Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?
But you have made it a den of robbers.”
And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city (Mk 11:15-19: NRSV).
__________________________________________________
This action in the Temple has been interpreted in a variety of
ways—for example, a symbol of coming destruction, the symbol of coming
restoration, and a forerunner of the coming new institution. Dominic Crossan argued that the action in the
Temple is “a deliberate symbolic attack.
It destroys the Temple by stopping its fiscal, sacrificial, and
liturgical operations...[This] symbolic destruction simply actualized what he
had already said in his teachings, affected in his healings, and realized in
his mission of open commensality.”[i] N. T. Wright holds the view that Jesus’
action was a prophetic critique of the present Temple, and that the action
symbolized its imminent destruction.[ii] E. P. Sanders argued that Jesus’ action both
“symbolized destruction” and also looked “toward restoration.”[iii] According to Sanders, Jesus “did not wish to
purify the temple, either of dishonest trading or of trading in contrast to
‘pure’ worship. Nor was he opposed to the temple sacrifices which God commanded
to Israel. He intended, rather, to indicate that the end was at hand and that
the temple would be destroyed, so that the new and perfect temple might arise.”[iv] Like Sanders, who tried to move beyond the
theme of destruction, several scholars have suggested the movement beyond desolation
towards the establishment of the new institution of the Eucharist.[v]
After looking at the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and Exodus 30:16, Jacob
Neusner realizes that the money-changers performed a vital service for the
daily whole-offering to be offered up in the name of the Jewish community in
the Jewish Temple. This has a remarkable
significance for understanding Jesus’ action in the Temple. When Jesus enters the Temple and overturns
the table of the money-changers, this action is a prelude to a later event in
the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus
overturns one table to establish another.
The place of sacrifice for the atonement of sins will no longer be
centered on the Jewish Temple; rather, the place of sacrifice will focus on the
person of Jesus.[vi] According to Neusner,
“It was to be the rite of the Eucharist: table for table, whole
offering for whole offering. It...seems to me that the correct context in which
to read the overturning of the money-changers’ tables is not the destruction of
the Temple in general, but the institution of the sacrifice of the [E]ucharist,
in particular.”[vii]
[i] Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1995),
131, 133.
[ii] N. T. Wright, Jesus and The Victory of God, 417-418.
[iii] Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 69-71.
[iv] Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 75.
[v] The
Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (trans. J. Bowden; ed. G. Theissen
and A. Merz: Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998 [Ger. 1996]), 431-439;* Jacob Neusner, “Money-Changers in the Temple: The
Mishnah’s Explanation,” NTS 35.2
(1989): 287–90; Bruce Chilton, The Temple
of Jesus: His Sacrificial Program within a Cultural History of Sacrifice (University
Park, Pennsylvania: 1992), 92- 154; A Feast of Meanings: Eucharistic Theologies
from Jesus through Johannine Circles (Leiden; New York: Brill, 1994);
Jostein Ådna, “Jesus’ Symbolic Act in the Temple (Mark 11:15-17): The
Replacement of the Sacrificial Cult by His Atoning Death,” Gemeinde ohne Tempel: Community without Temple (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen
Testament 118; ed. B. Ego, A. Lange and P. Pilhofer; Tübingen: J. C. B.
Mohr, 1999), 461-476.*
[vi] Jacob Neusner, “Money-Changers in the
Temple: The Mishnah’s Explanation,” NTS
35.2 (1989): 287–290.
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