The temple word.

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Ben C. Smith
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The temple word.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

I continue to mull over what is often called the temple word.

This saying appears in a fairly unadorned manner in two gospels which I take to be late:

Thomas 71: 71 Jesus said, "I shall destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to rebuild it."

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:

Matthew 26.60-61: 60 They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on two came forward, 61 and said, "This man stated, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.'"

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:

2 Corinthians 5.1: 1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house made without hands [ἀχειροποίητον], eternal in the heavens.

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:

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."

The saying also appears, with the motif of three days, as a prediction of Jesus' resurrection:

Matthew 27.39-40: 39 And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, "You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross."

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:

Matthew 24.1-2: 1 And Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. 2 And He answered and said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down."

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:

Thomas 71: 71 Jesus said, "I shall destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to rebuild it."

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:

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.

So the revolutionary aspects of Jesus' career had to be reinterpreted.

Reinterpretation 1

The temple word was placed on the lips of false witnesses:

Matthew 26.60-61: 60 They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on two came forward, 61 and said, "This man stated, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.'"

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:

Matthew 27.39-40: 39 And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, "You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross."

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:

2 Corinthians 5.1: 1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house made without hands [ἀχειροποίητον], eternal in the heavens.

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!

Mark 13.1-2 Bezae: 1 Καὶ ἐκπορευομένου αὐτοῦ ἐκ τοῦ ἱεροῦ λέγει αὐτῷ εἷς ἐκ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ· Διδάσκαλε, ἴδε ποδαποὶ λίθοι καὶ ποδαπαὶ οἰκοδομαὶ τοῦ ἱεροῦ. 2 καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Βλέπετε ταύτας τὰς μεγάλας οἰκοδομάς; ἀμὴν, λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι οὐ μὴ ἀφεθῇ ὧδε λίθος ἐπὶ λίθῳ ὃς οὐ μὴ καταλυθῇ, καὶ διὰ τριῶν ἡμερῶν ἄλλος ἀναστήσεται ἄνευ χειρῶν. / 1 And as He was going out of the temple one of His disciples says to Him, "Teacher, behold what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!" 2 And Jesus answered and said to him, "Do you see these great buildings? Amen, I say to you that stone shall not be left upon stone which will not be torn down, and throughout three days another shall rise up without hands."

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:

Matthew 24.1-2: 1 And Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. 2 And He answered and said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down."

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.
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Re: The temple word.

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Anthony Le Donne takes the variations in temple sayings to argue that an oral tradition predated the written texts.
Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It?.
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Re: The temple word.

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arnoldo wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 2:50 pm Anthony Le Donne takes the variations in temple sayings to argue that an oral tradition predated the written texts.
Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It?.
Thanks. The little snippet I can see of that book brings up the Targum (pseudo-Jonathan) for Isaiah:

Isaiah 53.5/6 (Targum pseudo-Jonathan): He shall build the house of the sanctuary, which has been profaned on account of our sins [וְהֻוא יִבנֵי בֵית מַקדְשָׁא דְאִיתַחַל בְחוֹבַנָא]; He was delivered over on account of our iniquities, and through His doctrine peace shall be multiplied upon us, and through the teaching of His words our sins shall be forgiven us.

The Messiah, according to this interpretation, is supposed to rebuild the temple, a duty which certainly seems relevant to this thread.

ETA: There is also this passage from Qumran:

4Q174, fragment 1, column 1, lines 1-19: [«Not] 1 [will] an enemy [strike him any]more, [nor will] a son of iniquity [afflict] him [aga]in as in the past [Psalm 89.23], from the day on which 2 [I appointed judges] over my people, Israel» [2 Samuel 7.10]. This (refers to) the house which [he will establish] for [him] in the last days, as is written in the book of 3 [Moses: «The temple of] Yahweh your hands will est[a]blish. Yahweh shall reign for ever and ever» [Exodus 15.17-18]. This (refers to) the house into which shall not enter 4 [... for]ever either an Ammonite, or a Moabite, or a bastard, or a foreigner, or a proselyte, never, because his holy ones are there. 5 «Y[ahwe]h [shall reign for] ever». He will appear over it forever; foreigners shall not again lay it waste as they laid waste in the past 6 the tem[ple of I]srael on account of their sins. And he commanded to build for himself a temple of man, to offer him in it, 7 before him, the works of thanksgiving. And as for what he said to David: «I [shall obtain] for you [rest] from all your enemies» [2 Samuel 7.11], (it refers to this,) that he will obtain for them rest from a[ll] 8 the sons of Belial, those who make them fall, to destroy th[em on account of] their [sins,] when they come with the plan of [B]el[i]al to make the s[ons of] 9 lig[ht] fall, and to plot against them wicked plans so th[at] they [are] trapped by Belial because of their gui[l]ty error. ~ 10 [And] Yahweh [de]clares to you that «he will build you a house. I will raise up your seed after you and establish the throne of his kingdom 11 [forev]er. I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me» [2 Samuel 7.12-14], this (refers to the) «branch of David», who will arise with the interpreter of the law who 12 [will rise up] in Zi[on in] the [l]ast days, as it is written: «I will raise up the hut of David which has fallen» [Amos 9.11]. This (refers to) «the hut of 13 David which has fall[en», w]hich he will raise up to save Israel. ~ 14 «Blessed [the] man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked» [Psalm 1.1]. The interpretation of this wor[d: they are] those who turn aside from the path of [the wicked,] 15 as it is written in the book of Isaiah the prophet for [the] last days: «And it happened that with a strong [hand he turned me aside from walking on the path of] 16 this people» [Isaiah 8.11]. And (this refers to) those about whom it is written in the book of Ezekiel the prophet, that «[they should] no[t defile themselves any more with all] 17 their [i]d[o]ls» [Ezekiel 44.10]. This (refers to) the sons of Zadok and (to) the m[e]n of [the]ir council, those who see[k jus]tice eagerly, who have come after them to the council of the community. 18 [«Why ar]e the nations [in turmoil] and hatch the peoples [idle plots? The kings of the earth t]ake up [their posts and the ru]lers conspire together against Yahweh and against 19 [his anointed one» [Psalm 2.1]. Inter]pretation of the saying: [the kings of the na]tions [are in turmoil] and ha[tch idle plots against] the elect ones of Israel in the last days.

There is a house of Yahweh to be built "in the last days" (line 2) which foreigners will neither enter (lines 3-4) nor destroy (line 5). In lines 7-13, the one responsible for this temple appears to be the "branch of David."

Therefore, it seems possible that the accusations against Jesus in Mark 14.58 (that he would destroy the present temple and then build one without hands) are exactly what prompt the priest's question in 14.61: "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" A claim to be the one to build the eschatological temple is a claim to be the Messiah.
Last edited by Ben C. Smith on Sat Jul 06, 2019 11:08 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: The temple word.

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For me at least the whole context of the saying can be connected to two ideas both likely rooted in Dositheanism:

1. it could be argued that the Torah specified a flimsy (i.e. semi-permanent) tabernacle.
2. Solomon is said to have constructed the first temple as a house of demons ('demon house' = Bethsaida)

1 demon Qumran, JLAtg, JPAEpig, Gal, PTA, CPA, Syr, JBA, LJLA. 4QTob b4.1.13=06:8 : קדם גבר או אנתא נגיעי שד או רוח[ באישה ‏ . TgO Lev17:7 : וְלָא יְדַבְחוּן עוֹד יָת דִבחֵיהוֹן לְשֵידִין ‏ . PTŠab3.b:36[2] : ٠٠٠{חר אפר מיתעביד שר} <חראפת׳ מיתעבד שד> ‏ the bat becomes the demon. BHMQ7 1.1.1 : ܘܒܝܕ ܗܿܝ ܕܣܛܐ ܣܛܢܐ ܐܬܩܼܪܝ ܘܒܗܿܝ ܕܐܫܬܕܝ ܫܐܕܐ‏ and by the fact that he turned aside, he was called Satan, and by the fact that he was cast down, Demon. BT Pes 111b(19) : צוא פרחא ופקע שידא ‏ the caper shrub dried up, and the demon burst. PJ Lev17:7 : ולא ידבחון תוב ית דיבחיהון לטעוון דמתילין לשידי ‏ . (a) pagan divinity Syr. PagPhil.222.26 : ܫܐܕ̈ܐ ܕܗܢܘܢ ܕܠܗܘܢ ܡܕܒܚܝܢ ܗܘܘ‏ . (b) ܕܫܐܕܐ‏ : one possessed by a demon‏ Syr. OS MkSin5:18 : ܗܘ ܕܫܐܕܐ ‏ .

Interestingly El Shaddai is argued by Evans that to go back to שד (shad) = “breast.” But the same Hebrew letters also denote 'demon.' Funny no one ever argues to my knowledge that שד = demon. But cf Chrysostom - "They (the Jews) have denied the Father, crucified the son Henceforth their synagogue is the house of demons and idolatry" https://books.google.com/books?id=TgfLY ... om&f=false And Freudman - "The synagogue on Saturday was neither the place nor time for curing chronic ailments or driving out demons. The houses of prayer- synagogue and Temple-did not serve as the local infirmary. Mark and Matthew revealed their unfamiliarity with the nature of synagogues (and the Temple) or with the composition of their religious worship and ceremonies. Perhaps this explains, or is the foundation of, the belief of the medieval Church that the synagogue was a house of demons and the Sabbath, a celebration of witches." Chrysostom Eight Orations against the Jews of Antioch Oration 1.3 "Jeremiah said:
Your house has become for me the den of a hyena". He does not simply say "of wild beast", but "of a filthy wild beast", and again: "I have abandoned my house, I have cast off my inheritance". But when God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons.
This idea appears over and over again in Chryostom such as at the end of Homily 6 " I want them to shun the evil gatherings of the Jews and their synagogues, both in the city and in the suburbs, because these are robbers' dens and dwellings of demons?" So again 6.7 "The temple was already a den of thieves when the Jewish commonwealth and way of life still prevailed. Now you give it a name more worthy than it deserves if you call it a brothel, a stronghold of sin, a lodging-place for demons, a fortress of the destruction of the soul, the precipice and pit of all perdition, or whatever other name you give it. Do you wish to see the temple? Don't run to the synagogue; be a temple yourself. God destroyed one temple in Jerusalem but he reared up temples beyond number, temples more august than that old one ever was. Paul said: "You are the temple of the living God. Make that temple beautiful, drive out every evil thought, so that you may be a precious member of Christ, a temple of the Spirit. And make others be temples such as you are yourselves. When you see the poor, you would not find it easy to pass them by. When ally of you see some Christian running to the synagogue, do not look the other way. Find some argument you can use as a halter to bring him back to the Church. This kind of almsgiving is greater than giving to the poor, and the profit from it is worth more than ten thousand talents."
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Re: The temple word.

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 2:07 pm I continue to mull over what is often called the temple word.

This saying appears in a fairly unadorned manner in two gospels which I take to be late:

Thomas 71: 71 Jesus said, "I shall destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to rebuild it."

Recently I had a little discussion on this topic. It was said that the text of the Gospel of Thomas is damaged at this point (last lines). Somebody rightly noted critically that most scholars either ignore the gap or complete the text in an inappropriate manner following the Synoptics.
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Re: The temple word.

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Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Sat Apr 07, 2018 1:34 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 2:07 pm I continue to mull over what is often called the temple word.

This saying appears in a fairly unadorned manner in two gospels which I take to be late:

Thomas 71: 71 Jesus said, "I shall destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to rebuild it."

Recently I had a little discussion on this topic. It was said that the text of the Gospel of Thomas is damaged at this point (last lines). Somebody rightly noted critically that most scholars either ignore the gap or complete the text in an inappropriate manner following the Synoptics.
Good observation. So far as what an historical Jesus may have actually said, I am already considerably less sure of the second clause of this sentence than I am of the first clause. Thomas tends to add mystification to the sayings, so perhaps something mystifying originally filled the gap.
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Re: The temple word.

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 3:07 pm
arnoldo wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 2:50 pm Anthony Le Donne takes the variations in temple sayings to argue that an oral tradition predated the written texts.
Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It?.
Thanks. The little snippet I can see of that book brings up the Targum (pseudo-Jonathan) for Isaiah:

Isaiah 53.5/6 (Targum pseudo-Jonathan): He shall build the house of the sanctuary, which has been profaned on account of our sins [וְהֻוא יִבנֵי בֵית מַקדְשָׁא דְאִיתַחַל בְחוֹבַנָא]; He was delivered over on account of our iniquities, and through His doctrine peace shall be multiplied upon us, and through the teaching of His words our sins shall be forgiven us.

The Messiah, according to this interpretation, is supposed to rebuild the temple, a duty which certainly seems relevant to this thread.
Speaking of interpretation/exegesis, the parable of wise and foolish builders could allegorically be describing the destruction of Israel/Temple.
Everyone therefore who hears these words of mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man, who built his house on a rock. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and it didn't fall, for it was founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine, and doesn't do them will be like a foolish man, who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.
— Matthew 7:24–2

Josephus uses somewhat similar language to describe a storm/rain occuring sometime before Israel's destruction.
There broke out a prodigious storm in the night, with the utmost violence, and very strong winds, with the largest showers of rain, with continued lightnings, terrible thunderings, and amazing concussions and bellowings of the earth, that was in an earthquake. These things were a manifest indication that some destruction was coming upon men, when the system of the world was put into this disorder; and any one would guess that these wonders foreshowed some grand calamities that were coming.

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Re: The temple word.

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 2:07 pm
This saying appears in a fairly unadorned manner in two gospels which I take to be late:

Thomas 71: 71 Jesus said, "I shall destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to rebuild it."

This down-to-earth saying of the Gospel of Thomas reminds me of Tacitus's 'Fragment 2'. In the first sentences of this text some members of the Roman council of war preceding the capture of Jerusalem plead against the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. Then follows: "Yet others, including Titus himself, opposed, holding the destruction of this temple to be a prime necessity in order to wipe out more completely the religion of the Jews and the Christians; ..."
Maybe, after the hard toil of the preceding years, Titus, being certain of victory, said: "I shall destroy this temple", and to consolidate his victory throughout the ages he may have added: "and we shall never, ever give the Jews the opportunity to rebuild it."

In my view Titus and Jesus were opponents during the war of 66-70 CE. Is it possible that words of Titus the Antichrist have been put into the mouth of Jesus the Christ?
Last edited by FransJVermeiren on Sun Apr 08, 2018 8:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The temple word.

Post by arnoldo »

FransJVermeiren wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 6:09 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 2:07 pm
This saying appears in a fairly unadorned manner in two gospels which I take to be late:

Thomas 71: 71 Jesus said, "I shall destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to rebuild it."

This down-to-earth saying of the Gospel of Thomas reminds me of Tacitus's 'Fragment 2'. In the first sentences of this text some members of the Roman council of war preceding the capture of Jerusalem plead against the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. Then follows: "Yet others, including Titus himself, opposed, holding the destruction of this temple to be a prime necessity in order to wipe out more completely the religion of the Jews and the Christians; ..."
Maybe, after the hard toil of the preceding years, Titus, being certain of victory, said: "I shall destroy this temple", and to consolidate his victory throughout the ages he may have added: "and we shall never, ever give the Jews the opportunity to rebuild it."

In my view Titus and Jesus were opponents during the war of 66-70 CE. Is it possible that words of Titus the Antichrist heve been put into the mouth of Jesus the Christ?
IMHO, it's more probable that Titus was repeating a misunderstood saying regarding the destruction of the temple. Interestingly, 1 Clement often writes from the perspective that the temple is not destroyed. Thomas Herron therefore concludes that 1 Clement was written before AD 70.
https://books.google.com/books?id=P9N9W ... le&f=false
Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: The temple word.

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 2:07 pm What do you think?
Your starting point agrees with the predominant view in German scholarship during the past 50 years. It became again popular after Jostein Ådna's „Jesu Stellung zum Tempel“ (2000).

Regardless of my own p.o.v. I think this case is unique in some ways. Imho it is one thing to doubt some claims of the Evangelists with a historical-critical approach. We do that every day. But I think it is another thing to claim something about Jesus what the Evangelists explicitly denied. In the former case there is a source, but you doubt the content of its statement. In the latter case you only claim something for which no source exists and the only source explicitly denies your assertion. Imho this has nothing to do with science anymore. I have no problem at all with it being your personal opinion, Ben. But I consider it critical that this view is a majority opinion among scholars.

At first glance it seems that Thomas 71 could be a source, but there is a wide range of opinion what the Gospel of Thomas means with „house“. Especially many Thomasian scholars do not agree that „house“ should be understood as „temple“ in Thomas 71. Although this is a possible interpretation, other interpretations are often preferred.

imho the circular reasoning starts with the assertion that there would be „a temple word“ or „a saying of Jesus“. In the end, we only have in the inner circle four very different words, a saying of Paul (2 Corinthians 5:1), a non-saying of Jesus (Mark 14:57-58 par) and two sayings of Jesus (John 2:19, Thomas 71), which are obviously interdependent in one form or another. But only one of them is really a word about the temple in Jerusalem and this is the non-saying of Jesus in GMark. The words in Paul and John are about the body (ours and the one of Jesus), both not destroyed by Jesus. The word in Thomas is about a „house“ and we simply do not know which house is meant.
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