Barnabas 5 Sample Clauses

Barnabas 5. 15 Did the Christian temple replace the Jerusalem one, just as Christianity superseded Judaism with the coming of Jesus (supersessionism), or did the author consider that the Jerusalem Temple had never been God’s holy shrine because God never dwells in a created house (categorical rejection)? Was the covenant lost when the Jews turned to idolatry in the time of Moses, or was it superseded later when Jesus was rejected? The text provides us with statements supporting both interpretations. However, they are not equally elaborated upon and they are certainly irreconcilable. Barnabas states that the covenant was “completely” lost when the Jews worshipped the golden calf (Barn. 4.7-8; 14.1-4). Consequently, Israel could not be superseded by Christianity because there was no place for Israel in a salvation history. As Hvalvik succinctly puts it: “the Jews had no place in 331 The contrast between “us” and “them” runs through the whole first part where Barnabas draws a clear line between what was said by God to Christians and what was said to the Jews. The form “to them he says... but to us he says...” is common in the epistle (cf. Barn. 3; Barn. 8.8, etc.) the history of salvation; they had no independent value and importance. They were nothing but a disobedient people who had turned away from God to idols. For that reason, they were not heirs of the covenant.”332 James Rhodes’ thesis on the question of the covenant has proposed a less radical reading of the problem. He stated that Barnabas does not really mean “what he says when he asserts that Israel lost its covenant permanently (εἰς τέλος) at Sinai.”333 Rhodes’ argument hinges on interpreting Barnabas’ reading of salvation in an ahistorical way which appears, according to him, in Barnabas’ confusion of post-Sinaitic events with pre-Sinaitic ones.334 The promises of Jesus’ revelation in flesh were also said to the people of Israel (6:8-9) which is a post-Sinaitic event. The post-Sinaitic prophecies on which Barnabas relied also show that Israel was not abandoned entirely in Sinai. From this, Rhodes concludes that the tension between the event of Sinai and the coming of Jesus as turning points of the covenant of Israel is due to Barnabas’ approach to the apostasy in Sinai; it is “a rhetorical hyperbole: purposeful and provocative overstatement.”335 Rhodes’ argument is not unjustifiable. However, the overlaps between pre- and post-Sinaitic statements, which I do not deny, should be viewed in light of Barnabas’ o...