Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Recasting Jesus-Temple interactions in light of Second Temple Period Judaism

Introduction: Setting the Table

After a few weeks of a different flavor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, this week we’re back to our regular Sunday program, reading an authentic Jewish voice back into the gospel accounts. A voice that is there calling out for interested readers to discover. Today the Revised Common Lectionary has assigned Matthew 21.23-32. We’re headed to the Temple, and we’re taking a very careful look at dialogue with the chief priests. Let’s get into it!

To begin with leveling assumptions, it never hurts to repeat, the intent is not to undermine Christianity for apologetic readers, and neither am I suggesting that Jewish people reconsider a messianic Jesus. Rather, I suggest that seeking the historical Jesus in his setting holds the potential to deepen a Christian understanding of Jesus apart from (or at least supplementing the idea of) a risen messiah to meet the man of the early first century, about which the tradition of the resurrection arises.

Toward this end, I am optimistic with respect to the access we may have to this history by dint of the tools of historical and scholarly reconstruction. Appealing to the canonical and non-canonical texts of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), Christian Old Testament, Greek Scriptures, apocryphal texts, and other ancient writings, including the rabbinic writings of the Talmud, we glean a sense of what may have been Jesus’ core message(s), illuminate the historical setting in which the Jesus movement operated, and examine the anti-Judaic rhetoric that readers encounter in the New Testament.

On Reading The Text, a Prologue

This week Jesus is in the Temple, in dialogue with the Pharisees and chief priests—and that dialogue is not necessarily friendly. These episodes mandate that we identify our interpretive starting point and understand the moral responsibility we have when selecting this starting point because the anti-Judaic rhetoric of Christianity and its role in generations of antisemitism stem from the misinterpretation of readings like the one we have in front of us this Sunday.

It’s passages like the one we’ll read this week where Jesus’ authority is challenged by the Temple authorities that lead many Christian readers, through the shortcomings of their interpretive communities, to implicitly or explicitly gloss these authorities as representing Jewish people generally, to conclude that Jesus corrected the Pharisaic and Priestly (read: Jewish) “ignorance.”

Of course, not all Christians speak derogatorily about Jewish people and Judaism or hold up the idea that Jesus replaced or fulfilled the Mosaic covenant. My understanding of Jesus as Jewish, my affirmation that Gd loves unconditionally, and the encouragement to explore the meaning for me as someone who has an interfaith family heritage all come through Christianity. I have been fortunate in my life to experience the very best that Christianity has to offer, from affirming all of Gd’s beloved children, pursuing justice, feeding, housing, welcoming, and supporting people, and dismantling systems that are the cause of such unjust food and housing insecurity. And yes, to embrace my identity and pursuit of living my life as one ethno-religiously connected to the Jewish people through matrilineal descent comes through, in part, the encouragement of my dad, a mainline Protestant pastor. Friday I had a tuna sandwich and talked to my dad about the Jewish reading of the apostle Paul. How freaking cool is that?!

But so also are there Christians who have interacted with me and others who advance hateful rhetoric like, “No wonder Gd left the Jews” or “Jewish people are incorrect about their interpretation of their scriptures. Jesus pointed out their ignorance.” Or one commenter who seemed to take glee in telling me that I’d get mine when Jesus returns. Owing to my affirming upbringing that centered love and moral conduct, if Jesus returns, I expect a fist bump and solidarity. To imagine otherwise is a gross misunderstanding of the origins of Christianity.

The interpretive key in our interreligious dialogue is twofold: First, to identify the portrait of an observant Jewish man in the early first century by inferring from the traces of that history presented in the gospels, and second, with the character of this man animated, in other words, with a view of the humanity of Jesus in sight, we can then see that man in action, so to speak, in his lifeworld, and question whether the rhetoric of the gospel accounts faithfully represents the man we’ve animated.

I’ve presented us with an inverted pyramid, front loading the discussion in this post prior to the actual reading, and this is good and productive heavy lifting. In this instance, and how I’m beginning to understand my project broadly, yes it’s all a work in progress, is to combine all the tools at our disposal—characterizing the historical Jesus, contextualizing the general history, and analyzing the text—to ask different questions. I seek to move us away from, “What does the text say?” Toward an encounter with the text that asks, “What likely would have been at the core of this story, if such scenes occurred historically, and what motivated the gospel writer(s) to present the details in the ways each did?” In short, we must ask why the evangelists wrote it before we answer what the text says, because what is written on the page offers only a portion of our understanding.

It seems rather obvious, but let’s remind ourselves anyway, the gospels are meant to persuade! Their authors held certain aims in mind to recruit followers to the movement, or whatever else. They are documents that exist after Jesus, after the Temple’s destruction, after the outreach to gentiles had been underway for some time, and we simply cannot understand the gospels divorced from these layers of complexity. Most Christian supersessionism—the idea that Jesus replaces the old Covenant—is explained by a lack of meaningful historical engagement in Christian confessional settings.

I note as a pastor’s kid with insider knowledge that the problem cannot be set at the feet of individual clergy members or faith leaders. Especially within congregational models of Protestantism, the congregation itself is the governing body. Clergy livelihood depends on the congregation keeping them employed. This egalitarian and democratic model, on balance, is good. This congregational model places a check on unbridled institutional power. Yet, this model is not without its challenges. For example, in many Protestant traditions, an advanced academic degree is a prerequisite for ordination, and so, it is not that would-be clergy are not exposed to historical and text critical methods for approaching the biblical literature. Rather, clergy are placed in the precarious position of balancing the scholarly view, with the expectations of their congregants.

I think it simply is the case that many parishioners attend church to be with their friends, to feel uplifted, to feel like they’ve performed their duty, and to slough off any guilt. I don’t mean this to be too cynical, but I don’t think people are attending church to get an academic lecture—and neither should they! But I do think an authentic and academically informed presentation of the core texts should be at least some offering within confessional communities, whatever that means.

Theory and Praxis: What We Learn Through Public Scholarship

With sincerity and a smile, I create short form video content about the themes of this newsletter and publish them on social media. Anyone who knows me “in real life” can attest that my demeanor is patient and welcoming, or at least, I strive to be. And still, the vitriol that is directed toward creators like me is intimidating and mean spirited. The effort is to shut us up or counter our careful study with pithy slogans and clobber passages. When challenged about being wrong the other day, I replied that I’m more interested in dialogue than proving myself right—walking right into that trap, I was told that my interlocutor preferred their truth over my (scare quote) “opinionated, ‘open-minded’ rhetoric.” They told on themselves with that reply: In effect, there’s only one truth, and you ain’t got it, Adam—all I have is opinion and, noting the scare quotes, “open-minded” rhetoric. This is instructive. If the truth is known, that’s it. Why have any sort of open minded discussion when the solution is available? That, my friends, is zero-sum thinking. According to Science:

We find that both liberals and conservatives view life as zero-sum when it benefits them to do so. Whereas conservatives exhibit zero-sum thinking when the status quo is challenged, liberals do so when the status quo is being upheld.

The very institution of congregationalism combined with a vigorous anti-intellectual sentiment that is hallmark of some social identities exaggerates the already rigorous work of making academic literature digestible. Social identities are especially at play through the frame of communication dissemination, as this journal article from Nature makes clear:

People tend to be persuaded by speakers they see as knowledgeable (that is, experts), but only when they perceive the existence of common interests. Some groups of citizens, such as ideological conservatives, populists, religious fundamentalists and the like, may see experts as threatening to their social identities. Consequently, they will be less amenable to expert messages, even in times of crisis.

In a recent reply to someone who makes content similar to what I produce, though from a traditional Christian perspective, one commenter to my reply said, “Yeah, this ethnic Jew who isn’t even religious is going to say that his connection to some ancestors means he can tell a real scholar what to think.” Again, this is very instructive: First, the assumption that I’m “not religious” is unfounded but likely concluded because I cited an academic commentary and not the Bible in my reply, and to characterize the person I was replying to as a scholar without taking the time to honor my experience and study is paradigmatic of the quote above about expert status, “only when they perceive the existence of common interests.”

I’m not sharing these personal experiences for sympathy. Instead, we see that documented evidence of modes of thinking penetrate religious discourse. In brick and mortar churches, the relevant expert—the seminary-trained clergy—who is accountable for their livelihood to the congregation, and the congregation itself, being an in-gathering of mostly like-minded people, will be shaped by ubiquitous zero sum thinking and punctuated by anti-intellectualism, when common ground is not found. And so, upholding the status quo and adopting skepticism toward someone, a clergy member perhaps, who presents expert messages that threaten social identities, prohibits the dissemination of historical criticism in confessional settings.

In short, the worst expressions of zero sum thinking, combined with aversion to expert evidence leads to doubling down on the same old supersessionist view. But I remain optimistic! Let’s see if we can do better.

Matthew 21:23-32

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

²³ When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” ²⁴ Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁵ Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why, then, did you not believe him?’ ²⁶ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for all regard John as a prophet.” ²⁷ So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

²⁸ “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ ²⁹ He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰ The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. ³¹ Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³² For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even after you saw it you did not change your minds and believe him.

Shared Sacred Space

In our historical portrait, one indisputable feature is the significance of the Temple in Jerusalem. For several of the gospel proclamations, Jesus is in some proximity to the Temple. In fact, the Lukan birth account makes this commitment to the Temple explicit. By Luke’s narrative, Jesus is first presented at the Temple by his parents, in adherence with the sacrifice of the firstborn, or pidyon haben, then again brought to the Temple when he was 12, ostensibly for something akin to Jesus’ bar mitzvah,1 followed by continued pilgrimage to the Temple for the major festivals that is witnessed by all four of the gospel narratives in one form or another. These are each instances of Torah observance. And this really does matter for anyone who would imagine that a core objective of Jesus’ message was to throw off Judaism.

Let me make explicit how the idea that Jesus rejected Judaism is frustrated by the gospel narratives themselves. I suspect that my regular readers are already well versed in what I’ll say: The gospel narratives have little reason to present Jesus as adhering to Torah, to the Law, should their commitment really be to the idea that Jesus is replacing, rejecting, or dismissing the Law of Moses. The gospels are written after the Temple is destroyed. Everything the gospel writers write about to describe Jesus in his, Jesus’, setting, is constructed, or drawn from oral tradition, or both, because the gospels are not eye witness documents. This means that each evangelist had a choice in the way they characterized Jesus, and they each picture him with a favorable view of the Temple and Temple Judaism. True, the anonymous gospel writers, each in greater or lesser degree, place Jesus in tension with the pharisees and other religious authorities, but they do not place Jesus in tension with the Temple itself. For Jesus, the Temple is Gd’s seat on earth.

Consider what these scholars say about Jesus’ ideas about the Temple, especially with respect to Matthew 21 and its Markan source, Mark 11.

• “Historically speaking, nothing suggests that the Temple itself was corrupt. As we’ve seen, Jesus’s followers continue to pray in the Temple, and Paul sanctions Temple worship” (AJ Levine, The Gospel of Mark: A Beginner’s Guide to the Good News, p. 92).

• “Simply put, approaching the God of Israel in the wrong was was dangerous. It is no wonder then that the Gospel writers depict Jesus exercising a fierceness in relation to the Jerusalem Temple and to what he perceives to be an impious use of the sacred space associated with God’s earthly presence” (Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism, p. 12).

• “[W]hy would the earliest community of Jesus followers have settled in Jerusalem, if Jesus himself had condemned the city together with its beating heart, the temple itself? Why would the first community have settled in Jerusalem, if the city and the chief representatives of its temple, the priests, had condemned Jesus do death and brought about his execution? And if Jesus himself were somehow hostile to the holy city, why would his closest followers, so soon after his death have chosen to make Jerusalem the center of their new movement” (Paula Fredriksen, When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation, p. 22)?2

As these select passages suggest—and these were only a few of my favorite books on the bookshelf beside me while I write—Jesus and the Jesus movement hold an overall favorable view of the Temple, exactly as we’d expect to see from a Jewish sect in the first century. If Jesus were coming to replace Judaism with something completely different, why portray him to have a positive view of its chief institution? The answer is because Jesus did not seek to overthrow the core of Judaism. Jesus offered a Judaism that differed from its expression among one of its notable sects. Like the Essenes, for example, the sect likely associated with John the Baptist, there were plenty of disputes among Jewish sects of the first century, it just turns out that many Christians are not taught the added historical nuance that the Jesus movement was but one of several competing judaisms.

Gospels Repurposing Scripture

Let’s amplify two additional passages, these each coming from AJ Levine and Marc Brettler’s The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (pp. 356-7):

• Psalm 69:9, “It is zeal for your house that has consumed me/the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” Paul quotes this Psalm to frame the resistance among non-Messianic Jews. You can see how this Psalm affirms the Temple while putting the authority of Psalms in service of defending Jesus the Christ against criticism.

• Psalm 118. 22-23 is quoted verbatim in Matthew 21.42 (a few verses after today’s assigned reading) to explain Jesus’ rejection from other Jewish people: “The stone that the builders rejected/has become the chief cornerstone./This is the Lord’s doing/it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Here again, we see spokespeople of the Jesus movement repurposing the Scriptures of Israel to explain why Jesus was not accepted by his fellow Jews. The evangelists leveraged their knowledge of their own Scriptures to proclaim Jesus as the messiah.

Common Jewish Identity

Jesus, the Jewish figure—called by some man, others prophet, some called him Son of Man, and others, the messiah, Son of Gd, etc.—taught a new form of Judaism.

That was his and his movement’s aim. We see traces of this aim everywhere we look, from Jesus’ continued presence at the Temple, or teaching in synagogues, healing near the ritual baths, debating the law with Pharisees, or reaching out non-Jews equipped with Jewish apocalyptic notions. Jesus was offering a new form of Judaism. This claim is not out of alignment with the history of Second Temple Judaism that included many different forms of Judaism, each expressed by the different commitments of each sectarian group: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots. We have preserved writings that documents the ways in which these sects criticized each other—similar to the gospels’ criticism of many of these same groups! And the Talmud that we’ve explored in depth in this newsletter collects hundreds of years of rabbis debating the law!

The religious leaders and maybe Jewish people en masse did not accept the reformed Judaism that Jesus taught, nor did Jewish people accept the messianic status of Jesus, save for those in the Jesus movement, including Paul and the gospel writers, and their disciples. But that Jewish people did not accept Jesus’ reformed Judaism is not reason to say Jewish people were mistaken.

In fact, Jesus’ reformed Judaism found millions of adherents. Today, we call them Christians.