Major problems for Stephen almost
certainly raise in 7.48 when he says, ‘yet the Most High does not dwell in
houses made with hands’? By itself the concept of God not dwelling in houses
does not necessarily equal a rejection of the Temple. It should not be
forgotten that this concept is quite explicit in the biblical passage quoted by
Stephen and would not necessarily have been read as an anti-Temple polemic
(Acts 7.49-50 quoting Isa. 66.1 ff.). Other biblical texts, most notably 1 Kgs
8, 2 Chronicles 6 and Psalm 132, also form an important background to Acts
7.48-50 . . . For example, Solomon’s prayer in 2 Chronicles 6 contains a repeated
emphasis on a house (οικος/בית) for God’s name (6.2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 18, 20, 22,
24, 29, 32, 33, 34, 38) but alongside this there is another emphasis on heaven
being the dwelling place of God (6.13, 14, 18, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 30, 33, 39).
The Temple is the place (τοπος/מקום) where God sets his name, and where people,
including foreigners, pray (see e.g. 6.30, 33, 39). Yet Solomon says:
But will God indeed reside with mortals on earth? Even
heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house (οικος/בית) that
I have built! (2 Chron. 6/18/1 Kgs 8.27)
Psalm 132 (LXX 131) also contains some significant information.
While God chose Zion as his dwelling place (132.13ff. [131.13ff.]) it is still
believed to be his footstool (132.7 [131.7]). On one level, then, it is
standard Jewish thought to say that the Temple could not contain God.
But Stephen gets into trouble. He probably would not
if he just repeated an uncontroversial piece of thought. So why is he attacked by
the authorities? Well, Stephen does not just say that God does not dwell in
houses but hoses ‘made with human hands (χειροποιητοις)’ (Acts
7.48), a derogatory phrase associated with idolatry in the LXX. While it is
widely believed that this is an attack on there being a Temple at all, it is
more likely to be an attack on Temple abuses. This would also be consistent
with Jesus’ actions in the Temple, which were likewise not in opposition to the
ideal function of the Temple system. The Temple is a good thing but from
this perspective it has been abused and so God certainly does not dwell in such
a place, suggesting that Luke or Stephen is developing the biblical belief of
God not dwelling in houses to the situation of the first-century Temple: we
might recall Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem (Lk. 13.34) before saying that ‘your
house will be left to you’ (Lk. 13.35).
There is good evidence to back up
this view. Doble has pointed to another significant feature of the biblical
background to God not dwelling in houses noted above, namely that there is a
strong emphasis on keeping the commandments (2 Chron. 6.16/1 Kgs 8.25; Ps.
132[131].12; Isa. 66.2; cf. Isa. 66.5) (P. Doble, ‘Something Greater than Solomon:
An Approach to Stephen’s Speech’, pp. 192-201). Note also the following
comments of God given in the context of Solomon’s dedication of the Temple:
But if you (pl.) turn aside and
forsake my statutes and my commandments I have set before you, and go and serve
other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from the land that I have
given you; and this house (τον οικον τουτον/הבית הזה), which I have
consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight . . . And regarding this
house (ο οικος ουτος/הבית הזה),
now exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished, and say, ‘Why has the Lord
done such a thing to this land and this house (τω οικω τουτω/לבית הזה)?’
Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord the God of their ancestors
. . . ‘ (2 Chron. 7.19-22)
Such references are particularly
important because they all contain conditional threats based on observing the
commandments partly in the context of God’s relationship to the Temple, and it
is dedication to this line of thought that is the cause of Stephen’s problems
according to Acts. Notice in particular that one such passage, 2 Chron. 6.16
(1 Kgs 8.25), is delivered at Solomon’s dedication of the Temple, more or less
the time when Stephen’s history of Israel finishes in Acts 7, which is immediately
before he starts his criticisms of the present Temple authorities, and as soon
as Stephen criticises the Temple authorities for not observing the law he is
attacked. From Stephen’s perspective the Temple authorities have not observed
the law as they should have done and so we are probably meant to understand
that there is some truth in the claim of the false witnesses that Stephen
believed the Temple would be destroyed, just as Solomon’s Temple was for similar
reasons. Stephen is therefore never portrayed as one attacking any biblical law
nor the ideal functions of the Temple. Again recall that Stephen’s speech fully
endorses the ideals of biblical Israel, including, crucially, Moses and the giving
of the Torah (e.g. 7.20, 22, 38, 53). (James G. Crossley, The Date of Mark’s
Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity [Journal for the
Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 266; London: T&T Clark
International, 2004], 127-29, emphasis in bold added)
