The Temple Within

The long-awaited book from best-selling spiritual guide Joyce Rupp, creatively leads readers to explore how the image of the door can guide them in a process of discovering their true self. Joyce Rupp brings new life to the ageless spiritual image of the door, weaving insights from East and West with the wisdom of contemporary spiritual writers, poets, and novelists in a practical format that is just right for contemporary readers. Structured as a daily prayer guide for everyday use over six weeks, each day offers a thematic reflection, a guided meditation, an original prayer, a thoughtful question, and a related scripture quote. A built-in guide for small groups makes this the perfect resource for groups of all kinds as well as individuals.

In Hebrews and the Temple Philip Church examines attitudes to the temple in the literature of the Second Temple period and in Hebrews and argues that Hebrews was written to counter the recipients’ preoccupation with the temple.

This book contains the first published results of Schwaller's 12 years of research at the temple of Luxor and its implications for interpreting the symbolic and mathematical processes of the Egyptians through their sacred architecture.

A comprehensive treatment of the early Christian approaches to the Temple and its role in shaping Jewish and Christian identity The first scholarly work to trace the Temple throughout the entire New Testament, this study examines Jewish and Christian attitudes toward the Temple in the first century and provides both Jews and Christians with a better understanding of their respective faiths and how they grow out of this ancient institution. The centrality of the Temple in New Testament writing reveals the authors’ negotiations with the institutional and symbolic center of Judaism as they worked to form their own religion.

They were young, brilliant, and bold. They set out to conquer the world. But the world had other plans for them. Bestselling author Susan Jane Gilman's new memoir is a hilarious and harrowing journey, a modern heart of darkness filled with Communist operatives, backpackers, and pancakes. In 1986, fresh out of college, Gilman and her friend Claire yearned to do something daring and original that did not involve getting a job. Inspired by a place mat at the International House of Pancakes, they decided to embark on an ambitious trip around the globe, starting in the People's Republic of China. At that point, China had been open to independent travelers for roughly ten minutes. Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche, an astrological love guide, and an arsenal of bravado, the two friends plunged into the dusty streets of Shanghai. Unsurprisingly, they quickly found themselves in over their heads. As they ventured off the map deep into Chinese territory, they were stripped of everything familiar and forced to confront their limitations amid culture shock and government surveillance. What began as a journey full of humor, eroticism, and enlightenment grew increasingly sinister-becoming a real-life international thriller that transformed them forever. Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven is a flat-out page-turner, an astonishing true story of hubris and redemption told with Gilman's trademark compassion, lyricism, and wit.

This study examines John's portrayal of Jesus as the fulfillment and replacement of the Temple. It also shows how a traditional conception of typology can be helpful for understanding the nature of the relationship between Jesus and the Temple. Interpreters often associate John 1:14, 1:51, 2:18-22, and 4:20-24 with Jesus' replacement of the Temple. Based on these texts, one can already begin to see that he fulfills and replaces the Temple in that he is the new locus of God's presence, glory, revelation, and abundant provision for his people. In particular, John 2:18-22 clearly associates Jesus' role as the Temple with his death and resurrection. According to Isaiah, part of God's decisive action on behalf of his people, and for revealing himself to the nations, is the lifting up of the Temple above all other temples. In John, this expectation finds its fulfillment in Jesus. John's language of lifting up and glorification marks Jesus' death, resurrection, and exaltation as climactic events through which God lifts up and glorifies Jesus, the true Temple. Jesus' death, resurrection, and exaltation are also the means by which God provides for his people. Jesus offers his flesh and blood for the life of the world and sends the Spirit to enrich believers with the benefits of his sacrificial death. In doing so, he simultaneously fulfills prophecies and patterns associated with the Passover, Feast of Tabernacles, Feast of Dedication, and the Temple.

Of all the enormous monuments throughout Egypt and Nubia that Ramesses II (the Great; ca. 1279-1212 BCE) left behind, his temple at Abydos, built early in his reign, stands as one of his most elegant, with its simple architectural layout and dramatic and graceful painted relief scenes. Though best known for its dramatic reliefs depicting the battle of Kadesh, the temple also offers a wealth of information about religious and social life in ancient Egypt. It reflects, for example, the strenuous efforts of the early Ramessides to reestablish the Osiris cult in Egypt-and particularly at Abydos-in the aftermath of the Amarna period. Building on the comprehensive photographic and epigraphic documentation of the temple presented in The Temple of Ramesses II at Abydos volumes 1 (Wall Scenes) and 2 (Pillars, Niches, and Miscellanea), volume 3 (Architectural and Inscriptional Features) offers a detailed analysis of the overall architectural layout and decorative program of the temple and its symbolism. This discussion approaches the religious history of the site through its archaeology, its inscriptions-both planned and secondary (graffiti)-and its situation in the complex religious landscape of Abydos. Of particular interest are the temple's role as a staging point for the great Osiris Festival and its procession, among the most important of all ritual events in the Egyptian religious calendar during the Ramesside period; the promotion of an active, unbound form of Osiris; and the evidence for important cult activities that took place on the rooftop of the temple, the presence of which is documented today by the staircase that accessed it from Court B.