Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

ashes, and shovels and basins and forks and fire pans; all of its vessels you
     shall cast in bronze. And you shall make for it a grating, a net made of bronze; and
     on the net you shall affix four bronze rings to its four corners. And you shall place
     it under the edge of the altar, so that the net extends halfway down the altar. And
     you shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze.
     And the poles shall be inserted into the rings, so that the poles shall be on the
     two sides of the altar when it is carried. You shall make it hollow with boards, as
     it was shown to you on the mountain. Thus it shall be done” (Exodus 27:18).
    What does it mean for the Temple to be the sole source of God’s divine presence? Consider
     this: The Samaritans denied the primacy of the Temple of Jerusalem as the sole place
     of worship. They instead worshipped God on Mount Gerizim. Though this was essentially
     the only religious difference between the two peoples, it was enough for the Samaritans
     not to be considered Jews. There were other places of sacrifice for Jews (for instance,
     in Heliopolis), but these were considered substitutes, not replacements.
    For more on Judea as a “Temple-State,” see H. D. Mantel in “The High Priesthood and
     the Sanhedrin in the Time of the Second Temple,”
The Herodian Period
, ed. M. Avi-Yonah and Z. Baras,
The World History of the Jewish People
1.7 (Jerusalem: New Brunswick, 1975), 264–81. Josephus’s quote regarding Jerusalem
     as a theocracy is from
Against Apion
, 2.164–66. For more on the Temple of Jerusalem as a bank, see Neill Q. Hamilton,
     “Temple Cleansing and Temple Bank,”
Journal of Biblical Literature
83.4 (1964): 365–72. A very concise breakdown of the Temple’s revenues can be found
     in Magen Broshi, “The Role of the Temple in the Herodian Economy,”
Jewish Studies
38 (1987): 31–37.
    The Qumran community rejected the Temple of Jerusalem for having fallen into the hands
     of the corrupt priesthood. Instead, it saw itself as a temporary replacement for the
     Temple, referring to the community as the “temple of man/men,” or
miqdash adam
. Some scholars have argued that this is why the Qumranites were so interested in
     ritual purity; they believed that their prayers and lustrations were more potent than
     the rituals and sacrifices in Jerusalem, which had been tainted by the Temple priests.
     For a detailed discussion of the phrase “temple of man/men” at Qumran, see G. Brooke,
Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in its Jewish Context
(Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1985), 184–93; D. Dimant, “4QFlorilegium
     and the Idea of the Community as Temple,” in
Hellenica et Judaica: Hommage à Valentin Nikiprowetzky
, ed. A. Caquot (Leuben-Paris: Éditions Peeters, 1986), 165–89.
    It is Josephus who famously refers to the entire priestly nobility as “lovers of luxury”
     in
The Jewish War
, though he was not alone in his criticism. There is a similar criticism of the priests
     in the Dead Sea Scrolls, where they are called the “seekers of smooth things” and
     those who are “flattery-seekers.”
    There is a wonderful description of the high priest in the famed
Letter of Aristeas
, written sometime around the second century B.C.E. , a translation of which appears in the second volume of James H. Charlesworth, ed.,
The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
(New York: Doubleday, 1985), 7–34. Here is the excerpt: “We were greatly astonished,
     when we saw Eleazar engaged in the ministration, at the mode of his dress, and the
     majesty of his appearance, which was revealed in the robe which he wore and the precious
     stones upon his person. There were golden bells upon the garment which reached down
     to his feet, giving forth a peculiar kind of melody, and on both sides of them there
     were pomegranates with variegated flowers of a wonderful hue. He was girded with a
     girdle of conspicuous beauty, woven in the most beautiful colours. On his breast he
     wore the oracle of God, as it is called, on which twelve stones, of different kinds,
     were inset, fastened together with gold, containing the names of the leaders of the
     tribes, according to their original order, each one flashing forth in an indescribable
     way its own particular colour. On his head he wore a tiara, as it is called, and upon
     this in the middle of his forehead an inimitable turban, the royal diademfull of glory with the name of God