The former worship of YHWH among the metalworkers (Qenites/Kenites) and his special affinities with mining areas clarify why this god sponsored the movement of emancipation. His metallurgical attributes and his volcanic theophany both identify him as formerly being the South Levantine smelting-god, the deity overseeing and protecting the production of copper from ore. This craft enjoyed a prestigious status before the Amorite conquest, which became rehabilitated in the Early Iron Age. At the same time, the smelting-god recovered his transcendent status of super-god, the creator of the deities. The metallurgical skills attached to the first Israelite leaders, the volcanic context of the Sinai theophany, and the metallurgical symbols in the Jerusalem temple all betray a substantial preservation of this original dimension of YHWH among the Israelites.

This chapter analyzes the evidence that suggests that Jesus endorsed and participated in the worship of the Jerusalem temple during his public ministry, arguing that the Gospel of Matthew offers important data that have been often overlooked and undervalued by the quest. Among other traditions, this chapter offers analysis of Jesuss instructions on offering sacrifice in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:23–24), Jesus’s Instructions to the leper to offer sacrifice (Matt 8:1–4); the healing of the paralytic (Matt 9:1–8); Jesuss quotation of Hosea 6:6 (Matt 9:13; 12:7); Jesuss statement that something greater than the temple is here (Matt 12:6); Jesus and the temple tax (Matt 17:24–27); Jesuss statement that the house is desolate (Matt 23:38); and Jesuss participation in the Passover celebration (Matt 26:17–19).

This chapter treats an apparent conundrum: if Jesus affirmed the temple’s holiness, how do we explain material that suggests he anticipated its coming demise? The argument is made that the case that such predictions reflect impressions made by Jesus himself is strong. Matthew, it is demonstrated, helps us see how such material could be integrated with a perspective that affirms the temple’s holiness. Among other key traditions, this chapter treats the accounts of Jesuss temple act as well as the charges leveled against him at his trial.

The first major rabbinic composition – the Mishnah, which would ultimately form the foundation and shank of both of the Talmudim – emerged in an age of great upheaval for Jews. Losing two wars with the Romans, seeing their magnificent Temple in Jerusalem rendered rubble, Jews cannot long have held onto the hope that the world they had known would quickly be rebuilt. Had God abandoned them? – many must have wondered. If not, then how, in the absence of the Temple, could their relationship with God be maintained? Were its functions to be replaced? How were other Jewish institutions, practices, and holy days, many of which were deeply tied to the Temple, to be shaped for the new world? Against this background, and in response to the conditions just described, a new religious fellowship – the rabbi – began to forge new approaches and teachings, going a long way toward redefining Judaism for the post-Temple era. In this chapter, we will consider the early history of Jews under Roman rule in Palestine, which served as the stage for the development of the rabbis and their writings.

Chapter 4 examines the Jerusalem Temple as an economic organization whose membership consisted of priestly elites. By appealing to other temples of the Roman East as comparanda, it demonstrates that elite temple functionaries simultaneously sustained their ancestral religious traditions and facilitated economic integration. As overseers of worship, Judaean elites had access to sacred land and sacred money and received other offerings. In particular, Judaean priestly elites were the beneficiaries of the Hasmonean institutions of tithes and temple taxes. Such exactions were authorized through scriptural interpretation, but were also typical at Graeco-Roman temples more broadly. To many Judaeans, however, they appeared distinctly exploitative once priestly elites became incomparably wealthy and powerful in the Early Roman period.