Why Pilate? Because Jesus was anti-Temple

[Giuseppe]

So Dennis MacDonald:

My reconstruction of Q says that Jesus predicted that he would destroy the temple and build another. Well, if you’re writing after the Jewish War, you know that Jesus didn’t show up but the temple is in ruins, and that’s why Mark has to put the “temple” word on the mouth of false witnesses. Now the problem with my own argument is it’s not so clear that Jesus himself said he would destroy the temple and build another. One could argue that that’s a part of the polemic of the Q document.

So the oldest "Gospel" tradition even before the 70, connected Jesus with an ideology anti-Temple.

Only among the Samaritans one could find a similar anti-Temple opposition.

Hence the post-70 evangelists dated Jesus under Pilate because Pilate was the infamous slayer of the Samaritans, and the old pre-70 tradition of Jesus's opposition to the Temple could be explained, in post-70 times, only by connecting him with the memory of the Samaritans slain by Pilate.

[Charles Wilson]

Giuseppe --

We've been round and round about this and what's "There" doesn't change.

The "War" here is between the Priesthood against the Herodians and Romans.
This Priesthood is not the corrupt High Priesthood. This is coming from the Mishmarot Priesthood.

1 Chronicles 24: 4 - , 14 (RSV):

[4] Since more chief men were found among the sons of Elea'zar than among the sons of Ith'amar, they organized them under sixteen heads of fathers' houses of the sons of Elea'zar, and eight of the sons of Ith'amar.
[5] They organized them by lot, all alike, for there were officers of the sanctuary and officers of God among both the sons of Elea'zar and the sons of Ith'amar.
***
[14] the fifteenth to Bilgah, the sixteenth to Immer...

Which explains:

John 1: 15 (RSV):

[15] (John bore witness to him, and cried, "This was he of whom I said, `He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.'")

Whether "Literary" or "Real", John is of Bilgah. Bilgah has committed an Offense against the Priesthood. Hence, the "Jesus" character RANKS before this created "jesus" character yet "Jesus" is of Immer and comes AFTER Bilgah. Bilgah and Immer serve in Jerusalem for the Passover and Feast Week of 4 BCE.

THIS IS NOT ANTI-TEMPLE.

It represents the Pro-Temple Faction of the Priesthood. After the Romans begin to finger it all up, you can argue for Outer Space, Anti-Temple or what candy bar "Jesus" preferred. It doesn't matter except as minor Historical Data until more definite authorship and Time Line may be determined. The Romans did it. The Jewish People and Culture took it on the chops, as did the other Cultures conquered by the Romans.

No matter what other apologetic Skollers believe.

CW

[schillingklaus]

Apologists like Wilson try to explain away religious ideas as political imperialism. Others know that the temple and priesthood are to be understood allegoricalluy, not literally as apologists do.

[Charles Wilson]

Have you ever read anything I've ever written, schillingklaus?
It doesn't appear as if you have.

Ever.

CW

[Giuseppe]

It is widely accepted that both Mark and John were written after the destruction of the Jewish Temple. If that were the case and Jesus had said that the Temple would be miraculously rebuilt if it were torn down, people at the time of the destruction might want to know why Jesus didn’t miraculously rebuild the Temple in three days, as he promised, especially if some believed him to have been resurrected.
Obviously, theological apologetics could explain this after the fact, particularly regarding Jewish rejection of Jesus and his opposition to Temple sacrifices. I think, though, both Mark and John acted to eliminate what would be an embarrassing promise that Jesus failed to keep. John explained away the problem by adding a gloss to Jesus’ statement, saying that Jesus wasn’t referring to the physical Temple being rebuilt but that “he was speaking of the temple of his body.”
Mark addressed the problem by presenting what would be an erroneous version of the statement and declaring it false. But was there an earlier tradition that Jesus had made some such statement? I think there was.

(Gary Greenberg, The Case for a Proto-Gospel, p. 305-306, my bold)

[Giuseppe]

A Jesus who predicted the destruction of the temple is not a historical Jesus, pace Allen, when Allen goes even to include in his reconstructed original Testimonium Flavianum the following claim:

“And there was about this time a certain man, a sophist and agitator. For he was a deceiver and an imposter. A teacher of men who revered him with pleasure. [He claimed the Temple would be destroyed and that not one stone would be standing on another and that it would be restored in three days.] Many of the Judaens, and also many of the Galilean element, he led to himself in a tumult; he was believed to be a King: [For he opposed paying the tax to Caesar.] Many were roused, thinking that thereby the tribe could free themselves from Roman hands. And, when on the accusation of the first men among us Pilate condemned him to be crucified. Many of his followers, the Galileans and Judaens were slain and thus checked for the moment. The movement again broke out with great abundance when it was believed he appeared to them alive. Those that followed him at first did not cease to revere him, their leader in sedition and this tribe has until now not disappeared.”

The reason is very simple: a seditious Jesus couldn't never claim that he would have destroyed the temple, since precisely the temple was the last rock of the Zealots.

Note that even that crazy Jesus ben Anania didn't dare to predict the destruction of the temple, but only of the city.

Therefore the prophecy of the destruction and reconstruction of the temple could be made only by a mythical Jesus.

[Giuseppe]

I should correct the claim above: Jesus ben Ananias predicted really the destruction of the temple, also, not only of the city.

[Giuseppe]

So MacDonald:

Logoi 7:17–22 (11:49–51, 13:34–35, [Mk] 14:58) formed a unit that condemned “this generation” of murder and predicted that Jerusalem would not again see Jesus until the residents say “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” that is, until they thus acknowledge him as God’s savior for Israel. Jesus then predicts that he will “destroy this sanctuary that is made with hands and build another that is not made with hands.”

Mark, writing after the fall of Jerusalem, knew of this tradition that expected Jesus himself to return before the destruction of the temple; he warns the disciples not to be taken in by charlatans claiming to be the Messiah during the impending persecution (13:21–22). So the Evangelist distanced Jesus from the prediction of the temple’s fall with three redactions. First, he followed the acclamation “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” with Jesus’ entry into the temple but without the prediction that he would destroy it. Second, Jesus did predict the fall of the temple to his disciples in 13:2, but later in the chapter he made it clear that the temple would fall before he returned. Third, Mark put the prediction that Jesus would destroy the temple and build another on the lips of false witnesses at the Sanhedrin and of misinformed mockers at the cross.

(Two Shipwrecked Gospels, p. 301, my bold)

So the Risen Jesus would have destroyed and rebuilt the temple. MacDonald agrees with Robert M. Price about the charlatans claiming to be the RISEN Messiah.
While Price thinks that the Christians really misinterpreted the news about Theudas etc as news about the RISEN Jesus, according to MacDonald, at contrary, Mark invented this misinterpretation Messianists == RISEN Jesus, to make the point that Jesus didn't predict the destruction and reconstruction of the temple.

From this POV, Dennis MacDonald is more mythicist than Robert M. Price.

[Giuseppe]

My point is that, if the embarrassment about a Jesus anti-Temple disturbed so much "Mark", then even the dating of Jesus under Pilate worked by "Mark" was part and parcel of the expedients to eclipse a Jesus anti-Temple.

Adversaries: Your Jesus predicted that he would have destroyed and rebuilt the temple but this reconstruction has not happened.
Mark's Apologetics: No, he wasn't Jesus. He was the Samaritan false prophet slain by Pilate. You are confusing the two.

[schillingklaus]

The temple and its destruction/rebiuilding have to be understood metaphysically, not historically as naive scholars do.