The Temple and the Church's Mission

A valuable read for Beale's comparisons of the Temple to the garden of Eden and other ancient near eastern temples (showing how the Temple is a microcosm of the universe), his case for an ever-expanding Temple, and his analysis of many of the OT texts concerning the Temple. There are some good points in Beale's NT analysis as well, though overall this section seemed to presume too much. For a good argument of Jesus as the Temple rooted in 1st Jewish context, I would recommend Perrin's “Jesus, the Temple”.

I would recommend this to anyone seriously interested in scholarly study (the book is rather long and a bit dense) of Temple theology, especially as Beale is an oft cited authority on the subject.