sotto voce

So what were the mighty chief priests, the scribes, and the elders doing when they tamely answered, "Dunno"? Where was the fury and the execution of the divine authority we are told here that they possessed? Just who was evading the question? Just who was usurping authority? Surely, we need to approach this subject with even-handed, rational objectivity, and not suppose that might is right, or that minorities must be wrong.

How did contemporaries view this exchange? The mighty chief priests, scribes, and elders had been hoist high on their own hypocrisy. They were effectively ascribing divine authority to Jesus, because John's authority was also his own. And because they recognised neither as of divine authority, they were, in the eyes of onlookers, effectively of the Adversary. They fell into their own trap. Their own unwilling testimony was that Jesus was Son over His own house, and it was time for them to get their coats. Never mind what we think.

So Jesus was taking the mickey when he said "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things," because the opposition had just told everyone who had authority, and it wasn't them. They proved themselves to all to be usurpers and aliens, having no right even to be counted Jews, let alone leaders of Jews. The Boss had arrived, and they were, figuratively speaking, out on their ears.

Jesus' removal of the traders from the Temple area was nothing to do with any apocalyptic agenda. It was simply concern for Jews who treated their own deity with disrespect, and therefore treated themselves with contempt. A more relevant OT connexion is this: 'Zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.' Ps 69:9 NIV

aa5874

You should know that the NT description of Jews is COMPLETELY erroneous and deceptive.

Of ALL the people of antiquity, the Jews were the ONLY Nation that did NOT worship Man as a God and the Jews did NOT allow the Romans to DEFILE the Temple of their God with Images.

You NEED to read Credible historical sources and NOT rely on propaganda [the NT].

The writings of Philo, Josephus and Tacitus do show that the Jews did NOT disrespect their deity.

1. In Philo's "On Embassy to Gaius", the Emperor declared that the Jews are the ONLY Nation on earth that did NOT worship him as a God.

2. In Josephus "Antiquities of the Jews" 18.3, it is found that the Jews would rather have their NECKS CHOPPED off than to allow effigies to be placed in their Holy Temple.

3. In Tacitus "Histories 5", it is found the Jews do NOT worship the Emperors of Rome or their own Kings as Gods.

It is MOST obvious that the NT is NOT credible at all but is Christian Propaganda with the sole intent to DECEIVE.

Sheshbazzar

The entire tale is a mythical 'set-up'. It simply never happened.
The 'chief priests, the scribes, and the elders' are not allowed by the tales writers to raise any objections.

The real life chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the Temple never even heard of your imaginary Jeebus of Nazareth. -as Christianity had not even gotten around to the inventing of this mythical character yet.
They didn't. because they never even heard of it.

That's what the imaginative gospel writers stuffed into their characters mouth, -apparently sometime after 100 CE.

Never happened.

Your anachronistic fairy-tale character was never there, and has never done anything outside of the leaves of a set of false and ridiculously contrived religious books.

Lugubert

This.

And expanding (3), we can't guess what might have been felt as embarrassing by the original writers.

Lugubert

With that much money and that many people around at a major holiday in a sensitive area, if the tale were truth, Roman troops would have interfered before Mr. Josephson had had a chance to overturn the second table.

sotto voce

On behalf of which power base? Herodians? No. Sadducees? No. Pharisees? No. Ephesian silversmiths? No. Athenian stonemasons? No. Greek philosophers, then? Unlikely. Couldn't agree on anything much.

The Galilean fishermen's association, maybe?

Oh, I know. How could I forget. It was the newly formed Israelite Masochist Liberation Front, that subsequently uncovered and emboldened thousands of secret masochists around the known world, and gave them plenty of opportunities to indulge their whims and fancies.

Sheshbazzar

Funny. ha ha. NONE OF THE ABOVE.
(well, with the exception of some desiring to be insane masochists, them and their claims we always do have with us.)

The power base was that syncretised Hellenistic/Judaic religious movement that evolved following upon, and came into existence as an apologetic for excusing the destruction of the Jewish Temple and its forms of worship and practice.

There was no 'Christianity' nor Jeebus of Nazareth until many decades after the destruction of Jewish Temple.
All of these so-called 'Christian' writings were composed after 70 CE, some as late as 150 CE.

All of it, both scene and dialog is wholly made-up, none of it came via way of any actual contemporary witnesses.

All that these 'Christian' (formerly 'Chrestian') texts contain is an inconsistent accounting of religious beliefs as they most commonly evolved to be accepted among the various 'Chrestian' sects of the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE.
They really have very little historical connection to, or any accuracy at all regarding anything prior to 100 CE.

sotto voce

Ask a strange question...

Nor anything else that suits this hypothesis.

But why persist with Judaism at all? You've now lost Ark, Temple, priesthood, essential sacrifices, essential genealogical records, Promised Land, everything. It's meaningless. It's all over. Put your feet up. Smoke a pipe. Eat, drink, be merry.

Nobody would have believed a single word of this, had it not occurred, anyway. "Water into wine? Walking on water? Resurrection? Where on earth did you get these ideas? Not Palestine, that's for sure." Galilee was a cosmopolitan area at the time alleged. The Romans kept tabs on everything, everywhere they ruled. It took 600 years before the spirit of Muhammad felt confident enough to re-write history. And gallons of blood spilled before it was believed, even then.

And if such a preposterous invention had been believed, the story-tellers would have faced severe persecution for the telling. The story would not have been anything like worth the risk. It would have made far more sense to just abandon the Tanakh as representing a failed project. Most Israelites had done something like that for centuries, anyway. 'Judaism' was probably kept going only in order to oppose the real Judaism, that was now fulfilled.

Alternatively, the destruction of the Jewish Temple and its forms of worship and practice would have been entirely consistent with the previous completion of a revelation that began with the migration of Abram from Ur to Palestine, at the junction of three continents, and finished with the resurrection of Jesus, the Seed of Eve through David, the news of whose victory over the Serpent could be readily spread from aforesaid advantageous location. It would take one helluva power base to fix that, after the event.

Sheshbazzar

But the devoutly religious were never going to buy into that, being convinced that it was absolutely impossible for Israel's G-d to have failed. He must have had another 'Plan'. They just had to figure out what that 'Plan' was.
Therefore an explanation, an apologetic for the predicament of these believers in Israel's G-d simply had to be found.
With the Temple and its often scorned 'puppet' Priesthood now out of the way, they made a perfect scapegoat upon which to lay all of the blame.
Anti-'Judaism' propaganda stories were soon circulated that forcefully denigrated the old Temple Priesthood, and faulted those religious practices previously endorsed, which now, by any means could no longer be practiced.

Mythical Jeebus, the the arch-typical wandering prophet became the Humpty Dumpty talking figure proclaiming a new form of religion under a 'New Covenant'.
The Scriptures and old midrashic 'sayings' documents were quote-mined extensively to provide this imaginary figure with a thin veneer of a seemingly historical identity.
Religious people fell for it because they so strongly wanted to believe that there was hope for their religious beliefs, and that the Scriptural story was not "all over" by any means.
Certainly they would have.

It was a somewhat cogent explanation for what had happened well in their religions past.
(and also allowed them to conveniently syncretise with a shit-load of the then currently popular Hellenic religious beliefs, philosophies, and mystical practices.)
By 100 CE all were well scattered, most were dead, and few would be in any position to ever seriously question or resist these invented stories, even if they ever did get wind of them.
Nicely, it could always be suggested that anyone who was there but missed out on all these wonderful incidents, simply were not present, or not in the right place at the right time.
Stories like these, and Hellenic and Zoroaster 'Hades' and hell-fire torture stories were a dime a dozen among the various sectors of Judaism and Hellenic thought and philosophy.
There is no miracle story for Jeebus that some other religious or political figure did not do earlier, the writers simply swallowed them up, and saw to it that it was Jeebus what done everything.

The only real difference being that before 325 CE what the Diaspora Judeans and their synagogue sycophants normally believed or followed out of religious teachings were a matter of ones personal persuasions, and there existed a great diversity of views and practices, a unified form of religious belief not yet being forced upon the populace with the edge of the Roman Legion swords.
What an absolutely dumb-ass thing to say. The well known Jewish Tanaka is rife with resurrection tales.
Have you even tried reading it yet?

Utter baloney. Preposterous religious stories were the stock and trade of all ancient religion and philosophy.
Anyone could show up damn near anywhere in the Roman or Greek held lands and tell their religious stories.
Literally thousands of these preposterous religious/moral/ethical tales still exist, and most people were totally free to believe whatever variation of a religion or its tales that they wished.
The Empire was much more concerned that the gods were being honored than that any preposterous stories were being told about them.
Yours is only another variation on a collection of old religious themes and tropes (many of 'pagan' origin), one that came to the fore only by means of Imperial force and through stupid religiously motivated bloody mayhem.

The rest of your imaginative religious drivel is not even worthy of a reply.






.

sotto voce

Oh, that word 'devout'. A sure sign of defeat. Circularity.

Why on earth would anyone do that?

Not one based on them, though. Those sacrifices were essential. Those genealogies were essential.

Read what I write. Do not ignore it. Do not by-pass it.

Read what the OP writes:

'Jesus himself came from and moved among a rural population'

So nothing you have written is worthy of a reply, anyway.

Tu quoque? Projection?