Cross and destruction of the Temple in one breath

[FransJVermeiren]

Daniel M. Gurtner (2006) The Veil of the Temple in History and Legend Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49/1; pp. 97–114

http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/ ... urtner.pdf

MrMacSon, thank you for your interesting reading suggestion. Especially Gurtner’s text on Jerome and Tertullian is illuminating. Gurtner leans on Raymond Brown’s The Death of the Messiah in which the latter discusses the six mentions of the veil in Jerome. After a short discussion of Jerome’s Epistle 18a, this is what Gurtner writes about the veil in the Jerome’s Epistle 46 and Commentary on Matthew (my underlining):

He says nearly the same thing in his Epistle 46, yet he suggests that the voice announcing departure was spoken at the same time that Christ was crucified. In his Commentarium in Matt. 4, Jerome makes reference to a gospel in Hebrew characters, to which he often refers. In that gospel, he says, “We read that the temple lintel of infinite size was shattered and fractured.” Apparently the broken lintel then tore the veil. (…) Jerome then repeats the Josephus reference about the outcry of the angelic hosts.

So for Jerome there seems to be a connection between Jesus’ crucifixion, the tearing of the veil and the voice announcing God’s departure from the Temple. This departure scene is described by Josephus as having taken place during the war (War V, 412 and VI, 299). Note also that the breaking of the lintel of the Temple and the tearing of its veil are related. All these elements seem to refer to the war.

After Jerome, Gurtner discusses the veil in Tertullian. I quote:

Other early Christians have followed Josephus and Jerome, particularly Tertullian (Adv. Iudaeus 13.15), who says of the rending of the veil (velum scissum) text that the Holy Spirit (an angel?) which dwelt in the temple prior to Christ’s death departed afterwards: “He deserted the Temple [leaving it] desolate, rending the veil and taking away from it the holy spirit.”

Here also we see the relation between Jesus’ death, the tearing of the veil and the departing of the Temple’s holy spirit.

There is also the famous passage from the Babylonian Talmud’s Tractate Gittin (56b):

Vespasian sent Titus who said, Where is their God, the rock in whom they trusted? This was the wicked Titus who blasphemed and insulted Heaven. What did he do? He took a harlot by the hand and entered the Holy of Holies and spread out a scroll of the Law and committed a sin on it. He then took a sword and slashed the curtain.
It is not important who exactly damaged the curtain, but the tearing of the veil is described convincingly as a war event.

Mark 15, 37-38: ‘And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.’

The readers or listeners of Mark knew that Mark’s story was about overwhelming recent history, just enough veiled to mislead the Romans. But the reader understood – and we also can. Jesus was executed in August 70 CE, when Titus and/or his men cut the veil of the Temple in two.

[John06]

The Testament of Benjamin 9 verses 3-5 closely link Jesus’ crucifixion and the tearing of the veil of the Temple. (The square brackets around the translations below indicate that these verses are considered a Christian interpolation in the Jewish text.)

I give two translations:
1. Charles, R.H., in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol II.
[And He shall enter into the [first] temple, and there shall the Lord be treated with outrage, and He shall be lifted up upon a tree. And the veil of the temple shall be rent, and the Spirit of God shall pass on to the Gentiles as fire poured forth. And He shall ascend from Hades and shall pass from earth into heaven. And I know how lowly He shall be upon earth, and how glorious in heaven.]

2. Kee, H.C., in Charlesworth, James C. (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, volume I.
[He shall enter the first temple, and there the Lord will be abused and will be raised up on wood. And the temple curtain shall be torn, and the spirit of God will move on to all nations as a fire is poured out. And he shall ascend from Hades and shall pass on from earth to heaven. I understand how humble he will be on the earth, and how splendid in heaven.]*

* = footnote in Charlesworth: “Perhaps the most explicit of all Christian interpolations. The tearing of the Temple veil is mentioned in TLevi 10:3 and may be a “prediction” after the event of Jerusalem’s fall in A.D. 70, or it could be an authentic predictive note that was exploited by Christians and expanded into the present extended interpolation.”

Testament of Levi 10:3-4 goes as follows: And you shall act lawlessly in Israel, with the result that Jerusalem cannot bear the presence of your wickedness, but the curtain of the Temple will be torn, so that it will no longer conceal your shameful behavior.You shall be scattered as captives among the nations, where you will be a disgrace and a curse.

TLevi 10:3-4 is interesting as it connects the tearing of the veil with the diaspora of 70 CE. The Lives of the Prophets 12 – Habakkuk verse 11-13a more explicitly connects the tearing of the veil with the destruction of the Temple: Concerning the end of the temple, he foretold that it would be brought to pass by a western nation. Then, he said, the veil of the inner sanctuary will be torn to pieces, and the capitals of the two pillars will be taken away, and no one will know where they are. (Translated by Charles Cutler Torrey)

As Matthew 27:51 also chronologically connects the tearing of the veil of the Temple with Jesus’ crucifixion, he says in a veiled way that Jesus was crucified during the culminating war events of the summer of 70 CE. This veil-cross connection is a nice supplement to my time shift theory that the core events described in the canonical Gospels took place during the war of the Jews against the Romans in 66-70 CE.

hello, thanks