; 2. Priesthood and high priesthood: Jesus the great high priest.; Melchizedek.; 3. Baptism varieties of early practice, original rituals, change in meaning in 4th century.; Baptism as resurrection.; 4. Eucharist: The shape of the liturgy, temple roots of wine and bread, the meaning of atonement, renewing the covenant.; Early texts including New Testament variants.; 5. Visions: Seeing the Lord, divine presence in worship.; 6. Scripture: The use of the Bible in worship, how the early church understood the Old Testament, typology in worship, lectionaries.; Teaching the Bible.; 7. Music: Role of music in the temple.; Hymns as the worship of angels, living the angel life.; Cosmic harmony. The Therapeuts.; 8. Prayers: The Lord's Prayer, the earliest written liturgies.; 9 Festivals and Pilgrimages: How and when Easter was celebrated, finding the true cross, Christmas.; Pilgrimage to Palestine after the time of Constatine. Egeria.; 10. Churches: The earliest evidence for church buildings.; Constantine's churches, Justinian's churches.
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.--Sanford Lakoff