For some time I’ve been meaning to try to acquaint myself with the work of Margaret Barker, but it’s never seemed a very high priority. But the other day I picked up her Heythrop Lectures published in 2004 as Temple Theology. I think my first reaction was surprise that she’s in the select gathering of guest lecturers (alongside e.g. Bauckham and Wright) who allow themselves to be photographed in Chris Tilling’s company.
No, seriously, I felt quite bemused. In part, I am aware that I shall probably need to engage with one of her real books if I’m to think through some of her arguments. This introduction (as one might expect from published lectures) is very poorly footnoted and at times loosely argued. Frequently I felt as though I had stepped through the looking glass, and entered some bizarre parallel world. At one level she engages in a radical deconstruction of the Old Testament text through various aporiae, looking for all the world like an scholarly conspiracy theorist. At another level she invites an almost gullible acceptance of her theories worthy of a Dan Brown with actual academic ability and a deep knowledge of the subject matter.
Somehow I am unconvinced that certain superficial similarities between late mediaeval Orthodox practices, and possible reconstructions of early Israelite worship indicate a persistent secret oral tradition passed on from pre-Deuteronomic Judaism to apostolic Christianity and beyond. Most research is now pointing us towards a fundamentally Law observant Jesus, and Deuteronomy is frequently quoted in the early Christian writings.
Although this says nothing about the rightness or wrongness of Barker’s argument, I can’t help also registering my unease. It seems to me that a part of her argument is that a Judaism based around Moses and the Torah is a polemical rewriting of earlier Israelite religion, and Christianity is the true inheritor of the faith of Abraham and David. Any conclusion of this sort needs a far stronger argument than these lectures contain, and a far greater awareness of the political and theological ramifications.
I think I need to read one of her bigger books – probably, given some of the stuff I’m currently thinking about, The Great High Priest. On the other hand, I can’t say I’m putting it terribly high up my list. I can see why she is rarely cited. Useful observations are so enmeshed in a web of speculation that disentangling one from the other needs detailed engagement. A great many people sem to have taken the view that the whole problem is best ignored.
I’d be interested in knowing whether others think this little book has given me a false impression, and whether a more detailed engagement with her theories would be worthwhile.
{ 3 comments }
with the little, you get the big.
I’ve recently become fascinated with Margaret Barker, and I’d be most intrigued to know your further thoughts. On the one hand, the material that links the Temple to early Christianity is exciting, on the other it seems to say that unless we worship like the Orthodox we’re not properly Christian – and that seems to run against the logic of a lot of other things that Jesus taught. I have ‘Great High Priest’ on my shelf but haven’t read it yet.
Most of her books are poorly footnoted, if they are documented at all. She’s no exemplar of academic rigor, and I disagree with her as often as I agree, but she is usually stimulating, and highlights some fascinating connections I wouldn’t otherwise notice.
The “conspiracy” claim is looney, and her Second God theory is unconvincing, but I do think she has a point about early Christian adoption of priestly theology. I think scholarship in general has placed too much emphasis on the Deuteronomistic and prophetic traditions at the expense of the priestly, and Barker (especially in The Gate of Heaven) is a nice counterbalance to that.
I see this as a parallel to the work of folks like Jon Levenson and Jon Klawans on the Hebrew Bible, who also attack the anti-priestly bias evident in so much of the scholarship.
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