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The Temple--Its Ministry and Services
Alfred Edersheim
Preface
It has been my wish in this book, to take the reader back nineteen centuries; to show
him Jerusalem as it was, when our Lord passed through its streets, and the Sanctuary, when
He taught in its porches and courts; to portray, not only the appearance and structure of
the Temple, but to describe its ordinances and worshippers, the ministry of its
priesthood, and the ritual of its services. In so doing, I have hoped, not only to
illustrate a subject, in itself most interesting to the Bible-student, but also, and
chiefly, to sketch, in one important aspect, the religious life of the period in which our
blessed Lord lived upon earth, the circumstances under which He taught, and the religious
rites by which He was surrounded; and whose meaning, in their truest sense, He came to
fulfil.
The Temple and its services form, so to speak, part of the life and work of Jesus
Christ; part also of His teaching, and of that of His apostles. What connects itself so
closely with Him must be of deepest interest. We want to be able, as it were, to enter
Jerusalem in His train, along with those who on that Palm-Sunday cried, 'Hosanna to the
Son of David'; to see its streets and buildings; to know exactly how the Temple looked,
and to find our way through its gates, among its porches, courts, and chambers; to be
present in spirit at its services; to witness the Morning and the Evening Sacrifice; to
mingle with the crowd of worshippers at the great Festivals, and to stand by the side of
those who offered sacrifice or free-will offering, or who awaited the solemn purification
which would restore them to the fellowship of the Sanctuary. We want to see these
rites, as it were, before us--to hear the Temple-music, to know the very Psalms that were
chanted, the prayers that were offered, the duties of the priesthood, the sacrificial
worship in which they engaged, and the very attitude of the worshippers--in short, all
those details which in their combination enable us vividly to realise the scenes, as if we
ourselves were present in them. For, amidst them all, we ever see that one great
outstanding Personality, Whose presence filled that house with glory.
The New Testament transports us into almost every one of the scenes described in this
book. It also makes frequent reference to them for illustration. We see the father of John
ministering in his course in the burning of incense; the Virgin-Mother at her
purification, presenting her First-born; the child Jesus among the Rabbis; the Master
teaching in the porches of the Temple, sitting in the Treasury, attending the various
festivals, giving His sanction to the purifications by directing the healed leper to the
priest, and, above all, as at the Feast of Tabernacles, applying to himself the
significant rites of the Sanctuary. And, as we follow on, we witness the birth of the
Church on the day of Pentecost; we mark the frequent illustrations of spiritual realities
by Temple-scenes, in the writings of the apostles, but more especially in the Book of
Revelation, whose imagery is so often taken from them; and we still look for the
accomplishment of the one yet unfulfilled type--the Feast of Tabernacles, as the grand
harvest-festival of the Church.
I have thus placed the permanent Christian interest in the foreground, because
it occupied that place in my own mind. At the same time, from the nature of the subject, I
hope the volume may fulfil yet another and kindred purpose. Although it does not profess
to be a Handbook of Biblical Antiquities, nor a treatise on the types of the Old
Testament, both these subjects had to be constantly referred to. But to realise the
gorgeous Temple ritual, in all its details, possesses more than a merely historical
interest. We are indeed fascinated by it; we live over again, if not the period of
Israel's temporal glory, yet that of deepest interest to us; and we can vividly represent
to ourselves what the Temple had been before its services had for ever passed away. But
beyond this, stretching far back through the period of prophets and kings, and reaching up
to the original revelation of Jehovah amid the awful grandeur of Sinai, our holiest
recollections, and the very springs of our religious life rise among these ordinances and
types, which we here see fully developed and carried out, and that under the very light of
His Presence, to Whom they all had pointed. I say not, whether or how far later Jewish
practice may have misapprehended the original import or the meaning of the Divine
ordinances. That was beyond my present task. But an accurate acquaintance with the
sacrificial services at the time of Christ must not only tend to correct mistakes, but
throw a fresh and vivid light upon all, and influence our views of what the Levitical
ordinances were intended to be and to teach.
To have thus stated my object in this book, is also to have indicated its difficulties.
Yet abundant materials for such a work, though scattered far and wide, are within our
reach. Not to speak of contemporary writings, as those of Josephus and Philo, and
references in the New Testament itself, we have in the Mishnah a body of
authoritative traditions, reaching up, not only to Temple-times, but even to the days of
Jesus Christ. (1) On this source of information, of course in conjunction with the Old
Testament itself, I have been chiefly dependent.
While thus deriving my materials at first hand, I have also thankfully made use of any
and every help within my reach. Foremost I place here the writings of Maimonides, not only
because he is of greatest authority among the Jews, but because his vast and accurate
knowledge of these subjects, and the clearness and subtlety of his intellect, entitle him
to that position. Next to him come the numerous writers on Biblical Antiquities, in Latin
and German; works on Typology--scientific and popular; treatises on the Life and Times of
our Lord; histories of the Jewish Nation, or of Judaism; commentaries on such passages in
the Old and New Testament as bore on these subjects; and numerous treatises on cognate
points. In my study of ancient Jerusalem, I had the benefit of the labours of recent
explorers, from Robinson and Barclay to the volumes published under the auspices of the
Palestine Exploration Fund.
To the Cyclopaedias of Winer, Herzog, Ersch and Gruber, Dr. Smith, and Kitto (the third
edition), I have been greatly indebted. The last-named of these works has the special
merit of a series of articles on Jewish subjects (as I may designate them), written in
quite an original manner, and with most competent knowledge. Although, as will appear from
the text, I have been obliged frequently to differ from their writer, yet these articles
must, from the fulness and ability of their treatment, be of very great use to the
student. Lightfoot's Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae are known to every scholar. Not
so, perhaps, his small learned treatise De ministerio templi. The title and many of
the subjects are similar to those treated in the present volume. But the learned reader
will at once perceive that the plan and execution are quite different, though the work has
been of great service to me. Perhaps I ought not here to omit such names as Relandus,
Buxtorf, Otho, Schottgen, Meuschen, Goodwin, Hottinger, Wagenseil, and Lundius; and, among
modern writers, Bahr, Keil, Kurtz, de Wette, Saalschutz, Zunz, Jost, Geiger, Herzfeld, and
Fratz, of whose works I have, I may say, constantly availed myself. Many others
have been consulted, some of which are quoted in the foot-notes, while others are not
expressly referred to, as not adding anything material to our knowledge.
In general, I should explain, that I have acted on the principle of giving the minimum
of references possible. It would have been easy to have multiplied them almost
indefinitely. But I wished to avoid cumbering my pages with an array of authorities, which
too often give a mere appearance of learning; and, while they are not needed by scholars,
may tend to interfere with the more general and popular use of such a work. For a similar
reason, I have throughout avoided the use of Hebrew and even Greek letter-press. To print
an expression in Hebrew letters could not be necessary for students, while the general
reader, whom it too often bewilders by a show of knowledge, must in such case necessarily
pass it over, unnoticed and unknown.
While this book embodies the studies of many years, I have during its actual
composition deemed no labour nor pains irksome in comparing the results of my own
investigations with those of all, within reach, who were entitled to such consideration.
Thus much for the matter of the book. As to its form, some subjects may be touched in it
which do not equally interest all readers; (2) others may appear to have been treated with
too little or else with too much detail; objections may be raised to interpretations of
types, or even to the general view of the Old Testament which has been taken throughout.
My aim has been to make the book as complete and generally useful as I could, and clearly
to express my convictions as to the meaning of the Old Testament. But on one point
especially I would wish to be quite explicit. At the close of these studies, I would say,
with humble and heartfelt thankfulness, that step by step my Christian faith has only been
strengthened by them, that, as I proceeded, the conviction has always been deepened that
Christ is indeed 'the end of the Law for righteousness,' to Whom all the ordinances of the
Old Testament had pointed, and in Whom alone, alike the people and the history of Israel
find their meaning. Viewed in this light, the Temple-services are not so many strange or
isolated rites, for the origin of which we must look among neighbouring nations, or in the
tendencies natural to men during the infancy of their history. Rather, all now becomes one
connected whole--the design and execution bearing even stronger evidence to its Divine
authorship than other of God's works,--where every part fits into the other, and each and
all point with unswerving steadfastness to Him in Whom the love of God was fully
manifested, and its purposes towards the world entirely carried out. From first to last,
the two dispensations are substantially one; Jehovah, the God of Israel, is also the God
and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ--Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet;
Vetus in Novo patet.
A. E.
(1) Quite a different estimate must be formed of the Gemara (which in a general
way may be described as a twofold commentary--the Jerusalem and Babylonian Gemara--upon
the Mishnah), not only from its much later date, but also from the strange and
heterogeneous congeries which are found in the many folios of the Talmud. Judaism
was, at the time of its compilation, already thoroughly ossified; and the trustworthiness
of tradition greatly impaired not merely by the long interval of time that had elapsed,
but by dogmatic predilections and prejudices, and by the not unnatural wish to foist
comparatively recent views, practices, and prayers upon Temple-times. Indeed, the work
wants in its greatest part even the local colouring of the Mishnah--an element of
such importance in Eastern traditions, where, so to speak, the colours are so fast, that,
for example, to this day the modern Arab designations of places and localities have
preserved the original Palestinian names, and not those more recent Greek or Roman with
which successive conquerors had overlaid them.
(2) Thus Chapters 1 and 2, which give a description of ancient Jerusalem and of the
structure and arrangements of the Temple, may not interest some readers, yet it could
neither be left out, nor put in a different part of the book. Those for whom this subject
has no attractions may, therefore, begin with Chapter 3.
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