Jesus' Actions

What was the meaning of Jesus' actions? [i.e., (1) his entering Jerusalem on a donkey; people welcomed him by shouting, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming (Mark 11:9f.). According to Matthew and Luke, they explicitly called him 'son of David' or 'king' (Matt. 2 i.g; Luke 19.3 8). (2) His going to the Temple, where he turned over the tables of money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons (Mark ii.iS-ig & parn). (3) His sharing a last supper with his disciples, saying that he would not drink wine again 'until that day when 1 drink it new in the kingdom of God' (Mark 14.22-5 & parr)].They were probably all symbolic. Symbolic actions were part of a prophet's vocabulary. They simultaneously drew attention and conveyed information. Some examples from the Hebrew Bible: Isaiah walked 'naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Ethiopia'. (Isa. 20-3); God commanded Jeremiah to break a pot and proclaim that the Temple would be destroyed (jer. 19-1-13); Jeremiah also wore a yoke to indicate that Judah should submit to Babylon (chs. 27-8). Ezekiel performed much more complicated actions, which required a good deal of explanation, such as lying for long periods of time first on one side and then on the other (Ezek. chs. 4-5; 12. 1-16; 24-15-24). All of these signs would be difficult to understand without verbal interpretation. Wearing a yoke symbolizes submission, but to whom? Breaking a pot symbolizes destruction, but of what? Going naked and barefoot is certainly striking, and everyone would know that the prophet was protesting against something, but they would have to ask him what it was to be sure.

Jesus also used symbolic actions, as we have already seen: his use of the number twelve when speaking of his disciples almost certainly conveyed his intention to call all Israel, which had at one time been divided into twelve tribes; Jesus and possibly others saw his miracles, especially the exorcisms, as symbolizing the conquest of evil and the near arrival of the kingdom of God.
These three actions in Jerusalem are equally symbolic, though in some cases the symbolism is hard to read.

The first of these three acts is straightforward: Jesus rode into Jerusalem on an ass, thus fulfilling a prophecy in Zechariah, which is cited by Matthew, but which would have been apparent to many:

Rejoice greatly, 0 daughter of Zion!

Shout aloud, 0 daughter ofjerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you;

triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zech. 9.9)

It is possible to think either that the prophecy created the event or that the prophecy created the story and that the event never occurred. This is one of a sizeable number of cases in which we cannot be absolutely sure whether Jesus himself acted out a prophecy, or the Christian tradition depicted him as doing so. I incline to the view that it was Jesus himself who read the prophecy and decided to fulfil it: that here he implicitly declared himself to be 'king'. His followers understood and agreed: they hailed the coming kingdom (Mark ii.io) or even Jesus himself as king (Matt. 21.9; Luke 19-38).

Matthew and Luke refer to 'crowds' or 'the multitude', while Mark says that 'many' participated in hailing Jesus. If there was actually a large crowd, however, we must explain how it is that Jesus lived for another week. A public demonstration, accompanied by shouts of 'king' or even 'kingdom', would have been highly inflammatory. Passover was a prime time for trouble-makers to incite the crowd, and both the high priest and the Roman prefect were alert to the danger. I can only suggest thatJesus' demonstration was quite modest: he performed a symbolic gesture for insiders, for those who had eyes to see.

The second action is more difficult to interpret. Jesus turned over 'the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons' (Mark i i. i s & parn). He commented,---Myhouse shall he called a house of prayer-, but you have made it "a den of robbers(Mark I 1. 17 & parn). This statement brings together phrases from Isaiah ('house of prayer', Isa. 56-7) and Jeremiah ('den of robbers, Jer- 7.11) - Jesus also made, however, a second and possibly a third statement about the Temple. The authors of the synoptics attribute to him a prediction that the Temple would be destroyed (Mark 13. If & parr.), and they attribute to his accusers at his trial the testimony that he threatened to destroy the Temple (Mark 14-58 // Matt. 26.61). The threat comes up again, during the crucifixion scene; as he hung on the cross, onlookers taunted him: 'Aha! You who would destroy the Temple . . . , save yourself, and come down from the Cross!' (Mark i5.29f. // Matt. 27-40). Later Stephen, an early Christian, was accused of saying that 'Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place', that is, the Temple (Acts 6-14). These various statements make it difficult to say just what it was that Jesus' action in the Temple symbolized. Was it cleansing or destruction? If destruction, was it a prediction or a threat?

There is no way of eliminating any of these possibilities. It is conceivable that Jesus thought that the trade in the Temple area was dishonest and that he foresaw that his nation would one day revolt against Rome, which would lead to the destruction of the Temple; moral reform and foresight are both possible. We shall consider first reform, which is the implication of the quotation from Jeremiah 7.11: the Temple is a 'den of robbers'. There is no hint in other sources that the sacred money was being misappropriated by being used for purposes other than support of the Temple and its sacrifices;13 but because of the general principle that reform and improvement are always possible, we may grant in advance that Jesus could have sought to amend 'the system'. What is lacking is any other indication that he wanted to reform the large and complex Temple system. Support of the Temple and its ministers was a major aspect of Jewish life: Temple tax, agricultural tithes, minor agricultural offerings ('first fruits'), redemption of first-born sons and animals, sin and guilt offerings, festivals, offerings of animals to provide food for banquets and festivities - Ternple worship, in one way or another, affected every area of life. Had Jesus thought that the entire system was corrupt, that the priests were criminals, that sacrifices were wrong and should be done away with - or anything of the sort - we should have more material pointing in that direction. The Temple was central to Palestinian Judaism and important to all Jews everywhere. To be against it would be to oppose Judaism as a religion. It would also be an attack on the main unifying symbol of the Jewish people. If Jesus really assailed this central institution, we would have some evidence of this apart from the incident of the money-changers' tables. Moreover, we would learn ofjesus' opposition not only from the gospels, but also from Acts and the letters of Paul. In the gospels there are 'woes' against Galilean villages, though not against the Temple. Jesus seems to criticize rich landowners in parables, but ' not the aristocratic priests. He upheld the principal purity law that is mentioned in the gospels (leprosy, discussed above). He paid the Temple tax, even if he was a little reluctant to do so (Matt. 17.24-7). The few passages in the synoptics that deal with the Temple and priestly prerogatives are favourable, and no material represents him as a reformer of cult and taxes except, possibly, this passage. If this was a singular flash of anger, it tells us little about him and his mission.

I conclude that Jesus' symbolic action of overthrowing tables in the Temple was understood in connection with a saying about destruction, and that the action and the saying, in the view of the authorities, constituted a prophetic threat. Moreover, I think it highly probable thatJesus himself intended the action to predict the destruction of the Temple, rather than to symbolize its need of purification. It is impossible, however, to prove that the statement about a 'den of robbers' was not actually said by Jesus, or that what he said was 'I will destroy the Temple.' I must confess that I doubt the authenticity of the 'den of robbers' statement. It looks to me like an easy phrase for the evangelists to lift from Jeremiah to make Jesus appear politically innocuous to Greek-speaking Gentile readers.

The accounts ofJ esus' crucifixion are full of quotations from, and allusions to, Psalm 2.2: 'they divided his clothes, casting lots for them' (Mark 1.24) is a quotation from Psalms 22.18; 'wagging their heads' (Mark 15.29) is from Psalms 22-7; Jesus' cry, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me' (Mark 15-34) is from Psalms 22. 1. As usual in these circumstances, we do not know which elements really took place. My guess is that Jesus' cry was his own reminiscence of the psalm, not just a motif inserted by the early Christians. It is possible that, when Jesus drank his last cup of wine and predicted that he would drink it again in the kingdom, he thought that the kingdom would arrive immediately. After he had been on the cross for a few hours, he despaired, and cried out that he had been forsaken. This speculation is only one possible explanation. We do not know what he thought as he hung in agony on the cross. After a relatively short period of suffering he died, and some of his followers and sympathizers hastily buried him.