Excursus:
Criticism of the Temple
Criticism of the Temple has its beginnings in the spiritualizing of
the cultic as found in late Judaism (cf. Philo Cher. 99–105; Josephus Ant.
8.107–8. But even in this material one finds a concern to justify the existence
of the Temple. In Tg. Ps.-J. Exod
39:43, Moses prays “that the shekinah of Yahweh might dwell in the works of
your hands” (similarly Tg. Neof.,
which is strengthened by a marginal note). Nor is there a fundamental
opposition to the Temple at Qumran (cf. 1QM 2.5). Luke goes beyond these Jewish
beginnings to pick up Christian modifications of motifs from Jewish polemics
against Gentiles, and then uses these motifs against Judaism. These motifs in
turn employ arguments from Greek religious critiques. The style of his
criticism assumes the destruction of the Temple. (Hans Conzelmann, Acts
of the Apostles: A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles [trans. James
Limburg, A. Thomas Kraabel, and Donald H. Juel; Hermeneia—a Critical and
Historical Commentary on the Bible [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987], 56)
