Sermon Tone Analysis

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*Chapter One*

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*Introduction*

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The New Testament serves as a crucible both for the appropriation and transformation of Israel’s literary and symbolic religious traditions; the significance of central Jewish symbols—temple, land, covenant, and covenant community—undergo a renegotiation of meaning.

Our own specific focus shall be the most complex and multivalent symbol of this tradition: the Jerusalem temple, in particular, its presentation in Luke-Acts, the longest and arguably the most complex narrative in the New Testament.

It is self-evident in both the writings of the New Testament and Qumran that the importance and interpretation of the Jerusalem temple were subjects for profound theological reflection and intense, sometimes divisive debate.

The Jerusalem temple played a momentous role as a hermeneutical focal point in the first century, for Judaism, for the writers of the New Testament, and particularly for the author of Luke-Acts.[1]

Why did Luke devote so much attention and space to the Jerusalem temple in Luke-Acts?

How does it make sense within the larger narrative and what was Luke hoping to communicate thereby to a largely Gentile audience?

Though the theme of the temple in Luke-Acts has received significant attention, the present study contends that a more nuanced and coherent understanding of this theme can be gained by focusing on its socio-religious function as sacred space and how Luke exploits this in his narrative.

In the present chapter we shall begin to address such issues first by a brief overview of previous scholarship on this topic, followed by a proposal for a refined methodological framework which shall facilitate our analysis.

The balance of the chapter will attempt to lay a theoretical foundation for the main emphasis which flows out of this framework: the need for a more profound engagement with the Lukan focus on the temple as sacred space and a more nuanced account of how this significance has been engaged in Luke’s narrative world.

*Previous Scholarship*

Let us begin, then, by briefly considering the contours of previous scholarship on the temple in Luke-Acts.

Broadly speaking, scholarship on the Lukan role of the temple may be divided into three perspectives: positive, negative, and ambivalent.

Those who emphasize the positive role of the temple in Luke-Acts include M. Bachmann (1980), F. D. Weinert (1979, 1981, 1982, 1987), J. M. Dawsey (1984, 1991), and J. B. Chance (1988).

In some fashion, each underscores or characterizes the temple as having an unequivocally positive function in Luke-Acts.

The works by Bachmann and Chance are of monograph length and merit closer consideration.[2]

Unquestionably, the most extensive and detailed study on the temple in Luke-Acts remains Michael Bachmann’s /Jerusalem und der Tempel,/ which explores the temple's function as a Jewish culture center.

In a number of ways Bachmann illuminates the inextricable connection between Jerusalem and the temple from Luke's perspective, /contra/ Hans Conzelmann.[3]

In addition to discussing the two spellings of Jerusalem and demonstrating how Jerusalem and Judea function interchangeably, Bachmann posits a chiastic structure for the four Jerusalem scenes found in Luke-Acts (Luke 1:5-2:52; 19:45-24:53; Acts 1:3-8:3; 21:15-23:32), which underscores the /homogenität/ of the two middle sections, the overlooked prominence of Jerusalem, and, particularly, the temple as the center of Jewish life and its role in the fulfillment of both the law and the prophets.

Luke’s presentation of city and temple are so closely connected that the temple determines the entire character and life of the city.

Nevertheless, for all its detail and depth in regard to the centrality of the temple for Jewish life—including Jewish Christians—the theological implications of how the temple functions within the context of the entire narrative are surprisingly lacking.

For example, its relationship to the Gentile mission or even its theological relevance for Gentile believers in Luke’s audience remains unexplored.

Moreover, the positive role which Bachmann assigns to the temple does not adequately consider the presence of negative aspects of Luke’s temple material.

As is the problem in other studies of this theme, it is more the case that a positive Lukan portrayal of the temple is /assumed/, based upon or equated with the prominence which Luke accords the temple in his narrative, rather than /demonstrated/ from its function within the narrative.

When considered from this perspective, there remains in Bachmann’s positive analysis significant, unaddressed tensions with both the /telos/ and/ /overarching concerns of Luke’s narrative.[4]

A more recent study of the temple in Luke-Acts is /Jerusalem, the Temple, and the New Age in Luke-Acts/ by J. Bradley Chance/./

Chance’s study is narrower in scope than that of Bachmann, focusing on the historic and future eschatological role of Jerusalem and the temple.[5]

A major premise of Chance’s study is that, since Luke does not spiritualize or transfer the sacred functions of the city and temple to Jesus or the church—as broadly in evidence in other New Testament writings—Luke’s position must be closer to that of traditional Jewish eschatological hope centered on the literal Jerusalem and the temple.[6]

Chance’s study is clearly presented and makes a genuine contribution concerning the eschatological dimension of Lukan salvation as over against the deeschatologized perspective of Hans Conzelmann.

Moreover, his analysis moves beyond that of Bachmann by recognizing the need to account for the relationship between the prominence of the Jerusalem temple and the salvation of Gentiles (87-113).

Nevertheless, his textual support for his position concerning the actual function that the temple plays /vis-à-vis/ the salvation of Gentiles or its future restoration is tenuous, particularly for the second half of Acts.

The relevance and function of the temple as the narrative advances into the Gentile mission is never clearly delineated, nor is the role that a restored temple might play in the future.[7]

One might inquire in this regard, How would a literal, restored temple, whose very architecture underscores its exclusivity, make any sense as a positive hope or symbol for Luke’s Gentile audience?

Culturally, Gentiles were at best peripheral to this exclusive Jewish institution and at worst a threat to its sanctity.[8]

Luke’s narrative, moreover, would appear to underscore this latter aspect in the final, climactic temple scene, wherein the alleged presence of a Gentile in the temple precipitates a riot (Acts 21:27-36).

Indeed, there is little engagement with the social or cultural dimensions of this central Jewish religious institution and how this may inform a reading of its presence in the narrative.

It may not be without significance, then, that it is attention to the social dimensions of the temple which distinguishes two recent negative assessments of the role of the temple in Luke-Acts: those of John Elliott (1991) and Jerome Neyrey (1991b).[9]

Elliott’s study, “Temple Versus Household in Luke–Acts: A Contrast in Social Institutions,” provides a constructive entry point for understanding the temple’s importance as a social institution.

The holiness of its space, its personnel . .

., its sacrifices, and the laws of holiness it enforced symbolized a holy people’s union with the Holy One of Israel.

This link between the holy place and the holy people and their demarcation from all that was unholy was derived from the Torah; and it was elaborated, maintained, and legitimated in an ideology and system of holiness which defined Jewish identity and regulated all aspects of Jewish life.

Where temple and Torah are involved in Luke’s narrative, therefore, crucial issues regarding norms of holy behavior and social interaction, and the boundaries of god’s holy people are at stake.

(218-19)

Initially, Elliott provides an excellent overview of the formidable range of issues and semantic fields associated with the temple in Luke-Acts, underscoring the complexity of this theme in Luke-Acts (219-20).

Halfway through the study, however, by way of contrasting the institutions of temple and household, Elliott emphasizes the economic centrality and political role of the temple to a greater degree than Luke’s narrative warrants, thereby eclipsing certain socio-religious aspects which the narrative does foreground.

Indeed, as Halvor Moxnes notes in his study of Lukan economic relations, Luke has not chosen to highlight in his narrative a number of avenues of the temple’s economic and political control, such as tithes and land ownership for example (1988, 70-74).[10]

Though the political and economic import of the temple are embedded within the institution, and though they are certainly not without significance in the social world of the first century, Luke has not chosen to focus on these particular characteristics of the temple as a social institution in his narrative.

Those socio-religious aspects of the temple which Luke does underscore, however, are brought out more clearly by Jerome Neyrey’s study, “The Symbolic Universe of Luke–Acts.”[11]

in contrast to the /political-economic/ focus of John Elliott’s work, Jerome Neyrey’s study provides a helpful approach to the /symbolic/ nature of the temple.

Though his essay is not exclusively devoted to a study of the temple in Luke-Acts, Neyrey correctly underscores the role of the temple as “the chief symbol of Israel’s symbolic universe” (278).

It is this characteristic of the temple institution which emerges as the most salient feature in Luke’s narrative portrayal, more closely accounting for the emphasis which the temple receives in Luke-Acts and more illuminating for its function in the narrative.

Like Elliott, however, Neyrey too easily moves back and forth between the function of the temple in the social world and the way it is actually presented in Luke’s narrative, ultimately causing him to overstate the negative character of Luke’s portrayal.

“[I]t is clear that Luke understood the Jesus movement to be repudiating the temple, both as a symbol and as an institution” (294).

It is difficult to harmonize such an unequivocally negative statement with the emphasis the temple receives in the infancy narratives, the Lukan redaction of Jesus’ Jerusalem ministry, the prominence of the temple in Acts or the disciple’s ongoing interaction with the institution.

In spite of the many passages which would seem to contradict such categorical statements, Neyrey’s analysis flattens-out the complexity of Luke’s nuanced portrayal of the temple as decidedly negative.

Other scholars, who have more closely attended to the juxtaposition of positive and negative images of Luke’s temple portrayal have suggested that Luke is presenting an ambivalent portrait of the temple or has ambiguous feelings about it.[12]

Scholars with widely divergent perspectives on Luke-Acts have made very similar comments concerning Luke's apparent ambivalent and conflicting temple imagery.

R. L. Brawley explains that the conflicting imagery surrounding the centrality of the temple and Jerusalem, or Luke’s “ambiguous fascination with the holy place of Israel,” is because they are both the "place where the prophet must die and from where the gospel goes forth" (1987, 18).

J. T. Sanders echoes this sentiment as well: “While in terms of salvation history, it is the pivot in the divine plan of salvation for the Gentiles, it is, even more than that, the /locus classicus/ of evil, of hostility to Jesus, to the church, to the purposes of God" (1987, 32).

Finally, J. B. Tyson, noting that Luke-Acts contains more positive and negative images of the temple and Jerusalem than the other Gospels, has framed the issue in similar terms:

 

The ambivalence of Jerusalem and the temple in Luke-Acts is striking.

The presence of both positive and negative images, stories of peace, stories of conflict, and associations of both religious devotion and impending doom characterize the Lukan writing.

The contrasts are deep and inescapable.

(1986, 159)[13]

However, such conclusions as these engender further questions.

Can Luke’s alleged ambivalence towards the temple, his mingling of both positive and negative images, be accounted for in a more nuanced and precise way?

Can they be construed in a manner which is meaningful and coherent both within the context of the entire narrative and for Luke’s largely Gentile audience?

One recent study which does suggest a way forward regarding these sorts of questions, particularly for a non-Jewish audience, is Philip Esler’s /Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts/ (1987).

Esler roots Luke’s ambivalent temple theology in an historical reconstruction of the first generation of Christians in Jerusalem, suggesting that it reflects “a continuation of an experience of one segment of the early church in Jerusalem whose feelings for the temple, given its social and religious impact on them, were profoundly ambiguous”(133).

This segment of the first generation of believers is represented by God-fearers, those Gentiles attracted to Judaism yet, because of cultural barriers, remain on its margins.

In an exercise of “sociological imagination,” Esler explores the fundamental ambivalence of such a God-fearer/ /when confronted with the worship experience at the Jerusalem temple.

On the one hand, he experiences great satisfaction that he has come to the temple of his God and has viewed its overwhelming beauty; on the other, at the same time, he is greatly dissatisfied that he is prevented from approaching as closely as possible to the presence of God on earth and being a full participant in his cult.

As he stands there, the very architecture of the place brings home to him that, for all his devotion, he is an outsider and will remain so unless he undergoes circum­cision, an operation which is both painful and utterly at odds with his Hellenic distaste for self-mutilation in any form.

In sociological terms, such a person is 'marginalized'.

(156)

Esler’s historical reconstruction and the implications which he draws from it, not just for Luke but for other New Testament texts, would take us well beyond the boundaries of the present study.

Yet, his depiction of how the exclusivity of the temple architecture marginalizes one particular class of people can serve as a crucial insight into a much broader understanding of how the temple functions in Luke’s narrative.

While Esler roots Luke’s ambivalence in the historic experience of God-fearers /vis-à-vis/ the actual physical structure of the temple, in the present study we will underscore the temple as an embodiment of the multiple socio-religious systems inscribed within its structure which marginalize large cross-sections of people and with continuing relevance for Luke’s audience.[14]

Like Esler’s research the present study shall also locate motivations for Luke’s so-called ambivalent presentation of the temple in his competing pastoral interests for his largely Gentile audience.

However, we shall include among these motivations interests which would also emphasize connection and continuity with God’s people by: (1) locating provision for Gentile participation in the promises to Israel in its sacred institutions while at the same time (2) challenging a circumscribed understanding of these institutions which would marginalize Gentiles and maintain cultural barriers.[15]

Furthermore, while Esler notes that this aspect of Luke’s temple critique is primarily evident in Stephen’s speech (Acts 7:2-53, esp.

7:48, echoed by Paul in 17:24), we shall assert its presence as a consistent subtext throughout Luke-Acts.

Another recent article which builds on Esler’s work and has served as a catalyst for the present study is Joel B. Green’s “The Demise of the Temple as Culture Center in Luke-Acts: An Exploration of the Rending of the Temple Veil” (1994a).

By careful attention to Luke’s narrative staging of the death of Jesus and a nuanced treatment of Luke’s characterization of the temple against the background of sacred space, Green underscores the socio-religious symbolism of the rending of the temple veil by demonstrating that “the torn veil works symbolically to neutralize the dominance of the temple as a sacred symbol of socio-religious power predetermining insider and outsider” (514).

One can infer from Green’s analysis several emphases which would enable a better understanding of Luke’s portrayal of the temple.

First, it suggests a perspective on the temple which lends greater coherence to the Lukan concern for the marginalized,[16] a concern which includes but is not limited to the Gentiles, nor merely to the temple theme.

Reading Luke-Acts, one encounters various segments of society who, because of diverse cultural and religious barriers, remain on the margins of society.

Second, there is the related possibility of a more subtle accounting of both positive and negative facets of Luke’s characterization of the temple.

Third, it implies a methodological need for a deeper appreciation for the symbolism of sacred space, Luke’s narrative staging, and the complex interaction between the two.

And, finally, it highlights the unfinished task of a complete investigation along these lines of the temple theme in Luke-Acts.

Green concludes,

 

Although a full exploration of Luke’s temple theology lies far beyond the scope of one essay, what we have examined indicates a consistent concern with the continued but transformed role of the temple.

Even if the temple remains as a place for prayer and teaching, it no longer occupies the position of cultural center, the sacred orientation point for life: its zones of holiness no longer prejudge people according to relative purity.

Other stories and speeches in Acts will develop the theological rationale, but in the torn veil Luke has already demonstrated symbolically that the holiness-purity matrix embodied in and emanating from the temple has been undermined.

(515)

Clearly none of the previous studies on the temple in Luke-Acts have undertaken an exploration of the entire temple theme in Luke-Acts with the particular emphases noted above.

The following study shall attempt to do so.

In the process we will endeavor to keep three important aspects in focus: first, the symbolically rich and complex nature of the temple as a sacred, socio-religious institution; second, the theological and narratological function of the temple in Luke’s two volumes;[17] and third, the complex nature of the interplay between these first two aspects and how it shapes Luke’s narrative rhetoric.

Each of these statements shall receive further clarification as we explore how to balance these three foci in an appropriate methodological framework.

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*A Methodological Proposal*

In attempting to balance the main focal points of the present study we have taken two methodological cues from the work of sociologist Robert Wuthnow in his volume /Communities of Discourse /(1989).

The first insight concerns a way of conceptualizing the relationship between innovative cultural discourse and its social environment; the second concerns a flexible methodological framework for pursuing this concept.

Concerning this first aspect, we propose that it is more helpful to explore Luke’s seemingly ambivalent presentation of the Jerusalem temple through this broader characteristic of innovative cultural discourse—that which Wuthnow has termed /the problem of articulation/.