The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

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Ben C. Smith
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The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Subject: Blasphemy & the passion narrative before Mark.
andrewcriddle wrote:This blog post does-marks-jesus-prophesy-the-destruction-of-the-temple may possibly be relevant to Mark's views about Jesus and the temple.
Thanks. My question is more about what Mark thinks of the accusation that Jesus said he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. This exact prediction is placed only here in the gospel, and it is placed on the mouths of false witnesses. The saying in Mark 13.1-2 lacks anything about rebuilding the temple, and does not predict that Jesus himself will destroy it (or the Herodian buildings, or anything); furthermore, it is presented as a private conversation between Jesus and his disciples. The options for what Mark intends begin to multiply:
  1. The accusation is false, and is a complete invention of the false witnesses.
  2. The accusation is false, and is a garbled overhearing of the conversation in 13.2 and/or 9.31 (both of which are presented as private conversations).
  3. The accusation is true, but the saying actually goes unnarrated in the gospel; furthermore, the saying is misunderstood (taken too literally).
  4. The accusation is true, but the saying actually goes unnarrated in the gospel; furthermore, the saying is understood correctly.
If John 2.19 were actually a verse somewhere in Mark, nobody would bat an eye: Jesus said it, the Jews heard it, and they reported it at his hearing with a slightly tendentious rewording, since in John he does not explicitly say that he himself will destroy the temple. But without such a verse earlier in Mark, it is not necessarily clear to me what Mark intends.

Crossan, IIRC, thinks that this saying had some currency amongst early Christians, and that each one interpreted it as best s/he could, so to speak. It goes in one direction in Matthew 26.61 and Mark 14.58, in another in John 2.19, in yet another in Acts 6.14, and in quite another again in Thomas 71. If this saying had currency amongst early Christians, then that would indicate some sort of tradition before Mark, one to which Mark is reacting. This would explain why the saying receives no introduction in Mark: the evangelist expects his readership to have already heard it, and he is simply putting it into what he believes to be its proper context (perhaps favoring #1 or possibly #2 above).

But I have not given this matter much thought for many years now, and am more than ready to hear different takes on it.

Ben.
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Michael BG
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Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by Michael BG »

Years ago I believed that behind 14.58 was an historical saying of Jesus that Mark is trying to convince his readers Jesus didn’t say.

I do not believe that Jesus predicted his resurrection after three days or on the third day (Mk 8:31, 9:9, 9:31, 10:34). I think these predictions were created by Christians after the disciples had their visions of Jesus after his death.

The prediction of the destruction of the Temple (Mk 13:2) is a Christian creation after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

I have stated recently – “I am happy to assume there was a pre-Marcan passion narrative” and I have argued that 14:58 is part of this pre-Marcan passion narrative. This makes no sense!

It is not possible for Mark 13:2 to be a recent Christian creation and 14:58 to be part of an early written Christian source.

I am not aware of any Jewish eschatological expectation that the earthly Temple would be destroyed during the eschatological event and so I have no reason for Jesus to tell his disciples that it will happen. If anyone knows of any Jewish eschatological expectation that the earthly Temple would be destroyed during the eschatological event I am very interesting in seeing such evidence.

Therefore I am left to conclude that Mark 14:55-64 is a creation of Mark’s for his gentile readers to lessen the involvement of Roman authorities. The trial before the Jewish authorities as presented by Mark is not held in public and there are no witnesses to it which would pass the information on to the early Christians.

It is possible to speculate that when Mark was writing his gospel there were Christians who were saying that Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple and others who were saying he would destroy the Temple and rebuild it and Mark agreed with the first group but not the second!
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Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by Charles Wilson »

Nice to see you, MichaelBG!

Ben --

There is another possibility. If "Jesus" was (rewritten from) The Mishmarot Group Immer, then Bilgah would possibly be on Duty before the Sabbath, say, Wednesday. The Coup members of Immer would be "Officially" on Duty after Wednesday on the following Sabbath. The Passover would initiate the Coup and the Sabbath in 3 days would mark the Re-Dedication of the Temple when Immer rotated in.

When would that have happened? That would be 4 BCE.
Funny how that works out.

CW
outhouse
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Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

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Ben C. Smith wrote: My question is more about what Mark thinks of the accusation that Jesus said he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. This exact prediction is placed only here in the gospel, and it is placed on the mouths of false witnesses.


Ben.

Lest keep it simple, what do we know for sure?


It has a double meaning. It was rhetorically building authority for the Jesus character and his cleansing of the temple. The temple is also allegory for Jesus himself.
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Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

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outhouse wrote:
Ben C. Smith wrote: My question is more about what Mark thinks of the accusation that Jesus said he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. This exact prediction is placed only here in the gospel, and it is placed on the mouths of false witnesses.
Lest keep it simple, what do we know for sure?
Okay, good idea. Keep it simple.
It has a double meaning. It was rhetorically building authority for the Jesus character and his cleansing of the temple. The temple is also allegory for Jesus himself.
:mrgreen: That does not sound simple at all!
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Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

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Michael BG wrote:The prediction of the destruction of the Temple (Mk 13:2) is a Christian creation after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

I have stated recently – “I am happy to assume there was a pre-Marcan passion narrative” and I have argued that 14:58 is part of this pre-Marcan passion narrative. This makes no sense!

It is not possible for Mark 13:2 to be a recent Christian creation and 14:58 to be part of an early written Christian source.
Consider the following by E. P. Sanders on page 376 of The Historical Jesus in Recent Research, edited by McKnight and Dunn:

We should first observe that the existence of the threat form (“I will destroy,” Mark 14:58; implied by Mark 15:29 and Acts 6:14, and probably by John 2:19) makes it virtually incredible that the entire saying could be a vaticinium ex eventu, a “prophecy” after the event. After the temple was in fact destroyed by the Romans in the year 70, the Christians would not have composed a threat by Jesus that he would destroy it, nor would they have turned an existing prophecy that the temple would be destroyed into such a threat. If we had only the prediction, we could believe it to be a vaticinium (‘prophecy’), though perhaps not a very likely one, but we cannot explain the origin of the double form in this way.

But I am not sure I buy this argument. What do you think?
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Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Subject: Blasphemy & the passion narrative before Mark.
andrewcriddle wrote:This blog post does-marks-jesus-prophesy-the-destruction-of-the-temple may possibly be relevant to Mark's views about Jesus and the temple.
Hi again, Andrew. You wrote:

Eliav argues that, if read without any reference to either the events of 70 CE or to the parallels in Matthew and Luke, this is not a reference to the destruction of the Temple itself but a prophesy of the destruction of the massive Herodian buildings on the Temple Mount surrounding the Temple.

I am not sure I can accept this. If we could be assured that Mark 13 was something akin to a transcript of an event in the life of Jesus, perhaps we could imagine Jesus gesturing to one set of buildings but not another or some such thing. But without that assurance I think we are stuck evaluating the passage as intending to convey meaning to its readers. On that level, I notice that the temple is the only building actually mentioned by name in the context, and I notice a certain emphasis on totality: "not one stone". Without actually being able to "see" the gestures and positions of the participants in this scene, how is the reader to know that "these buildings" include the entire Herodian temple complex but exclude the temple itself?
Last edited by Ben C. Smith on Wed Jun 05, 2019 12:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Michael BG
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Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by Michael BG »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Consider the following by E. P. Sanders on page 376 of The Historical Jesus in Recent Research, edited by McKnight and Dunn:

We should first observe that the existence of the threat form (“I will destroy,” Mark 14:58; implied by Mark 15:29 and Acts 6:14, and probably by John 2:19) makes it virtually incredible that the entire saying could be a vaticinium ex eventu, a “prophecy” after the event. After the temple was in fact destroyed by the Romans in the year 70, the Christians would not have composed a threat by Jesus that he would destroy it, nor would they have turned an existing prophecy that the temple would be destroyed into such a threat. If we had only the prediction, we could believe it to be a vaticinium (‘prophecy’), though perhaps not a very likely one, but we cannot explain the origin of the double form in this way.

But I am not sure I buy this argument. What do you think?
I agree with you. I think it is possible for a Christian to see the destruction of the Temple as the work of Jesus and so attribute a saying to Jesus saying he would destroy it and rebuild it. As I wrote I would be more convinced if there was a tradition for the Temple to be destroyed during the end times.
Ben C. Smith wrote:
Hi again, Andrew. You wrote:

Eliav argues that, if read without any reference to either the events of 70 CE or to the parallels in Matthew and Luke, this is not a reference to the destruction of the Temple itself but a prophesy of the destruction of the massive Herodian buildings on the Temple Mount surrounding the Temple.

I am not sure I can accept this. If we could be assured that Mark 13 was something akin to a transcript of an event in the life of Jesus, perhaps we could imagine Jesus gesturing to one set of buildings but not another or some such thing. But without that assurance I think we are stuck evaluating the passage as intending to convey meaning to its readers. On that level, I notice that the temple is the only building actually mentioned by name in the context, and I notice a certain emphasis on totality: "not one stone". Without actually being able to "see" the gestures and positions of the participants in this scene, how is the reader to know that "these buildings" include the entire Herodian temple complex but excludes the temple itself?
What is strange about 13:2 is that it didn’t happen. Today one of the walls of the Temple still exists.
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Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Michael BG wrote:What is strange about 13:2 is that it didn’t happen. Today one of the walls of the Temple still exists.
Yes, but to be fair, the Western Wall is a retaining wall. It is not itself the wall to a building.
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andrewcriddle
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Re: The temple saying & traditions before Mark.

Post by andrewcriddle »

Ben C. Smith wrote:Subject: Blasphemy & the passion narrative before Mark.
andrewcriddle wrote:This blog post does-marks-jesus-prophesy-the-destruction-of-the-temple may possibly be relevant to Mark's views about Jesus and the temple.
Hi again, Andrew. You wrote:

Eliav argues that, if read without any reference to either the events of 70 CE or to the parallels in Matthew and Luke, this is not a reference to the destruction of the Temple itself but a prophesy of the destruction of the massive Herodian buildings on the Temple Mount surrounding the Temple.

I am not sure I can accept this. If we could be assured that Mark 13 was something akin to a transcript of an event in the life of Jesus, perhaps we could imagine Jesus gesturing to one set of buildings but not another or some such thing. But without that assurance I think we are stuck evaluating the passage as intending to convey meaning to its readers. On that level, I notice that the temple is the only building actually mentioned by name in the context, and I notice a certain emphasis on totality: "not one stone". Without actually being able to "see" the gestures and positions of the participants in this scene, how is the reader to know that "these buildings" include the entire Herodian temple complex but excludes the temple itself?
Hi Ben

Two points.

i/ The real question is whether Jesus in Mark includes the temple itself in his prophecy of destruction. Whether the prophesy included all the temple mount biuldings or only some of the temple mount buildings may be a minor point.
ii/ It is probably worth noting how both Luke and Matthew make it unambiguous that Jesus is prophesying the destruction of the temple itself in a way that Mark does not and that Mark calls the witnesses to Jesus prophesying the destruction of the temple false witnesses in a way that Matthew does not unambiguously do.

Andrew Criddle
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