The temple in Jerusalem represented the six days of creation, with the Holy of Holies representing the first day, the veil representing the second and so on. This is one of the many new things I’ve learned from Margaret Barker in a book of hers that I’m reading at the moment – Temple Theology: An introduction (London, 2004).

She also says that there are basically two streams of thought in the Old Testament – one representing the older priestly tradition and the second the Deuteronomist tradition that emphasises Moses and the law. This second tradition has been very successful in eradicating the older, says Barker, thus leaving us with an incomplete picture of the original temple theology upon which, she claims, that Christianity is based.

Interesting stuff, though some will claim that the OT is God’s word to us today and we should accept it as it is without questioning its creation. And that would be fine apart for one vital fact – the OT canon as we know it was only put together in the Christian era and that Jesus would have known books not in the current OT –  Enoch being one example. Other Christian writers within the NT quote from these non OT books, e.g. Jude quotes from Enoch and Hebrews refers to 2 Maccabees.

Refusing to learn from Biblical scholarship seems to me to be quite counter-productive. We loose out so much in understanding what the text is trying to tell us. This shouldn’t weaken our faith; on the contrary, it should strengthen it.