The historical Jesus and cultic restoration eschatology: The new temple, the new priesthood and the new cult

Recent scholarship has stressed the importance of understanding the historical Jesus against his Jewish backdrop. In particular, a major trend in contemporary research has emphasized the way his aims were informed by Jewish eschatological hopes. However, little has been written to explain how Jesus' viewed one absolutely crucial dimension of ancient Jewish life: the temple cult. Indeed, this feature of ancient Judaism not only played a prominent role in everyday life, it also appears prominently in sources relating eschatological hopes; the restoration of Israel is frequently linked to the expectation of an eschatological temple, priesthood and cult. Notably, such expectations are even found in the writings of the Dead Sea community, a sect which itself rejected the validity of Herodian temple. Given its significance in ancient Judaism it is rather surprising how little attention is often paid to the question of Jesus' attitude towards the temple and, more specifically, to the role the cult may have played in his vision of the eschatological age. This thesis seeks to fill that lacuna in scholarship. Specifically, in this work we shall argue that a view of Jesus which does not pay close attention to his attitude towards the cult renders him, in a first-century context, un-Jewish and, therefore, implausible. We shall make the case that, at least in part, the already dimension of his eschatological vision was linked to his intention to usher in the realization of hopes for the eschatological temple, priesthood and cult envisioned in the prophetic texts. In this we hope to open up new avenues for historical Jesus research and Christian theological reflection.