Friday, July 7, 2023

Steve Smith on Stephen’s Speech in Acts 7 being “a criticism of attitudes towards the temple”

  

The Role of Amos and Isaiah

 

The two quotations of the prophets act as commentary on this behaviour of the Israelites. The first quotation (Amos 5.25-27 in Acts 7.42-43) concerns the divine rejection of Israelite idolatry; its strong introductory formula draws attention to it and indicates that optimal relevance goes beyond this simple statement. A reader is likely to note three further implicatures. First, by linking the idolatry of Amos’ day with the Exodus, an association is made that there has always been idolatry in Israel, even when it did not seem obvious. This association is made clear in its opening question, which expects a negative reply: in the Acts setting, sacrifices were not made to YHWH because they were made to other gods, even though this meaning is not obvious in Amos. Second, the final phrase (μετοικιῶ ὑμᾶς ἐπέκεινα Βαβυλῶνος) replaces the Damascus of the original, and effectively extends the events beyond the deportation of the northern tribes. If Stephen was only using Amos to demonstrate idolatry at the time of the exodus then his argument would not require this phrase at all. Third, some of the language of the quotation is repeated in Acts 7.44 to describe a more positive approach to worship (σκηνή, ἔρημος, ποιέω, τύπος). This repetition emphasises the contrast between the idolatry of Amos, and the implied fulfilment of the promise to Abraham in Acts 7.44-47.

 

The second quotation criticises the practice of Stephen’s contemporaries by associating them with the disobedient worshippers. The introduction gives the meaning of the quotation: God is transcendent and is not housed in a temple. This is not a criticism of building a house for God (and preferring the tabernacle) because neither is mentioned in Acts 7.48; instead, it is a criticism of attitudes towards the temple. Nor is it claiming that God cannot be met in a temple, it is saying that a temple cannot have exclusive claim to deity; in other words, God cannot be domesticated. This is hardly a novel insight: Jewish theology referred to God’s glory or name (and not God) as resident in the temple; and Solomon’s dedicatory prayer for the temple (3 Kgdms 8.15-53) describes the inadequacy of the temple as a dwelling for God. It is therefore unlikely that Stephen is giving a correction to inadequate theology of transcendence among his hearers; rather, it is written to show that their attitudes and practice have ended up treating the temple as if it were God’s dwelling – which it is not, as they know. The end of the quotation is phrased as a rhetorical question, not a summary statement like the original, and this directs the accusation at Stephen’s opponents. They were not using the temple as God intended; instead they belonged in the disobedient line of Jewish history, and were part of the people they had judged during Stephen’s re-telling of history. (Steve Smith, The Fate of the Jerusalem Temple in Luke-Acts: An Intertextual Approach to Jesus' Laments Over Jerusalem and Stephen's Speech [Library of New Testament Studies 553; London: T&T Clark, 2017], 167-68)