King of the Jews: Temple Theology in John’s Gospel

Only John’s Gospel says that Jesus was crucified as Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews. In this volume, Margaret Barker analyzes how Jesus was the keeper of the ways of the first temple in Jerusalem, which had almost been lost when the Moses traditions came to dominate in the second-temple period. Jesus’ mission was to restore the ways of the original temple. Barker uses temple theology to show how the background to the fourth Gospel is temple tradition. John shows how Jesus’ debates with the Jews centered on the great difference between the world of the second temple and the world of the priest-kings of the first temple from which Christianity emerged.