The Kingdom of God has been a major concern of New Testament scholars
for many years. What did it mean to Jesus? What does it mean for
Christian belief and practice today? To understand what was meant by the
Kingdom of God' writes Margaret Barker in the Introduction, it is
necessary to recover what remains of that hidden tradition of the holy
of holies and the high priesthood... Recovering the original Kingdom . .
. enables us to glimpse again the original vision. We see . . . the
complexities of the Kingdom that explain what it became in later
Christian teaching. The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom of God shows how
the variety of beliefs about the Kingdom, and the related problems of
eshatology, all derive from Temple traditions about the holy of holies.
This inner sanctum was the Kingdom in the midst, the Unity beyond all
change and decay. It was the state whence the Lord came forth, and where
the faithful would go, to see him in his glory. We live in a time when
politics, and also geopolitics, are enormously affected by passionate
arguements over ehat it would mean to establish the "Kingdom of God" on
earth. Anybody with an interest in the outcome of those arguements
should pay close attention to Margaret Barker's insightful and
thought-provoking investigation of the background and context in which
the first Christians spoke of the Kingdom. Bruce Clark, Religious
Affairs Correspondent, The Economist.
