This volume is a major scholarly accomplishment, strongly focused and ambitious in scope. It covers an incredible wealth of material, in particular texts from the New Testament, and it challenges a great many historical and theological presuppositions that we often reflect upon poorly. Regev amply succeeds in realizing his major goal: to make us think differently about the role and the meanings of the temple for the earliest generations of Christians. Although it is usually taken for granted that there is a kind of antagonism between Jesus and the temple-oriented Judaism of his time, Regev argues that any exaggerated hostility or fierce opposition between the two is unwarranted—if one does the effort of carefully reading the textual evidence, synthesizing it, and placing it in the context of first-century Palestine.

After a relatively brief introduction where Regev sketches the often implicit biases against the temple in mostly Christian scholarship on the Bible, which hardly overcomes traditional schemes of supersessionism, the author embarks on a meticulous discussion of all the passages where the temple occurs in the four Gospels, the Pauline corpus, the Acts of the Apostles, the book of Revelation, and the letter to the Hebrews. He demonstrates that the ideas underlying a stark contrast between the authors of the New Testament and their rendering of Jesus’ attitude and sayings on the one hand, and the temple with its priests, feasts, and sacrificial cult on the other, do not hold. They result from later theological developments and unsubtle versions of the substitution theory. According to Regev's painstaking investigations, however, neither Jesus himself nor any of the authors of the New Testament drove a fundamental wedge between the temple and its worship system and early Christian communities. There is much more continuity and much less polemic than one generally assumes.

A fitting illustration is the famous story of Jesus’ “cleansing” of the temple. The synoptic Gospels situate this event not too long before his death, suggesting it played a role in the trial that led to his conviction. Although many interpreters have read in this passage a frontal attack by Jesus against the temple as a religious as well as a social and political institution, Regev demonstrates that the texts themselves do not allow such extrapolations because they are at odds with other passages where Jesus seems to have deep respect for the temple and where the evangelists use temple imagery to underscore the significance of Jesus’ words and actions. Regev also shows that even after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, it continues to have a constitutive function for the religious and moral imagination and self-understanding of Christians.

Although a table, a map, a chart, or a sketch here and there could have helped to summarize findings or make the text more easily understood, this edition of the book meets the highest standards of contemporary academic research with a nice layout, apt indexes, decent bibliography, illuminating footnotes, and so on. It would have been more helpful to the reader, however, if Regev had included one comprehensive bibliography at the end of the text rather than in separate sections of the book. It is curious to observe that Regev does not refer to the exegetical work of Thomas Söding, the more recent work of Robert Daly on sacrifice, and even Margeret Barker's groundbreaking 2007 monograph, Temple Themes in Christian Worship. Most strange is his omission of explorations into the earliest history of Christian liturgy by scholars including Gerard Rouwhorst, Enrico Mazza, or Maxwell Johnson. It reveals the neglect of a fundamental idea—namely, the awareness that the communities in which the writings of the New Testament came into being were worshiping assemblies and that this simple but all-permeating fact impacted both form and content of what we came to know as the New Testament. It is no longer appropriate to see liturgical history and biblical exegesis as unconnected fields of expertise. Nevertheless, Regev's reflex to look at the text first, to respect what it says and does not say, how it says what it says, and to withdraw on principle from speculations based on loose sociohistorical or cultural conjectures, is extraordinary and exemplary.

One hopes, therefore, that Regev will soon write another volume about the same topic, but aimed at a broader readership. For both his conclusions and his method matter a great deal for historians, archaeologists, biblical scholars, theologians, pastors, and religious leaders alike. One may also hope that Regev, in yet another volume, will reveal more about his own philosophical and theological viewpoints. But before the time comes that he writes these books, let me first and foremost wish the present monograph a thorough and lasting reception within and outside of the worldwide academic community.