Priesthood and Temple in John’s Apocalypse: Constructing the Sanctuary (The Library of New Testament Studies)

Timothy B. Tse argues that, while John uses language drawn from the Hebrew Bible’s descriptions of YHWH’s dwelling place, scholarship has overlooked the importance of his spatial transformation of that language.Tse thus uses theories relating to Relevance, Resistance Theory, Critical Space Theory, and Conceptual Metaphor, to demonstrate that a significant part of John’s apocalyptic strategy of resistance is to re-present his vision to his audience spatially, so that they can experience a divinely ordained alternative to the world in which they live. Tse first demonstrates John's attempts to relegate his audience’s experience of space to his own revelation; John’s description of the visionary world creates the metaphors “the earth is a Sanctuary” and “the Saints are its priests.” Tse argues that, under this view, life on earth must be evaluated according to the concerns of the Sanctuary, which by definition requires the removal of everything impure, and the Saints (namely all Christians