Uncle Ben's Book Blog: "Temple" Update

I've now read the first four chapters of G. K. Beale's The Temple and the Church's Mission. I find myself in general agreement with his positions, but wish that he had spent more time in the exegesis of particular texts, and less with Ancient Near Eastern parallels. Plus, I think he is backwards on the idea that the Garden of Eden is a temple. Rather, the temple is a Garden of Eden. The temple points back to the pre-Fall state, and forward to the New Heavens and the New Earth. After all, the point of Revelation 21-22 is that in the NH & NE, there is no temple. The temple is a temporal institution that is intended to point to eternity.