Let me begin with just a brief note on my appreciation for the accuracy of the Fourth Gospel on matters related to the Temple and feasts of the Torah. I first began to consider the possibility that John was more precise that the synoptic gospels at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in New Orleans in 2009. Paul Anderson (The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus) gave a stunning presentation on the value of John for historical understanding (if you are skeptical, I suggest you take a look at the book). Then I read Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses and The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple. I became convinced that the Fourth Gospel is written by a Jerusalem disciple (the elder John) who ran in priestly circles (if this notion sounds strange to you, you might acquaint yourself with the evidence before discounting it). My previous views (published in many articles here 2010 and earlier on MJ Musings) about the timing the crucifixion, Passover, and Last Supper all began to change. With that said, I think there is a great value in looking at John to ask questions about the chronology of Yeshua’s last week.

RESULTS
Knowing the short attention spans of many readers, I will give my conclusions first and then you can decide whether to read the notes and commentary below. I give two results tables depending on whether we think the crucifixion was on a Thursday or a Friday (see below, “Friday Is Not a Certainty”):

IF CRUCIFIXION IS THURSDAY & PASSOVER IS THUR NIGHT/FRIDAY:

• Saturday (possibly Friday night), Yeshua arrives in Bethany (Jn 12:1). If so, he would not have traveled far since it was the Sabbath.
• Saturday night they hold a dinner for him in Bethany (arguably, could be Friday night).
• Sunday morning is the Triumphal Entry (Jn 12:12; arguably, could be Saturday morning, which would be unlikely and render Thursday crucifixion unlikely).
• Wednesday night is the Last Supper.

IF CRUCIFIXION IS FRIDAY & PASSOVER IS FRI NIGHT/SATURDAY:

• Sunday (or Sat night), Yeshua arrives in Bethany.
• Monday morning (possibly Sunday) is the Triumphal Entry.
• Thursday night is the Last Supper.

**Note that a Wednesday crucifixion theory, if based on John, would have the Triumphal Entry on Saturday morning (possibly Friday).

**Note that with so many ambiguities (what does “six days before” mean exactly?), the Palm Sunday/Good Friday tradition could fit with John’s chronology (as Raymond Brown supposes is does).

**The only things we can be “sure of” from John’s chronology: the crucifixion is on Nisan 14 when the lambs would be slaughtered and the Last Supper is the night before the regular Passover Seder. We cannot be certain about the day of the week given all the ambiguities.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE END IN JOHN
Taking the statements about timing at face value from John (for example, we skip over possibilities such as the notion that the Lazarus story may be told out of chronological order), we find these helpful periods, events, and chronological notes leading to the crucifixion and Passover:

• 10:22, Hanukkah.
• 10:40-42, Interlude beyond the Jordan.
• Ch. 11, The raising of Lazarus.
• 11:54, Interlude in the town of Ephraim (no one knows where this town is located).
• 11:55, Passover at hand and many had come to Jerusalem to purify themselves (very important, see commentary below).
• 12:1, Six days before Passover (thus, five before the crucifixion).
• 12:2-10, Mary anoints Yeshua, chief priests plot and plan.
• 12:12, The next day (five days before Passover, four days before the crucifixion).
• 12:13-16, Triumphal Entry.
• 12:17-19, Pharisees concerned with his popularity.
• 12:20-36, Greeks are brought to him, heavenly voice.
• 12:37-50, Yeshua hides, sayings on belief and unbelief.
• 13:1, Before the Passover.
• 13:2-27, Last Supper.
• 13:28-30, They supposed Judas went to buy what was needed for the feast.
• The remainder of chs. 13-17, discourses at the Last Supper.
• 18:1-27, Nighttime arrest and first trials.
• 18:28, It was morning; priests would not enter as they feared being disqualified to eat the Passover (see commentary below).
• 19:1-13, Roman trial, flogging.
• 19:14, It was the day of preparation for the Passover.
• 19:15-30, Crucifixion and death.
• 19:31, It was the day of preparation, bodies to be buried before Sabbath, Sabbath was a high day.
• 19:32-41, Body removed and burial.
• 19:42, They laid him close since time was short and it was the day of preparation.
• 20:1, First day of the week, women come to tomb in the early morning.

MANY HAD COME TO JERUSALEM TO PURIFY THEMSELVES
According to Numbers 19, the period of time for purification after coming into contact with any kind of corpse impurity (contact with the dead, being under a roof where a corpse lay, or contact with people or objects that have corpse impurity, etc.) is seven days.

We know that people would come to feasts early in Jerusalem (not a strict requirement to fulfill the entire period in the city), with many arriving in time to spend the entire seven days purifying themselves. Paul purified himself seven days before his Nazirite vow (Acts 21:24-27). Josephus mentions the practice of many pilgrims coming from the countryside to Jerusalem and spending the seven days of purification in Jerusalem (War I.XI.6 #229). Thus, in 11:55, while Yeshua has not yet arrived near Jerusalem, some of those who have arrived wonder when he will show.

SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT BE DEFILED … COULD EAT THE PASSOVER
The chief priests would have to consider themselves impure if they went under Pilate’s roof (as violence happened there and a corpse under that roof was a real possibility). This would make them unfit to eat the Passover (Numb 9:6-12). Thus we see here, as in several other indications, that Yeshua’s morning trial and crucifixion happened on Nisan 14, when the lambs for Passover were slaughtered.

YESHUA CRUCIFIED ON NISAN 14
Every indication in John is that Yeshua was crucified starting the morning on which the Passover lambs were slaughtered. John 19:14 is clear that it was the day for preparing for the Passover (which is Nisan 14).

FRIDAY IS NOT A CERTAINTY
I have in the past defended the “Good Friday” notion (that Yeshua was crucified on Friday). But that was based on previous assumptions I held and harmonizing Mark with John (something I no longer feel the need to do). If Passover (the first day of Unleavened Bread) is a Sabbath, then the “Sabbath” mentioned could be the weekly Sabbath (Friday night till Saturday night) or any day of the week on which the Passover fell. If Yeshua was crucified before Passover started, then we have no reason for dogmatism about a Friday crucifixion (but neither is it impossible, Matthew 12:40 notwithstanding).

Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?
-Acts 2:7

The miracle of that special Shavuot (Pentecost) at the Temple was something very human: the appearance of the Spirit of God in individual theophanies on the disciples. Many onlookers seem to have missed the tongues of fire that Luke says rested on the disciples. What they noticed was the strange speech. Humble Israelites were speaking languages from far away lands. And it occurred to the onlookers as more than strange that these powerfully endued speakers were Galilean.

It was the Judeans, not the Galileans, who emphasized scribal education. If anyone might be expected to have such learning of languages, and possibly if anyone were to be chosen as a prophet, most would expect this to happen to Judeans and not Galileans.

What is the nature of being a Galilean in Yeshua’s time? How had the history of Galilee shaped the people there? Were these Galileans descendants of foreign converts? Were the relocated Judeans? Or were they descended from the northern tribes of Israel who had long ago settled in Galilee? How separate and independent was Galilee from Judea? Did Galileans have a different outlook than Judeans on matters of Temple and Judaism? How did being a Galilean impact the personality and methods of Yeshua?

Background: Galilee from Deborah’s Time to Yeshua’s

A great resource for understanding Galilee is Richard Horsley’s Archaeology, History, and Society in Galilee.

To begin to understand the Galileans, go back to Judges 5 and the days of Deborah the prophetess. Egyptian power is crumbling and their control of Canaan is slipping. The Canaanite city-states have been here for a long time. They are the old order. They tax the surrounding agricultural lands. Their wealth and power derives from the land, but their military might is Egypt.

The Israelites moved in during this phase of crumbling power. In many cases, and the hints of this scenario show through in Joshua and especially in Judges, the Israelites did not cast off the Canaanite powers all at once. Instead, the Israelites settled on less valuable land, terracing hillsides and eking out a difficult agricultural living. They stayed out of the normal realms of Canaanite power, so that the cost to the Canaanites to make war on them was often too high to be worth the fight. You could say that Israelites got their start in Canaan living in the shadows of the crumbling city-states.

Galilee was a prime area for this sort of avoidance. The hills and rugged terrain included many places where agriculture was difficult but possible. And when Deborah the prophetess presided over a war with a major Canaanite power, Jabin the king of Hazor and his general Sisera, the people of Naphtali and Zebulon fought valiantly. They were Galileans. And we read of them:

They shall recount the righteous deeds of the Lord . . . for his peasantry in Israel . . . The people came down to me as warriors . . . Zebulun was a people who despised their lives even to death, and Naphtali also in the high places of the field.

They despised their lives to the point of death, a trait Galileans would be known for more than once in history. Galileans have been called “fiercely independent.” And they occupied “high places in the field,” which Horsley suggests may describe terraced agriculture on the hills.

After the time of Yeshua, when the Jewish war with Rome broke out in 66 CE, Josephus said of the Galileans, who were under his command, “they had always been numerous and warlike” (Jewish War 3:41-43).

The Question of Identity: Who Were the Galileans?

Misinformation abounds about the identity of the Galileans and the phenomenon of the so-called “Lost Tribes.” You may have heard either that the Galileans were gentiles, forcibly converted in the days of the Maccabean rulers known as the Hasmoneans. Or you may have heard that the Galileans were actually peoples from Judea who settled in Galilee, so that the people of Galilee and Judea really came from the same handful of tribes.

Adding to the confusion is the well-known label from Isaiah 9, which we will say more about later, referring to Galilee as Galilee of the gentiles. Furthermore, as the city of Sepphoris was being discovered in recent times, many made irresponsible claims about how a big Greco-Roman city dominated Galilee and how the people of Galilee were so enthralled with Greek and Roman culture. Some were teaching that Jesus the carpenter probably did most of his work in nearby Sepphoris. Some scholars with massive audiences have been portraying Jesus in the image of a Greek wandering philosopher, Jesus the Cynic Sage.

Horsley goes back to the biblical accounts of the Assyrian conquest of the northern tribes of Israel and also to Assyrian descriptions of the fighting in Israel and the deportation of Israelites. His conclusion? The Assyrians only took the skilled artisans, military leaders, scribes, and ruling elite. Horsley dismisses language in both the biblical account and Assyrian accounts about “all the people” being taken away. This kind of language is not to be taken literally, he says. A more detailed examination of Assyrian methods and the numbers of deportees suggests that the only valuable deportees were the ones who could be of use to the Assyrians.

Furthermore, the Assyrians immediately sent in their own administrators to take control of Galilee after conquering it in 732 and Samaria in 722. The reason they would send in administrators is to tax the agricultural land. This they could only do if the peasantry was still there, working the land as they had always done, but now for new masters.

This means that the Galilee of Yeshua’s time was populated with Israelites, with peoples who had occupied this land for over a thousand years. They had never formed their own aristocracy but had served rulers in Samaria, Judea, and foreign overlords. Yet their lives were governed by agriculture and they got along just fine whoever was in charge.

The Galilean Spirit

How did Galileans relate to Judaism, to the Temple in Judea, to the religious powers vying for control? Were they loyal to the Sadducees and High Priest? Were they interested in the Essene or Pharisaic movements seeking to renew Israel under a different vision of Torah living?

We should suspect that Galileans were never loyal to Judea or Samaria in particular. The power of the chief priests mattered little to Galilean farmers. Galilean piety was a matter of pilgrimage to the Temple, of giving tithes, of education in the Torah in village schools. Their attitude to the Temple, which we see perfectly in the teaching of Yeshua the Galilean, would be reverence for what the Temple was supposed to represent, obligation to the laws of tithe and sacrifice, but resentment toward the false priests who were not from the legitimate priestly lines and resentment toward the power-plays of the leaders in Jerusalem.

To the Galileans, the “Jews,” meaning Judeans, were corrupting the place of God’s dwelling. Yet they were obligated to tithe and make pilgrimage to the Temple in spite of such corruption. At least, this summarizes Yeshua’s feelings as represented in the gospels and fits well with the situation of Galilee. Galileans would have more naturally emphasized the aspects of tithing that were about redistribution to the needy in the local towns while Judeans emphasized the tithe as a sort of tax to make the leadership powerful and wealthy.

The developing traditions of the elders, promoted by the Pharisees and some of the Judean scribes, were a foreign notion to Galilee. The small but in some ways popular movement of Pharisaic and scribal teachers was a Judean phenomenon. The Galilean holy man best known in the Talmud is Hanina ben Dosa, who is represented as separate from the Judean schools, but reluctantly respected by Yohanan ben Zakkai due to his effectiveness in prayer. As Geza Vermes depicted Hanina in his book Jesus the Jew, so we might think of Yeshua as a pious man with Torah learning, but not in the traditions of the Judean scribes.

Matthew 22 as Galilean vs. Judean

One place where the Galilean vs. Judean ideas about God and Torah show up is Matthew 22. For more details, see my article, “Galilean vs. Judean in Matthew 22.”

Some Judeans try to trap Yeshua at the Temple into making either an unpopular statement in support of Caesar’s tax or a statement that could get him arrested if he publicly opposed Caesar’s tax. Yeshua, the Galilean, out does his opponents with a simple rebuke. He says, “Show me the coin used for the poll-tax.”

How is this a Galilean rebuke against the Judeans? The answer is simple. No Galilean would have on their person a coin which has an image of Caesar and that proclaims Caesar the filius divius, or son of god. In other words, these Judeans have been corrupted by their power games and they have become too much like Rome.

Similarly, the other stories in Matthew 22 show a Galilean Yeshua answering Judeans. The Sadducees do not have proper faith in the afterlife and are defeated in debate with a mere Galilean. A Judean Pharisee is surprised at Yeshua’s insight into the greatest commandment of Torah. And Yeshua castigates the Judean Pharisees for making themselves out to be teachers and yet they do not understand the basics of the promise of Messiah.

Yeshua is a Galilean. He reveres the Temple, but denounces the corruption of the Judean Temple-state. He reveres Torah, but denounces the authoritative stance of Judean self-proclaimed authorities. He accuses them of overruling God’s commandments and misinterpreting Torah. Yet he also teaches his disciples to respect their teaching, apparently looking for the good and throwing out the bad.

And, when the first followers of Yeshua gather for Shavuot at the Temple, there are doubtless some Judeans among them. But overall as a group, they are Galileans. Jerusalem is the holy city and the announcement of Yeshua must take hold in Jerusalem and go out from there.

But is a message about a Galilean, first believed by a group of Galileans. It is as Isaiah had said:

In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.
-Isaiah 8:23-9:1 or 9:1-2 in Christian Bibles

As Horsley explains it, “Galilee of the Nation” translates galil hagoyim, which literally means “circle of the nations.” And Galilee gets its name from the word for circle. It is not that Galilee is gentile, but that it is ringed all around by gentile cities.

And as we see when we examine the Galilean nature of Yeshua’s first followers and his own Galilean attitudes and ways, truly the light did come to Galilee. The fiercely independent Galileans saw a great light and the man of Galilee did become known to all the nations.

I read an interview with a scholar recently in which he talked about the patronizing concept of the Jewishness of Jesus. I’m not precisely sure what he had in mind as the interview did not get specific enough on this point and I have not read enough of this scholar’s work to be sure what opinions he holds. I do know one complaint he had: people who say their historical presentation of Jesus is a Jewish Jesus and then proceed to explain how Jesus is radically different from their notion of the Judaism of his time.

He seemed to be ready to dismiss the value of speaking of the Jewish Jesus completely, and yet I know he did not mean by this that we should view the historical Jesus through some other cultural lens (such as the Cynic philosopher theory of Crossan). That got me thinking: what value is there, overall, in speaking of the Jewishness of Jesus? Is that a description and a category we could better live without? What are the simplistic ideas of a Jewish Jesus we want to avoid? What are the alternatives to a Jewish Jesus in our way of speaking of the historical Jesus? I would have to start with my own story: because the “Jewish Jesus” idea is the very basis of what impelled me to study and to become what and who I am today. I cannot exaggerate the importance of the “Jewish Jesus” idea for me personally.

Perhaps some scholars, knowing the complexity and diversity of Judaism, and lamenting the ways popular presentations can distort our potential knowledge of the historical Jesus, might wish people simply wouldn’t use the language of a Jewish Jesus at all. Yet I can say that for me, in late 1987, as a college student with no religious background, the notion was life-changing.

I had just come from an agnostic background into full-on belief in God and in the person of Jesus. I had not yet read the gospels. A Sunday School teacher at a nearby church was stupefied that my faith was based on a reading of the historical narratives of the “Old Testament” and half a book by C.S. Lewis. He castigated me: “You have to read the New Testament.”

Being very impressionable at the time, I woke at 6:30 the next morning to start reading the New Testament. I had an eight o’clock class and the church told me I was supposed to read the Bible in the morning, so even though it was hard to wake so early, I thought I had to do it that way. But I was about to develop a bit more independent thinking and to become less naive.

Matthew 1:1 is where the New Testament starts and it is where I discovered the Jewish Jesus. It says he is the Son of David and the Son of Abraham. I had read recently the stories of David and Abraham. They were fresh in my mind. I can say that the moment in fraternity room reading the gospels was a turning point.

It was a turning point because I saw in an instant that there was a difference between the historical Jesus, and the Jesus of the gospels as well, and the church Jesus. And, though I want to be more forgiving, though I believe in the goodness of Christianity, even after years of reflection I have to chastise the shepherds who have allowed and continue to allow this distortion to continue.

Why doesn’t the average church and the average pastor present a fuller picture of who Jesus was and is? Why aren’t the gospels read and taken seriously? I could do a series of podcasts on that one. But my point is that the Jewish Jesus idea, as I encountered it early one morning at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta in my Zeta Beta Tau house, specifically led me to the place I met and married my wife, led to my choice of career, and has been the basis of all my work since then.

I guess you could say that Jewish Jesus idea is not something I’m ready to toss away.

I’ve heard one interesting way of talking about the perception people have of Jesus. Some see him as the “first Christian.” That is an interesting way of putting it. No one, as far as I know, actually uses that terminology. But it is between the lines of much, maybe most, writing about Jesus. The really bad stuff, the all-too-common rhetoric that makes us wince, is the Pharisees-as-Judaism and Jesus-as-the-first-Christian approach.

But the Christian Jesus idea is rampant even in less naive presentations. As this scholar said in his interview, many say their presentation includes the Jewishness of Jesus and then they proceed to explain how Jesus radically departed from the Judaism of his time. Many people are unaware of how supple, how diverse, how stretchable the various streams and ideas within broader Jewish religion and practice really were in Jesus’ time. Much of what people see as the Christian Jesus departing from his own culture and religious context is actually not new. Jewish thought and practice was full of potential reformers and renewers.

Jesus the first Christian is the Jesus I heard about, if I heard about Jesus at all in my early church experience. Mostly talk about Jesus was limited to three things: (1) the savior dying on a cross so I could have a very pleasant afterlife, (2) the resurrected man whose return to life meant I could believe in a very pleasant afterlife, and (3) the man in heaven next to the Father to whom all our prayers were directed. Sermons on the actual deeds or sayings of Jesus were quite rare. If I did hear them, the point of the sermon was always the same as the point of every sermon: you should ask Jesus into your heart so you will have a very pleasant afterlife.

An aspect of Jesus-the-first-Christian I heard more often was the converse: the Pharisees-as-what-is-wrong-with-all-religion. And Pharisees meant Jews in general.

I asked people at church during this formative stage: if Jesus was Jewish, why don’t we do anything Jewish?

I was told in various ways that: (1) the Old Testament was hard and unspiritual, (2) that Jesus died on the cross to set us free from Judaism, and (3) that Jewishness is the opposite of having Jesus in your heart so that you can have a very pleasant afterlife.

I decided that my Christian teachers were wrong about this. I decided this within the first month of my new-found faith. It wasn’t easy to resist the pull. But, fortunately, I found a few resources early on to help.

I found a Jewish Christian who saw Jesus and Judaism in a bit more of a synthesis than the other Christians I talked to. Through him I found out about and went on a trip to Israel, where my interest in the historical Jesus, Jesus the Jew, increased all the more. And I found out about Messianic Judaism. I wasn’t ready to sign on to the Messianic Jewish movement as yet, but I attended and learned from afar.

The Jewish Jesus made so much more sense to me for a number of reasons than the first-Christian-Jesus. He quoted sacred texts from Deuteronomy and Samuel and Isaiah with ease. He went to synagogue on Saturday. He read from a scroll. He kept Passover. He gave an important speech at Hanukkah. I understood his crucifixion largely through the lens of Isaiah 53. His resurrection, I found out, was part of a Jewish theme of bodily afterlife.

My understanding of the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of history needed a lot more work. It still does, of course. I got side-tracked for over a decade on my path of discovery. I was fooled for a long time by certain distortions of the message of Jesus and the apostles. But through this long period of confusion I did some things right. I am especially glad that I decided to engage in a long study of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), including a Masters degree from Emory in Atlanta in Hebrew Bible. I never went on to doctoral work and don’t know if I will, but the Hebrew Bible continues to be a love of mine even though I am specializing in the gospels and the life and message of Jesus.

My basic point is that the idea of a Jewish Jesus is far from an unnecessary correction. And the notion is much needed. And those who want to understand Jesus would do well to understand the first five books of the Bible and at least some of the Psalms, wisdom literature, and prophets.

Another distorted view of Jesus I have encountered is Jesus, the last Jew. I do not mean, of course, that Jewish people disappeared or ceased to exist after Jesus, but that the people of God were the Jews until and through Jesus, after which, everyone needed to be a Christian.

It was okay for Jesus to be Jewish, such interpreters tell us, but he was the last Jew in terms of God’s election and inclusion of people. Thus, we should read in Jesus’ teachings advanced notions that will take his disciples outside of the orbit of Judaism.

This Jesus-the-last-Jew approach is a way of affirming that Jesus is Jewish while denying and/or ignoring the fact that his deeds and message are equally Jewish and that his renewal movement is a Jewish movement.

I am not at all saying that I think non-Jews must become Jewish in order to follow Jesus. Perhaps that is the kind of distortion that well-meaning teachers of Jesus-the-first-Christian and Jesus-the-last-Jew were hoping to avoid. But I don’t think Christians can benefit from making Jesus a gentile. The path of discipleship must include and recognize the Jewish Jesus. Non-Jews follow a Jewish Messiah. I don’t care how simplistic that may sound in some academic ears. The Jesus of the gospels, and I would argue of history as well, is the Jewish Messiah. I will grant you that the term Messiah has been grossly over-simplified as well.

I first picked up on the Jewish Jesus theme from Matthew’s gospel, but all of the gospels begin with a theme of continuation, not discontinuity.

What I read in Matthew was about Jesus the son of David and the son of Abraham. That characterization of Jesus continues in Matthew’s gospel. Some have considered Matthew to be the product of a Jewish Christian, or as I would prefer to call it, a Messianic Jewish, movement in the early days.

But the other two synoptic gospels and even John begin equally with a theme of continuity. The arrival of Jesus on the scene in the gospels’ literary presentation of him is Jewish and continuous with the tradition of Israel.

Mark begins with the good news of Messiah and Son of God, Jewish terms best understood from the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism. Mark locates Jesus from the movement of John the Baptist and identifies his message as the reign or kingdom of God, a central theme of Judaism and the Hebrew Bible.

Luke begins with a priestly family in Jerusalem and writes in the style of the Greek or Septuagint version of the book of Judges. Luke’s Jesus leaps off the pages of the Hebrew Bible and has more to do with Jerusalem than Mark or Matthew have indicated.

And then there is John. His gospel has a prologue, generally thought to be added at a later stage of formation. The prologue presents Jesus as the Word. Many have sought in this a Greek notion of the Logos, and perhaps that is secondary. But the Jewish idea of the Memra, the Dibbur, the spoken words of God by which all things were created, is evident. And John, like the other gospels, locates the origins of Jesus’ movement in the work of the Jewish prophet John.

From this theme of continuation, the idea that Jesus is the next chapter in the unfolding drama of God and Israel, is matched by the theme of renewal in the gospels. This has been mistaken for a theme of replacement. The idea of the Jewish jesus is essential for rightly interpreting Jesus’ stance on things like the Temple.

To say that Jesus is anti-Temple is a gross error. It is his Father’s house. He has a zeal for it that his disciples remark about in John. He affirms its sanctity specifically in Matthew. His infancy is shrouded in a Temple community of the faithful in Luke. Even Mark is careful to show that the testimony about Jesus as a Temple-destroyer is false testimony.

Jesus is against the Temple state, the organizational entity running the Temple. His protest, the one that got him arrested and killed, is not against the edifice of God, but against its desecration and against its injustices toward the common people. It is a Temple state which demands the religious and economic obedience of the people, but which does not practice the economic redistribution of God’s Torah.

So, while I understand, probably, some of the frustration of the scholar who was interviewed, I think the statement that the historical Jesus is best understood in a Jewish context has lasting value. In fact, I think it is essential. Maybe if history had not developed the Jesus-the-first-Christian or Jesus-the-last-Jew notions we’d have been fine without using the adjective “Jewish” in our description of Jesus. But the fact that Jesus is Jewish and that his teaching and deeds are Jewish is far from obvious to most people. And the idea of the Jewish Jesus is very much needed.

The second issue Yeshua had, which is stated directly in Mark 11:16, is also discussed in the later deliberations of the Mishnah (c. 200 CE). What is the problem with carrying things through the Temple?

Adela Yarbro Collins (Mark: A Commentary) explains that the idea of commerce in the Temple courts began with Herod enlarging the Temple area and including a Portico, like the Greco-Roman markets on their temples. Prior to this, tradition says the necessary trade (selling animals, changing money) happened on the Mount of Olives.

Maurice Casey (Jesus of Nazareth) explains Yeshua’s very plausible prohibition of carrying vessels through holy space, which is similar to the later rabbinic law from the Mishnah, “one should not enter the Temple mount with . . . his moneybag” (m. Berakhot 9:5).

The two conflicts of Yeshua involving idolatrous coins concern the Temple tax coinage and Yeshua’s protest action (Mark 11:15-19) and the entrapment question about paying the poll tax to Caesar (Mark 12:13-17).

The Temple Tax in Mark 11:15-19
The Temple state (chief priests mainly) required the Tyrian shekel to be used in paying the Temple tax of one half shekel per household. The Tyrian shekel was more pure in its metal content than other forms of coinage, but had an image of Baal Melkart on it (the Syrian Hercules) and was therefore idolatrous. The Temple state’s priority was not holiness, but commerce, power, and wealth (see Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth, pgs. 413-15). The money-changers were actually bringing the image of Baal or Hercules onto God’s Temple mount.

The Poll Tax in Mark 12:13-17
The poll tax was one of various forms of taxation imposed by Rome and involved each man, free or slave, paying a Roman denarius (had to be that specific coin) as a combination of a census and a tax (the number of coins indicating the population). The Roman denarius had an image of Caesar, already thought by many to be an idolatrous image due to the Roman imperial cult, and said on it pontifex maximus (highest priest) and DIVI AUG[ustus] F[ili] AUGUSTUS (son of the deified Augustus, see Casey pg. 423). The Pharisees actually ganged up with Herodians to entrap Yeshua and their hypocrisy was exposed when Yeshua had a Herodian in the crowd produce a coin with the Caesar as god image on it.

Mark’s account is the best of all four gospels to help us reconstruct what happened. This incident is of great importance, probably being what sealed Yeshua’s doom in the eyes of the Temple state and Rome. We should read Yeshua’s actions in the giant Temple complex as a commotion, not bringing the whole Temple activity to a standstill. Yeshua acted alone and did not ask his disciples to participate.

In the comments that follow, I will point to some resources for further study, consider the sequence as narrated in Mark, and put this crucial incident in Yeshua’s life in its context.

RESOURCES FOR FURTHER STUDY
Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth is a monumental summary of historical scholarship by an expert in the Aramaic of Yeshua’s time. Casey has written on the Aramaic sources of Mark’s gospel and his work has interested me so much I am working with a rabbi friend and mentor this year to start learning Galilean Aramaic and will work through Casey’s research and read DSS texts and Midrashic texts in Galilean Aramaic over the next few years. Casey covers the Temple protest on pgs 408-415.

Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, in the Hermeneia series. Collins is excellent at providing examples from the Greco-Roman and Jewish sources to provide historical context. I first learned from her some of the issues surrounding Herod’s expansion of the Temple complex and how it informs Yeshua’s action of protest.

Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, in the Sacra Pagina series. Harrington is a well-informed and balanced commentator who values both tradition and context. I think his comments are a sane balance between mere historical inquiry (like Casey) and traditional understandings of the gospel. I do not think what we can know about Yeshua is limited to what historians can give evidence for. I think a storied epistemology (see my Yeshua in Context and an appreciation for the living presence of Yeshua in the tradition should also inform our knowledge.

COMMENTARY ON MARK 11:15-19
The following sequence from Mark is helpful to restate:
(1) Yeshua enters the Temple, likely the outer courts.
(2) Yeshua begins driving out traders and overturning some tables.
(3) Yeshua preaches against and takes action to prevent people carrying vessels (baskets, bowls, money bags) through the outer courts.
(4) Yeshua preaches from Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11.
(5) Yeshua’s protest becomes known to the chief priests and also the scribes.
(6) Yeshua’s action draws a crowd which prevents his immediate arrest.

What should be obvious is that Yeshua reveres the Temple and protests the Temple state. Any interpretation which assumes Yeshua wanted the Temple to be destroyed is incorrect. The proper running of the Temple would involve redistributing tithes to the poor and make it a place of God’s Presence, of shared resources, and of joy. The Temple state has made it a place of taxation without redistribution and a source of power and position for the elite.

What does Yeshua specifically oppose here? He opposes trading in the Temple courts, carrying vessels through, and filling the place of prayer in such a way as to prevent the main activity which should be here: prayer.

Collins explains that the idea of commerce in the Temple courts began with Herod enlarging the Temple area and including a Portico, like the Greco-Roman markets on their temples. Prior to this, tradition says the necessary trade (selling animals, changing money) happened on the Mount of Olives.

Maurice Casey (Jesus of Nazareth) explains Yeshua’s very plausible prohibition of carrying vessels through holy space, which is similar to the later rabbinic law, “one should not enter the Temple mount with . . . his moneybag” (m. Berakhot 9:5, see also Harrington).

Isaiah 56 is about foreigners and eunuchs in the Temple, but also describes its courts as a place for prayer. Yeshua’s main objection seems to have nothing to do with gentiles (the outer courts were used by Jews and non-Jews for prayer, as numerous New Testament texts and other sources confirm). The commerce here at Passover crowded the courts and prevented prayer. Instead of worship, the Temple was a market. This is also the point of the Jeremiah 7 text, where the prophet complains that the leadership have made of the Temple a source of personal power and enrichment instead of a place of prayer and worship.

An additional issue in the money-changing is that the Temple state required the Tyrian shekel, which was more pure in its metal content, but which had an image of Baal Melkart on it (the Syrian Hercules) and was therefore idolatrous (Collins, Casey).

The Temple state’s priority was not holiness, but commerce, power, and wealth. Yeshua’s protest action did not stop Temple commerce and was symbolic. But it drew the attention of the Temple state and also a large crowd. By the time Yeshua completed it, his arrest was certain and the chief priests had what they would need to convince Rome to execute him.

After the commentary, I will suggest a few points of application for discipleship in our time.

MARK 11:12-14, 20-25
Yeshua curses a fig tree (vss. 12-14).
In between is Yeshua’s Temple protest action (vss. 15-19).
The next morning’s lesson from the fig tree (vss. 20-25).

This whole section in vss. 14-25 is a classic example of what some have called the Markan sandwich technique. He begins to tell a story, follows with another scene which may not seem to be related, and then returns to the story. So, here, Yeshua curses a fig tree and then the story of his Temple protest action is related. But the next morning, the story comes back to the fig tree.

The episode raises a number of questions. Is Yeshua’s cursing a fig tree rational or irrational? Does the fig tree symbolize something specific and should we try to find the exact reference? Which mountain does Yeshua have in mind for being moved by prayer? How does the fig tree lesson relate to the Temple protest action?

To begin, we need to understand the seasons for figs in Israel. By Passover (April) there would usually be leaves, but no figs. By Shavuot (June), the same time as the wheat harvest, would be the early crop of figs (there are two fig crops a year in Israel’s climate). Therefore, and as Mark is careful to point out, it is irrational for Yeshua to expect figs at Passover. This means his action with the fig tree is purely symbolic. His curious action, a prophetic enactment, is meant to make the disciples curious.

The next morning, after the Temple protest action, Peter remembers the fig tree as they pass it, now brown and withered. Does Yeshua now launch into a lesson about Israel being fruitless and unworthy, as we might expect? Not at all. He launches into a lesson about the power of prayer. What could it all mean?

First, it is helpful to know that the fig comes up as a symbol in the prophets several times for Israel’s faith and fruitfulness. Micah speaks of God’s disappointment at finding no fig to eat in Israel (7:1). Hosea describes Israel as a withered fig tree without fruit (9:10). Yet the promise of a great age of peace is that every man will sit under his vine and fig tree (Isa 36:16; Mic 4:4).

Second, we should forget about some specific symbolic meaning, since Yeshua gives no such clues. Neither should we read the mountain of vs. 23 with some specific reference (as if this is about the Mount of Olives and the Zechariah 14 imagery, as some interpreters do). Yeshua does not take the lesson in this direction. Note that Yeshua’s words about faith moving a mountain come up again in Paul in 1 Cor 13:2 (“faith so as to move mountains”).

What we have here is a potent contrast between the powerful Temple state and the humble disciple group. The Temple, though holy, has become corrupt through its leadership. It is a religious institution of vast wealth and power. But it is not effective at making Israel holy and fruitful. So, Yeshua, powerless and alone, makes an ineffective protest action, an irrational act which cannot succeed (like his irrational expectation of a fig tree to have early fruit). But while Yeshua’s protest does not bring the Temple to its knees, his curse does wither a fig tree.

This leads to a lesson about prayer. The humble disciple group has more power than all the Temple state. If they do God’s will and pray, nothing is beyond their ability. God will move mountains, shake empires, and change the world through them. Their power is not in wealth or position, but in prayer, forgiveness, and faith.

DISCIPLESHIP LESSONS:
… The power of the Yeshua community is never going to be in money, position, and power over people to govern or coerce.
… The power of the Yeshua community comes from God and is based on faith and prayer.
… We should not read that we have the power to move mountains, but that God does. Thus we have no “blank check” from God here, but rather the promise that as we serve him he will move mountains and use us along the way.
… The Temple state and its leaders made the error of setting goals based on personal power and trying to make them come to pass.
… Yeshua, who has real power, does not use it to coerce. He could have smitten the Temple completely, but instead made a protest action which changed nothing. He stands for right even if his actions do not overthrow evil. So the Yeshua community stands for right even though we cannot change evil.
… Unlike the Temple state Yeshua protested, our calling as a disciple community is to understand and discern God’s purposes in healing people and the world and to stand praying for mountains to move as God wills. Our power is in togetherness, faith, and prayer centered on our wise understanding of God’s purposes, not agendas created to manipulate the process or establish power structures.
… The Jewish tradition of prayer with additional prayers and teachings by Yeshua is a good tradition which accomplishes these purposes for the disciple community as Yeshua taught us (note that Mark 11:25 is the closest Mark comes to echoing Yeshua’s prayer recorded in Matthew and Luke).

The more Torah the more life . . . he who has acquired for himself the words of Torah has acquired for himself life in the World to Come.
–Pirkei Avot 2:7.

As water is life to the world, so is Torah life to the world. As water descends from heaven, so Torah descends from heaven . . . As water cleanses man from defilement, so the Torah purifies the unclean (morally).
–Song of Songs Rabbah 1:2.

There are a number of ways in which Judaism has developed the practice of Torah, the study of Torah, the mysticism of Torah in ways that fill the role Yeshua could and would play. Deeds of Torah become the basis of purification from sin in some sources. Study and practice of Torah gives life in the World to Come. In the Torah service liturgy, we read that God has implanted eternal life within the Jewish people, so that Torah becomes the divine-life within Israel.

There was a need in the developing theology and practice of Judaism to fill categories of redemption and ascending to the levels of divine knowledge and life in the World to Come. The New Testament and Christianity had Jesus and Judaism filled many of these categories with Torah.

When we, in Messianic Judaism, speak of Yeshua as Torah, we mean to say that God truly did send his Word-Wisdom-Knowledge-Revelation into the world. This certainly did happen in the form of Torah, prophecy, wisdom, and all of scripture. But the highest revelation of all is Yeshua, who emanates from God and is One with God. As Hebrews puts it:

After God spoke long ago in various portions and in various ways to our ancestors through the prophets, in these last days he has spoken to us in a son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he created the world. The Son is the radiance of his glory and the representation of his essence, and he sustains all things by his powerful word…
–Hebrews 1:1-3.

Another question might be, “Why don’t the gospels ever depict Yeshua offering a sacrifice or mention that he did so?”

From the point of view of many Christians, if someone were to ask, “Would Jesus do that?” it would be hard for most to imagine it: Jesus, bringing an animal so its blood could be poured out as a cleansing for sin?

One objection might be: since Yeshua never sinned, there is no way he would offer a sacrifice. To this objection we can offer two answers:
(a) Yeshua was baptized by John in a baptism for repentance, which seems a rather parallel case.
(b) Sacrifices were offered for worship and for the festivals, so one did not require a sin issue to bring an offering.

On the other side of the question, we might note a few things Yeshua said about the sacrifices and the Temple:
– He believed in the sanctity of the Temple: Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house? (Luke 2:49).
– He believed in the sanctity of the altar and its offerings: For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it (Matt 23:19-20).
– He spoke as if bringing sacrifices was a normal part of life with God: leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your gift (Matt 5:24).

We might argue as follows:
1. Yeshua was obedient in all things to his Father.
2. The offerings in the Temple were commandments.
3. Yeshua would have offered them as commanded.

Paul’s statement about Yeshua, that he was born under the Law (Gal 4:4) further backs this up.

But, that leads to an even more interesting point, once we can agree that, definitely, Yeshua offered gifts on the altar of God at the Temple in Jerusalem:
1. Yeshua surely would have brought sacrifices on various occasions to the Temple.
2. The gospels never depict him doing so.
3. There must be a reason, which we could possibly guess, why the gospels do not show Yeshua doing something he certainly must have done.

What could that reason be?

Let’s suggest that the reason is simple: the gospels assume many things about the Jewish world in which its characters lived and moved and assume the readers will share in these assumptions.

Put another way: it did not occur to the evangelists that any audience would ever imagine Yeshua as something other than a Torah-keeping, Temple-worshipping Jew. Things like the sacrifices are part of the shared world which did not seem to require any notice in the accounts of Yeshua’s life.

This is a principle which should be applied across the board to the life of Yeshua and the disciples and apostles: their covenantal practices of obedience to Torah should be assumed even where not specifically stated.

Two of my favorite New Testament scholars, great thinkers about historical issues and the life of Yeshua, are N.T. Wright and Raymond Brown. Alas, both are prone to make anti-Temple statements at times:

He [Jesus] was simply declaring that it [the Temple] was on its way to being redundant. . . . I think that Jesus saw himself, and perhaps his followers with him, as the new Temple (Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, p. 426).

The first theme [in the Fourth Gospel, book of signs, chs. 2-12] is that of replacing Jewish institutions and religious views . . . the replacement of the water for Jewish purifications . . . the Temple . . . worship at Jerusalem (Brown and Moloney, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, p. 305).

Part of my aim in chapters 7 and 14 is to show that Yeshua was not opposed to the Temple itself, did not indicate that its purpose was coming to an end, and would not have disagreed with the promises in the prophets of Israel of a beautiful role for the Temple in the coming age (see Isaiah 2 as one example).

I offer here a few of several references to keep in mind when considering Yeshua’s reverence for the Temple. You can find more in the book:

(1) Yeshua called the Temple his Father’s house (Luke 2:49; John 2:16; 14:2).

(2) Yeshua acted out of zeal for God’s house (John 2:17).

(3) Yeshua upheld the ongoing sanctity of the Temple and altar (Matthew 23:19-22).

(4) There is a difference between being against the Temple and sacrifices (which he was not) and against the Temple state (the leadership with all its compromises and injustices). See my coming Audio-Commentary on Mark for more about Yeshua’s major emphasis on opposing the Temple state.