Margaret Barker

Temple Themes in Christian Worship

Older Testament

The Lost Prophet

Gate of Heaven

The Great Angel

On Earth

The Risen Lord

Revelation

Great High Priest

Temple Theology

Angels

Hidden Tradition

Temple Themes

Christmas

Creation

Temple Mysticism

Mother of the Lord

King of the Jews

Temple Themes in Christian Worship (London: T&T Clark, 2008) explores the earliest links between Synagogue and Church, and questions the ‘synagogue’ roots of many Christian practices, finding them rather in the temple. She develops the implications of the ‘Second God’, originally set out in The Great Angel, and then locates the origin of Christian baptism in the high priestly initiation rituals and not in existing Jewish conversion rites. She relates the Maranatha prayer to the ancient tradition of temple theophanies, and expands on the significance of angels, harmony and music in the liturgy, suggesting the original context of the Sanctus. The Wisdom tradition is proposed as a formative influence in the Eucharist, to be developed in a future book on Marian imagery.

"As always, Margaret Barker deploys a great range of scholarly equipment to invite us to rethink quite radically many of the conventional readings of the New Testament. Through a systematic study of biblical imagery, related to rabbinical and patristic interpretation, she makes it clear that the categories associated with the worship of Solomon’s Temple and with the person of the High Priest are central for understanding not only the earliest Christological language of the Church – an argument she has set out in other books – but also the nature of Christian sacramental practice.

This is a book full of insight and challenge; some of its conclusions will be controversial, but it is a wonderfully learned and creative essay, drawing together much neglected or misunderstood material in a compelling new synthesis."

Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Published by T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 2008 ISBN 9780567032768