This chapter analyzes the evidence that suggests that Jesus endorsed and participated in the worship of the Jerusalem temple during his public ministry, arguing that the Gospel of Matthew offers important data that have been often overlooked and undervalued by the quest. Among other traditions, this chapter offers analysis of Jesuss instructions on offering sacrifice in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:23–24), Jesus’s Instructions to the leper to offer sacrifice (Matt 8:1–4); the healing of the paralytic (Matt 9:1–8); Jesuss quotation of Hosea 6:6 (Matt 9:13; 12:7); Jesuss statement that something greater than the temple is here (Matt 12:6); Jesus and the temple tax (Matt 17:24–27); Jesuss statement that the house is desolate (Matt 23:38); and Jesuss participation in the Passover celebration (Matt 26:17–19).

This chapter shows that Davidic traditions were closely connected to the temple. It looks at the way the Jesus tradition broadly, and Matthew specifically, ties Jesus’s activity in the sanctuary to Davidic imagery, arguing that this likely reflects memories that have their origin in Jesus himself. Among other things, special attention is given to the account of Jesuss triumphal entry and to Matthews accounts of Jesuss activity in the temple.

This chapter brings together the major themes and conclusions of the study.

The book’s final chapter draws on recent scholarship on cultic imagery in the New Testament to demonstrate that Jesus likely used temple and priestly imagery in his teaching, yet without the intention of repudiating the validity of the temple. Among other narratives, the Last Supper traditioins are given special attention.

The first chapter offers an introductory discussion of the major developments in scholarship that serve as points of departure for this study: (1) the problem of anti-temple biases in scholarship, which are rooted in latent antisemitic tendencies inherited by modern biblical scholarship; (2) recent developments in understanding the early Jewish character of the Jesus movement, which challenge previous assumptions about the so-called Parting of the Ways with special emphasis on recent discussions of Matthews social location (Matthew within Judaism); (3) growing concerns about historical methodology and the issue of authenticity in Jesus research. In addition, the introduction highlights the work of scholars (e.g., Matthew Thiessen, David Sim, Ulrich Luz, Donald Senior, W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Jr.) who have made the case that in certain instances Matthew appears to present us with more historically plausible accounts of traditions also narrated by Mark, such as Jesuss teaching about hand washing (cf. Matt 15:1–20; cf. Mark 7:1–23), his activity in gentile regions (cf. Matt 15:21–22; cf. Mark 7:24), and the mocking of the Roman soldiers (Matt 27:28; cf. Mark 15:17).

This chapter treats an apparent conundrum: if Jesus affirmed the temple’s holiness, how do we explain material that suggests he anticipated its coming demise? The argument is made that the case that such predictions reflect impressions made by Jesus himself is strong. Matthew, it is demonstrated, helps us see how such material could be integrated with a perspective that affirms the temple’s holiness. Among other key traditions, this chapter treats the accounts of Jesuss temple act as well as the charges leveled against him at his trial.

This chapter treats the state of the question of historical Jesus methodology before laying out the approach used in this study. Special attention is given to critiques of the conventional use of the so-called criteria of authenticity as well as to the implications of memory research (e.g., social memory theory) for historiography. Building on the work of Dale C. Allison, Jr. this chapter offers a fresh methodological approach.

This chapter considers Matthew’s depiction of Jesuss application of temple and priestly imagery to himself and to his followers, with special attention to the scene of the commissioning of Peter in Matthew 16. The Parable of the Wicked Tenants and other overlooked traditions that are suggestive of priestly and cultic imagery are also analyzed.

This chapter considers a concise account of the second-person experience from the viewpoint of an analytic philosopher and develops a contrasting second-person account on the basis of Alfred Schutz's The Phenomenology of the Social World. After this close analysis, the chapter considers more broadly how a Schutzian perspective might approach some of the further issues arising in the philosophical literature on the second-person experience.

An Initial Account of Second-Person Experience

The distinguished analytic philosopher, Eleonore Stump, on the basis of an extensive and burgeoning literature in analytic philosophy, has brought into clear and concise focus the second-person experience. She contrasts this experience with first-person experience in which one is directly and immediately aware of (only) oneself as a person and third-person experience in which one has knowledge of the states of another but not in virtue of being conscious of that other as a person (Stump 2010, 76). To have a second-person experience, one has to interact consciously and directly with another person who is conscious and present to you as a person (77).

Expanding this account to discuss the distinctive types of knowledge linked to second-person and third-person knowledges, Stump takes as models modes of thinking characteristic of two medieval founders of religious orders. She argues, then, for a distinctive kind of Franciscan knowledge, like the knowledge of qualia or knowledge of persons such as oneself or others (e.g., all that is involved in facial recognition) that is conveyed through second-person experiences of them. In such second-personal experiences, one can say “you” to another person, and Stump insists that such knowledge cannot be adequately expressible in terms of knowing that (2010, 49–53, 56, 62) or grasped in propositional form (54), the kind of knowledge that is typical of the “Dominican” style. Stump (50) makes use of Frank Jackson's thought experiment about the neuroscientist Mary who might know all the neurological facts about having the experience of color but lacks the distinctive rich experience that will flood over her when she comes face to face with an actual color. Stump imagines a “Mary” who knows (via factual, third-person knowledge) all there is to know about other people, but, should she suddenly find herself confronted with a person in the face-to-face mode, she would find pouring in upon her the quite different type of knowledge—that is, Franciscan personal knowledge that would be irreducible to some set of “that” propositions.