A comprehensive treatment of the early Christian approaches to the Temple and its role in shaping Jewish and Christian identity The first scholarly work to trace the Temple throughout the entire New Testament, this study examines Jewish and Christian attitudes toward the Temple in the first century and provides both Jews and Christians with a better understanding of their respective faiths and how they grow out of this ancient institution. The centrality of the Temple in New Testament writing reveals the authors’ negotiations with the institutional and symbolic center of Judaism as they worked to form their own religion.

The Temple in Early Christianity: Experiencing the Sacred (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library)

Religion & Spirituality

Regev, Eyal

Christian Books & Bibles

Yale University Press

This book analyses social ideology and relationships in late Second Temple Judaea through studying extensive archaeological material and case-study sites. Suitable for students and scholars interested in the history, society, and archaeology of the Jews in the Second Temple period.

The Social Archaeology of Late Second Temple Judaea: From Purity, Burial, and Art, to Qumran, Herod, and Masada

Reference

Routledge

The Social Archaeology of Late Second Temple Judaea

The Hasmoneans: Ideology, Archaeology, Identity (Journal of Ancient Judaism. Supplements. Book 10)

Vandenhoeck + Ruprecht

Sectarianism in Qumran: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Religion and Society)

The book examines the distinctively sectarian features of the sects represented in the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran. It also compares their religious and social features with the early Anabaptists, Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish, Puritans, Quakers and Shakers.

Sectarianism in Qumran: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Religion and Society, 45)

History

Ancient Civilizations

de Gruyter

Sectarianism in Qumran: A Cross-Cultural Perspective explores the sectarian characteristics of the system of beliefs and laws of the two major Qumran sects of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the yahad and the Damascus Covenant, using theories of sectarianism and related topics in sociology, anthropology and the study of religion. It discusses Qumranic moral and purity boundaries, cultic rituals, wealth, gender, atonement, revelation mysticism, structure and organization and compares them with those of seven sects of the same (introversionist) type: the early Anabaptists, Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish, Puritans, Quakers and Shakers. The sociological and historical relationship between the Qumran sects and the related movements of 1 Enoch, Jubilees and the Essenes are analyzed in detail, in order to understand the socio-religious background of sectarianism in Qumran and its subsequent variations. Throughout the chapters, differences between the yahad, the Damascus Covenant and the Essenes are observed in relation to social boundaries, social structure, gender relations, revelation and inclination towards mysticism. Points of resemblance and difference are traced between the Qumran sects and the early-modern Christian ones, and several different patterns of sectarian ideology and behaviour are noticed among all these sects.

The first two chapters discuss the religious practices of the Hasmoneans. Chapter 1 explores why the Maccabees regarded Hanukkah as a festival of renewal, specifically of those traditions related to the Temple cult. Chapter 2 examines the manner in which the Hasmoneans used the protection and maintenance of the Jewish Temple to legitimize their rule-and how they worked to place the Temple at the center of the Jewish religion. Chapters 3-5 deal with different perspectives in the Hellenistic world on the role of government and royal ideologies. Specifically, chapter 3 explores both the Hellenistic and Jewish contexts for Hasmonean government and kingship. Regev shows how the Hasmonean dynasty built up its religious (in contrast to political) authority, suggesting that the Hasmonean state was not a conventionally Hellenistic one, but rather a 'national' monarchy, closer to Macedonian in type. Chapter 4 attempts to decipher the meaning of the symbols and epigraphs on Hasmonean coins, and examines how both Hellenistic symbols and Jewish concepts were employed to reinforce the dynasty's authority and introduce Jewish 'national' ideas into the populace. Chapter 5 then undertakes a comparative social-archaeological analysis of the Hasmonean palaces in Jericho in an effort to gain insight into their royal ideology. The author compares the Hasmonean palaces to other Hellenistic palaces - especially the Herodian palaces. Finally, the concluding chapter integrates the previous findings into a new understanding of and appreciation for the Hasmoneans' creation of an innovative Jewish corporal identity, one whose echoes we can still hear today.

The Hasmoneans: Ideology, Archaeology, Identity (Journal of Ancient Judaism. Supplements)

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