These are in fact medically recognized conditions with categorizable symptoms and treatments. These conditions are associated with fear of the dark or of being alone or lost or perhaps even of heights.   What strikes me though is how modern these types of anxiety are.  It might give us pause to remember that it is barely a hundred years that we've been aware that our Milky Way galaxy does not consist of all there is, but is only a single galaxy in a universe that contains trillions of others.  Since then astronomers and cosmologists have been producing larger and ever more detailed ** you do not have permission to see this link **.   

To be truly afraid of something it seems to me you must have some experience of it and be able to internalize it.  You experience the dark and are afraid.  But who has experienced the cosmos?  And if we truly did experience the cosmos and internalize it might we not all expect a certain degree of existential vertigo?   Trillions of galaxies!  WTF!?!  Now I am not making a medical diagnosis but it seems to me that anxiety over a sci-fi movie or the popular idea of bug-eyed aliens might not adequately describe what we are talking about here.

There are literary precedents for a sense of cosmic dread.  In his Pensées Blaise Pascal wrote Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraye. "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me." Howard Phillips Lovecraft often pictured his tortured protagonists cringing in dread of strange constellations and monstrous entities seeping down from the stars.  I was always struck by how he would characterize outer space as "Outside".  Inside is where it's warm and sane.  But Lovecraft's monsters could only bite your head off.  Pascal describes something much more terrifying.  Emptiness.  Indifference.  And that's the cosmos we are presented with. It just sits there.  Undeniable and inescapable. However we shield our civilization from it with ever brighter and more radiant lighting. 

I have always loved astronomy.  I'm glad I don't have such fears. I don't suppose I have any real phobias. My only irrationality is that I fly into a sub-psychotic rage when I hear whispering or the fizzing of a soft-drink being poured over ice.  I say "sub-psychotic" because I never lose self-consciousness or have ever actually attacked anyone.  Of course as I get older...who knows?  

I did have one weird experience.  I once went to an exhibition of the work of Japanese artist ** you do not have permission to see this link **, known for her immersive, mirrored environments and sculptures entirely covered in polka dots, apparently inspired by the visual hallucinations she has experienced since childhood.   I literally had to run out of the room where everything was covered in polka dots.  I didn't hallucinate but I just couldn't remain in the room.  Pictures don't have that effect on me.  But I have learned my lesson.  Don't go into the room where everything is covered with polka dots.   I try to imagine what it would be like to feel that way under a clear night sky. 

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Steefen

If anyone destroys God's temple
God will destroy that person.

The temple was destroyed when the rebels took it over during the Jewish Civil War and the Jewish Revolt against Rome.

I prefer God to have destroyed/prevented the circumstances of turning the Temple into a fortress for rebels in the first place.

= = =

Before 70, Temple use was defended: the charge against the biblical Jesus was that the Temple was no longer central to Judaism.

Worship became spiritual, not localized: Speaking to a Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus said, "a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem". He declared that true worship is not tied to a specific building, but is done "in spirit and in truth". 

Second, there was also the charge against St. Stephen

St. Stephen argued that while God authorized the construction of the Temple, the physical building was not His permanent, exclusive dwelling. Quoting the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, he boldly stated to the Sanhedrin: "However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands". 

= = =

Why I disagree with the before 70 comment of Stephen: it is missing the criminalization of minimizing the existing functioning of the Temple.

I agree with Paul George that after 70, the community-as-temple fills a void. The theological logic is: the Temple is gone, but God has not abandoned his people — you are now where he dwells. That’s a post-catastrophe consolation, not a pre-destruction contrast.

Paul George said
Bart has done more than anyone to shift NT scholarship away from theological assumptions — yet the standard chronology of Christian origins (Paul's letters in the 50s, the Gospels 70–100 CE) remains largely inherited from pre-critical tradition rather than derived from first-principles historical analysis.

It is always worthwhile to question our collective assumptions, even when these are supported by century-long scholarly consensus, but I suggest it is too flippant to characterize this as merely pre-critical tradition. As for the gospel of Mark, I agree with with Stephen, 'though note he is only saying that it is hard to see it as "much later than 70ish," by which I would easily allow for a good decade or so. I did not read Stephen's comments as an attempt to complicate and argue against a post 70 date. But note that one of the still reigning English critical commentaries by Adela Yarbro Collins does indeed argue for a date of composition minimally prior to the actual destruction of the temple. One cannot deny that hers is indeed a work of critical scholarship. I don't see much in Matthew that would require an extended period of time between the publication of Mark and the revisions of Matthew, though we cannot claim it was therefore written soon after Mark. As for Luke and John, scholarship has already been moving to later dates of composition.

As for Paul, here as well we cannot and should not deny the century plus of critical scholarship that has brought us to the current point of discussion. To take current scholarly trends seriously, we should not assume an early (pre-70) vs late (post-70) time of composition of the 'authentic' letters; rather we must grapple again with Marcionite reconstructions and later proto-orthodox redactions of Paul. I've begun to engage just a little bit with one of the scholars trying to forge this path. Here too one finds some assumptions and critical correctives that may not always be warranted.

** you do not have permission to see this link ** 

by George T. Montague, S.M., formerly Professor of Scripture at the University of St. Michael's College, Toronto, Ontario.

This book is a commentary on all the major biblical texts dealing with the Holy Spirit, from Genesis to Revelation.  It also includes chapters on the HS and apocalyptic, the apocrypha and Qumran!   Reviewers are scandalized by its lack of an index which does increase an academic's time in Purgatory I'm afraid. 

If you were raised as a hayseed Protestant like Your Humble Correspondent you might wonder what the designation, S.M., fully entails so I did some research.  It turns out the designation refers to the Society of Mary.  Interestingly it turns out there are two such societies, the Marianists (which includes Father Montague) and the Marists, both founded in post-Revolutionary France, both evincing a Marian spirituality, and both having a massive footprint in Catholic education and missionary work.  (And, I suspect, absolutely detest being confused for one another.)

Of course Protestants are the Masters of Sectarianism so I assumed these two bodies probably differed in both ecclesiastical polity and approach to spirituality and danged if I wasn't correct. Generally the Marianists are more egalitarian; brothers and priests have entirely equal status, rights, and voting privileges. Priesthood is viewed strictly as a sacramental ministry, not hierarchical.  Their spiritual focus is on the love of Jesus for Mary.  The Marists began as a group of seminarians. They do admit religious brothers, but the clerics hold the central governing authority.  Once again perhaps to oversimplify, their spiritual focus is on the love of Mary for Jesus. 

Current or former RCs fell free to expand - or correct. 

I discovered this book's existence while reading a book on the Trinity.  The web expands. 

ps While this will certainly be a valued resource this is not precisely the sort of book I would want to write.  

The 2026 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting took place at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, from June 7 to June 10. The accompanying Pastors’ Conference took place on June 7 and 8, followed by the main convention on June 9 and 10.   

Go ** you do not have permission to see this link ** for a wrap-up if you're interested.

Generally the trajectory remains rightwards.  The newly elected SBC President, Willy Rice, is positioned on the firm right wing of the SBC, who represent themselves as an insurgent faction of "reformers" who believe the denomination has experienced a "decline and drift". Rice came out of a ministry in Florida which is the state convention most sympathetic to Christian nationalist ideas. His "issues of concern" are about what you would expect:

He publicly challenged what his supporters call a "woke" drift among previous denominational leaders regarding race, gender, and immigration.  He campaigned on a promise to challenge the existing SBC institutional system rather than capitulate to shifting cultural norms. Rice holds what's called the "complementarian" view, firmly supporting a total ban on churches utilizing women as pastors.  (Such a resolution was passed enabling the convention to immediately disfellowship churches with female type pastors.) He explicitly objects to modern cultural shifts regarding gender roles, advocating for a return to strict biblical literalism. 

A bit more controversial is his stance regarding the SBC's handling of its recent sexual abuse crisis.  Rice has claimed that concerns regarding a systemic, top-level cover-up within the convention were overblown, stating that previous leadership sometimes "followed the culture more than the Bible" during reform advocacy. 

If you've got the time here is a very interesting ** you do not have permission to see this link ** vid.  These two brothers discuss some of the issues and their perceptions of the current status of the convention.  Just be aware that they're insiders who speak the language and assume that on the part of their audience.  

My quick take for what it's worth.  Jon and David Harris are really nice guys who probably wouldn't hurt a fly.  But they've swallowed the kool-aid and inside their hermetically sealed environment they are completely divorced from reality.  Consequently they are prepared to accept really dangerous and destructive ideas with the certain faith that it's all for the best. Because it's God's Will.

Now don't be deceived.  I have no wish to correct them.  I celebrate when they double down.  The SBC is rapidly losing members. Young people especially are leaving in droves.  (One of the bros comments during the vid how nobody at the meeting seemed younger than middle-aged.)   These folks think it is "accommodation" that is causing this.  They are blind to the fact that it is their very own ideology that is driving people out.  More power to them!  

It's the usual thing.  Conservative white America, especially men(!), are under attack by people called "progressives".  These progressives are bringing in all the worldly concern for gender and race - and economic class.  Conservatives on the other hand are only concerned with ministry and reject politics!  

It's to be expected that it will be the hardcore who will hold on the longest.  If you really believe that you are doing God's Will and that compromise is defeat then you will not go easy.  It's possible there will be another Great Awakening but I think it more likely that in twenty years or so when the last of the Boomers go to their reward the bottom will fall out and the cultural and religious landscape of this country will look very different.  The demographics are in - the fastest growing ethnicity is Hispanic and young folks are the least religious group in our history. 

On Mark, I take your point seriously. The intensity of the Temple-Parousia connection in Mark 13 is striking. But I'd actually argue that intensity supports a post-70 date rather than complicating it. The urgency reads more naturally as retrospective theological interpretation of a catastrophe that has already occurred than as genuine predictive anxiety. The "abomination of desolation" language, the specific detail about fleeing to the mountains, the instruction not to go back for one's cloak — these have the texture of a community processing lived trauma, not anticipating it. The famous "let the reader understand" aside (13:14) strongly suggests the author is writing with the event already in view. I'd push back gently on the idea that theological intensity implies proximity to the events described; sometimes the reverse is true.

On the Pauline letters, the two passages you cite are precisely the kind of evidence I find most interesting to work through, so thank you for raising them directly.

On 1 Corinthians 3:16–17, I'd argue the metaphor actually works better after 70 than before it. The rhetorical force of "you are God's temple" depends on the reader feeling the weight of what that claim means — and that weight is enormously amplified when the physical Temple no longer exists. Before 70, the metaphor creates a somewhat awkward competition between two simultaneously existing sacred spaces. After 70, the community-as-temple fills a void. The theological logic is: the Temple is gone, but God has not abandoned his people — you are now where he dwells. That's a post-catastrophe consolation, not a pre-destruction contrast.

On 1 Corinthians 9:13, the present-tense language about temple service is worth looking at carefully. Paul's point here is an analogical argument about the rights of those who preach the gospel: just as those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial food, so too those who preach the gospel should be supported by the community. The analogy functions rhetorically regardless of whether the Temple is standing. We use analogies drawn from defunct institutions all the time — "don't change horses midstream" works as rhetoric even for people who have never ridden a horse. More importantly, a post-70 author deploying temple-service language as a known institution would be entirely unremarkable; it remained culturally vivid for decades after its destruction, as Josephus, the rabbis, and the entire Mishnaic tractate Kodashim demonstrate.

What I'd flag more broadly is that "sounds like the Temple is still active" is doing a lot of work in traditional arguments, and I think it needs to be tested rather than assumed. A community writing in the 70s–90s CE, steeped in the scriptures of a Temple-centred religion and processing the loss of that Temple, would naturally reach for Temple language constantly — both as mourning and as theological reappropriation. Absence of explicit acknowledgment of the destruction is not evidence of pre-destruction composition; it may equally be evidence of a community for whom the Temple's loss is the very ground of their theology, already sublimated rather than freshly noted.

I'd be very interested in your further thoughts, particularly on Mark.

I think Stephen's question about 1 Corinthians 9:13 is a good place to stay, because it raises the larger methodological issue without having to take on the whole thesis at once.

I do think you are right that 70 CE was not merely background. It was a formative trauma for early Christian memory and theology, and that deserves to be taken seriously.

But I am not yet seeing how you move from post-70 meaning to post-70 composition. A pre-70 tradition could be reread, sharpened, edited, or theologically intensified after 70 without the whole tradition beginning after 70.

My methodological question is: what would count against a post-70 reading of a passage like 1Cor 9:13? If a text resonates with the Temple or its destruction, how do we decide whether that is evidence of late composition, later interpretation, or simply Jewish scriptural/theological language already available before 70?

An interesting provocative take.  We've had some occasional discussions here about dating and it's exciting to see some of the younger critical scholars in the field revisiting this question.

Just as an initial response I am interested in the idea of dating the gospels later, some even in the second century.  My only problem is with Mark.  The author makes such an intense connection in the text between the sacrifice of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple and the coming of the Parousia that it's hard for me to see it being much later than 70ish.  But I'm open to arguments otherwise! 

Paul is a bit different.  The situation described in the 7 letters traditionally considered authentic does seem to reflect a mid-first century environment.  And his scant mention of the Temple could simply be a reflection of the fact that he was a Diaspora Jew ministering to pagans and Gentiles.   

But he does use the Temple as a metaphor in these writings.  In 1 Corinthians 3,16–17, Paul addresses the entire church congregation in Corinth.  The "you" in the Greek text is plural.  

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

This doesn't sound like he is aware of the Temple's destruction.  In fact he is contrasting the Temple in Jerusalem with the community of believers.   

Looks like he was a very well respected liberal pastor with an extensive audience. He's not considered an academic biblical scholar, though they two books you mention no doubt were effective in popularizing the work of scholars for a general audience. ** you do not have permission to see this link ** is a good summary of his career.

A(rthur) Powell Davies was pastor at All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington DC; I first came across his "Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls", and later "The First Christian" on Saint Paul. Still have a copy of both.

This is not really a question, but I wonder where he stands in the ranks of biblical scholars today.

I want to open a discussion around a thesis I've been developing: that the NT documents, including the Pauline letters, are best understood as products of the post-70 CE period — composed after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple — and that the Temple's destruction is not merely background context but the generative trauma that called Christianity into existence.

A few things that push me in this direction:

1. **The silence of Paul on the Temple.** The letters show no awareness of a functioning Temple cult, yet Paul's atonement theology (e.g. Romans 3:25, the λύτρον of Matthew 20:28) only makes sense as a *replacement* theology — filling the void left by a destroyed sacrificial system.

2. **Acts 2 and Josephus Wars 6.283–287.** The Pentecost narrative maps almost point-for-point onto Josephus's account of the false prophet who led crowds into the Temple precincts with promises of salvation, resulting in mass death. The "3,000 saved" reads like a deliberate inversion of the "6,000 who perished."

3. **Galatians 4:25** — "the present Jerusalem is in slavery" — is a post-70 statement of fact, not a metaphor about Torah observance.

I recognise Bart has addressed post-70 dating for some documents. My question for the community is: what would it take, evidentially, to shift the *entire* corpus later? And has anyone seriously modelled what early Christianity looks like if we remove the pre-70 anchor entirely?

I've written at length on this at ad70.com.au — happy to discuss any of the specific evidence items here.

Robert said

Tjalling said
... So I think we're closer than it sounded. ...

I don’t see any disagreement. Thank you.
  

Thanks, Robert. I appreciate the exchange.

Tjalling said
... So I think we're closer than it sounded. ...

I don’t see any disagreement. Thank you.

And you're right that "the physical resurrection is the least likely historical explanation" is the clean way to put it. Bart himself says "if you're just looking at historical grounds," which is the same qualification, so on that formulation I think we agree. I tried to give him that credit throughout: I called it one of the cleaner things he's done, precisely because he keeps "not demonstrable" and "shown false" apart.

What I was pointing at was narrower. That kind of probability language, careful as it is in his mouth, is easy to hear as a broader verdict once it lands in a comment section. His own claim still isn't "therefore false" or "debunked." But plenty of the comments hear it that way.

So I think we're closer than it sounded. The methodological question is real and could carry its own thread. I just didn't want it to swallow the small thing I started with: what a comment section does with a carefully worded sentence.

What if he were to say the physical resurrection is the least likely historical explanation? Still a disciplined application of rigorous historical method? I actually believe this is a statement that a believer can and should claim. I think St Paul himself might say something like this based not on any modern historical method but rather his acceptance of Jewish scriptures and the scandalous manner of Jesus' death.