Plain and Precious Things Restored:  Jesus and the Temple Tradition
By Kevin Christensen

Editor’s note:  This is sixth in a series of articles on the Methodist minister Margaret Barker — and why she matters to LDS scholarship.  Read the previous article here.

In approaching the New Testament, remember that our texts do not speak for themselves, but become meaningful in the context that we provide. Nephi taught that we cannot understand Isaiah, for example, without knowing something of the manner of prophecy among the Jews.

Even those Jesus whom taught directly in the 3 Nephi account were reminded that they could not grasp everything at once, but would have to make an effort to prepare their minds (3 Nephi 17:3).

The same principles apply to New Testament study: the text without the context cannot tell us everything we need to know. We have to prepare our minds to bring the most bountiful harvest from the text. Margaret Barker’s work brings into focus the importance of the First Temple tradition as a key to bring to our New Testament study.  Consider first the importance of the revolutionary discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls:

The Qumran material is contemporary with the New Testament, and provided a radically different picture of Judaism than the later Rabbinic texts that had formerly been used to describe New Testament backgrounds. And besides a substantial body of non-Biblical texts, Qumran also provided the oldest Biblical texts that turned out to have variant readings in many passages that were important for the Christian interpretations.

When such variant readings had been preserved in the Septuagint Greek, it had been possible to argue that the differences between the Greek and the Hebrew could be explained as Christian interpolations.  Because the Qumran Biblical materials predate Christianity, this argument no longer holds.

With regard to the Masoretic Hebrew text that the Christian world adopted, Barker observed that “The distribution of unreadable Hebrew texts is not random; they are texts which bear upon the Christian tradition.” [2]  In comparing the Masoretic Hebrew text with the older Qumran materials and in examining discussions about the scriptures by Jewish and Christian writers, Barker’s observatioms make it clear that the Hebrew canon was defined, not just after the rise of Christianity, but in response to it. [3]  

A key example is the how there is nothing in the MT of the prophets describes a suffering Messiah who sees the Glory of God, so the story in Luke [24:25-26] presupposes the Qumran version of Isaiah.” [4]

Barker has shown that “the non-priestly Jewish tradition that defined the Hebrew canon and its text, the canon and text adopted by Jerome as the basis for his Old Testament, on the grounds that this was the version that the Jews would accept as the basis for discussion. [5]  

The same pattern of non-priestly tradition version the Temple centered priestly tradition occurs in the selection and exclusion of books.

Barker also shows that important texts that had been excluded from the Hebrew canon were initially preserved only by the early Christians.

Though Christian scribes had initially preserved the non-canonical texts, the adoption of the Hebrew canon by the Christians also corresponds to the abandonment of texts such as Enoch by most of the Christian communities. Such losses were not trivial, but changed the context in which the remaining New and Old Testament texts were read.

The most important of the non-canonical texts has been the Book of Enoch, a repository of temple traditions and imagery.  Jude quotes Enoch directly, but many other New Testament passages reflect the Enoch worldview, and cannot be either recognized or understood without the context provided by Enoch.

As strange as the Book of Enoch may seem to modern readers, it also has many important ties to the Book of Revelation, certainly the strangest and most difficult book in the New Testament. Both the Book of Revelation and Enoch contain scenes set in the Holy of Holies in the temple, and thus both represent the lost priestly traditions. Barker observes that, “Since neither the Book of Revelation nor 1 Enoch fits easily into the received picture of Judaism at the time of Jesus and early Christianity, that picture needs to change.” [10]

Consider just how just one aspect of the ministry of Jesus is illuminated by the newly recovered texts.  In an article published in BYU Studies in 2003, Barker explained that the Qumran Melchezidek text “describes how Melchizedek was to appear in the first week (that is, in the first seven years) of the tenth Jubilee (each Jubilee being forty-nine years). He would proclaim the liberty of the Jubilee year, rescue his people from the power of the Evil One, and restore them to their rightful inheritance. The Anointed One would appear, and the kingdom of God would begin. At the end of the tenth Jubilee, there would be the great atonement, when the angels would be judged and the sons of heavens rescued.”[12]   

She explains that the “text is constructed around a series of quotations” including “Isaiah 61, where the one anointed by the Spirit proclaims the liberty of the Jubilee year.” [13]    She observes that “Luke records that Jesus was about thirty years old at the time of his baptism (Luke 3:23), so Jesus would have begun his public ministry in the first seven years of that final tenth Jubilee.

The link between Jesus and the Melchizedek text is confirmed by Luke’s account of Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth. He chose to read from Isaiah 61, the very text that was associated with Melchizedek coming to bring the good news of the Jubilee and the Kingdom of God.” [14]

Margaret Barker’s twelfth book, The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom of God,  has just been published by SPCK in London.  Her daughter has created a website that introduces Temple Theology, describes her books, and includes several essays on line.  See www.margaretbarker.com.