The Jewish Temple: A Non-Biblical Sourcebook.

• Author: Sweeney, Marvin A.
• Position: Review

By C. T. R. HAYWARD. New York: ROUTLEDGE, 1996. Pp. xvi + 211. $18.95.

The enhanced availability of non-biblical Jewish texts from the Second Temple period and other resources has prompted considerable rethinking of the Wellhausenian paradigm for the development of Israelite religion and increasing interest in ancient Judaism and the Jerusalem Temple. A great deal of scholarly research has already focused on textual and other data that allows for a description of the Jerusalem Temple and its furnishings, the organization of its priests, and the order of the sacrificial service, but very little attention has been paid to the meaning and significance of the Temple and its rituals. Hayward attempts to address this need by assembling relevant texts in English translation, and provides each with a commentary that "seeks to elucidate the significance which the Temple and its rites may have held for the author" (p. 5).

The texts chosen include the writings of Hecataeus of Abdera, Aristeas, both the Hebrew and Greek versions of Ben Sira, Jubilees, Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, and Pseudo-Philo. With the exception of the book of Jubilees, the translations are those of Hayward. He notes that all of the texts assembled here seem to share a common understanding of the Temple that may predate the individual authors. He stops short of asserting this thesis definitively, as it would require a full analysis of biblical texts from the Second Temple period as well as relevant texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Furthermore, each text conveys the unique perspectives and concerns of its ancient author. Nevertheless, Hayward's work points to the conception of the Temple as the center of the cosmos and its service as the means to insure stability and order in creation.

The first text to be considered is Josephus' summary of Hecataeus of Abdera, a Greek philosopher who lived ca. 300 B.C.E. (Contra Apionem I. 187; pp. 197-99). Particularly noteworthy is Hecataeus' description of the "inextinguishable light" that burns night and day under priestly guard. Hayward notes the unusual word anaphosbestos, "inextinguishable," and argues that Hecataeus' source must have stressed the perpetual nature of a worship aiming to preserve purity in the Temple compound.

The second text is the letter of Aristeas, a gentile courtier of Ptolemy II in the early third century B.C.E. Aristeas 83-99 contains an adulatory description of the Temple and its service that hints of the author's...