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, "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 eschatology, 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.
