The Essence of a Spiritual House: Misunderstanding Metaphor and the Question of Supersessionism in 1 Peter

This article interrogates the standard interpretation of οἶκος πνευματικός ("spiritual house") in 1 Pet 2:5 as an ecclesial replacement for the Jerusalem temple. I first scrutinize the ways in which this metaphor has prejudiced New Testament scholars to misconstrue community-as-temple metaphors in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Next I take these sectarian metaphors as a point of departure in order to reconsider the seemingly self-evident interpretation of the Petrine οἶκος πνευματικός. A comparison of Petrine and Pauline temple metaphors calls into question the conventional wisdom that Christian temple discourse after 70 CE is inherently supersessionist. Once this Petrine metaphor is liberated from its metaphysical captivity to Christian theology, it becomes clear that the sacrificial logic of 1 Pet 2:5 militates against equating the addressees with the "true" eschatological temple. While valid questions about the rhetoric of 1 Peter remain, it seems unlikely that the metaphor οἶκος πνευματικός funds a supersessionist ideology.