Hebrews and the Temple: the backstory of my recent book

In 1996 my wife Dorothy and I went to Israel. At that time I had no idea of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and knew little about Zionism. It happened to be around the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, and in Jerusalem, I was mystified when I kept encountering Christians asking me if I had “come up to the feast.” I was unaware at the time, but I now know that the “International Christian Embassy Jerusalem” organizes tours to Israel for Christians who want to do just that. They set themselves up in 1980 when about a dozen countries moved their embassies to Tel Aviv after Israel declared unilateral ownership of Jerusalem. It was an act of protest over that, because they felt that Jerusalem was too important to not have an international Christian presence. Ironically the Israeli Government gave them a house that was formerly owned by a wealthy Christian Palestinian family who had been ejected from it. About 5,000 Christians usually attend the 9 day festival.

Then, on one October Sunday I went to Christ Church just inside the Jaffa gate. The sermon was on Zech 14:16, “Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles.” The preacher, who was a New Zealander, claimed that it was incumbent on Christians to do just that. Now, several years earlier I had done a Master’s thesis on Hebrews, and was under the impression that these festivals had been abolished by the sacrifice of Christ. I was mystified by all this, and after I arrived back in country I started looking for commentaries on Zechariah to check out the preacher’s claims. I didn’t find much.

Several years later somebody (I have no idea who) placed in my hands a Cambridge paper written by Dr Peter Walker of Oxford University, entitled “Centre Stage: Jerusalem or Jesus?” He had written it as a response to calls for a celebration of the 3,000^th anniversary of the founding of Jerusalem by king David. He argued that now that Jesus had come, preoccupation with Jerusalem by Christians was misguided, and had the potential to displace Jesus from the centre of their affections. All the lights went on in my head. Then I discovered a monograph by the same Peter Walker, Jesus and the Holy City: New Testament Perspectives on Jerusalem (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996). There Walker traverses the entire New Testament and argues that the land of Israel, the City of Jerusalem and the Temple, formerly valid as the central symbols of the religion of Israel and of Judaism, no longer held any theological significance for Christians. And, indeed, he argued that right through the NT, Jerusalem is presented as a city under judgement, for that was where Jesus met his strongest opposition, and that was where he was crucified.

Move forward to 2003. I had been working at BCNZ (Bible College of New Zealand, now Laidlaw College) for a year or so, and was wondering whether I might embark on a PhD. I was thinking around possible topics and noted that Walker’s chapter on Hebrews in Jesus and the Holy City, was a mere 34 pages. It occurred to me that there was more that could be said. So I started thinking about land, city and temple in Hebrews. I discovered a conference in England in 2004 where Walker was one of the presenters. I went to the conference and sat down with him over lunch and told him what I was thinking. He encouraged me to pursue the topic and invited me to keep in touch. I have done so ever since. I prepared a PhD proposal to Otago University and Dr James Harding and Dr Chris Marshall (at that time teaching NT at BCNZ) were appointed my supervisors. In one of my first supervision meetings James suggested to me that to look at land, city and temple in Hebrews was actually enough for 3 PhDs. He asked me which one I wanted to do. I thought for a minute, “maybe the temple.” 

The book is a revised version of the PhD thesis, with a few bits cut out and a couple of bits added, and the main thesis strengthened with ideas that occurred to me when I was thinking about publication. The text is 401 pages longer than Peter Walker’s chapter on Hebrews. And he covers the land and the city as well, although I confess I did stray into that territory a bit. I discovered that there was indeed quite a lot more to say.

So, what does the book do? I spend 435 pages building an argument to explain three words in Hebrews 8:5. The NIV translates these words “copy and shadow” and suggests that the tabernacle is a copy and shadow of “what is in heaven.” The idea is that there is a sanctuary in heaven that the tabernacle is modelled on as a “shadowy copy” and the Jewish priests served God in that shadowy copy. I read the text differently in two ways

1.           I argue that in the context the verse refers to the Jerusalem temple, which was still standing when Hebrews was written, rather than the tabernacle, and that the words describe the rituals going on in temple at the time.

2.           Building on earlier research I make the point that the Greek word translated “copy” does not mean “copy” anywhere in ancient Greek literature. “Copy” is just wrong. The sense of the word is “exemplar”, that is, something that is copied from, or “symbol.” I also argue that the word translated “shadow” means “foreshadowing” as it does in Col 2:17 and Heb 10:1. So rather than translating the words “copy and shadow”, I translate them “symbolic foreshadowing.” What the Jewish priests did in the temple, and indeed, the temple itself, anticipates and looks forward to the time when God will dwell with God’s people at the end of all things. And now that Christ has been exalted to the right hand of God, that time has broken into the present.

This has implications, especially for those Christians who think Jerusalem is still important and who think we should be celebrating Jewish festivals. That is what the first readers of Hebrews thought they should be doing, and he wrote his letter to tell them that if they did that they were in danger of losing their salvation. There is no way back for such people, he says.

I am grateful to James and to Chris for their guidance and assistance, and also Peter at whose initial impetus the book was conceived and who was a third adviser when I was doing the PhD. I need to give credit to my wonderful wife Dorothy who endured many lonely nights when I was in my man cave reading and writing. And I am grateful to God for the grace and strength to bring it together. And I need to say that I enjoyed every moment of the 21 year journey that started in the old city of Jerusalem in October 1996.