Temple Incident

Why Were There Money Changers in the Temple?

All Jewish men over the age of 20 were required to pat a half-shekel tax to the Temple by the 25th of Adar.  “If one chose to pay the tax in the Temple, there were 13 shofar-chests in the Temple court which were used to collect different offerings (m. Shekalim 6: 5). One was inscribed ‘New shekel dues’ which was for that year” (Franz, 82; cf., Köstenberger, John, 105).

m.Seqal 1.3  On the fifteenth of that same month [Adar] they set up money changers’ tables in the provinces. On the twenty-fifth [of Adar] they set them up in the Temple. Once they were set up in the Temple, they began to exact pledges [from those who had not paid the tax in specie]. (Tr. Neusner, The Mishnah, 252).

Moneychangers were required because the half-shekel Temple Tax had to be paid with a Tyrian tetradrachma. Many popular preachers will explain this money exchange by observing that the Tyrian coin did not have the image of a Roman emperor who claimed to be God on it, making it more acceptable for the Jewish Temple tax (virtually every commentary says this!).

Temple Tax

But Jerome Murphy-O’Connor has disputed this majority opinion by pointing out that the Tyrian coin used an image of the god Melkart (Herakles).  Melkart (“King of the city”) was more or less equivalent to Baal of the Hebrew Bible. The coin was replaced during the revolt against Rome by the Judean shekel, indicating the rebels thought the coin was offensive.

Perhaps there was a more practical reason coins were exchanged for Tyrian tetradrachma: this coin had a higher silver content than other coins (Carson, John, 178). According to Franz, “These coins average 14.2 gm in weight and were minted with good silver” (82).

Why then does Jesus attack these sellers and money-changers? As I observed in a previous post, most people assume the vendors were making an outrageous profit by selling in the Temple. Popular preachers often use the analogy of vendors at an airport or sports arena. Since they had a captive market, they were free to price-gouge on sacrifice prices. But as Carson says with reference to the Temple Incident in John’s Gospel, “there is no evidence that the animal merchants and money-changers or the priestly authorities who allowed them to use the outer court were corrupt companions in graft” (John, 179).

Since this exchange of coins was restricted to the outer courts, Köstenberger suggests the main point of Jesus’ attack is that the sellers are taking up the area of the Temple where the Gentiles are permitted to worship (John, 106). I am not sure how many Gentiles actually came to Passover to worship and it is not certain the money changers and animal vendors took up the entire area.

But it is true the coin exchange (in order to obtain the best silver) and any profit on the animals sold was not the purpose of the Temple in the first place. Even if the vendors were providing a useful service for worshipers, they distracted from the real point of the Temple. “These activities would have detracted. . . from the proper function of the temple as a house of prayer for all nations” (Smith, 267).

How does this historical background help shed some light on Jesus’ intentions in the Temple Action? What is his symbolic action saying about the worship in the Temple?

Bibliography: Gordon Franz, “‘Does Your Teacher Not Pay The [Temple] Tax?’ (Mt 17:24-27),” Bible and Spade (1997) 10 (1997): 81-89. Barry D. Smith, “Objections to the Authenticity of Mark 11:17 Reconsidered,” WTJ 54 (1992): 267-71.

Jesus and the Temple

In Mark, the Temple incident is framed by the curse of the Fig Tree and provides the clues we need to fully interpret that parabolic action. In fact, this action is also symbolic. Jesus arrives at the Temple as the messiah, inspects the Temple and finds it corrupt. He begins his final week with a dramatic disruption in the area used for selling sacrificial animals.

wwjd-whipThe Temple complex was huge. The area with buying and selling was approximately 450×300 meters! Craig Evans suggests it is unlikely that Jesus completely disrupted all commerce in the area, and most people would not have been aware Jesus was making a demonstration in one area of the Temple. The action is symbolic. By overturning tables and causing the chaos that he does, he challenges the religious authorities to be obedient to scripture by making the Temple a house of prayer and not a den of thieves.

Jesus performs a symbolic action like classic prophet from the Hebrew Bible. The prophets regularly criticized the Temple leadership, especially in Jeremiah (7:14, 34; 12:7; 22:5; 22:5; 26:9). Since Jeremiah is a favorite text of Jesus, it is no surprise Jesus would allude to Jer 7:11 in his critique of the Temple. As with Jeremiah, this confrontation with the temple authority can lead only to physical danger and arrest, but at this point the authorities cannot take Jesus for fear of the crowd.

Jesus’ criticism of the temple does not end with the Temple incident. The conflict with the Temple aristocracy continues in his teaching in the courts during his final week.

  • The Parable of the Tenants has the priestly aristocracy losing their place of privilege.
  • The challenge to Jesus on paying taxes is radical – give to god what is God’s, not necessarily via the temple tax!
  • Even the Widow’s mite is a condemnation of the giving of the wealthy.

The “Temple Action” is therefore a public sign of Jesus’ authority as a prophet of God.  He stands in the tradition of Jeremiah and Ezekiel who condemned the priesthood and Temple authority for their half-hearted worship of God.

Jesus is challenging the worshipers in the Temple to become True Israel, but is he proposing separation from the Temple?  Does Jesus preform a symbolic action (like Jeremiah) which calls for the reformation of the Temple?

John 2:13-25 – The Temple Incident

In the Synoptic Gospels, the Temple incident occurs in Jesus’s final week and is one of the main reasons for the arrest and execution of Jesus. But in the Gospel of John, Jesus goes to the Temple very early in his career, perhaps three years prior to the crucifixion. Is this story misplaced by John? Or were there two “Temple incidents”? There are several good reasons to see this as an early protest in the temple rather than the one just prior to the crucifixion. (See this post on Mark’s version of the Temple Incident and this post on the Temple in Mark’s Gospel.)

Jesus with a Whip

Most scholars think there was one temple clearing, at the end of Jesus’s ministry, resulting in the execution of Jesus. The synoptic gospels have the story in the right place, chronologically, John has moved the event based on theological motivations. What that motivation was varies from scholar to scholar, but it usually has something to do with foreshadowing the Passion at the beginning of the Gospel of John. This would be similar to Luke moving the rejection at Nazareth to the beginning of his gospel so that Jesus’s reading of Isaiah 61 becomes a “programmatic statement” for Jesus’s mission. In this view, the temple Incident sets the agenda for the rest of the Gospel, Jesus replaces the Temple as the focus of worship.

A growing minority of scholars, mostly evangelicals, think there were two separate events, an early clearing at the beginning of Jesus’s career and a second Temple Incident at the beginning of the Passion Week. As Leon Morris observes, aside from the central event (clearing the temple) there are only five words common to both the synoptic clearing story and the John clearing story (The Gospel According to John (Rev Ed.), 167, n. 55). But as D. A. Carson observes, “Against Morris, distinctiveness in detail and in vocabulary is so typical of John’s handling of any event reported both by Synoptists and John that the independence of narrative detail and locutions in the Fourth Gospel” (The Gospel according to John, PNTC, 177).

Craig Blomberg discusses the Temple Incident in his Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel (IVP Academic, 2011) and concludes that there may have been two clearings of the temple. The Temple authorities overlooked the first protest since the selling in the temple was a new innovation. Jesus’s attack was on the buying and selling specifically, not the temple institution itself (as it is in his final week).

There is resistance to this view. Borchert thought the idea of two temple clearings is a “historiographical monstrosity that has no basis in the test of the Gospels” (John 1-11; NAC 25A, 160). C. Keener thinks it is historical implausible that Jesus would have over-tuned the tables then engage in public ministry for two or three years before being arrested (John, 1:518-9).

A small minority of scholars such as J. A. T. Robinson argue there was only one clearing, and John has the timing right. The Synoptic gospels moved the event from the beginning of Jesus‘s career to the end in order to explain why the Jewish leadership wanted to kill Jesus.

There are a few scholars that consider the story a creation of the early church. George Buchanan thought Mark created the story based on Jewish messianic hopes for what the Messiah ought to do when he comes (“Symbolic Money-Changes in the Temple?” NTS 37 (1991): 284). I am not inclined to dismiss the story entirely since it provides a pretext for Jesus’s execution. An angry, whip-wielding Jesus is not an image the early church would readily create.

But does it make sense that there were two “Temple Incidents”? Is there really any problem with John shifting the story to the beginning of Jesus’s mission because it serves his theological agenda better?

Mark 11:15-19 – The Temple Incident

In the so-called temple-cleansing, we have, apparently, prophetic demonstration or, one could say, provocation, in which it was not a matter of driving out all those who sold and the money changers – for such an action would not be possible without a large contingent of troops and a corresponding general riot, and would inevitably have led to intervention on the part of the temple guard and the Romans. We are dealing, rather, with a demonstrative condemnation of their trade, a condemnation which was directed at the same time against the ruling temple aristocracy, which derived profit from it…. Such an episode did not call forth further intervention on the part of the occupation forces, but it did make the hierarchy the deadly foes of Jesus. Martin Hengel, Was Jesus a Revolutionist?, 17-18.

In Mark, this event is framed by the curse of the Fig Tree and provides the clues we need to fully interpret that parabolic action. In fact, this action is also symbolic. Jesus arrives at the Temple as the messiah, inspects the Temple and finds it corrupt. Therefore begins that judgment by causing a disruption in the area used for selling sacrificial animals.

Note that the Temple area is huge, 450 meters by 300. Craig Evans (WBC) thinks that it is unlikely that Jesus completely disrupted all commerce in the area, most people were not even aware Jesus was making a demonstration in one area of the Temple. The action is symbolic. By overturning tables and causing the chaos that he does, he challenges the religious authorities to be obedient to scripture by making the Temple a house of prayer and not a den of thieves.

Is this an attack on a corrupt priesthood? Were the priests corrupt? The Qumran Community thought so, referring to the high priest as the Wicked Priest (1QpHab 1:13, 8:9. 9:9, 11:4). The high priest has gotten wealthy off the temple and defiled the sanctuary of God (1QpHab 12:8-9). Testament of Moses 7:6-10 is another condemnation of the first century priesthood. The Testament of Moses was probably written about A.D. 30, and the Habakkuk scroll from Qumran dates more than 100 years prior to that. Josephus accuses the priests of bribery (Antiq. 20.9.4) and violence (Antiq. 20.8.8).

Jesus is functioning here as a classic prophet from the Hebrew Bible. Criticism of the temple has a grand tradition in the prophets, especially in Jeremiah (7:14, 34; 12:7; 22:5; 22:5; 26:9). There seems to be a real parallel between Jeremiah 7:11 and Mark 11:17. As with Jeremiah, this confrontation with the temple authority can lead only to physical danger and arrest, but at this point the authorities cannot take Jesus for fear of the crowd.

Jesus’ criticism of the temple does not end here, the conflict with the Pharisees is entirely concerned with problems of the temple:

  • The Parable of the Tenants has the priestly aristocracy losing their place of privilege
  • The challenge to Jesus on paying taxes is radical – give to god what is God’s, not necessarily via the temple tax!
  • Even the Widow’s mite is a condemnation of the giving of the wealthy.

The “Temple Action” is therefore a public sign of Jesus’ authority as a prophet of God.  He stands in the tradition of Jeremiah and Ezekiel who condemned the priesthood and Temple authority for their half-hearted worship of God.  Jesus is challenging the worshipers in the Temple to become True Israel, but is he proposing separation from the Temple?  Does Jesus preform a symbolic action (like Jeremiah) which calls for the reformation of the Temple?