Steven Carr

Mark 11

‘He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves….the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.’

Yes, knock over tables loaded with money and the crowd will listen to your teaching, rather than tearing the place apart to get this money that had just been sent flying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEtBs6j7QgU shows just how quickly Jesus could still a riot, a rather more considerable feat than stilling a storm.

semiopen

I didn't know about the doves before.

This bird sacrifice is a late addition to Leviticus. Milgrom says this was inserted because of the high cost of offering a cow, sheep, or goat.

Leviticus 1:2 goes
Leviticus 1:14
If one is going to offer birds, he probably doesn't own them, so it must have been convenient to pick some up before going into the temple.

What was Jesus' problem with this? That the guy offering birds might have paid too much? Is he telling us that if he wants to offer a bird, he should buy it cheaper some distance away from the temple, and that because he got a deal, this will make God happy. It does seem to be a stereotypical Jewish concept.

Solo

Is there a point somewhere you are trying to make, Steven ? Or are you simply outraged by Jesus doing a Hollywood b-flick ?

Jiri

Mars Man

This particular pericope is questionable historically. It does appear to be accurate enough that there were temple police, and in the event that Yeshua had had a temper tantrum of some sorts, it would be rather unlikely (we could reasonably think) that he'd be able to just walk away so freely and 'cowboyishly' from the state of affairs afterwards. (as the gospel accounts tend to want to picture)

However, I too would like to ask of the point which is being presented for argumentation, if I may.

Toto

I think the point is that many serious academics believe that this Temple ruckus was an actual historical event, in spite of all of the obvious problems. Some even feel that it was the final straw that provoked the authorities to crucify Jesus.

I get the feeling that Steven Carr has virtually given up on getting any coherent response from historicists, and has been reduced to lobbing zingers and gotchas.

rlogan

My understanding of the money changer story is this, buit I am happy to be corrected about their role:

The Temple required a tax of everyone, rich or poor, every year. But it had to be paid in this special Temple Shekel.

You have to buy all these sacrificial animals in special Temple Shekels too, and in the Temple Market area.

So the whole thing is a juicy monopoly for extorting money from the common people, and the proceeds are somehow shared by the official money-changers and the Temple.

There is a concept in economics, regarding official state coin or currency, called "seigniorage". It is the profit they make from forcing you to use their money.

How it was split, this profit, is not so important. The resentment over it is going to be the same. People are going to resent this bullshit hidden tax. And Jesus' statement about "den of theives" does not have to do with commerce, but instead with unfair profit being extorted by people with power.

If that understanding is correct then you wouldn't have just one guy overthrowing tables. It would be a theme resonating widely. It's irresistible to put into a Jesus story if you place him at the temple at all. Strike at the heart of it. The Temple is a den of theives, not communion with God.

Most of the Gospels are just cut-and-paste Isaiah passeges, lifted with great liberty from the Hebrew context. This might be one of the few places something was added as a populist feature.

Mars Man

A good and material point there, Toto. I also have no qualms about the understanding that the basic temple tax scheme was one which abused power, and, additionally, have no further information on that matter, rlogan.

I would argue that while many scholars may take the essential ruckus (and I like that wording...thanks Toto) as being considered historical fact--as any number of 'marginal members' of Jewish society may have been of such propensity--I would hold that the other elements of the pericope are not historical events.

According to John gives its episode within a very different time frame of the tradition of the Synoptics, which, in turn, show uncertainty in the tradition handed down orally, of any said actual event in history involving Yeshua. Therefore, I would concur with your observation, rlogan, that the pericope may present a known historical tendency involving social unrest around the temple tax/sacrifice system, and would add that our Yeshua may have likewise done so, gotten in trouble right then and there, and never got out of it. The portion of the pericope about the folks listening to him, and the young boys praising him, and other details insinuating that Yeshua walked away unscathed, are far most likely fiction.

XOVER

I have always viewed Jesus' actions of turning over the tables of the money changers and his other anti-social behavior that day as the reason he was crucified.

Let's face it: Jesus committed criminal acts.

It was quite a big deal to disrupt money changing and the commerce in doves. It was a main way that the Temple authorities survived. The Temple was the Jewish seat of power.

Consider the year 2010. We witness today the popular growing hatred of the Wall Street financial institutions, like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, AIG, and even many of the national mega-banks. The populous is becoming increasingly aware that the finance people grow wealthy while they destroy the middle class and impoverish entire nations. There is rampant anger toward the financial class throughout the land (and the world).

Yet is there anyone here ready to march into Goldman Sachs and turn over desks, throw papers around, and create general chaos? I'm not talking about taking money, mind you, or hurting people, just throwing property around. I'm talking about going in, having a little physical demonstration that "people are fed up", and then leave.

Trash out a CitiBank branch, and you will get arrested for felony criminal mischief (or worse), and, further, you'll likely spend some time in federal prison.

In my view, Jesus went overboard when he overturned the tables of the money-changers and acted out criminally. Creating havoc was not a good idea just as the big crowds were descending on Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, especially in that day and age.

The Gospels just gloss over Jesus' criminality. Assuming Jesus to be historical, the Temple incident was probably too well-known for the Gospels to totally ignore, and so the story was included, but spun into some kind of "justifiable" demonstration rather than the incident that got the man crucified. Scores of people were crucified for committing less serious crimes than Jesus committed when he visited the Temple compound.

In truth and fact, one could make a better case that David Koresh was innocent with respect to firearm possession than one could make the case that Jesus was innocent with respect to overturning the tables of the money-changers.

Screwing with the Temple was a very big deal then, just as screwing with Goldman Sachs would be a very big deal today.

dogsgod

Luke removes the violence in his version.


He drove them by saying to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be a house of prayer'; but you have made it a den of robbers."

He then came back every day to teach and for that they sought to destroy him.




Luke 19.45 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 19.46 saying to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be a house of prayer'; but you have made it a den of robbers." 19.47 And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people sought to destroy him; 19.48 but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people hung upon his words.

rlogan

The problem with accepting this view is that Jesus was tried before both Pilate and the Sanhedrin. These would have been slam-dunk charges. But the accusation was not even made against him if I recall correctly.

What we have is a bizarre tale of contradictions, the central theme of which is from Isaiah, mainly 53 if my memory banks are working. But there's more near-reckless theiving of other HB material as well.

So since Isaiah says he will be rejected by his own people, the alleged crucifixion passage, the whole passion sequence - that he would be strung up with criminals - that's what the gospel writer puts on paper. He's following Isaiah so closely the Christians are screaming at us Jesus is the messiah. All those fulfilled scriptures are .000000000000000001% likely to have happened by random chance. It cannot be random chance that makes Jesus and Isaiah 53 etc. such an exact match.

Yes, I couldn't agree more. It proves you wrote the history of Jesus by reading Isaiah and weaving the history of a person out of selected passages. Duh.

So Jesus committed acts prophecized mainly in Isaiah. They are only loosely woven into a historical time and place. Far enough distant to get away with it before their target audience. Like the next century.

In a new populist religion the temple tax is going to be resented. But the Roman taxes are going to have to be honored. So you need the "render unto ceasar" passage of the alleged gospel Jesus manufactured in the 2nd century.

Privately, if Jesus existed, he would have said "fuck the Romans too."

But this new religion cannot survive under Roman authority with that stance.

When Pliny is interrogating early Christians in 112 he sure makes that clear to them.