On 16 Mai, 12:44, e_space <[email protected]> wrote:
Jesus displayed righteous
> indignation when "barbarians" were using a "holy temple" as a place to
> ply their trades. Lets think about this for a moment. Does it really
> matter where one makes their gold from selling frankincense and
> myrrh?
>
> First of all, if "god" created heaven and earth, then all places on
> earth are holy. Secondly, Jesus didn't design or build the temple,
> wasn't a member of it, and really had no business telling the
> merchants what to do there. NO place is holier than another, except in
> perception, which of course motives a large percentage of homo-
> sapians,
On a point of fact, e, your exegesis of this event, is based on a
factually false impression of the backround of and the actual issues
involved in the cleansing of the temple, the earliest description of
which can be found in Mark 11:15-19 (the story is also told in Mt
21:12-17, Lk 19:45-48, Jn 2:14-16). The general consensus is that,
given the presence of congruent narratives in all the first sources,
the story has a pretty firm grounding in the earliest traditions and
has a high likelihood of factual origins.
The basic point is that the Temple system was a massive parasitic rip-
off machine. The High Priests nominated the Temple area as sacrally
holy ground, which would prohibit the exercise of commerce within its
presincts. Given that Jews saw themselves as divinely obliged to make
pilgrimage to the Temple and sacrifice there, this was an
inconvenience to those who wished to purchase sacrificial animals (the
weren't always killed - doves were released) on the spot. The priests
upped the ante however; sacrificial animals had to be certified for
purity. So you either had to buy a certificate of purity on the spot,
or buy a ritually certified as pure, also on the spot. But commerce
was forbidden on the Mount. No problem, you just had to establish a
ritually pure temple currency - with these coins you could then trade
in the Temple area. So you had to have ritual money-changers.
Certified as ritually pure, of course. And who did all the
certification? Right, the priests.
This is the kind of scheme worthy of comparison with Newman and
Redford in "the Sting." With the difference that it was completely
legal, not subject to any outside interest and completely in your
face. And this was the system which got Jesus pissed. This is
certainly the point emphasised in the synoptic stories. It was a
strike against exploitative corruption and also against - rather than
in favour of, as you claim - the separation of the sacral from the
secular world. One of Jesus' central teachings was the overcoming of
the sacral-secular duality - everything is sacred; so there's no
reason to prohibit the use of ordinary money on the Temple Mount.
The Johannine version (written 70 years after the events they
described and a result of intensive meditation on, discussive and
reworking of the tradition [under strong influence of other
philosophical and religious traditions]) goes on with deeper symbolism
with the opening of deeper themes through allusions to Jesus' body as
Temple, a prophesy of the passion, etc. But, fundamentally the
Johannine tradition concurs with the synoptic trope of the overcoming
of the cesura between sacral and secular, developing this further in
the concept of Word (Logos) made flesh.
Francis
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