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Amy Peeler, Hebrews and the Temple: Attitudes to the Temple in Second Temple Judaism and in Hebrews. By Philip Church, The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 70, Issue 2, October 2019, Pages 822–824, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flz076
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Volume 171 in the Supplements to Novum Testamentum series joins a line of illustrious monographs on Hebrews, including George Guthrie’s The Structure of Hebrews and David M. Moffitt’s Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in Hebrews. Church engages appreciatively with both of them, and many other scholars, but presents a challenge to interpreters like Moffitt who argue for a temple structure in heaven.
Church’s core argument is two-pronged. First, although there is no temple language in Hebrews, he suggests that it lurks right below the surface. The readers of Hebrews would have made associations with the temple even if the tabernacle and Jerusalem formed the author’s explicit language (pp. 16, 271). The author of Hebrews differs from other Jews who speak of the temple (explicitly or by implication) by presenting no critiques of its corruption. Instead, Hebrews’ critique is an eschatological one (p. 405). The time for the temple’s effective functioning has come to an end in the work of Jesus Christ.
