Abstract
Some PhD dissertations explore previously unexplored territory (and thus risk obscurity), while others attempt to say something new about already-much-discussed problems (and thus risk redundancy). This book, the product of the author’s McGill University PhD, belongs firmly to the latter category. We do not lack for studies of temple language in the letters of Paul (see Finlan, Gärtner, Gupta, Hogeterp, Horn, Klawans, and Regev, to name a few). The author who would offer us yet another one, therefore, had better be able to justify the expenditure on paper and ink.
At this, Tony Basham succeeds reasonably well. This book will not make the reader think about the matter completely differently. Its goal and its achievement are more modest: It contextualizes Paul’s talk of the Corinthians-in-Christ as the naos theou, ‘sanctuary of god’ (1 Cor 3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16) in relation to Paul’s other mentions of sanctuaries, shrines, and temples in Jerusalem and elsewhere. It argues for a particular, precise account of metaphor theory in general and of the meaning of this metaphor. In sum, it brings a good deal of conceptual clarity to what is an oftentimes vague discussion. That is not a revolution, but it is a good thing.
Basham’s central positive claim is that, when Paul calls Corinthians-in-Christ the temple of god, he means that they are (1) a domain devoted to Paul’s god, (2) a domain where that god’s spirit resides, (3) a holy domain not to be corrupted, (4) a domain that Paul’s god will avenge in the event of its being corrupted, and (5) a domain not hospitable to other gods. So far so good, but there is little new here. The argument gets more interesting, however, when Basham draws inferences for the debate over ostensible supersessionism in the letters of Paul. He cautiously, and rightly, notes that Paul nowhere expressly rejects or replaces the Jerusalem temple (contrast Epistle of Barnabas, Melito of Sardis, et al.). But Basham also argues that (his own account of) Paul’s temple metaphor falsifies Paula Fredriksen’s much more positive account of the Jerusalem temple in Paul.
Basham reasons as follows: Paul calls the Corinthians-in-Christ the temple of god, by which he means the temple of the Judaean god. But the Judaean god’s famous temple in Jerusalem expressly barred gentiles from entry to its inner courts. If (as per Basham’s account) the metaphor transfers signification in both directions, not just one, then Paul’s use of it implies that the temple of the Judaean god ought to welcome sanctified gentiles, which the Jerusalem temple does not do. Thus, Basham concludes, ‘Paul’s temple metaphor challenges the exclusionary layout of the Herodian temple in his day, making the temple ritually obsolete for ethne-in-Christ grafted into the lineage of Israel’ (p. 2). But if the Jerusalem temple never offered such access, why speak of obsolescence?