WinAce

While this book is really dated, this is an interesting suggestion. Here are the relevant verses:

Mark 14:55-59
The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree. Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: "We heard him say, 'I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man.'" Yet even then their testimony did not agree.

Mark, according to the two-source hypothesis, is the earliest synoptic gospel. Curiously, it mentions this "false" (wink wink) accusation being levelled at Jesus during his trial.

Matthew 26:59-61
The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward. Finally two came forward and declared, "This fellow said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.'"

Matthew, copying Mark, for some reason doesn't feel comfortable with just noting it's a false accusation, but has to change it to "I am able to" instead of "I will." This is just odd. Why did he feel the need to further spin-doctor that tradition? (The change from "man-made temple" to "temple of God" is easy enough to explain, given that Matthew was Jewish and might have a seizure from such condescending reference to it.)

Acts 6:12-14
So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced false witnesses, who testified, "This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us."

Here the false accusation is levelled at Stephen, who apparently blabbed about Jesus intending to destroy the temple. Unlike Matthew, it's the Markan version again instead of the spin-doctored, less committed variant.

John 2:19-21
Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

Now this is just bizarre. The same saying apparently makes a reappearance, but now Jesus did say it, said it in a different way than Mark/Matthew/Luke record (making the Jews out to be the ones challenged to destroy the temple, not stating that he'd destroy it for them), and mixed in with a fairly obvious reinterpretation concerning the Resurrection.

What's the scoop on this saying? Is it legit, in which case, what was Jesus smoking and/or expecting as an outcome in the politically and religiously-charged 1st century Judean atmosphere? Did he have actual Messianic ambitions, was he crazy, is there reason to suspect it was a trumped-up charge that latter became absorbed into Christian tradition?

Alternatively, could this provide a novel explanation for the resurrection belief?

• Jesus predicts he'll destroy the temple and restore it in three days;
• Jesus gets wacked by the Romans;
• Followers disperse, desperately look for any loophole to avoid conceding they were following a false Messiah;
• Someone (let's say Peter) dreams of Jesus appearing to them;
• Rumors of that spread like wildfire and followers reinterpret the saying as a reference to his resurrection instead;
• Everyone rushes to demonstrate how Jesus "appeared to me too, see, I'm not a bad Christian after all!"

WinAce

bumpity

redzrx

By different indiviuals can lead to misquotes. The NT was written many years after the fact and I don't think I can remember what I said yesterday never mind decades later.

The temple quotes most Definitely were invented after the temple was destroyed to make it a propesy of Jesus.

Matthew used Mark but like to elaborate and make small changes.
John I'm sure by the fact it's probably the latest gospel had access to the others and viewed them but like matthew did his own thing.

Stories change and evolve overtime unless they were Immediately put in a time capsule, so basically we will never know the exact quotes attributed to Jesus.

As a side note the Jesus Seminar (which some christains dislike) have said that they figure only about 20% of what is attributed to Jesus was acutally said by him.

So I think it would be hard to take a quote and make a court case as such because the NT was not written to be disputed but accepted.



Thats my opinion

Thanx

Mario

Toto

Gospel of Thomas

(71) Jesus said, "I shall throw down [this] building, and no one will be able to build it [...]."

The comments at that URL may help, or not. The Jesus Seminar seems to accept that Jesus said something about destroying the Temple, but they don't know the original form.

The saying does seem to have an esoteric, symbolic feel to it. I can imagine that there was a saying about destroying the Temple and rebuilding it, meaning to tear down one's old life and rebuild it or something like that, which the gospel writiers incorporated into the story of the trial as false witness misunderstood.

WinAce

Thanks, Toto.

So we have multiple attestation among gMark, Acts (possibly, unless he was just transferring Mark's anti-Jesus accusation against Stephen), gJohn (which attempts to explain away the failed prediction in light of the Resurrection instead), and gThomas. And in every source it's found in, there's some spin on it. Pfft.

Patterson's analysis seems much more convincing to me than Crossan's. In the canonical gospels, we see a tendency to *explain away* this saying as it stands. gMark and gMatthew take the "false accusation" route, while gJohn lies by omission and allegorizes it to refer to something else. Changing the original prediction after the fact is, as we all know, a very common (in those times, and to this day) form of after-the-fact prophecy "correction."