Chapter 5 of The Partings of the Ways is titled, "A Temple 'made without hands.'" This is the second half of the Jesus saying in Mark 14:58--"I will tear down this temple made with hands and after three days I will rebuild another made without hands." Dunn pointed out in the previous chapter that Matthew and Luke both omit the "hands" parts of the saying. Dunn suggested it might be because "Matthew often seems to omit Markan phrases which he knows to be Markan elaborations of the common tradition" (92).
This chapter now discusses ways in which the NT develops the temple "not made with hands" concept, that is, passages that indicate the perspective that the temple cultus is no longer necessary. This leads him to discuss Paul, Hebrews, 1 Peter, Revelation, and John.
Paul
Paul only mentions the literal temple in Jerusalem once in the highly ambiguous 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4. What Dunn finds is an implicit and thoroughgoing de-orientation from the temple cultus and reorientation around 1) Christ's death as (implicitly) the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, 2) the body of Christ as the temple of God, 3) believers as priests without need for priests as specially designated go betweens, 4) the obliteration of purity as a category, and 5) focus away from the earthly Jerusalem.
I want now to address Dunn's interpretation of Paul on this subject as a hostile witness. My position thus far has been that while Paul has all the elements of a replacement view of the temple, he nowhere clearly expresses that point of view. That a replacement view is a natural development of Paul but one Paul himself never makes explicit. Dunn believes that "the implication is unavoidable" that no more sacrifice would be necessary (103), although as far as I can tell he does not use the word replacement to compare Christ's death with the temple cultus in Paul.
The hidden element in this equation is what role Paul believed the cultus to have prior to Christ. Paul does not clearly have the cultus in mind when he speaks of the Law (unlike Hebrews). What I would suggest is that Paul and the Hellenists of Acts may have had a more spiritualized view of the temple to begin with (cf. Philo). Christ's death then was not so much a "replacement" of the cultus as a "sacrifice" with a higher reality with ultimate cosmic significance.
It is clear that Paul has appropriated cultic language around Christ and the assembly of believers in ways that parallel the temple cultus. The local body of Christ is the temple of God (not the universal church until Ephesians). Believers are to offer their body as a living sacrifice. Paul is a minister-priest who is presenting the Gentiles as an offering to God. Christ is a sacrifice to take away Sin and sins.
A Jew could have used most of this language without in any way denying the validity of the Jerusalem temple cultus. The Essenes used such language of their community without denying the validity of temple per se. They only opposed the current temple as defiled and corrupt. Philo could spiritualize the temple cultus while not having a problem with the literal one.
The real sticking point comes in Paul's sense of faith as the basis of justification and the Spirit as ending the power of Sin. If a person is deemed right with God on the basis of faith and the Spirit then empowers a person to put sin to death in his or her mortal body, then what further need was there for a temple cultus?
Some nuances. Faith for a Jew would have included participation in the cultus as an expression of that faith. Paul of course seems unconcerned about such things, but it is important to mention that faith was not the antithesis of action per se for Paul. This is a Reformation dichotomy.
The expression "faith of Christ" I believe at several points refers to the faithful obedience of Jesus to the point of death (e.g., Rom. 3:22; Gal. 2:16). This act of obedience, of offering himself as a living sacrifice, is the kind of "higher reality" that I'm suggesting Paul and the Hellenists may have seen as the real operative factor in atonement, even for those who participated in the cultus. The cultus would thus only be the surface act that represented the deeper basis for atonement (Philo says such things about literal sacrifices being unnecessary when the heart was right).
The cosmic scope of Christ's sacrifice does indeed destroy the power of Sin. In theory, therefore, no more sacrifices would be necessary. However, Paul never addresses key questions we might raise in relation to this schema. What, for example, about unintentional sins and wrongs done to others? What about the sin that, while undesirable, clearly attends to many Christians after they have received the Spirit? Did Paul understand Christ's sacrifice to cover these as well?
In short, we are forced to fill in these gaps ourselves. Certainly it would seem true that Paul had no need for a temple in his thought. But was it because he saw Christ's sacrifice as the end of all sacrifices? This Paul does not say and we can at least imagine some scenarios in which that might not have been the case.
Hebrews
Dunn wrote Partings before I studied with him from 1993-96. I was certainly more on the same page with him when I started than as I have ended up. He considers Hebrews to have decisively parted from Judaism on matters like the temple. I might just mention areas in which I have come to differ from him on Hebrews as Dunn discusses it in this chapter.
I agree with Dunn that Hebrews post-dates the destruction of the temple. I have come to disagree, however, on the audience being Jewish. I also think that Hebrews should be read in the context of an audience coping with the destruction of the temple and in that sense that it does not represent a departure so much as a coping strategy for the audience. While I think there are elements of Middle Platonic dualism in Hebrews I do not think that language of copy and pattern should be understood in that way.
However, I certainly agree that Hebrews views Christ's sacrifice as the definitive end of all sacrifices and thus, in effect, as a replacement for the temple cultus. Of course Hebrews does not believe that the temple cultus was ever truly effective in the removal of sins. Further, Hebrews does not clearly indicate that Christ's death atones for sins subsequent to one's initial cleansing.
1 Peter, Revelation, John
In each case Dunn also sees a parting as with Hebrews. 1 Peter considers all believers to be priests. Revelation sees no need for a temple in the new Jerusalem. John symbolically sees Jesus as a reality relating to sacrifice, purity, and festival that makes any literal such practices redundant. I largely agree with Dunn here, although I think it's important to note that all three of these writings date to after or around the time of the temple's destruction. As Dunn has pointed out several times, even rabbinic Judaism managed to survive without need for a temple.
Vintage Dunn
The most fun aspect of this chapter was picturing Dunn giving it at the Vatican. These are of course lectures he gave there. He apparently caused quite a stir by emphasizing how inappropriate it is to invoke Hebrews, of all books, as a support for distinct priests. With dogged Scottish honesty, Dunn unequivocally hammered in the class that the NT does not support any kind of special class of priests as go betweens to God. At one point he strongly rejects a particular Second Vatican statement to that end.
:-)
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