Transfiguration - Jesus With Moses and Elijah

Click here for an explanation of the color-coding used in the sayings and acts of Jesus.

Jesus in Jerusalem

"Rejoice...Your King Comes to You"

(1) Transfiguration or Royal Ritual?

"'I am,' said Jesus. 'And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.'"
     - Mark 14:62 (Matthew 26:64; Luke 22:69)

"At baptism and on the mount of transfiguration Jesus is acclaimed by a heavenly voice as Son of God (Mk 1:9-11; 9:28). As in the Scrolls, the vision of the heavenly figures and the transformation of the appearance of Jesus build on the prophetic tradition which in Judaism became what is known as Merkabah mystical experience."
     - Howard C. Kee, "Membership in the Covenant People at Qumran and in the Teaching of Jesus" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 108

"Peter's 'confession' - 'You are the Messiah' - followed six days later by the Transfiguration, is a disguised and/or confused recollection of a proclamation of Jesus's kingship followed by an anointing/coronation ceremony, complete with tabernacles and shimmering white robes, on Mount Hermon."
     - Tad Davis

"Making the Sinai tabernacle was the first great act of obedience to the Law; therefore Peter's proposal is - to begin a new legal servitude to Jesus, the Law (Moses), and the Prophets (Elijah). To prevent this, the supreme God, the father, comes down in his cloud and implicitly abolishes the Law by declaring Jesus' unique status as Son. When the cloud lifts, Law and Prophets are gone, Jesus alone remains to direct his disciples."
     - Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) pp. 160-161

"After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
Peter said to Jesus, 'Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.' (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)
Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: 'This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!' Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus."
     - Mark 9:2-8; (Matthew 17:1-8; Luke 9:29-36)

The reference to the "three shelters" suggests an association with the temporary shelters built by celebrants during the festival of Tabernacles.

"Only Moses' face shone, Jesus blazed all over, even his garments (Ex. 34.30ff.; Mk. 9.2f.p.)." That the revelation of the Son replaces the giving of the Law, is the essential message of the redactor and is probably secondary."
     - Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) p. 216

It has been theorized that this passage was derived from the account of Jesus' transfiguration in the Cross Gospel. Episcopal Biship John Shelby Spong writes that the transfiguration was a Christian attempt to wrap the themes of the Feast of Dedication.

"...In typical midrashic style, the Jews began to weave around this festival details out of their sacred history that demonstrated that the light of God always came to rest on that place where heaven and earth seemed to come together, namely, the place where sacrifices that ascended into the very presence of God were offered."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 78

In Jewish foldlore, Moses, Elijah and Enoch all ascended to the heavenly realm while still alive.

"...All three synoptics have in mind Moses: (a) shining face on descent Exod 34:29-35; (b) ascent up mountain after six days (cf. Exod 24.16)."
     - Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis, "Oxford Christology Lecture nos. 3: Narrative Christologies: the Transfiguration and Post-Resurrection stories"

Moses was transfigured as he returned from the cloud of God atop Mount Sinai.

"As he came down from the mountain, Moses had the two 'tablets of the Testimony in his hands. He did not know that the skin on his face was radiant...And when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, the skin on his face shone so much that they would not venture near him."
     - Exodus 34:29-30

"Jesus, like Moses, went up the mountain with three named associates. He, like Moses, entered the cloud of God. The Shekinah, or light of God, then came and rested on him. He was transformed, his clothes were translucent [Exodus 28:1 ff. where Aaron's clothes were transformed into a radiant glory], and suddenly the Jewish Feast of Dedication had a Christian emphasis."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 80

"But when the assembly gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron and turned toward the Tent of Meeting, suddenly the cloud covered it and the glory of the LORD appeared."
     - Numbers 16:42

Luke (9:28-36) also provides an account of the transfiguration "in which the light of God that once came to the Temple was now portrayed as descending on Jesus. Unlike Mark and Matthew, however, Luke related that story to the Book of Numbers [as his gospel followed the Torah through the Jewish liturgical year]. In Numbers (16:42 ff.) we are told that the cloud of God covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord appeared upon that meeting place. It was the first experience of the light of God coming to the worship center of Israel."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 155

(2) Proclaiming the "Revolution"

Kingship and Revolution

"Speedily cause the branch of David, thy servant, to sprout, and let his horn be exalted by thy salvation; because daily do we wait for thy salvation."
     - Amidah

The Amidah is a Hebrew prayer dating from the time of Jesus (although no definite version was committed to writing until the after the fall of Jerusalem.)

"The popular Israelite tradition of kingship [had] three principal characteristics: kingship was constituted by popular election or anointing; it was conditional on the king's maintenance of a certain social policy and the anointing of a new king was generally a revolutionary action."
     - Richard A. Horsley and John S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus (1985)

The association of kingship with revolutionary activity can be traced back to the time when King Saul refused to retire and drove David into banditry:

"David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father's household heard about it, they went down to him there. All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him."
     - 1 Samuel 22:1-2

This revolutionary activity was seen in less favorable light by the Greeks.

"For some time his [Moses'] successors kept the same course, practicing righteousness and being truly devoted to God. Then were set up in the priesthood first superstitious men and then tyrants. On the one hand, from superstition (came) abstinence from --- which custom is held by them even now --- and circumcisions and excisions and other such things were commanded. On the other hand, from tyranny (came) banditry (LHSTHRIA). For some withdrew to plague both their own region and that of their neighbors, while others who cooperated with the [Maccabean] rulers seized the property of others and conquered much of Syria and Phoenicia."
     - Strabo, Geography 16.2.37

Later, Josephus, writing for a Roman audience, also equated revolutionary activity with banditry.

"...Those whom Josephus calls LHSTAI did not just have small bands of like the James boys but attracted rather substantial public followings. E.g., the shepherd Athronges, the populist candidate to succeed Herod the Great as king (Ant. 17.278-80). Each of his 4 brothers had their own band, which in turn attracted a 'great crowd' while Athronges paraded as king and judge over his own court."
     - Mahlon Smith (CrossTalk)

"So Judea was filled with LHSTAI. And they collected around any champion who presented himself as king, urging the destruction of the commonwealth."
     - Josephus, Ant iquties of the Jews Ant 17.285

"...It is clear that before, during, and after Jesus, the Palestinian peasantry was in a state of political turmoil, Gurr's [Why Men Rebel] technical term for unrest that is 'relatively spontaneous, unorganized...with substantial popular participation, including violent political strikes, riots, political clashes, and localized rebellions."
     - John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)

"Jesus said, The Father's kingdom is like a person who wanted to kill someone powerful. While still at home he drew his sword and thrust it into the wall to find out whether his hand would go in. Then he killed the powerful one."
     - Thomas 98

"All who came before me are thieves [KLEPTAI] and bandits [LHSTAI]."
     - John 10:8

Internecine Strife
In Luke, Jesus preached an apocalyptic vision of internecine strife that echoes Ezekiel's great war of Gog and Magog.

"I will summon every kind of terror against Gog, says the Lord GOD; every man's sword will be against his brother. With pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain upon him and his hordes and the many peoples that are with him, torrential rains and hailstones, fire and brimstone."
     - Ezekiel 38:2-221

"I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!"
     - Luke 12:49; Thomas 10

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes will be those of his own household."
     - Matthew 10:34-36 // Luke 12:51-53; Thomas 16:1-4

"The attack has nothing to do with faith but with power. The attack is on the Mediterranean family's axis of power, which sets father and mother over son, daughter, and daughter-in-law."
     - John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994)

The quote is derived from a passage attributed to the prophet Micah.

"You see, a son dishonors his father,
a daughter stands up against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
A person's enemies are all members of the same household."
     - Micah 7:5-6

It also reflects the apocalyptic vision of the First Book of Enoch.

"And they shall begin to fight among themselves,
And their right hand shall be strong against themselves,
And a man shall not know his brother,
Nor a son his father or his mother..."
     - 1 Enoch 56:7

"Texts tell us of 'magical practice and curse and incantation and stoke and evil eye and evil spells...the spells of the mother and the daughter...the spells of the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law."
     - Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) p. 147

While a devastating civil war did occur two generations after Jesus' death, during the First Roman-Jewish War 66-70 C.E., Josephus does not describe the fighting as fratricidal. Instead brother fought alongside brother and father alongside son. These passages are more descriptive of the bloody in-fighting within the Maccabean royal family which lead to the Roman annexation of Judea in 63 B.C.E.

Subversive Innuendo
"If Jesus would have been engaged in any, even mild and strictly verbal, subversive activities, and with some support, he would have been arrested by Herod Antipas. Certainly, Herod had John seized when he critized Herod's new marriage....I think if Jesus would have been known as dabbling with revolutionary ideas, he would have been arrested right after his 'royal' welcome."
     - Bernard Miller (Crosstalk)

"Though there is no evidence that publicly challenge Antipas, there is a lot of politically subversive innuendo in many of his [Jesus'] aphorisms."
     - Mahlon Smith (private correspondence)

Mahlon provides the following examples:

"Congratulations, you poor! God's domain belongs to you." [and not the Herodians or the Romans]
     - Luke 6:20// Matthew 5:1-12; (Thomas 54)

"It's easier for a camel to squeeze through a needle's eye than for a wealthy person to get into God's domain." [and who in Palestine was richer than the Herodians?]
     - Mark 10:25; (Mattthew 19:24; Luke 18:25)

"A kingdom divided against itself cannot last." [Herod's kingdom was divided among his feuding sons]
     - Mark 3:24; (Matthew 12:25 // Luke 11:17)

"In fact, no one can enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house." [Herod was the paradigmatic strongman and Judas b. Hezekiah looted his palace in Sepphoris in 4 BCE]
     - Mark 3:27; Matthew 12:29; Thomas 35 (Luke 11:21-22; )

(3) The Feast of Tabernacles

An Autumn Royal Ritual
"Normally, between the third and fourth Sabbaths of Tishri, the major harvest festival of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, was observed. This was an eight-day celebration set in Jerusalem. It was probably the best-loved, the most fun, the least somber, and the most anticipated festival of the Jews. The Jewish people build temporary dwelling or booths for this celebration, to recall to consciousness their homeless days of wandering in the wilderness."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 62

"'You go to the Feast [of Tabernacles]. I am not yet [some early manuscripts do not have 'yet'] going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come.' Having said this, he stayed in Galilee. However, after his brothers had left for the Feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret."
     - John 7:8-10

"Until his passion (his suffering and death, Jesus' decisive time has not yet arrived. Jesus' time is when he will be glorified (12:23; cf. 2:4). But it is always the world's time: the world's time is a time of darkness; those who do not recognize Jesus as the one sent from God stand under perpetual judgment."
     - Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels

The transfiguration "was followed by what was attempted to be a royal progress to Jerusalem to make an appearance in the Temple. The 70 disciples who went out to prepare the way may have been preparing for a royal tour after the visit to Jerusalem."
     - Tad Davis

Jesus "sets his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem to prepare for his individual act of atonement as Israel's king. This act is to take place at the Jewish freedom festival, the Passover, in the spring of the year; but the journey to Jerusalem just mentioned [John 7:8-10] is at the festival of Tabernacles in the previous autumn. Uniquely, Jesus remains in Jerusalem for about three months [according to John]."
     - Hugh J. Schonfield, After the Cross

Permanent Living Water

"For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants."
     - Isaiah 44:3

"...This celebration [Tabernacles] also featured the note of the coming of God's messiah and it spoke of a gathering of the nations of the world in Jerusalem. In the Tabernacles tradition, these foreigners were thought first to have gathered as enemies in warfare. There were destined, however, to be defeated by God's messiah, and so, in defeat, they remained to worship the Lord of Hosts. They also expected to be the recipients of endless water, which would be a sign that the Kingdom of God had come. This permanent living water, in time, came to be identified with the spirit of the living God, the presence of which was also a sign that the Kingdom of God had come."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 82

When the Messiah comes to his Temple, "on that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea [Dead Sea] and half to the western sea, [Mediterranean] in summer and in winter. The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name."
     - Zechariah 14:8-9

"In the Old Testament, 'living water' denotes 'running water.' The concept of 'living water' as salvific is not found in the Jewish Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha."
"If Jesus did refer to salvation as 'living water,' then he was clearly influenced by the Essenes [Yahad] at this point; but such phrases were perhaps added at a later stage in the transmission of Jesus' sayings. Even though there were other baptist groups besides that of John the Baptizer, it is conceivable that Jesus may have been influenced by the Essenes' symbolic use of 'water'."
     - James H. Charlesworth, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historical Jesus" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1992), pp. 55, 18

"And Thou, 0 my God, hast put in my mouth
as it were an autumn rain for all [the sons of men]
and a spring of living waters which shall not run dry."
     - Thanksgiving Psalm lQH 8.16 (attributed to the Teacher of Righteousness)

"...In the midst of the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles during which it was said that the Messiah would someday return to his Temple, John said that Jesus stood up and declared himself to be the source of living water."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 307

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture [Isaiah 44:3] has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
     - John 7:37b-38

Compare with the parallel in the Gospel of Thomas, which has a Gnostic ring to it.

"Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him."
     - Thomas 108:1-3

For early Christians, drinking the living water brought spiritual intoxication.

"And speaking waters touched my lips from the fountain of the Lord generously. And so I drank and became intoxicated, from the living water that does not die."
     - Odes of Solomon 9:6-7 (1st century CE)

Palm Leaves and Psalm 118
According to the Gospel of John, following the Feast of Tabernacles Jesus stayed in Jerusalem until the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) in the winter. He then fled to the Jordan to escape stoning by hostile Judeans. Jesus' eventual royal entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey, which supposedly occured during the spring celebration of Passover, has unmistakable correspondences with the Feast of Tabernacles.

"O LORD, save us [Hosanna]; O LORD, grant us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD. From the house of the LORD we bless you."
     - Psalms 118:25-26

"...Tabernacles, or Booths (Sukkot), had as one of its characteristic motifs the activity of pilgrims walking around the altar in the Temple in procession while waving a bundle of greenery made up of the leafy branches of willow, myrtle, and palm trees. This bundle of greenery was called a lulab. While those branches were being waved, the liturgy of Tabernacles called for the worshipers to chant the words of Psalm 118, which was the traditional Psalm of the fall festival."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 62

"Particularly important in desert oases, date palms were a main source of food; even the leaves and trunk fiber were used for shelter and rope. Palm branches were used as decorative motifs by the Hasmonean priest-kings in their building activities. The first local coin with a palm branch was minted in Galilee by Herod Antipas in the mid-20's CE. The Jews of the First Revolt against Rome (66-73 CE) and Second Revolt (132-135 CE) used palm trees as symbols of their independence, with the insignia 'Year One of the Redemption of Israel.' Further evidence for this meaning is found on the 'Judea Capta' coin minted by Titus to show the end of Jewish nationalism after the fall of Jerusalem. John's gospel mentioning palm branches during Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Jn. 12.13) would have been understood as a sign of Jewish nationalism. The crowds were wanting to show Jesus they were willing to put themselves under his authority for [the sake of] the nation... Though a military symbol at the time, modern Christians can perhaps see in it a symbol of the Lordship of Christ."
     - Dr. Fleming, World of the Bible Gardens

"To put this data into a context of time and place, we need to note that there were no leafy branches in March (Nisan) in the land of the Jews, so this story begins immediately to totter if read in a literal time sequence as a prelude to Passover."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 242

The willow and myrtle trees may not have been in leaf but palm trees maintain their leaves year round.

"Jesus made his triumphal entry not during Passover but during the Feast of Tabernacles, in the fall. There are numerous signs pointing to this, including the palm leaves, the use of the word 'Hosanna' which has ritual significance at Succoth, the fact that the fig tree was cursed because it had no figs, and a reference to the Feast of Tabernacles in John. [The tree would still be budding in spring.] More germane is the idea that the Feast of Tabernacles is the one festival when the King would be expected to appear in the Temple, be handed the scroll, and read the 'King's paragraph' (from chapter 17 in Deuteronomy) signifying the King's duty to study and remain faithful to the Law."
"The prophets Joel and Zechariah both suggested that Succoth would be the time when the Messianic age would be ushered in."
     - Tad Davis

(4) Royal Entry into Jerusalem

Pilgrimage to the Holy City
Passover, the great Jewish freedom festival celebrating Moses' victory over the Egyptians oppression, would have inflamed anti-Roman sentiment among the celebrants. Tens of thousands of pilgrims packed into Jerusalem to worship at the temple presented the Romans with a major security problem. Whether he entered the city during Tabernacles or Passover, Jesus must have been aware how deliberately provocative and dangerous his subsequent actions were to be. He travels through Galilee to Jerusalem in secret.

"They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, 'The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.'"
     - Mark 9:30-31; (Matthew 17:22-23 and Luke 18:31-33 do not mention the need for secrecy.)

"Jesus is now represented as making the second formal prediction of his passion....The basic ingredient of Mark's kerygma, or proclamation, were the same as Paul's. The first formulation of the Christian message known to us is the one Paul records in 1 Cor. 15:3-4."
     - Robert Funk (Editor), Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus, p. 109

"...Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures..."
     - 1 Corinthians 15:3b-4

"Paul's formation features the death and resurrection of Jesus, just as do Mark's three predictions of Jesus. In the view of the Jesus Seminar, Mark has summarized the Christian message and placed it on the lips of Jesus as a prediction. It is therefore a prediction after the fact."
     - Robert Funk (Editor), Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus, p. 109

In Jesus' time, "just as today, Jerusalem was a holy city, the city of David, the city of the Temple to which every good Jew traveled at least once a year to make a sacrifice. Any pilgrim to Jerusalem was expected to make the final stages of the journey on foot as a sign of respect and devotion....Jesus, however, did the opposite."
     - Ian Wilson, Jesus, The Evidence

Riding the Colt

"On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem to the east.'"
     - Zechariah 14:4

"This passage lay behind a widespread Jewish belief that the Mount of Olives would see the coming of the Messiah (see, e.g., Josephus, Jewish War, 11, 13, 5; Antiquities, XX, 8, 6). Thus, Mark's narrative has it that on the morning of the triumphal entry:"
     - Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 85

"As Jesus draws near to Jerusalem by way of Bethany, Bethphage, and the Mount of Olives, he expresses his royal messianic authority by commandeering an ass on which to ride into Jerusalem..."
     - John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2.

"As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives..."
     - Mark 11:1

"Mark writes on the basis of a vague knowledge of Judaean geography, not knowing that one approaching Jerusalem from the east on the road from Jericho would reach first Bethany and then Bethphage, not the reverse order he indicates."
     - Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 103

"The scepter will not depart from Judah [Jacob's son - from Hebrew for 'praise'?], nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his. He will tether his donkey to a vine, his colt to the choicest branch..."
     - Genesis 49:10-11

"...Jesus sent two of his disciples,saying to them, 'Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, "Why are you doing this?" tell him, "The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly."'
They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, 'What are you doing, untying that colt?' They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go."
     - Mark 11:1b-6; (Matthew 21:1-5; Luke 19:28-34)

"The demand of Jesus for a donkey thus can be seen to have been carefully staged, and staged precisely at the village of Bethany where Jesus had intimate friends - the sisters Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus - with whom he had become acquainted the previous autumn."
     - Hugh J. Schonfield, After the Cross

"...This incident is not based on general Davidic or Mosaic models known to every Jew but on a very precise verse in one single prophecy."
     - John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994)

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass. I will cut off the chariot from E'phraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth."
     - Zechariah 9:9-10 (Masoretic version)

"Your king"" is "a reference apparently to Salmah the sacrificial summer king portrayed in the Song of Songs."
     - Chris King, "This Day the Scripture is Fulfilled in Your Ears"

"It is only with this passage that we can understand why Mark has Jesus specify that his disciples obtain a 'colt [polon] which no one has yet ridden' (Mark 11:2)."
     - Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 103

"In this passage, each key word is reinforced by a synonym or a parallel: rejoice//shout, Zion//Jerusalem, just and triumphant//humble and riding. But the translators of the Septuagint apparently missed the parallelism between ass//foal of an ass and instead pictured two animals--an ass and a foal. This misunderstanding becomes significant because the verse is used as a prooftext in Matthew 21:2-7, which describes Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Jesus sends two disciples to fetch an ass and a foal 'to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet'; Matthew then quotes the passage in Zechariah and adds that the disciples did indeed bring Jesus an ass and a foal. The textual misunderstanding carried over into Christian art; some scenes of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem show him straddling two animals!"
     - Harvey Minkoff, "Searching for the Better Text", Bible Review, August 1999

"'You will at once find a donkey tethered with her foal beside her; untie them, and bring them to me'....The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed, and brought the donkey and her foal; they laid their cloaks on them and Jesus mounted."
     - Matthew 21:2, 6-7

The original verse in Mark, however, does not make this mistake.

"And they brought the colt to Jesus, and threw their garments on it; and he sat upon it."
     - Mark 11:7

"The Jews made their entry...with acclamations and carrying palms...chanting hymns and canticles."
     - I Maccabbees 13:51

"...John quotes or paraphrases a garbled version of Zechariah, mentioning only half of the parallelism; he also eliminates the disciples' role:"
     - Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 104

"Jesus found a donkey and mounted it, in accordance with the text of Scripture: 'Fear no more, daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, mounted on an ass's colt."
     - John 12:14-15

Palm Branches and Hosannas

"On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred and seventy-first year, the Jews entered it with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel."
     - 1 Maccabees 13:51

"And they brought the colt to Jesus, and threw their garments on it; and he sat upon it. And many spread their garments on the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed cried out, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest!' And he entered Jerusalem, and went into the temple area..."
     - Mark 11:8-11a; (Matthew 21:7-10a; Luke 19:35b-38, 45a)

"Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. (Eulogemenos ho erchomenos en onomati Kuriou)."
     - Psalm 118:25 LXX

"Hosanna! Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord (Eulogemenos ho erchomenos en onomati Kuriou)."
     - Mark 11:9

"Praise him in the highest (ainete auton en tois hupistois)."
     - Ps. 148:1 LXX

"Hosanna in the highest (Hosanna en tois hupistois)."
     - Mark 11:

"In both verses, Mark has imported 'Hosanna' from the Hebrew or Aramaic text of Ps. 118 (117 LXX):25."
     - Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 105

"The jubilant crowd pays him homage with garments, branches, and Hosannas echoing Psalms 118:25-26. In parallel phrases they bless both Jesus 'who comes in the name of the Lord' and 'the coming kingdom of our father David.' Not by accident, in the immediately preceding pericope, the cure of the blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52), Jesus was hailed as the Son of David."
     - John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2.

"...This scene strongly recalls the triumphant purification and rededication of the Jerusalem Temple by the Hasmonean Simon Maccabeus after it had been defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century B.C.E."
     - Ian Wilson, Jesus, The Evidence

"If one accepts the synoptic accounts of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (in which Jesus seems to deliberately set up a literal fulfillment of Zech 9:9) as historical, one MIGHT argue that the historical Jesus demonstrated a 'messianic consciousness.' The problem is the Johannine account of this incident clearly specifies that the association of Jesus's entry into Jerusalem with Zech 9:9 was something that occurred in the minds of Jesus's disciples only after his crucifixion/resurrection. "
     - Mahlon Smith (CrossTalk 2)

(5) Jesus as the Paschal Lamb

"After some initial activity that need not demand more than a few weeks (John 1:35-2:12), Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for the first Passover of his public ministry [AD 28] (2:13). At the time of the feeding of the five thousand we are told that the (second) Passover was near (6:4). And of course Jesus goes to Jerusalem in preparation for the (third) Passover, which, according to John, he does not live to celebrate (11:55, 12:1, 12:13:1; 18:28)."
     - John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1.

Unlike the Gospel of John, the synoptic Gospels mention only one visit by Jesus to Jerusalem, when he was crucified. Were two separate events - a royal entry at Tabernacles and Jesus' fatal visit at Passover - compounded into one? Or was the association of Jesus's passion with Passover wholly a creation of the early church to Christianize the most important Jewish holy day?

The Gospel accounts of Jesus' crucifixion have strong allegorical elements tied to the annual sacrifice of the paschal lamb on Passover. Celebrated as part of the Jewish liturgical year, Easter served as the Christian counterpart to the most important of the Jewish holidays.

"In the Passover tradition, the blood of that first paschal lamb was said to have been placed on the door-posts of the Hebrew homes to protect them from the angel of death, who was sent by God in the final plague imposed upon the Egyptians, the plagues were designed to motivate the pharaoh to free the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt (Exod. 12). That angel of death was to slay the firstborn of every household in the land whose door-posts were not protected by the blood the paschal lamb."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 96

"When Israel had a Temple, in addition to the lamb for each household, a lamb was chosen to die for the sins of the entire nation. On the 10th of Nisan, it was lead in a huge procession from Bethany to the Temple."
"Jesus rode into the city to the Temple on the same day (Nisan 10) as the procession of the lamb chosen to die for the sins of the nation."
     - "Unlocking Prophecy: Jesus Fulfills the Seven Feasts of Israel", Return to God Magazine (Vol. 1 No. 1, p. 22 and Vol. 1 No. 2, p. 4)

"Paul's suggestion in 1 Corinthians, written ten to fifteen years before the First Gospel, 'that Christ our paschal lamb has been sacrificed' (I Cor. 5:7) made the Passover connection..."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 240

"Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
     - John 1:29

Cleansing the Temple

A Profitable Monopoly
"In the social world of Jesus , purity was centered in the temple and temple elites. It was fundamental to temple theology, according to which the 'holy of holies' in the temple was the dwelling place of God on earth, the place of greatest purity and the geographical center of purity. From it radiated outward concentric circles of decreasing degrees of purity. Moreover, the temple was the only place where sacrifices for certain kinds of sins and impurities could be offered. In an important sense, temple theology claimed for the temple a monopoly on access to God."
     - Robert W. Funk and The Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (1998) pp. 210-211

Only Israelite males who are not blind or who had not come into contact with lepers or graves were allowed to enter the Temple.

"The Old Testament underscores the vast gulf between God and humanity. God is supreme, omnipotent, transcendent, and any limited contact with him puts human beings at risk. The worship instructions in a book like Leviticus remind me on a manual on handling radioactive material. Bring only spotless lambs to the tabernacle. Do not touch the Ark. Always let smoke cover it; if you look at the ark, you'll die. Never enter the most Holy Place, except for the high priest on the one permitted day of the year. On that day, Yom Kippur, fasten a rope around his ankle, and a bell, so that if he makes a mistake and dies inside, his corpse can be dragged out.
"Jesus' disciples grew up in such an environment, never pronouncing God's name, complying with the intricate code of cleanliness, heeding the requirements of Mosaic law. They took for granted, as did most other religions of their time, that worship must include sacrifice: something had to die. Their God had forbidden human sacrifice, and so on a festival day Jerusalem was filled with the bleats and cries of a quarter million animals destined for the temple altar. The noise and smell of sacrifice were sharp sensory reminders of the great gulf between God and themselves."
     - Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (1995)

"Jerusalem was always busy with visitors and traders coming and going, so there were inns and lodging houses all over the city. In springtime, when the Passover Festival came round, the whole place became a vast camp, as pilgrims flocked in to keep the feast there. The poor set up tents and shelters outside the city walls, others paid for rooms or sleeping-spaces. According to Josephus there could be as many as three million people in Jerusalem at Passover time! All agree that this figure is too high, but pilgrims could certainty be numbered in hundreds of thousands."
     - Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus, p 78

Recent estimates place the number of pilgrims at 350,000.

"In these days, Jerusalem was booming, about tripling its population in the next forty years (from twenty-thirty thousand inhabitants). And by far, the biggest money maker in the city was the temple: Directly or indirectly, almost everyone, here and around, was depending on it for a living; there was little else."
     - Bernard Muller, "The Historical Jesus"

In the Jerusalem Temple, "the courts, most of which were closed to Gentiles, and the Inner Court, barred to all but healthy, male Jews, teemed with animals and birds on sale for sacrifices. This was the one place, reputedly on the very spot where Abraham had once stayed his hand in sacrificing his son Isaac, that animal sacrifices were still practiced within the Jewish religion. Here a man was judged on the scale of his offering, and the money used and re-used in elaborate banking transactions that had been learned from the Babylonians."
     - Ian Wilson, Jesus, The Evidence

An Economic Elite
"Could anyone get in the good grace of God with money (and in full view inside the holiest place in the land)? Then the rich could easily enter the Kingdom! That was against Jesus' main message. Also, could animal sacrifice for atonement of sins be a substitute for sincere repentance? Certainly not according to Jesus' preaching (and John's too). And it is likely these commercial transactions were profitable not only to the merchants but also (by way of concession fees for example) to the 'owners' and managers of the temple, the priests."
     - Bernard Muller, "The Historical Jesus"

"The temple was presided over by the high priest and chief priests. They were an economic elite as well. Together with their extended families and other Aristocratic families who were frequently linked to them by marriage. they comprised one to two percent of the population, and to them flowed one half to two thirds of the agricultural production of peasants, extracted though taxes, tithes, and rent for land. The temple elites were just not only the religious elites, but also the economic and political elites of the society."
     - Robert W. Funk and The Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (1998) p. 211

"Essentially the Temple expressed, by its very opulence, the intense separation which by now had turned the Jewish religion into a highly quarrelsome, multi-party organism. All too obvious were the fine houses of the Sadducean priestly aristocracy, controllers of the Temple's extensive financial dealings. Since 1969 Israeli archaeologist Nachman Avigad has been patiently unearthing what remains of these once very large, stone-built Graeco-roman villas with beautiful mosaic floors and frescoed walls. Whole features such as ritual mikveh for ablutions leave little doubt as to the owners' priestly occupations, there are also indications of luxurious living in evidence, such as the remains of amphorae of the finest blown glass that once held expensive imported wine. Because of the prevailing view that the only atonement for a man's sins was repentance and sacrifice - and the Temple was the only place where sacrifices could be made - they ran a valuable monopoly."
     - Ian Wilson, Jesus, The Evidence

Corruption within the Priesthood
"Several post-70 C.E. texts assert that it was because of Israel's sin that the Herodian Temple was destroyed (esp. Ladjac 5:8-9; ApAb 17:7; PseudoPhilo 19.6-7; 4Bar 1:1, 8; 4:4-5; SibOr 4.115-18). Two of these apparently indict the priesthood itself."
     - Craig A. Evans, "Opposition to the Temple: Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 237

"And again they will build a house of God, and the latest house of God shall be exalted more highly than before. And once again iniquity will surpass equity' (late first century C.E.)."
     - Life of Adam and Eve (interpolation in several manuscripts following 29:3)

"Lack of equity in connection with the Temple probably refers to unfair and oppressive taxation and Temple polity."
     - Craig A. Evans, "Opposition to the Temple: Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 237

"You, priests, take the keys of the sanctuary, and cast them to the highest heaven, and give them to the Lord and say, 'Guard your house yourself, because, behold, we have been found to be false stewards."
     - 2Baruch 10:18

"Although ostensibly describing the destruction of the First Temple, the author of this early second-century pseudepigraphon is describing the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. (see 2Bar 1:4; 32:2-4). It is significant that the priests are characterized as 'false stewards' a characterization that coheres with some of Jesus' parables (see Mt 24:45-51 and parallels; Mk 12:1-9 and parallels; Lk 16:1-8)."
     - Craig A. Evans, "Opposition to the Temple: Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 237

"When this has taken place, the times will quickly come to an end.... ] Then will rule destructive and godless men, who represent themselves as being righteous, but who will (in fact) arouse their inner wrath, for they will be deceitful men, pleasing only themselves, false in every way imaginable, (such as) loving feasts at any hour of the day - devouring, gluttonous.
[Seven-line lacuna] But really they consume the goods of the (poor), saying their acts are according to justice, (while in fact they are simply) exterminators, deceitfully seeking to conceal themselves so that they will not be known as completely godless because of their criminal deeds (committed) all the day long, saying, 'We shall have feasts, even luxurious winings and dinings. Indeed, we shall behave ourselves as princes'. They, with hand and mind, touch impure things, yet their mouths will speak enormous things, and they will even say, 'Do not touch me, lest you pollute me in the position I occupy'."
     - Testament of Moses, Chapter 7

"The passage is clearly directed against a wealthy and powerful priestly aristocracy. Since the passage apparently follows the demise of Herod's sons, the setting of this apocalyptic vision must be the first century C.E., and probably sometime in the 30s. If this is indeed the case, then what we have here is pre-70 evidence-possibly from the very time of Jesus - of the belief that the priestly aristocracy was corrupt."
     - Craig A. Evans, "Opposition to the Temple: Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 237

During the Herodian and Roman periods, "some twenty-eight high priests (only two of which were from families that had any legitimate claim) held office in little more than one century (from 37 B.C.E. to 70 C.E.)."
     - Craig A. Evans, "Opposition to the Temple: Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 239

Sectarian Alienation
"Excessive taxation could leave poor people physically malnourished or hysterically disabled. But since the religiopolitical ascendance could not blame excessive taxation, it blamed sick people themselves by claiming that their sins had led to their illnesses. And the cure for sinful sickness was, ultimately, in the Temple. And that meant more fees, in a perfect circle of victimization. When, therefore, John the Baptist with a magical rite or Jesus with a magical touch cured people of their sicknesses, they implicitly declared their sins forgiven or nonexistent. They challenged not the medical monopoly of the doctors but the religious monopoly of the priests. All of this was religiopolitically subversive."
     - John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)

"Most subordinate classes throughout most of history have rarely been afforded the luxury of open, organized, political activity. Or, better stated, such activity was dangerous, if not suicidal...For all their importance when they do occur, peasant rebellions - let alone revolutions - are few and far between. The vast majority are crushed unceremoniously....For these reasons it seemed to me more important to understand what we might call everyday forms of peasant resistance - the prosaic but constant struggle between the peasantry and those who seek to extract labor, food, taxes, rents, and interest from them. Most forms of this struggle stop well short of outright collective defiance. Here I have in mind the ordinary weapons of relatively powerless groups: foot dragging, dissimulation, desertion, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage, and so on. These...forms of class struggle...require little or no coordination or planning; they make use of implicit understandings and informal networks; they often represent a form of individual self-help; they typically avoid any direct, symbolic confrontation with authority....When such stratagems are abandoned in favor of more quixotic action, it is usually a sign of great desperation."
     - James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance

"In ancient Judaism sectarian alienation, whatever its origin, generally expressed itself in polemics against the central institutions of society (notably the temple), its authority figures (notably the priests), and its religious practices (notably purity, Sabbath, and marriage law). The 'cutting edge' of sectarianism was not theology but practice."
     - Shaye J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, 1987

"The Lord says: 'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. [Hebrew; Septuagint 'They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men',]"
     - Isaiah 29:13

Sectarian religious alienation was most acutely felt within what has been termed the Messianic Movement in Palestine. When the Hasmoneans usurped the position of High Priest of the Temple (152 B.C.E.) from the priestly Zadok family, groups like the Yahad and later the Pharisaic Zadokites broke away and refused to recognize the authority of the Temple priesthood. The ministry of Jesus was certainly aligned with this sentiment, a hostility which was further enforced by his upbringing in the tradition of Galilean holy men who had served God without the need of temple or priesthood.

Spiritual Alternatives to the Temple
"Jesus would have approved of the section of the Rule of the Community that urges initiates to comprehends that far more important than sacrifice are the 'offering of the lips' and 'perfection (or blamelessness) of conduct' ([Community Rule] 1QS 9.4-5)."
     - James H. Charlesworth, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historical Jesus" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1992), p. 17

The sectarian documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls speak of the community itself as a spiritual Temple

"...Two different views on Temple and sacrifice become apparent in the Qumran writings and the Pseudepigrapha: (1) A real Temple with animal sacrifices and blood atonement. This view emerges in the War Scroll, the Temple Scroll, the book of Jubilees and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. (2) A living temple with a spiritual worship, reflected in Qumran texts such as 1QS (together with [Rule of the Congregation] 1QSa and [Collection of Blessings] 1QSb), [Thanksgiving Psalms] 1QH, [Damascus Document] CD, and 4QFlorilegium "priestly Messiah- Otto Betz, "Jesus and the Temple Scroll" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 96

"The Qumran Essenes [Yahad] in the middle of the second century B.C.E. developed the concept of 'the Holy Spirit' to substantiate their claims against the Temple priests and their choice to live in the desert. They claimed that 'the Holy Spirit' had left the polluted Temple and accompanied them into the wilderness. There 'the Holy Spirit' dwelt in 'the house of holiness'. The Qumran Essenes hence called themselves 'the men of holiness' and 'the men of most holiness'. Since they perceived themselves as the true priests, and since they lived where 'the Holy Spirit' dwells, they continued in their devotion to God and to truth because 'the Holy Spirit' was with them, in 'the house,' and no longer in the Temple. 'The Holy Spirit' dwells now in their community (Yahad)."
     - James H. Charlesworth, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historical Jesus" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1992), pp. 20-21

"The sacrificial system of the Old Testament demanded a sacrifice be made to God for sins that were in essence the natural state of man, as described in Genesis. The priesthood benefitted from those sacrificial offerings to god as clearly stated in Leviticus. Thus, when Jesus forgave sins he was actually forgiving taxes and depriving the high priest of their livelihood. Viewed in this light, it is little wonder why Jesus was at odds with the Hebrew high priests of the sacrificial system and why in fact those priests finally had Jesus put to death."
     - G. Ley (private correspondence)

Ironically for succeeding generations of Christians, Jesus' death on the cross as the paschal lamb was the final and culminating blood sacrifice. As for the Judeans, they were no longer able to offer sacrifices to Yahweh after the destruction of their temple in 70 C.E. Semitic tradition fell prey to the relentless and pervasive spread of Hellenism throughout the Middle East. Many kept their faith alive, however, by seeing God's house in a spiritual context.

"For [the Great God] does not have a house, a stone set up as a temple,
dumb and toothless, a bane which brings many woes to men,
but one which it is not possible to see from earth nor to measure with mortal eyes, since it was not fashioned by mortal hands."
     - Sybylline Oracles 4:8-11 (c. 100 C.E.)

(2) Symbolic Destruction

Expulsion of the Vendors and Money Traders
Inside the Temple walls, "the written records tell that a great columned hall or portico stood there, open on the north side, like a cloister. This was called the Royal Portico because of its size. Four rows of pillars divided it into three long aisles. Josephus reports that each pillar was 8.2 meters/27 feet high and so thick that three men standing with arms stretched out could just encircle it. The tops of the pillars were carved with rows of leaves and the ceiling with leaves and flowers."
"It was this splendid porch that the money changers' tables stood, and the traders had stalls to sell animals and birds for sacrifices."
"Every Jew was expected to pay a tax to the Temple each year. The amount was set at half a shekel of silver, the amount laid down in the Law of Moses for the atonement of every Israelite (Exodus 30:11-16). In the first century half a shekel was reckoned the equivalent of two Greek drachmas or two Roman denarii. A laborer could earn that amount in two days, according to Jesus' parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16).
     - Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus, p. 82

"The priests decreed that payment should be made in coins of the purest silver. Only one sort was acceptable, the silver coins of the city of Tyre."
"The most common coin from Tyre is the shekel (stater or tetradrachm - four drachms); half-shekels are less often found. This suggests that Jews paid the Temple tax in pairs."
     - Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus, pp. 82, 91

The money traders installed in the Temple allowed visitors to exchange their currency for the silver shekels.

"...The prophet Zechariah...after describing the festival of Tabernacles in his fourteenth chapter, closed his prophetic work by stating that when the Lord returned to inaugurate the kingdom of God and to reclaim his Temple:"
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 234

"There shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts in that day."
     - Zechariah 14:21

Mahlon Smith argues against this passage as the inspiration for Jesus' attack on the temple vendors.

"As reasonable as that seems in translation, it ignores the fact that Zechariah does not refer to merchants in general but to Canaanites (KaNA'ANI) in particular. While it may be true that Canaanites had the reputation of being the master merchants of the ancient Mediterranean (a mantle later inherited by European Jews), it does not follow that all Canaanites were regarded as merchants or all merchants were regarded as Canaanites. Nor is there any evidence (that I'm aware of) that ancient Jews interpreted Zech 14:21 as referring to a temple free from merchants or other economic activity."
     - Mahlon Smith (CrossTalk 2)

"Many of the traders charged very high prices, taking cruel advantage of the pilgrims who came from the countryside and from foreign lands. The traders had to pay for permission to have their stalls in this area, and to seems they had to pay the leading priests."
"Later Jewish tradition remembered one place as 'the Bazaars of the sons of Annas'. One Annas was High priest from AD 6 to AD 15, when he was deposed. After him five sons, one of them also named Annas, and a son-in-law, Caiaphas, also served as High Priests (see Luke 3:2; John 18:13-24; Acts 4:6)."
"...A mob swept away the whole bazaar a few years before the Roman army took the city in AD 70."
     - Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus, p 82

In Malachi (c. 400 B.C.E.), God rebukes a corrupt Temple priesthood one hundred years after the Exile. Only when their thievery is stopped will God's basileia [kingdom] be restored.

"'Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
But you ask, "How do we rob you?"
In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse--the whole nation of you--because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,' says the LORD Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,' says the LORD Almighty. 'Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,' says the LORD Almighty."
     - Malachi 3:8-12

Mahlon Smith concludes that Jesus' visit to the Temple was most likely circumstantial. He came only because he was accompanying his Judean friends from Bethany on their annual celebration of Passover. (Jesus, being raised in Galilean traditions, did not follow this custom.) As a consequence, Jesus did not have a pre-conceived plan to attack the vendors.

"When he found the porch of the temple used as a stable for animal merchants and money changers, he was incensed since in his theology God required neither animal sacrifices nor money. With righteous rage he disrupted the commercial activities that he thought had no place in the worship of God."
     - Mahlon Smith (private correspondence)

Christ Driving the Traders from the TempleEl Greco, 1600

"On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.
And as he taught them, he said, 'Is it not written: ' "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations" [Isaiah 56:7] But you have made it "a den of robbers [ lestai - 'insurrectionists']."' [Jeremiah 7:11]"
     - Mark 11:15-17

"In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, 'Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!' His disciples remembered that it is written: 'Zeal for your house will consume me.' [Psalms 69:9]"
     - John 2:15-18

Doves were sold to the poor who could not afford to purchase a larger animal for sacrifice.

"The double and triple Hulda Gates, in the southern wall of the Temple, have been discovered, as well as portions of the massive stone stairway, plazas, and walks. The money changers could have been just inside these massive gates, and a passageway from this area, indeed from the Double Gates, to the so-called Solomonic Stables has now apparently been discovered.....It is now clear that large animals could easily have been led from these stalls (which still reveal niches in which large animals were tethered) to the halls of money changers.
"From the straw bedding or tethers accompanying such large animals, Jesus could easily have fashioned a whip."
     - James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism

It should be noted that the marketplace was located in the outer court which surrounded the Temple, the Court of the Gentiles, so called because non-Jews were permitted in this area. No selling took place in the two inner courts excluded to Gentiles which Josephus calls hagia or holy places.

An Implausible Event?
"Within the Gospels, Jesus' expulsion of such vendors and money-changers from the temple is a pivotal event (Matt 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:13-17). The money-changers are easily presented as villains, but the fact is they served a useful purpose, in that Roman coin, the currency of oppression, was scarcely apposite to achieve atonement. The ancient Tyrean shekel was used instead, and the rate of exchange appears to have been controlled. Eppstein [The Historicity of the Gospel Account of the Cleansing of the Temple] suggests that the tables of exchange were knocked over by Jesus in the melee concerning the vendors. That anything accidental or inadvertent can have taken place with furniture as massive as was used in the temple is quite implausible."
     - Bruce Chilton, "Caiaphas", Anchor Bible Dictionary

"...There is wide disagreement on the historicity of the specific details. The story, says Paula Fredriksen, professor of ancient Christianity at Boston University, 'is excellent theology. It's just terrible history.' Selling of sacrificial animals in the Temple court, she notes, was a long-standing practice that enabled pilgrims to meet their religious obligations. And portraying Jesus as chasing the money-changers from the Temple, says Funk of the Westar Institute, 'is not a realistic picture. There must have been hundreds of them, especially on a festival day.'"
     - Jeffery L. Sheler, "Who was Jesus?", US News Online (12/20/93)

"Three times a year large numbers of Jewish pilgrims traveled there from all over the world. Any serious threat to the temple would have been opposed vigorously both by the temple authorities and by the local inhabitants of Jerusalem."
     - Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, The Oxford Bible Series (1989), paperback, p. 264

This is expecially true when the economic importance of the Temple is considered.

"A carefully calculated estimate puts the amount taken to the Temple each year at half a million shekels."
"The basic unit was the silver denarius, equal to the Greek drachma, a good day's wage."
     - Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus, p 72

The Tyrean shekel was worth four denarii so the annual income of the Temple would be equivalent to wages for two million man-days of work (5480 man-years) of work.

"That action is not, of course, a physical destruction of the Temple, but it is a deliberate symbolical attack. It destroys the Temple by stopping its fiscal, sacrificial, and liturgical operations."
     - John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994)

"'From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when I punish them', says the LORD."
     - Jeremiah 6:13-15; (8:10b-12)

(3) Prophesy in Action

Cursing the Fig Tree

"'I will take away their harvest', declares the LORD. 'There will be no grapes on the vine. There will be no figs on the tree, and their leaves will wither. What I have given them will be taken from them.'"
     - Jeremiah 8:13

"The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, 'May no one ever eat fruit from you again.' And his disciples heard him say it."
In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots."
     - Mark 11:12-14, 20; (Matthew 21:18-19, 20

(In the Gospel of Matthew, the reference to Jesus' petulance is removed and the fig tree withers away "at once".)

"...Mark himself knows that Jesus was not just purifying but symbolically destroying the Temple because he carefully framed his action with the fruitless fig tree's cursing in 11:12-14 and withering in 11:20. As the useless fig tree was destroyed, so, symbolically, was the useless Temple."
     - John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)

"...In Mark's redactional vision this central pericope of vv 15-19 is not a 'cleansing' of the temple in the sense of a demand for reform and purification. Rather, at least in Mark's theology, it functions as a prophecy in action, symbolizing the rejection and destruction of the temple, which Jesus will directly announce when he leaves the temple for the last time in 13:2:"
     - John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2.

The Stone the Builders Rejected

"So this is what the Sovereign LORD says: 'See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed."
     - Isaiah 28:16

"The Council of the Community shall be established in truth as an everlasting planting. It is the House of holiness for Israel and the Company of infinite holiness for Aaron...appointed to offer expiation for the earth....It is the tried wall, the precious corner-stone."
     - Community Rule 1QS 8.5-7

"As the Epistle to the Hebrews suggests, the Christian vision of the heavenly Jerusalem and city of God, being the goal of Christian pilgrimage and the final refuge and resting-place, is a development of Isaiah 28:16 (cf. Heb 11:10; 12:22; 13:14) and also the attitude of hope and faith directed toward it. "
     - Otto Betz, "Jesus and the Temple Scroll" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 99

In the Heir of the Vineyard parable (Mark 12:1-8 [Matthew 21:33-39; Luke 20.9-15a]), the owner of a vineyard sends a succession of servants to collect the rent from the tenent farmers, but all the servants are beaten. He then sends his beloved son, whom the farmer is certain will be respected, but the son was killed. This parable was a rather transparent allegory for the passion of Jesus and was immediately followed by the "rejected stone theme".

"What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Haven't you read this scripture: '"The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone...'[or 'cornerstone']" (Psalms 118:22)
     - Mark 12:9-10 (Matthew 21:41-42; Luke 20:17-18)

"The 'rejected stone theme' (lithos) appended to the Heir of the Vineyard parable, is then epitomized in Jesus' prediction that 'not one stone (lithos)' of the Temple would be left standing."
     - Philip B. Lewis (Crosstalk)

"As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, 'Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!'
'Do you see all these great buildings?' replied Jesus. 'Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.' "
     - Mark 13:1-2; (Matthew 24:2; Luke 21:6)

Predicting the Destruction of the Temple
"In several Old Testament passages there is prophetic criticism of the temple and its worship, and even some predictions of its destruction along with Jerusalem. (See, for example, Hos. 6:6; Amos 5:4-7, 21-3; Isa. 1:10-12; Jer. 7:14; 26:4-9, 12; Dan. 9:26; 11:31). Josephus records several prophecies of the fall of Jerusalem and the temple. So it is quite possible that Jesus aligned himself with such criticisms of the temple and of Jerusalem."
     - Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, The Oxford Bible Series (1989), paperback, p. 182

"'The multitude of your sacrifices-- what are they to me?' says the LORD. 'I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts?'"
     - Isaiah 1:10-12

"This is what the LORD says: If you do not listen to me and follow my law, which I have set before you, and if you do not listen to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I have sent to you again and again (though you have not listened), then I will make this house like Shiloh [desolate and deserted] and this city an object of cursing among all the nations of the earth."
     - Jeremiah 26:4-6

"After the sixty-two sevens, the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary."
     - Daniel 9:26a

(In the passage from Daniel, the "Anointed One" likely refers to the High Priest Jason who was killed by the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 B.C.E.)
The following oracles attributed to Jesus sound a similar refrain as those from the Hebrew Bible.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those sent to you'....Behold your house is forsaken.'"
     - Matthew 23:37, 39 // Luke 13:34, 35

"We have heard him saying,'I'll destroy this temple made with hands and in three days I'll build another, not made with hands!' "
     - Mark 14:58; (Matthew 26:61)

In Mark this statement is "a false accusation coupling the Temple's actual destruction and Jesus' parousiac return."
     - John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)

"I shall destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to build it..."
     - Thomas 71

"...Jesus could have predicted the destruction of the temple and its replacement by another 'not' made with hands'....The saying in Thomas, unfortunately, is fragmentary. Since we do not know how the saying in Thomas 71 ended" it cannot be ascribed with any certainty to Jesus.
     - Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels

A Symbolic Destruction?
"In the early decades of the first century some Jewish circles did expect that in the 'last days' God would provide a 'new temple', and thus the purity of Israel would be restored. A new temple clearly implies the destruction of the existing temple."
     - Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, The Oxford Bible Series (1989), paperback, p. 264

"...An action and equal saying involving the Temple's symbolic destruction goes back to the historical Jesus himself but any biblical references or applications to the Temple's actual destruction, the resurrection, or the parousia are later explanations of an action considered enigmatic to begin with and rendered even more so by the Temple's actual destruction in 70 C.E.."
     - John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)

"One of the fourth evangelist's narrative techniques is to have Jesus' discussion partners misunderstand something he says. In this case, they take the remark to refer to the temple building (correctly, it seems, according to the Markan version) and so they unwittingly observe that it took forty-six years to build the present temple. The author then explains how it is possible that the 'temple' can be restored in three short days.
"The saying and context have obviously been Christianized in the Fourth Gospel."
     - Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels

"Then the Jews demanded of him, 'What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?'
Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.'
The Jews replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?' But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken."
     - John 2:19-22

For the author(s) of John, Jesus' words are "not a prophecy, whether true or false, but a challenge. It is not something that Jesus will do the their Temple but something that they will do to his body."
     - John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)

The Final Provocations

"His Judean friends immediately interpreted this [the temple incident] as a sign that Jesus was a prophet of the stature of John the Baptist: a new Elijah come to purge the temple with fire."
     - Mahlon Smith (private correspondence)

"See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,' says the LORD Almighty.
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver."
"'Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,' says the LORD Almighty. 'Not a root or a branch will be left to them.'"
     - Malachi 3:1-3a; 4:1

"Spreading rumors of a John the Baptist or Elijah redivivus led temple police and probably Roman soldiers to scour the city to prevent some further demonstration by Jesus during Passover that might be interpreted by the crowd as an act of liberation."
     - Mahlon Smith (private correspondence)

"On balance, it would appear that Caiaphas [the high priest] did engineer the installation of vendors in the temple, that Jesus reacted with force, and that the collision of the two was finally adjudicated by Pilate, Caiaphas' protector."
     - Bruce Chilton, "Caiaphas", Anchor Bible Dictionary

"'If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.' Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, 'You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.' He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation..."
     - John 11:48-51

The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, they [some early manuscripts 'he'] went out of the city."
     - Mark 11:18-19

"A disturbance in the temple would explain why temple authorities would want to detain Jesus and perhaps keep him in custody until after the festival to prevent him inciting the crowds to riot. But it is far from adequate historical cause for the gospel accounts of Jesus' arrest and execution. Where do we find that overturning money-changers' tables was a capital offense in Jewish jurisprudence? While the Roman military was swift to eliminate demagogues and their fanatic followers before they acted, where is there evidence of them singling out a single challenger of temple protocol for arrest and execution?"
     - Mahlon H. Smith (CrossTalk 2)

"...Mat 21.14fff. represents the attack [on the temple vendors] as followed by miraculous cures in the temple, whereupon Jesus is hailed as 'the son of David' (the Messiah) and the high priests object to the title, not the attack."
     - Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) pp. 47-48

"Just as the Passover lamb was examined for four days prior to Passover, so Jesus entered the Temple and was examined for four days prior to Passover by the Sadducees and the Pharisees."
     - "Unlocking Prophecy: Jesus Fulfills the Seven Feasts of Israel", Return to God Magazine (Vol. 1 No 1, p. 22 and Vol. 1 No. 2, p. 4)

Conspiracy of Pharisees and Herodians Painting by J. James Tissot

"Then the Pharisees went and counseled together how they might trap Him in word what He said."
"On that day some Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Him and questioned Him..."
     - Matthew 22:15-22; 23-33

"The 'imploding' reasons that moved Caiaphas [the high priest] to action no doubt included: Jesus' proclamation that the definitive kingdom of God was soon to come and would put an end to the present state of affairs in the world in general and Israel in particular, when Israel would be restored to its glory and reconstituted as the twelve tribes in the end time; his claim to teach authoritatively the will of God for people's lives, even when this seemed in individual instances to run counter to provision in the Law of Moses; his ability to attract a large following, and perhaps his decision to form a stable inner circle of 12 disciples, representing the 12 patriarchs and the 12 tribes of a restored Israel; his practice of a special rite of baptism to admit persons into his group of disciples; and his freewheeling personal conduct that expressed itself in table fellowship with toll collectors and sinners."
     - John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2.

"Jesus said to them, 'I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.'"
     - Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:28-30

"...All sayings about the eschatological figure, called the son of Adam [Man]" are "the creation of the Christian community...Matthew's reference to the son of Adam as ultimate judge...[is] an expression of his theological views."
     - Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels

"If one adds to this volatile mix the likelihood that at least some of Jesus' followers believed him to be descended from King David and that they therefore took him to be the Davidic Messiah expected by some pious Jews, and if one allows further that Jesus had at times spoken at least in veiled fashion of his own future role in the eschatological drama, perhaps even using special titles or self-designations, the mix becomes positively explosive."
     - John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2.

"...If one brackets out the apocalyptic sayings (which can mostly be traced to the influence of Mark who was preoccupied with signs of the endtime in Judea), then there are several subtle parallels between the message of Jesus and the clarion call for political/social liberation and prosperity by Judas of Gamala who was THE leading Galilean demagogue (by Josephus' estimate) of Jesus' youth (by either Matt or Luke's reckoning).
"Jesus also promised earthly bliss (food, clothing) to any pauper or starving person who sought one thing only: the BASILEIA [Kingdom] of God. And he warned those who were relatively prosperous and wanted to preserve their possessions that they would have to be prepared to abandon these IF they wanted to participate in that new order. Like Judas, Jesus realistically told his audience that they would have to be prepare to die for the cause of God's BASILEIA if they were to hope to have a part in it. What would God's BASILEIA be like: a grain of mustard that grows great enough to give shelter to many small creatures; a bit of leaven that swells to produce enough bread to feed an army. As a matter of fact, one of the earliest Jewish legends about Jesus has Jesus himself feeding a hungry Galilean mob (ala Moses in the wilderness or Elisha in the Golan). Mark claims Jesus divided the MEN (no women and children in his account please) into militia-like bands of 50s and 100s (Mark 6:40) as Moses divided the Israelites (Ex 18:21-26). Funny that both scenes are set in the wilderness and that both seem quasi-military but that neither invokes endtime imagery. The Gospel of John sets the same scene at Passover and claims the 5000 recognized Jesus as 'the prophet who is to come.' Are these elements eschatological? Sounds more like anticipation of a new Exodus and freedom from domination by a political oppressor to me."
     - Mahlon Smith (CrossTalk)

(2) The Raising of Lazarus

According to John, although an order for Jesus' arrest was made at Tabernacles following his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, he returned nonetheless to teach in the Temple. It was the second order, one which followed the raising of Lazarus, that caused the Sanhedrin to take action. The story, as told in John, begins when Jesus informs his disciples that Lazarus had fallen asleep. Together they are to travel to Judea where Jesus will awaken him. This, despite the fact that on his previous trip, Judeans had attempted to stone Jesus to death.

"His disciples replied, 'Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.' Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
So then he told them plainly, 'Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.'
Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, 'Let us also go, that we may die with him.'"
     - John 11:12-16

Thomas' remark is peculiar, unless Lazarus' death was actually a ritualistic enactment of death and rebirth. To the Jews, Sheol was the land of the sleeping, the shades of the dead.

"When Jesus reaches Bethany [3 km from Jerusalem], one of the sisters of Lazarus, Martha, runs to meet him. Jesus tells the grieving woman that her brother will rise again. Martha replies, 'I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day'. This enable Jesus to make the staggering assertion, 'I am Resurrection and Life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?' Martha is not quite sure, and contents herself with affirming that she believes that he is the expected Messiah."
     - Hugh J. Schonfield, After the Cross

"Jesus...came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 'Take away the stone,' he said. 'But, Lord,' said Martha, the sister of the dead man, 'by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.' Then Jesus said, 'Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?' So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, 'Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.' When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!' The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, 'Take off the grave clothes and let him go.' Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him."      - John 11:39-45

"Dr. Gerald A. Larue, professor emeritus of biblical history and archeology at the University of Southern California and president of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER), a secular humanist organization, says it's possible Lazarus was either in a coma or a catatonic state.
"Obviously, in biblical times the practice of medicine was not nearly as sophisticated as it is today. Even as recent as the Victorian era, to ensure that no one suffering from catatonia would be buried alive, people were buried in special types of coffins that had tubes running to the surface with bells on top.
"Larue says that a person in a catatonic state shows few signs of a heartbeat or breathing. The biblical account leads him to suspect Lazarus was actually in a coma, since in this condition hearing is often the last sense lost. 'Assuming Jesus had a loud voice, and he called out "Lazarus," the man may have heard him and come out of the coma,' Larue says."
     - Mike Fillon, "Science Solves the Ancient Myteries of the Bible", Popular Mechanics, Dec. 1996

"According to John's Gospel, which alone [of the canonical gospels] records this miracle, the raising of Lazarus became known to multitudes at Jerusalem, as well as to the chief priests, who therefore wanted to kill Lazarus and Jesus (12:9-11)."
     - Hugh J. Schonfield, After the Cross

"Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. 'What are we accomplishing?' they asked. 'Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place [or temple] and our nation.'
Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, 'You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.'"
"So from that day on they plotted to take his life."
     - John 11:47-50, 53

(3) The Egyptian Connection

"I think John's Lazarus existed first, not in history, but in Luke's parable of Lazarus and Dives. Both stories...turn on the phrase 'if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead' (Luke 16:31). That which was a warning in Luke's parable became the reality on which the Fourth Gospel turned in John's episode of the raising of Lazarus. Indeed this raising not only failed to convince the authorities of Jesus' relationship with God, but it became the very reason the authorities sought to kill Jesus."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 179

"In hell, [Greek Hades] where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'"
     - Luke 16:23-26

Luke's parable of Lazarus and Dives echoes an earlier Egyptian tale involving torment for the rich and comfort for the poor.

"In the so-called Setna Story [II Setna, II, 9ff - Memphis], written in demotic, the hero of the tale looks into the realm of the dead and there see (or learns) how, in accordance with a divine judgment, the pompous furnishings of a rich but unjust man's tomb are assigned to a poor but just man, who is buried in simple fashion; the latter achieves happiness next to Osiris, while the rich man suffers the torments of hell."
"In one of the few cases where a concept that figures in the New Testament has been taken to be ultimately of Egyptian origin, Jesus's parable of Dives and Lazarus, it has quite correctly been assumed that this transmission took place by way of Jewish material."
     - Seigfreid Morenz, Egyptian Religion

Lazarus, "whom God helps" is a form of the Hebrew name Eleazar. The name metemologically corresponds to the Egyptian Ele-asar-u, the "Mummy's Constellation". This constellation was linked to Osiris, the ascended Pharoah's as 4 gospel's account of lazarus' resurrection

An expurgated passage in Mark, which originated in Alexandria, Egypt two generations before the Gospel of John, describes Jesus raising a young man. With its mystic overtones, this account evidently describes an early Christian initiation and baptism ritual. Was this ritual inspired by another event that occurred in Egypt?

"Apollonius of Tyana, a miracle worker and contemporary of Christ, is said to have undergone 'ritual initiation' in the Great Pyramid whereby he was 'crucified,' buried and rose again on the third day."
     - The Christian Conspiracy: The Orthodox Suppression of Original Christianity

The earliest surviving account of this event was written by Philostratus in the early 3rd century. There are also clear parallels between Lazarus and Jesus. Both were buried in a tomb sealed with a stone while a woman Mary wept outside, and both were raised from the dead after a few days.

(4) Judas' Betrayal

"After the first order for arrest at Tabernacles, Jesus still returns to teach in the Temple; the second order, which follows the raising of Lazarus, has more impact. Jesus walks 'no more openly among the Jews'; as a wanted man, he withdraws to the wilderness: the authorities wonder whether he will dare to come to Jerusalem for the Passover, but when he does, they are not brave enough to arrest him, because he now commands such a following."
     - Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version

"Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve."
     - Luke 22:3

"Christians need to recognize first that the name 'Judas' was simply the Greek way of spelling 'Judah', and that Judah was the name of the patriarch who was thought to be the father of the Jewish nation. From the tenth century before the birth of Jesus on, this nation was known first as Judah and later as Judea. The designation 'Jew', therefore meant originally a member of the nation of Judah. Jewish people in Hitler's Germany were force to wear the identifying badge with the letters JUDE written on it. In the midrashic tradition...the traitor was given the name of the nation that, by the time the Gospels were being composed, was perceived to be the enemy of the Christian movement..."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 266

"I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night when he was betrayed took bread."
     - Corinthians 11:23

"That is all the Christian Church had in writing about the betrayal until the seventh decade."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 260

The story of Judas' betrayal of Jesus is filled with allusions to Old Testament scriptures.

"Zechariah, in chapter eleven, describes the worthless shepherd who will sell his flock to the slaughterers rather than succor them. He will 'have no pity' for his flock, but will rather be more interested to say 'I am rich' (Zech. 11:5). Just as Jesus says at the Last Supper, 'Alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed' (Mark 14:4), so Zechariah says, 'Alas for the worthless shepherd' (Zech. II: 17), for he says to his flock, 'I will not fatten you any more. Any that are to die, let them die.' He then breaks his shepherd's staffs and abandons his office. But 'the dealers who were watching me knew that all this was the word of the LORD.' The worthless shepherd then says to the dealers: 'If it suits you, give me my wages, otherwise keep them. '"
     - Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 113

"And I said to them, 'If it is proper in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!' So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages."      - Zechariah 11:12	"Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money."      - Mark 14:10-11 "So they counted out for him thirty silver coins."      - Matthew 26:15
"Even my close friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against Me."      - Psalms 41:9	"When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve.While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, 'I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me--one who is eating with me.'"      - Mark 14:17-18; (Matthew 26:20-21; Luke 22:21)
"Where the place of rest for those who have rejected the lord of spirits? It would have been better for them, had they never been born."      - Enoch 38:2	"They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, 'Surely not I?' 'It is one of the Twelve,' he replied, 'one who dips bread into the bowl with me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.'"      - Mark 14:19-21; (Mathew 26:22-24; Luke 22:22)

"As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. 'What you are about to do, do quickly,' Jesus told him."
     - John 13:27

"The notion that a demon can be sent into food so as to enter anyone who eats the food is common, particularly in love charms:"

"Spell said to the cup. Say seven [times], 'You are wine; you are not wine but the head of Athena. Yen are wine; you are not wine but the entrails of Osiris, the entrails of Iao Pakerbeth, Eternal Sun o o o...i a a a'..."

The curse pronounced on the betrayer in the synoptics "is reproduced in two later treatises belonging to the collection of ancient documents known as the Apostolic Fathers. Its appearance in these multiple, independent sources indicates the saying once circulated independently. However, the saying is a proverb that would fit any number of occasions."
"It is possible that one of the disciples betrayed Jesus, and that Jesus may have become aware of that betrayal, but this oracle was introduced into the passion narrative by Mark. It did not originate with Jesus."
     - Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels

"Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, 'Surely not I, Rabbi?' Jesus answered, 'Yes, it is you.'"
     - Mathew 26:25

"...The Jewish word for betrayal literally means 'to hand over,' especially to hand over to a recognized enemy. In the Jewish tradition, there was one other major story in which a gigantic Jewish hero was betrayed or handed over to an enemy. That was the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis (37-50). In that story the 'handing over' was done by a group of twelve who later became known as the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel. In the Jesus story, the 'handing over' also came out of a group of twelve who were designated the leaders of the Church that came to call itself the new Israel. In both stories the handing over or betrayal was into the hands of gentiles, and death was the presumed result of each act of treachery. In both stories God intervened to reverse that presumed outcome. In both stories the hero was imprisoned for a time - Joseph in the pharaoh's jail, Jesus in Joseph's tomb. In both stories money was given to the traitors - twenty pieces of silver for Joseph, thirty pieces of silver for Jesus. Not lost in this analysis was the fact that the one of the twelve brothers of Joseph who urged the others to seek money for their act of betrayal was named Judah or Judas (Gen. 37:26-27)."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 267

According to Luke, Jesus later spoke the following words at the Last Supper, presumably with Judas still present:

"You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.""
     - Luke 22:28-30 (Matthew 19:28)

"In this saying the author appears to reflect a tradition that knew no definition and no act of treachery. That is, this text reflects a time before the Judas legend arose. The story told in the Book of Acts (1:15-16) of one being chosen to take the place of Judas was a much later tradition, not written until the last years of the ninth decade at the earliest and probably as late as the tenth decade, as was clearly designed to address this apparent weakness."
     - John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 275

Paul also appears to have no knowledge of the Judas tradition. Referring to the disciples who later witnessed the resurrected Jesus, Paul calls them the "Twelve" (1 Corinthians 15: 6) while the other Gospels mention only the "eleven".

In the Gospel of John, Judas meets with the priests after the last supper, not before as in the synoptic gospels. During the meal Satan is said to have entered into him and Judas becomes the necessary instrument for the unfolding of God's plan.

"As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. 'What you are about to do, do quickly,' Jesus told him, but no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him."
"As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night. When he was gone, Jesus said, 'Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.'"
     - John 13:27-28, 30-31