The Open Sanctuary
Access to God and the Heavenly Temple in the New Testament
About
How can impure, earthbound humans gain access to God, who is holy and in heaven? In ancient Israel and much of the ancient world, the answer was obvious: by means of a temple. The temple gives access to God because it images the cosmos.
This book explores how the concept of a heavenly temple emerged as an important theological concept for early Christians. They developed their understanding of Christ and his work in part through their understanding of heaven as a temple. Nicholas Moore examines the heavenly temple concept in the New Testament within its Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts, demonstrating that the ministry of Jesus gives believers access to the dwelling place of God himself. Moore explores conceptions of the heavenly temple in the ancient world, Second Temple Judaism, the book of Revelation, Hebrews, the Gospels, Acts, and other early Christian literature.
One important contribution of the book is to provide a corrective to the way many people understand the Jerusalem temple in early Christian thought. It is the first comprehensive study of the heavenly temple in the New Testament. Professors, students, and scholars of the New Testament will benefit from this work.
Introduction
1. Antiquity: The Cosmic Center
2. Second Temple Literature: Blueprints and Buildings
3. Revelation: Judgment and Salvation
4. Hebrews: Atonement and Access
5. Mark and Matthew: Heavens and Mountains
6. Luke and Acts: Ascension and Mission
7. John: Emanation and Dwelling
8. Other Early Christian Texts: Altars and Ascents
Conclusion: Cosmos, Cultus, and Christ
Indexes
Endorsements
"This is a marvelous, illuminating book that puts the idea of the heavenly sanctuary back where it belongs--at the heart of early Christian thought. This is an insight that has been gathering strength in recent years, but Moore presents the definitive case, and Hebrews is central to that case. This perceptive study is a major contribution to our understanding of the message of that marginalized book."
Philip Alexander, Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester; Fellow of the British Academy
"Readers will be grateful for the clarity of Moore's prose and the rigor of his scholarship and, even more, for his new taxonomy for understanding the pervasiveness and variety of conceptions of heaven and temple in the biblical world. Moore also encourages a wide and deep reading of ancient texts to answer a modern problem: flat materialism. In an age starved for meaning, The Open Sanctuary sparks a reenchantment of the cosmos, an ability to perceive the majesty of space and time and the access we have to God through Jesus Christ."
Amy Peeler, Kenneth T. Wessner Chair of Biblical Studies, Wheaton College
"Within Christianity, the concept of temple has been reduced to metaphorical representations of church or body as temple, obscuring the role temples played in ancient conceptualizations of the cosmos, the divine realm, and theology. Moore shifts the discussion back to these foundational concepts through an exploration of the heavenly temple in the Bible and early Christian thought. This book's contribution is valuable both for its broad overview of this important topic and for its challenge to the tendency to strip temple language of its cosmological and eschatological significance."
Gregory Stevenson, professor of New Testament, Rochester University
"This book is a tremendous resource for understanding a key concept in the first century: the heavenly worship space. Moore provides an introduction to the concept in Jewish literature, useful analyses of New Testament texts where this theme appears, and a more compelling vision of what is to come."
Madison N. Pierce, associate professor of New Testament, Western Theological Seminary
"Moore has made a very useful contribution to temple studies in the New Testament. His fourfold taxonomy, delineating the spectrum of heavenly sanctuary portrayals in ancient literature, brings clarity to the topic and will surely be foundational for future studies. The Open Sanctuary will open new vistas for many readers on the New Testament's proclamation of heavenly access to God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ."
L. Michael Morales, professor of biblical studies, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
The Author
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Brittany Hurlbert Nicholas J. Moore
Nicholas J. Moore (DPhil, University of Oxford) is warden and lecturer in New Testament at Cranmer Hall, St. John's College, Durham University in Durham, England. He previously served in ministry in Buckinghamshire and Hartlepool in the United Kingdom and...
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