A Tradition of Temple Phrophecy

Introduction

When we take the selected sacred scriptures from chapter two and hold the commentary in mind, there are many new insights to learn!

If I had to distill this week’s selected sacred texts into important themes, two big themes spring to mind. Let me introduce them and then say a little more about each. First, we recognize how the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Bible is so intertwined in the Gospel writer’s storytelling, and second, we should pay attention to the instruction for moral action that is grounded in our relationship to the Holy One. It is not enough merely to engage in ritual worship, but action is necessary.

The Prophets

As we saw meek servanthood, righteousness, compassion, leafy branches, palms, donkeys, and colts all show up in the first chapter, with connections to Isaiah, Zechariah, Jeremiah, and even the Book of the Maccabees, we see in chapter two, more of the Gospel writer’s intention to connect Jesus to the prophets.

Prophesying Temple destruction is a central theme in the prophetic tradition. The Temple was God’s dwelling place on Earth, and when Hebrews refused to follow the Torah, this may signal God’s absence from the Temple, or God’s refusal to protect the Temple. Prophets often foresaw the destruction of the Temple as punishment for the Hebrew people falling out of right relationship with the Holy One. Worshiping other gods was a big no-no, but failing to care for the stranger, failing to distribute resource to the poor, and refusing to trust God were all transgressions that could lead to Temple destruction.

The Hebrew people were conquered and occupied for most of their history, and exile and diaspora were common for the Hebrew community. Whether prophetic books retro-jected content “back” into the ancient scriptures to explain diaspora or if prophets indeed issued their warnings “in real time,” it’s clear that Gospel writer’s discussion of Jesus prophesying destruction and the phrase, “Den of thieves” are explicit connection to the prophetic tradition.

Moral Action

We see hundreds of years before Jesus’s time (600s-500s BCE), that Temple worship alone was not enough to be in right relationship with the Holy One, but also required were moral imperatives, whether the Ten Commandments or the entire Torah (law), action was required along with worship. In fact, internalizing the law so that it would not need to be taught but would be inscribed on our hearts was an ancient wish of the prophets.

Around this same time, we see Zachariah separating sacred ritual from economic activity, something we see in Jesus’s Temple activities. Leviticus, one of the five books of the Torah, doubles down on ethical behavior, saying it is only a religious function when performed as obedience to God. Indeed, commentary on Luke, written hundreds and hundreds of years later, around the late first, if not early second century CE, sums up Jesus’s Temple scene by pointing to “ritual without repentance.”

What we are learning in chapter two is that Jesus’s Temple activities accomplished two things: First, to tie Jesus to the prophetic tradition; second, to show the moral action grounded in obedience to God as a necessary complement of Temple worship.

Jeremiah 7:9-11; 600s BCE

Excerpt

Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are safe!”—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the Lord.

Commentary

This passage both implies an alternative version of the Ten Commandments called the decalogue (“no other gods before me”), and it also refutes the idea that by Temple worship alone someone is right relationship with the Holy One; instead, moral action is also required.

Zechariah 14:21; 500s BCE

Excerpt

and every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the Lord of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and use them to boil the flesh of the sacrifice. And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day.

Commentary

The JPS provided terrific commentary on this verse! The commentary suggested that traders will no longer be required in the messianic age because sacrifices would not be needed during the time of the messianic age. That idea is similar to the Torah being inscribed on one’s heart, no longer requiring Torah study. This reinforces the idea that our rites, rituals, and cultic practices help us live in alignment with the Holy One, but during the messianic age, all will be unified and live in the world from above, and cultic practices to reinforce our behavior will not be required.

Leviticus 19:18, 34; after 530 BCE

Excerpt

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Commentary

v18: Interestingly, according to the priestly perspective that is at work here and signaled by “I am the Lord,” ethical behavior is only a religious act when it is performed as obedience to God’s will.

v34: The Jewish study bible translates “alien” as “stranger,” and connects love of the stranger with the Hebrew people’s own experience as “strangers” in Egypt. I think passages like these help us identify a theme and call to action that is binding, even if the Exodus did not occur factually. The values and calls to justice are transcendently true!

Mark 14:58; 70 CE

Excerpt

“We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’”

Commentary

Prophesying Temple destruction is in the prophetic tradition. See also Mark 13:1-2, “As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

Matthew 5:22; 80-90 CE

Excerpt

But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.

Commentary

Overall, in this chapter of Matthew, Jesus is engaged in a common rabbinic strategy called “placing a fence around Torah,” that is, if the Torah has one rule, rabbis often amplified or intensified that rule by interpreting the law more strictly, like placing a fence around a restricted area. Also, “hell” here is a misnomer. The Greek is Gehenna from the Hebrew Gehonim, a real place south of Jerusalem known for child sacrifice by other tribes. Because child sacrifice is a big no-no for Jews, this valley took on many exaggerated negative connotations. Now it is to be said that many scholars argue that the Hebrew people were also involved in child sacrifice but denounced the activity when separating themselves as a distinct people from rival groups—or even when a small band of Canaanites claimed for themselves the identity as Hebrew people, and thus, denounced Canaanite practices—that is all for the advanced class, and I don’t have the training to walk us through that (yet?)

Matthew 21:12-13; 80-90 CE

Excerpt

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”

Commentary

Selling doves, as in, selling animals for sacrifice. Money changing because the “Temple coinage was the standard, and those traveling from other areas would have a different system of currency and would need to convert their coins. All of this “den of thieves” language has a direct connection the prophetic tradition

Luke 19:45; 90 +/- 20yrs CE

Excerpt

Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there.

Commentary

Commentary suggests this scene that extends the Markan tradition that Temple ritual without meaningful repentance is not enough. Note that here the author made the switch from money exchanging to actual market activities, “selling.”

John 2:13-21; 85-95 CE

Excerpt

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body.

Commentary

Passover “of the Jews” is redundant, indicating some of the audience may have been non-Jewish. Although not part of the Lenten study, but still within the newsletter, last Sunday’s post introduced us to the Gospel According to John, where we learned that the Johannine Community included both Jews and gentiles.

Jesus is expressing his authority over the Temple here; threats of destruction consistent with other Jewish prophets.

Further, “What sign…” is a challenge from Temple authorities to Jesus, and this also is keeping with the development of the fourth gospel that leveraged an independent signs source, semeia, and deriving Jesus’s authority by way of performing these signs if very Johannine.

Conclusion

In addition to what you’ve learned about the Temple in Chapter 2, now we enrich our understanding by connecting Jesus’ purported actions to both the law and prophets, and all are in agreement that moral action must supplement ritual practice, and ritual practices are no longer needed in the coming messianic age, or eschaton—a feature of the first century jewish Jesus movement that was punctuated by Paul, twenty years before the gospels were authored! But that discussion will have to wait!