This saying appears in a fairly unadorned manner in two gospels which I take to be late:
Peter 7.26: 26 Ἐγὼ δὲ μετὰ τῶν ἑταίρων ἐλυπούμην, καὶ τετρωμένοι κατὰ διάνοιαν ἐκρυβόμεθα· ἐζητούμεθα γὰρ ὑπ' αὐτῶν ὡς κακοῦργοι καὶ ὡς τὸν ναὸν θέλοντες ἐμπρῆσαι. / 26 But I with the companions was sorrowful; and having been wounded in spirit, we were in hiding, for we were sought after by them as wrongdoers and as wishing to set fire to the temple.
The saying also appears as something which false witnesses claim Jesus has said:
Mark 14.57-59: 57 Some stood up and began to give false testimony against Him, saying, 58 "We heard Him say, 'I will destroy this temple made with hands [χειροποίητον], and in three days I will build another made without hands [ἀχειροποίητον].'" 59 Not even in this respect was their testimony consistent.
The rare words used in Mark are found, incidentally, in Paul, but in contexts having nothing to do with the temple itself:
Colossians 2.11: 11 And in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands [ἀχειροποιήτῳ], in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
In Luke-Acts, this false accusation is leveled at Stephen's trial instead of at Jesus' trial:
The saying also appears, with the motif of three days, as a prediction of Jesus' resurrection:
Mark 15.29-30: 29 Those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, 30 save Yourself, and come down from the cross!"
John 2.18-22: 18 The Jews therefore answered and said to Him, "What sign do You show to us, seeing that You do these things?" 19 Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." 20 The Jews therefore said, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?" 21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22 When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had spoken.
The saying also appears in the form of a prediction about the destruction of the temple in the synoptic apocalypse:
Mark 13.1-2: 1 And as He was going out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, "Teacher, behold what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!" 2 And Jesus said to him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another which will not be torn down."
Luke 21.5-6: 5 And while some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts, He said, 6 "As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down."
The saying is also at least somewhat related to the idea of the abomination of desolation in the synoptic apocalypse.
What are we to make of these diverse applications of the basic idea that Jesus will destroy the temple? I have been playing around with possible trajectories, and will present one which I have come up with.
Statement & Interpretation
There was an historical Jesus. He actually said something like, "I am going to destroy this temple," found in its simplest form in a sayings gospel:
This statement was not a prediction; it was a plan. Accordingly, Jesus and some fellow revolutionaries made a move of some kind against the temple. The move itself may have been as impractical and naïve as, for example, those expectations by some of the sign prophets described by Josephus that the Jordan River would part or that the walls of Jerusalem would fall. Whatever the case or the chances of success or failure, this move got Jesus arrested and crucified as a revolutionary, while his comrades in arms were able to escape. Such a scenario would explain a good many of the indicators put forward by Fernando Bermejo-Rubio.
Jesus' fellow revolutionaries, however, were tainted and thus embarrassed by this failed attempt at destroying the temple; also, their lives may have been in some danger were they to continue Jesus' policy:
So the revolutionary aspects of Jesus' career had to be reinterpreted.
Reinterpretation 1
The temple word was placed on the lips of false witnesses:
Mark 14.57-59: 57 Some stood up and began to give false testimony against Him, saying, 58 "We heard Him say, 'I will destroy this temple made with hands [χειροποίητον], and in three days I will build another made without hands [ἀχειροποίητον].'" 59 Not even in this respect was their testimony consistent.
Acts 6.13-14: 13 And they put forward false witnesses who said, "This man incessantly speaks against this holy place, and the Law; 14 for we have heard him say that this Nazarene, Jesus, will destroy this place and alter the customs which Moses handed down to us."
These passages actually reflect another kind of reinterpretation, as well, that involving the resurrection.
Furthermore, the actual movement against the temple was reinterpreted as the temple cleansing.
Reinterpretation 2
The temple word was also reinterpreted as a saying about resurrection:
Mark 15.29-30: 29 Those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, 30 save Yourself, and come down from the cross!"
John 2.18-22: 18 The Jews therefore answered and said to Him, "What sign do You show to us, seeing that You do these things?" 19 Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." 20 The Jews therefore said, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?" 21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22 When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had spoken.
This reinterpretation recycled a motif which originally had nothing to do with the temple:
Colossians 2.11: 11 And in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands [ἀχειροποιήτῳ], in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
Once this connection was made, anything was possible. A Marcan passage in Bezae actually applies the three days to the physical temple!
Reinterpretation 3
Sometime after Caligula and before the destruction of the temple in 70, an oracle was circulated which predicted a desecration of the standing temple under the guise of the abomination of desolation. After 70, this prediction was placed on Jesus' lips and simultaneously tweaked into a prediction, not of the temple's desecration, but rather of its destruction, allowing the temple word to be applied to what the Romans did:
Mark 13.1-2: 1 And as He was going out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, "Teacher, behold what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!" 2 And Jesus said to him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another which will not be torn down."
Luke 21.5-6: 5 And while some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts, He said, 6 "As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down."
This bit of reinterpretation involving the events of 70 proved to be the most powerful. Now all revolutionary implications of the temple word were eradicated: Jesus had not actively promised to destroy the temple; he had passively predicted its destruction by the Romans. No need for false witnesses to take the blame; no need for resurrection theology to blunt the blow. Neither the calling in of false witnesses nor the conjury of resurrection theology had been sufficient on its own; hence their combination in those sayings at the trial of Jesus in Matthew and Mark.
This trajectory (or set of trajectories) would explain why so many variants exist: the original saying was truly rebellious and marked a signal failure on Jesus' part to achieve his goals; as such, it was extremely embarrassing to Jesus' immediate followers, who had to quickly readjust and reinterpret what was really happening. This reinterpretation naturally took different forms for different people.
What do you think? Is there a better reconstruction, one which explains the same or more data with the same or fewer moving parts?
Ben.