However, the Most High does not live in houses built by human hands. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah: - the repetition of 'the Most High does not live in houses built by human hands' (ouk en cheropolestois katoinei, does not dwell in hand-made sanctuaries) is emphatic and deliberate. This is the theological bomb-drop of Stephen's speech: the entire temple-centered system of Judaism is revealed to be based on a fundamental theological error. God transcends human-built structures. The appeal to Isaiah signals that the prophetic tradition itself, not the temple cult, contains the truth about God's nature.

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