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Bible Dictionaries
Building (2)
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or BUILDING (οἰκοδομή, 3 times; οἱκοδομεῖν, 23 times in the Gospels).
1. Literal.—The lifetime of Jesus nearly coincides with the period which was undoubtedly the golden age of building in Palestine. The Herods, with their ‘Napoleonic passion for architecture,’ eclipsed in this respect even the fame of Solomon, and left their mark in all parts of the country in the shape of palaces, fortresses, theatres, and a variety of splendid structures, some serving a useful purpose (as the great harbour at Caesarea), but many arising merely out of a love of pomp and display. Herod the Great had begun his extensive work of rebuilding the Temple at Jerusalem nineteen years before the Christian era, and the work was still in progress at the time of Christ’s final visit to the city (Matthew 24:1-2, Mark 13:1-2, Luke 21:5-6). Herod Antipas began the foundations of his ambitious new city of Tiberias shortly before Jesus emerged from the obscurity of Nazareth; and Pilate was engaged, during the public ministry of Jesus, in constructing an elaborate aqueduct for Jerusalem. It is certain that, wherever Jesus went, He would hear the sound of hammer and chisel; He would observe the frequent construction of a class of building hitherto little favoured in His country, such as hippodromes, baths and gymnasia (Josephus Ant. xv. viii. 1); and would notice the adoption of a style of architecture foreign to Jewish tradition.
It was not only Herodian princes, Roman magnates, and well-to-do proselytes (see Luke 7:5) who lavished large sums on buildings. Wealthy Jews seem to have spent fortunes in erecting luxurious mansions in the Graeco-Roman style. Jesus mentions this eagerness for building as one of the passions which preoccupied His generation, and led Him to compare it with the materialist and pleasure-seeking age in which Lot lived (Luke 17:28). He gives a vivid description of a prosperous farmer designing ampler store-houses on his estate (Luke 12:18). In another passage He probably alludes to some actual instance of the building-mania over-reaching itself, when He describes the tower left half finished for lack of funds (Luke 14:28). In His denunciation of the Pharisees who ‘build the sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs (μνημεῖα) of the righteous’ (Matthew 23:29), He refers perhaps to the growing practice, unknown in the pre-Grecian period, begun, it seems, in Maccabaean times, and now become a dilettante cult, of erecting monumental tombs ‘reared aloft to the sight’ (1 Maccabees 13:27), as distinguished from the simple rock-hewn tombs of former days.* [Note: Furrer (Wanderungen, p. 77) and Fergusson (The Temples of the Jews, p. 142 f.) think that the Tomb of Zecharias in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, ‘a lovely little temple, with … pillars of the Ionic order,’ belongs to the first years of the 1st cent. of our era.] See Tomb.
O. Holtzmann (Life of Jesus, p. 100 f.) suggests a special reason for the frequent references which Jesus makes to building operations. He calls attention to the fact that the handicraft in which He had been brought up was one of the building trades. It is usual, indeed, to describe Him as ‘the carpenter’ (Mark 6:3), and the passage is often cited in which Justin Martyr (Trypho, 88) represents Him as ‘making ploughs and yokes.’ But Justin Martyr is quoting nothing more than a popular tradition, and there is no reason for limiting the term τέκτων to a worker in wood. There was hardly the division of labour at Nazareth that exists among our own mechanics. The epithet τέκτων has probably not less significance than the term ‘carpenter’ as used in Hamlet, v. i. 46—‘What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?’, where it indicates one who has to do with the construction of buildings. We may say that there is good reason to conclude that Jesus was Himself a builder, and that He understood at least the art of ordinary house-construction, though it can hardly be admitted that the passages which Holtzmann quotes in support of this are sufficient to prove his point. By a similar method it is easy to prove that Shakspeare was a lawyer or a doctor, a Romanist or a Puritan.
On the other hand, it is not to be inferred, from the somewhat disparaging terms in which Jesus appears to have alluded to the building operations of His time, that He was insensible to the beauties of architecture, or that there was an iconoclastic strain in His nature. It would be easy to marshal passages from the Gospels with the object of showing that He was indifferent to, and even evinced contempt for, sacred places and edifices. But such a conclusion would be contrary to all that we know of His many-sided sympathy and genial tolerance. Rather was the case this—that, like St. Paul amid the temples of Athens, or like St. Francis of Assisi, careless of cathedrals in an age of cathedral-builders, He found His contemporaries so smitten with the love of outward magnificence, so absorbed in the thought of the material edifice, that He bent His whole effort to the task of emphasizing the inward and spiritual structure. It is therefore in this direction that all the great sayings of Christ about building look. On each occasion when He is led to speak of a temple, whether at Jerusalem or in Samaria, He takes the opportunity of insisting that the only true Temple is one not made with hands.
It may be suggested that some of His sayings of this kind are lost, but that the reminiscence or influence of them is to be traced in the remarkably frequent use by the NT writers of the term ‘building’ in a spiritual sense, whether applied to the individual believer or to the company of the faithful (see, e.g., Acts 20:32, 1 Corinthians 3:9, Colossians 2:7; 1 Peter 2:5 etc.). And just as Jesus said, ‘Ye are a city set on a hill,’ He may well have said, ‘Ye are the temple of God.’
2. Figurative.—The actual passages in which Jesus spiritualizes the term ‘building’ may be grouped under three heads.
(1) In two remarkable passages Christ speaks of Himself as a Builder. (a) The first of these (Matthew 26:61, Mark 14:58, John 2:19), while it is certainly a genuine saying of Christ’s, has come down to us in a form which leaves us doubtful as to the exact connexion in which it was first uttered. The general sense, however, is clear enough. The buildings of the Temple might be razed to the ground, but Christ, by His presence among His people, would perpetuate the true sanctuary (cf. Matthew 18:20, John 4:24). Had the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews this saying in his mind when he referred to Christ (Hebrews 3:3) as the ‘builder of the house’? (b) The second passage is that in which Christ contemplates Himself as the Builder of His Church (Matthew 16:18). That with which He is concerned is not the material edifice reared on the rocky summit of Mount Moriah, but the spiritual building—the body of believers—founded on a common faith in Himself.
(2) In one passage, cited from the OT, Jesus varies the metaphor. In the ‘germ-parable’ of the Rejected Stone (Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17) He is no longer the Builder, but the Foundation. In the original passage (Psalms 118:22) the Rejected Stone is Israel, but Christ appropriates the image to Himself, and once more draws attention to the fact that the work of God proceeds on lines not to be anticipated by a type of mind which is governed by worldly considerations.
(3) In two minor parables Jesus uses the art of building to illustrate the principles which must animate His followers. (a) In Matthew 7:24, Luke 6:48 He shows that, as the stability of a house depends on the nature of its foundation, so stability of character can be attained only when a man uniformly makes the word of truth which he has received the basis of his behaviour. Doing is the condition of progress. Christian attainment is broad-based upon obedience (cf. John 7:17). (b) In Luke 14:28 He checks a shallow enthusiasm, apt quickly to evaporate, by reminding impulsive disciples that for great works great pains are required. The parable is the Gospel equivalent of our saying,’ Rome was not built in a day,’ with special reference, however, to the necessity of the individual giving himself up, in absolute devotion, to his task (cf. Shakspeare, 2 Henry IV. i. iii. 41).
The foregoing passages exhaust the sayings, as reported in the Evangelic tradition, in which our Lord employed the image of building. But, we may ask, whence did St. Paul derive his favourite expression, applied both to the Church and to the individual, of edifying? (see Romans 15:2, 1 Corinthians 14:5, Ephesians 4:12 etc.). It does not appear that οἰκοδομεῖν was ever used by classical writers in this sense. Fritzsche (Ep. ad Rom. iii. p. 205) thinks that St. Paul derived it from the OT usage, בָּגָה being sometimes used, with the accusative of the person, in the signification of blessing (see Psalms 28:5, Jeremiah 24:6). But is it not at least as likely that St. Paul derived the metaphorical use from the custom of Christ, who so often and with such emphasis applied building terms to the spiritual condition alike of the individual and of the company of believers? If Christ did not Himself use the expression ‘edify,’ all His teaching pointed that way.
Literature.—Hausrath, Hist. of NT Times, §§ 5, 10, 11; articles ‘Baukunst’ in PRE [Note: RE Real-Encyklopädie fur protest. Theologic und Kirche.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] and ‘Architecture’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible; Josephus, Ant. xv. viii. 1, ix. 4–6, x. 3, xvi. v. 2, BJ i. xiii. 8, xxi. 1–11, vii. viii. 3; Schürer, GJV [Note: JV Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] ii. 176, 430, 446, etc.; O. Holtzmann, Life of Jesus, p. 100 f. etc.
J. Ross Murray.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Building (2)'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/b/building-2.html. 1906-1918.
