My review has been published on Jared Calaway’s The Sabbath and the Sanctuary: Access to God in the Letter to the Hebrews and its Priestly Context (WUNT II). For the full text, click here. Calaway’s published dissertation was an interesting read, especially given his exploration of the similarities between Hebrews and Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. Such a connection warranted a full study in itself, given the heavenly tabernacle scene in the Qumran document. I was less impressed by his reading of Hebrews, especially by his attempt to align Songs and Hebrews in a kind of evolutionary pattern of thought, which requires that Hebrews only read or built off the priestly sources. For that would mean he ignored all the other passages in the Pentateuch, especially the ones that Calaway makes out to be contradictory to the priestly sources. Nevertheless, the dominant idea of the alignment of sacred time (sabbath) with sacred space (sanctuary) is one that can be seen in the OT itself, as well as in Hebrews. Such an idea is a helpful addition to one’s arsenal when studying Hebrews.
