Criswell
Theological Review 3.1 (1988) 101-126.
Copyright © 1988 by The
JOHN, JESUS AND THE ESSENES:
TROUBLE AT THE
KENNETH A. MATHEWS
The
religious establishment, became a common target of
criticism among
religious reformers. From the days of Jeremiah
until the temple's
collapse at the hands of the Romans, both the
orthodox reformer and
the radical sectarian called for change in what
they perceived as
aberrant practices. It is not surprising that
Jesus' hostile confrontation
at the temple received special attention by the
Gospel writers since it
served to illustrate Jesus' opposition to the
religious authorities of
his day.
All four Evangelists record the
"
an important step in their respective arguments.l John's Gospel in
particular is impressed with Jesus' action and
selects it to introduce
him to the public. The Synoptics,
on the other hand, present the
incident as Jesus' last public act which explains
what provoked the
Sanhedrin to plot Jesus' subsequent arrest.
From the remarkable desert
discoveries of our century, scholars
have been reminded that Jesus was not alone in
criticizing the temple.
The
community of
evidenced attitudes ranging from a serious
reservation about temple
piety to a stricter view tantamount to an abandonment
of its precincts.
During
the period of Essene life at
there were others as well who denounced temple
transgressions. What
we learn from these voices of discontent enables
us to better under-
stand the ideological climate in which Jesus' action
took place. It has
been commonly thought that the Essenes
rejected all temple sacrifice,
1 The term
"Cleansing" is unfortunate since it suggests actual purification
rites;
102 CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
but we will show that this was not the case,
neither is it true, as has
been popularly believed, that the
by temple theft. We will discover that Jesus'
complaints corresponded
in some ways to the concerns uttered by others,
but that he had a very
different response to temple misconduct. Jesus was
not a mere mimic
in a long line of religious extremists who became
disenchanted with
present him as an innovative thinker who
inaugurated a revolutionary
policy toward the temple. Our paper will first survey
how other
critics responded to the indiscretions of the
temple, and then we will
turn attention to the Gospel accounts, focusing on
John's interpreta-
tion of Jesus'
Criticism of the temple had its
precedent in the OT prophets
who brought charges against the
Gospels
and the sectarian Covenant Community in its writing, the
Damascus
Document (CD), appealed to the prophets to legitimize
their opposition to temple practices.2
OT Prophets
The Synoptics
(Mark 11:17 pars.) have a composite quotation
from the prophets which was spoken by Jesus to
explain his hostile
action in the temple grounds: "'My house shall be
called a house of
prayer for all the nations' (Isa
56:7), but you have made it a 'den of
robbers'" (Jer
7:11). The original context of the Isaiah passage de-
scribes the eschatological age when people of
all nations shall come to
2 For the unfamiliar
reader, the Damascus Document refers to a sectarian work
first known from two medieval manuscripts discovered
in the genizah of an old
synagogue. It is named after "
where the sect's members sought refuge. The
manuscripts were published as the
"Zadokite Fragments" in 1910 by S. Schechter
and again by C. Rabin (The Zadokite
Fragments [
document often refers to the members as the
"sons of Zadok." A few fragments of the
document were recovered from three caves at
were called the Damascus Document (Q[umranJ D[ocument]). With the
discovery of
these Qumran fragments, the
subsequently assigned the siglum CD. As a result of the
attention by
to the community which gave rise to the
CD
are two parts: (1) an admonition concerning the
community and (2) laws governing
its life.
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND
THE ESSENES 103
Coupled
with this, Jesus quotes from Jeremiah's famous
Sermon which was a hallmark of his career. The Sermon is one of
the
OT's
most caustic; he denounces the unholy practices of the wicked
who think they have safe refuge within the temple
walls ("den of
robbers"). It forewarns that they shall
reap the consequences of their
sin like those at
his action differently: "You shall not make my
Father's house a house
of trade" (2:16). The phrase "house of
trade" is an allusion to Zechariah's
concluding verse in which the idealized age is
depicted as having "no
trader in the house of the LORD of hosts"
(14:21).3
When the Covenant Community
repudiated temple sins, it re-
membered Malachi's exhortation
concerning the abuse of the sacri-
ficial system (CD 6:11-14/Mal l:l0):
None of those brought into the
Covenant shall enter the
His altar in vain.
They shall bar the door, forasmuch as God said, Who
among you will bar its door? And, You shall not light my altar in vain
(M.al. i, 10). They shall
take care to act according to the exact interpreta-
tion of the Law during the age of wickedness.4
Perhaps Malachi's prophecy was
influential in John's Gospel and
colored his chronological presentation of Jesus'
ministry.5 Chap 1
speaks of the Baptist's role, corresponding to Mal
3:1a: "I will send
my messenger, and he will prepare the way before
me." Chap 2 has
Jesus
in the temple which matches the last half of that prophetic
verse: "The Lord whom you seek shall suddenly
come to his temple"
(Mal
3:1b).6
Although leveling sharp attacks, the
OT prophets never advocated
a total abandonment of the temple but called for
a reformation of its
3 We have translated kn’ny (=
"Canaanite" or "trader") as it is interpreted in the
Gospels. In the Hebrew context, the prophecy
creates a future temple which will
transform all profane utensils into holy vessels.
The second half of the verse is difficult
since the Hebrew can be translated "Canaannite" or "trader." If taken as
"Canaanite,"
then it depicts a temple which has no Gentile who
might pollute the sacred place, but if
"trader" was intended, the eschatological temple will
have no need for commercial
exchange and therefore no merchant.
4 G. Vermes,
The
5 The absence of Malachi
in the Gospel accounts is strange since it is the logi-
cal passage we would expect the Evangelists to
cite. Perhaps, its association with John
the Baptist somehow precluded its use here. Cf. R.
H. Hiers ("Purification of
the
that the
however, his conclusion that the Baptist and
Jesus shared in the identity of "Elijah" is
improbable.
6 R. E. Brown, The Gospel According
to John I-XII (AB; 2 vols.
Doubleday, 1966) 1.18.
104 CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
practices. The prophets, of course, were not
satisfied with mere ortho-
doxy in ritual matters (cf. Isa
1:11-17; Jer 7:5; 31:33; Mic
6:6-8; Hos
6:6- 7). For them, ritual could not be
substituted for covenant obedi-
ence, and therefore they
painted an ideal age when new hearts would
please God in a holy way. This future era could not be
complete
without a reconstituted sanctuary, indicating
Yahweh's presence once
again among his people. Envisioned in this new temple
were the
newly-redeemed people of
to
Zech
14:6).
Ezekiel's oracles in particular
describe the ideal age around this
temple motif. He measures the impending demise of the
whole nation
by the departure of the "glory of the
LORD" from the temple (10:18-
19;
11:23), permitting the defilement of its precincts (7:22). As a result,
the restored
where the "glory" once again can be found
(43:2); this new sanctuary
and David's scion are the centerpiece of
By the imagery of a defiled and
abandoned temple, the prophets
condemned
temple was a promise of hope, because it meant the
return of God's
beneficent presence.
Other Dissident Voices
Criticism of temple practices by
religious pietists continued
through the Hasmonean
era into the 1st century A.D. The Psalms of
Solomon,
set in the mid-1st century B.C., has been traditionally ascribed
to Pharisaic sympathies (opposing the Sadducees).7
The composition
reflects the kind of criticisms found among
diverse groups at that
time. The opening psalm (1:8) describes the wicked's sin: "they utterly
polluted the holy things of the Lord" (APOT
2. 631). Specifically, the
wicked are those who freely violate the temple's
sanctity (8:11-13):
They plundered the sanctuary of God.
. .
They trode
the altar of the Lord, (coming straight) from all manner of
uncleanness;
And with menstrual blood they
defiled the sacrifices, as (though these
were) common
flesh (APOT 2.640).
7 However, the affinities
of the composition with
to question that association. R. B. Wright,
"Psalms of Solomon," The Old
Testament
Pseudepigrapha (2 vols.;
ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
1983) 2.642.
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND
THE ESSENES 105
The
pseudepigraphal Testament of Levi comes from the 2nd
century B.C.,8 and also speaks of
polluted sacrifices (16:1). Like the
Psalms
of Solomon, ritual uncleanness is tied to the imagery of rob-
bery: “The offerings of the Lord you shall rob. . . eating
(them)
contemptuously with harlots” (APOT
2.312). Another testimony to
encroaching corruption is the Assumption of Moses;
although the text
dates to the 1st century A.D., it reflects the
problems of the Hasmonean
era. R. H. Charles has called its author the “Pharisaic
Quietist.”9 The
defilement of sacrifices are likened to “whoring
after strange gods”
and the priests offend ..with
the (very) gifts which they offer to the
Lord.
. ." (APOT 2.417-18).
These examples reflect what we find
in Jewish literature of the
Hasmonean and Herodian periods. There was a general unrest in
anticipate anew, restored temple built by God and
inaugurated at the
coming of the Messiah. The purging of the corrupted
temple was
believed by the Jews necessary before the
established.10 Since writings, such as
the Psalms of Solomon, were
authored by Jewish traditionalists,11
we learn that stinging reprimands
could be said by those who continued to offer
sacrifices at the temple.
We
will discover that this was true of the Essenes as
well. Also, it will
become significant to recall that the offences cited
by the Jews are
ritual uncleanness, particularly sexual impurity, and
are described as
robbery. This is important in our evaluation of
how the covenanters
responded to the
Community, as we will see next, are described similarly.
Covenant Community
We are giving special attention to
the attitude of the Covenant
Community
toward the temple, because it is generally believed by
a struggle with temple authorities. Also, the
Covenant Community
was part of a wider movement, and therefore from it
we can achieve
8 H. C. Kee, "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarches,"
Pseudepigrapha,
1.778-79.
Fragments
of the Testament have been recovered from
9 R. H.
Charles, APOT 2.407. The authorship remains uncertain, however; see
J.
Priest, "Testament of Moses," Pseudepigrapha 2.921-22.
10 For a detailed
discussion of the Jewish evidence of the period for the new,
heavenly temple, see R. J. McKelvey,
The New Temple: The Church in the New
Testament (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1969) 9-24.
11 It is commonly held
that the Psalms of Solomon were authored by the Pharisees;
see G. B. Gray, APOT 2.630.
106
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
a broader perspective of how heterodox groups
viewed temple
sacrifice.
It has become more widely recognized
that the evidence from
Our
ancient sources offers a mixed testimony about how the desert
sectarians assessed and participated in the
when
some conclusions about Essene
practice have been skewed by their
selectivity in evidence. The community known from CD
and the
natural accretions of differing theological and
socio-historical opinions
occurring over the more than 200 years if its
life. In other words, we
must be careful not to restrict the idea of "Essenism," since we know
on the basis of CD that there was a preQumran history for the
Essenes and also the Essenes
lived in many sites other than Qumran.12
However, after 40 years of
consensus about the broad strokes of
that the Essenes existed
at
ness came to the site, although their origins are
highly disputed. All
concur that the figure known as the Teacher was once
opposed by a
chief antagonist, the Wicked Priest, who was a priest
of
and a member of the Hasmonean
royal family.14 The Teacher lost
12 Cf. Philo: "They live in villages
and avoid the cities because of the iniquitie
which have become inveterate among city
dwellers" (Quod omnis
9.12.76).
13 Researching the body
of
distributed among numerous journals, monographs, and
dissertations. For the non-
specialist, a succinct statement of the major
issues and the opinions of the leading
Subsequent
History of the Authors of the
Among the
14 The reconstruction of
the early years of
Wicked
Priest, whose career is outlined in the Habakkuk commentary (lQpHab 89ff.),
has been variously identified, but we believe with
the growing opinion that Jonathan
was the Teacher's enemy. Among those who have
argued for the identification of
Jonathan
are G. Vermes, J. T. Milik, G. Jeremias, H. Stegemann, and J. Murphy-
O'Connor (see Charlesworth,
"Origin," 219-20). Stegemann and
Murphy-O'Connor
have posited that the Teacher is the legitimate high
priest who was prevented his
rightful place by Jonathan. Stegemann
has argued that the high priesthood must have
been filled during the seven years after the death
of Alkimos (contra
Josephus [
20.237])
in order for the nation to celebrate the Day of Atonement (Die Entstehung der
Qumrangemeinde [
unknown priest is dependent upon the reference
to the Teacher as "the priest" (cf.
hakohen in 1QHab 2:8; 4Qppsa
2:19; 3:15) but their suggestion has been disputed by
and the Teacher of Righteousness: (I Macc, X, 25-45)," RB
83 (1976) 400-420; "The
Essenes and Their History" RB 81 (1974) 215-44, esp. 229-32; and
"The Essenes in
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND THE ESSENES
107
some members of his following to a contemporary,
rival leader called
the Man of Lies, and at that time, or soon
thereafter, the troubled
Teacher
led a splinter group to
received by the Essenes
(ca. 150 B.C.).
Generally, it has been thought that
the Essenes derived from the
Jewish
Hasidim in
Hellenism
which reached its climax in the murder and usurpation of
Onias III, the legitimate Zadokite
high priest (172 B.C.). A withdrawal
of some of these pietists
into outlying villages followed the incident.
The
Maccabean revolt and the newly-formed Hasmonean regime was
praised for its anti-Hellenistic policies, but
the Hasidim were soon
disappointed at the action of
Jonathan Maccabaeus (160-43 B.C.) who
seized the high priesthood in 152 B.C.
J. Murphy-O'Connor's thesis has
departed from the majority
opinion; rather than
background for interpreting
because the Babylonian setting according to
Murphy-O'Connor helps
explain the Essene
rejection of temple sacrifices. He believes that the
Essenes were part of a movement that returned
from
165
B.C.) only to be appalled at the condition of the
temple. The
Essenes rejected the priesthood which had
replaced the Zadokite line
and refused participation in the temple because
unlike
Essenes followed the solar calendar. For
Murphy-O'Connor, before
the arrival of the Teacher, the Essenes
of Qumran had abandoned
temple sacrifices.15 Some scholars have
even argued that
response to the usurpation of the Zadokite line established a rival altar
where animal sacrifices occurred, but the evidence
they produce is
unclear and has been explained on other grounds.16
15 Murphy-O'Connor,
"Essenes and Their History," 221-28; "
("The
Literary Analysis of
has suggested that the covenanters "confession
of sin" (CD 20:28-33; 1QS 1:24-26) was
a formal repudiation of the temple: ..And after
them, all those entering the Covenant
shall confess and say: 'We have strayed! We have
[disobeyed!] We and our fathers
before us have sinned and done wickedly in walking
[counter to the precepts] of truth
and righteousness. .." (cf. 1QS 1:24-26; Vermes,
16 Contra a rival altar,
see J. Baumgarten; "The Essenes
and the
Reappraisal"
Studies in
reverses his previous opinion that the Essenes at
sacrifices ("Sacrifices and Worship Among the Jewish
Sectarians of the
[
For
arguments for animal sacrifice at
the Essenes: Antiquities
XVIII, 18-22," JBL 77 (1958)
113-15; F. M. Cross, The Ancient
Library of Qumran and
Modem Biblical Studies (rev. ed.:
[reprint]) 102.
108
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
However, there is evidence that the
Covenant Community con-
tinued to practice animal
sacrifice at the
reservations. We are convinced that
it was not until the arrival of the
deposed Teacher at
pation in the temple cult.
This consideration is important for our
study since we saw earlier that even the most devout pietists would
criticize the sacrificial system and still
participate in it. The question is
to what degree the covenanters participated in the
temple sacrifices.
Once
we have established that, we will be in a better position to see
where Jesus' attitude coincided with other critics of
the temple during
his day.17
ing the temple" as the
"three nets of Belial" that have entrapped
worshippers who have slept with a menstruant or have an incestuous
marriage. These three charges are the same three
sins in Pss. Sol. 8:10-
12
where "adultery," "plunder," and defiling the sacrifices
with "men-
strual blood" are named.18
CD's criticism continues in its introduction
17 As we review the
evidence, the methodological problem is how much emphasis
to place on the evidence of the pesherim and the
testimony of Philo and Josephus
versus the evidence of CD.
to the pesherim, and
they have tended to harmonize the evidence of CD and the
collateral witnesses of Philo and Josephus with
them. The role of CD, however, in
reconstructing preQumran
history has become more influential as a result of the literary
studies of Murphy-O'Connor and Stegemann. Still dissatisfied with their approaches,
P.
Davies (The Damascus Covenant
[Sheffield: JSOT, 1982]) attempted to interpret CD
autonomously from the
warning is justified: we cannot treat CD simply
as another
history antedating its function in the
Davies concluded that the Covenant
Community had its ideological roots in exilic
literature and that the community had its origins
outside
well organized, operated on a solar calendar, and
had no serious objections to temple
sacrifice. At a later time, the
document underlying the present CD recension. This has produced diverse opinions in
CD
where both a more relaxed and a more stringent attitude toward the temple can
be
discerned in the document. Whether or not Davies
is correct that CD is a "Qumranic"
recension, it becomes more
apparent as we read the document that its authors presumed
their members to be engaged in temple sacrifice
although with certain restrictions. As
stated earlier, Essenism
must be defined to accommodate such diverse opinions; it was
not uniform in ideology or practice. The future
debate in
whether scholars will continue or not to give
priority to the pesherim
by subsuming all
other evidence under the reconstruction derived
primarily from them. For Murphy-
O'Connor's
literary studies, see “An Essene
Missionary Document? CD II, 14- VI, I,”
RB 77 (1970) 201-29;
"The Literary Analysis of
78
(1970) 210-32; "The Literary Analysis of
79 (1972) 544-64.
18 Baumgarten, "Sacrifice and Worship," 41 n.41.
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND
THE ESSENES 109
to the laws of the community (CD 6:11b-14) where
it says that no
covenant members "shall enter the
The
sectarians prohibited sexual activity even within the city, lest it
"defile the city of the sanctuary" (CD 12:1-2).
These passages taken together make
it apparent that the cov-
enanters were troubled by the
less-stringent attitude of ritual purity
practiced by temple authorities. When it is
remembered that the
community's calendar differed from the
some have assumed that the community could not have
offered sacri-
fices in the temple at all.20
However, there are evidences in CD
that the covenanters con-
tinued their use of the temple
precincts for sacrifice. The clearest
indication of this is the laws contained in CD
which assume the
covenanters continued to sacrifice.21
But what of the
difference in the calendaric calculations?
This
difference must not have been prohibitive; the Book
of Jubilees, for
instance, also follows a solar calendar and it
has no rejection of
temple sacrifices.
Furthermore, we saw that CD
attributes the defilement of the
temple to sexual uncleanness. We read earlier how
other sources, such
19 This passage in its
entirety was quoted earlier in this paper.
20 J, T. Milik, Ten Years of
Discovery in the Wilderness of
21 Among these are two of
special interest: CD 11:17: "No man on the Sabbath
shall offer anything on the altar except the Sabbath
burnt-offering; for it is written thus:
Except your Sabbath
offerings
(Lev. xxiii, 38)." CD 11:18: "No man shall send to the
altar any burnt-offering, or cereal offering, or
incense, or wood, by the hand of one
smitten with any uncleanness, permitting him
thus to defile the altar. For it is written,
The sacrifice of the
wicked is an abomination, but the prayer of the just is as an
agreeable offering (Prov. xv, 8)." (Vermes,
the Sabbath offering but prohibits members from
offering it with the daily sacrifice. Or,
alternatively, the law may be
concerned with festival days which fell on the Sabbath; in
this case the
sacrifices on the same day as those specially set
aside as Sabbath offerings. According to
the sectarians' calendar, this transgression could
not occur, and therefore this law is
designed to forewarn the covenanters not to
compromise their Sabbath offerings when
the
offerings were accepted (Baumgarten,
"Reappraisal," 69-70). The second law permits
animal sacrifice within certain bounds but adds that a
spiritual sacrifice is preferred
over an animal sacrifice if offered wrongly. This
law in particular gives the authors of
the covenant opportunity to appeal to the Proverbs
text as reason to substitute the
acknowledge the laws of CD as real indications of
the community's involvement; he
thinks they are only reflective of life among the
Gentiles when the community was yet
in the diaspora.
However, we do not see how these laws could have force or meaning
unless the community members were presently offering
sacrifices in the temple.
110
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
as the Psalms of Solomon, pointed to this offense
as defiling the
offerings of the Lord, but there is no suggestion
in these sources that
the temple sacrifices should be interrupted. R.
Marcus has shown that
there are a number of ideological similarities
between the Essenes and
the apocalyptic Pharisees of this period as
reflected by Enoch, the
Testaments,
and Jubilees.22 Thus, it seems difficult to see how a sexual
offense, which must have been common to the
temple's history, would
have caused such drastic action stopping the
covenanters from partici-
pating in temple sacrifice
altogether. P. Davies sums up the matter
this way: "In brief, the attitude of the
community of CD to the
Pesherim. Among the commentaries at
are particularly instructive concerning sacrifice.
The Habakkuk com-
mentary dates to the 1st
century A.D. but is a witness to the earlier
period of the sect's history when the Teacher
struggled with the
who violated the priesthood (lQpHab
8:8-13) and "defiled the sanc-
tuary of God" (12:9).
This contempt for the priests (but not the
temple per se) reflects the stricter view held by the
sectarians at the
time of the Teacher.
4QpNah is also significant for
reconstructing
The
pesher
refers to an unidentified group known as the "house of
Peleg" (4:1); the same expression appears in CD
to name a group of
defectors. In both passages the context is one of
criticism, if not
condemna.tion. CD describes the
"house of Peleg" as those who at first
had left
later defected and rejoined the "way of the
people in a few respects"
(CD
20:21). This indicates that some in the community returned to
more normal relations with the common people after
the schism with
Jerusalem.24
Whether or not this included a participation in the Jeru-
Davies does not interpret the
passage as a condemnation against
defectors; rather, he concludes that those of the
"house of Peleg" are
pietists who at one time
approvingly left
returned in minor ways, the schismatic
covenanters under the Teacher
were considering accepting them into their
newly-formed community
on a case-by-case basis. This admission process
occurs at the Teacher's
founding of the "new covenant"
community (CD 19:33-20:34) among
22 R.
Marcus ("Pharisees, Essenes, and Gnostics,"
IBL 73 [1954J 158-59).
23 Davies,
24 Baumgarten,
"Reappraisal," 72; Murphy-O'Connor disagrees that a defection
within the
who left
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND
THE ESSENES 111
the
community. It is at this point, too, that the
Qumran Essenes may have
segregated themselves from the temple grounds and
ceased partici-
pating in the temple cult.25
4QFlorilegium (1st century A.D.) is
another important witness to
the Essene view of the
temple since it speaks explicitly of the eschato-
logical temple anticipated by the Essenes. The first portion of the text
is a midrash on Nathan's
oracle concerning the building of the temple
(2
Samuel 7); it interprets the "house" of 2 Samuel as the one Yahweh
shall construct in the "last days"
according to his promise (Exod
15:17).
Key to understanding the midrash
is the description of that
eschatological temple: "And he
[God] promised to build for himself a
sanctuary of men, for there to be in it for him
smoke offerings before
him, works of thanksgiving" (AQFlor 6-7).
The expression "sanctuary of
men" (miqdas ’adam)
has been
understood by
spiritual community. According to this latter
view, the scribe believed
the Essene community
itself was presently fulfilling the promise of an
eschatological sanctuary. The primary
argument rests with the context
where the sanctuary's "smoking offerings"
are described as spiritual
"works of thanksgiving" (4QFlor 6-7). As a response to
the defilement
of the temple, the Essenes
had reinterpreted the sacrificial system as
spiritual offerings. ThIs
understanding of the midrash
has been used to
collaborate other evidence that the Essenes had always abandoned
temple sacrifice.26 Some have concluded
that the Essenes and the
early church held in common this modified
eschatological position.27
This identification of miqdas as the Essene community, however,
can be challenged since nowhere else in the
miqdas mean anything other
than the literal
the sanctuary of 4QFlorilegium is oriented toward
the future, and the
pesher is contrasting the
present defiled temple with the anticipated
eschatological one.28 The
eschatological sanctuary then is best taken
as a literal building.29
25 Davies,
26 B. Gartner, The
ment (Cambridge: University
Press, 1965) 32-35; A. Dupont-Sommer, The Essene
Writings from
cus Document XIX, 33-XX,
34," 544-64, esp. 558 n. 47, 561; J. Baumgarten,
"The
Exclusion
of Netinim
and Proselytes in 4Q Florilegium," Studies in
82-83.
27 So Gartner,
But
McKelvey does not interpret the temple of
4QFloreligium as spiritual (p. 51).
28 McKelvey,
29 Y. Yadin
has shown from his study of the
that the Essenes
anticipated a physical, eschatological temple which is not different in
112 CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Such diversity points up that the
interpretation of this pesher
remains undecided among scholars. However, what
is important for
our study has been recognized by G. T. Brooke that
the midrash
never addresses the issue of burnt sacrifIces either in
have meaning for the pesher's readers, then the Essenes must have
continued to regard the temple highly. He
concludes that the Essenes
may have participated in the offerings and were not
content to wait
for a future day when proper offerings could be
presented in the
eschatological temple.30
The pesherim then reflect a period
when the Essenes at
were very reluctant to participate in temple
sacrifice; it remains un-
certain that they refused completely to sacrifice
at the cult as many
have supposed.
Philo and Josephus. The testimony
of Philo has been often cited
to argue that the Essenes
did not offer animal sacrifice. Philo remarks
that " ...they have shown themselves especially
devout in the service
of God, not by offering sacrifices of animals, but
by resolving to
sanctify their minds" (Quod omnis 9.12.75). The purpose of Philo's
commentary is his commendation of the Essenes for their piety; in
this discourse, Philo observes that their study of
God is achieved
nature from the one to be built by
convinced that this eschatological temple is a
physical one and not a spiritual entity, he
renders miqdas ‘adam as "sanctuary among men" ("A Midrash on 2 Sam vii and Ps i-ii
(4Q
F]ori]egium)"
IEJ 9 [1959J 96; The Temple Scroll [2 vols.;
Exploration
Society, 1983 (Eng]ish) 1.182-87).
Yadin's rendering, however, is difficult;
for this translation we would expect the Hebrew to
read with the preposition be.
A. J.
McNicol ("The Eschatologica]
OJRS
(= JrelS) 5 [1977J 133-41) agrees with radin's translation and argues that the
only place where temple and community are equated is
in lQS which is an early
document of the sectarians at
Midrash on 2 Sam vii" IEJ 9 [1959] 102, n. 11) argues for radin's
translation but on a
different basis. Critiques of radin's
position are D. Schwartz, "The Three Temples of
4QFlorilegium"
RG 37 [1979J 83-91, and G. J. Brooke,
Exegesis at
gium in thelewish Context [JSOTS 29;
An alternative translation,
"man-made," suggested by J. Allegro and Dupont-
Sommer, is not possible since the text explicitly says
this temple shall be built by God
himself (Allegro, "Fragments of a Qumran
Scroll of Eschatological Midrasim" JBL 77
[1958J 352; Dupont-Sommer,
Essene Writings, 312).
Brooke, who has made the first full
exegetical treatment of the pesher, has a third
opinion in which he accommodates both the
spiritual and physical interpretations. He
thinks that the "sanctuary of men" was
understood by the scribe to be the Essene
community, but the community is only proleptic of a literal temple to come. Although
the midrash applies a
spiritual meaning to the
not preclude a future, physical temple (Exegesis at Qumran, 178-93, esp. 187).
30 Brooke, Exegesis at
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND
THE ESSENES 113
"very industriously, taking for their trainers the laws of
their fathers"
(9.12.80).
Since Philo began his discussion by giving the etymology of
the sectarian name "Essene"
as a derivative of "holiness," he is prob-
ably exaggerating Essene
moral purity to make his point and to
differentiate this group from
traditional Jewish religion. Otherwise, it
is difficult to square with how these who are so
"devout in the service
of God" could have refused to engage in the
minimal requirements of
Jewish piety. Philo is saying that,
unlike other Jewish parties, the
Essenes gave special attention to substitute
sacrifices of piety. That
the practice of spiritual sacrifices does not
necessarily exclude animal
ritual can be seen from Jewish sources where the two
are linked
(2
Enoch 45:13; Sir 35:1-3).
This accords well with Josephus'
testimony who as a Pharisee
would have taken note of Essene
ritual practice:
They send votive offerings to the
temple, but perform their sacrifices31
employing a
different ritual of purification. For this reason they are
barred from
those precincts of the temple that are frequented by all the
people and
perform their rites by themselves (
The
Essenes are known to have been very stringent in their
laws of
ritual purity, but at the temple precincts the rules
of exclusion varied
according to the season. Certain parties were
prohibited at all times
from the temple courts, but during festivals the
authorities relaxed
these rules so that pilgrims had access to the
courts.32 This suggests
that the Essenes also
would have had access to the temple, but it was
in fact this liberal attitude of the authorities
which troubled the
Essenes.33
As Josephus remarks, the temple's relaxed observance
of
purity laws would have compromised their offerings.
Therefore, the
Essenes completed their meat offerings in a
segregated area of the
temple by themselves.
31 Our reading follows
the Greek witnesses of Josephus; the Latin version reflects
an added negative oux which changes the meaning of
Josephus' passage altogether:
"they send votive offerings to the temple, but do (not) offer
sacrifices. . . ." See the
textual discussion by L. H. Feldman, Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, Books XVIII-XX
(Loeb
Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965) 16-17 na and
Baumgarten, "Reappraisal," 57-58.
32 Baumgarten
("Reappraisal," 64) cites Josephus (
how the priests customarily opened the temple gates
after midnight during Passover;
only after some Samaritans had secretly entered the
temple and scattered human bones
did authorities take steps to begin restricted
access.
33 Ibid..
64-67. Josephus states that Essenes appeared at the
temple (J. W. 1.3.5;
(J. W. 5.4.2).
114
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
Conclusion. The Covenant
Community represented in CD was
critical of the ritual appropriateness of temple
sacrifices; however, this
did not preclude them from participating whenever
proper conditions
were met. The tendency on the part of the Essenes at
substitute spiritual sacrifices also did not
necessarily prevent them
from offering temple sacrifices. Even if the
evidence were conclusive
that the. Essenes had
spiritualized the cult and understood themselves
as the temple, they could not have been satisfied
with this accom-
modation forever. Their writings
show that they fully expected at the
coming of the messiah anew, physical sanctuary to
replace the
defiled Second Temple.34
When the Teacher ruled the
period of skepticism toward temple authorities and
practices as a
result of the Wicked Priest. Perhaps, during this time
the Essenes
withdrew altogether from the temple. Later, as
Josephus testifies, the
Essenes again could be found engaged in
restricted use of the sacri-
ficial cult.
II. Jesus' Criticism of the
The focal question for this section
concerns the nature of Christ's
response to temple practices. Did Jesus advocate
reform as the Hasi-
dim and covenanters or did he reject the temple
completely and
declare it void as did some of the Essenes at
Jesus' resolution to temple abuse?
Because all four Evangelists record
the
first will describe their testimony. More attention
will be given to
John's
Gospel since it is the most extensive and also has an appended
theological commentary.
John and the Synoptics
It is not within the scope of this
paper to discuss satisfactorily the
manifold problems of historical provenience and source
dependence
raised by the character of the Gospels. We will only
touch upon these
matters when they bear on our central questions.
The parallel accounts
are cited below for the convenience of the reader:
John 2:13-22
(13)The Passover of the Jews was at
hand, and Jesus went up to
34 See later in our paper
under "Jewish Expectations." McKelvey (
who agrees that the Essenes
had spiritualized the cult (not unlike the church) also
recognizes that the hope of a new, restored temple
"was cherished just as ardently by
these Jews [Essenes] as by
others" (p. 53).
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND THE ESSENES
115
and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at
their business.
(15)
And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep
Iand oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the
coins of the
money-changers and overturned their
tables. (16) And he told those
who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away;
you shall not make
my Father's house a house of trade." (17) His
disciples remembered
that it was written, "Zeal for thy house will
consume me." (18) The
Jews
then said to him, "What sign have you to show us for doing
this?" (19) Jesus answered them, "Destroy
this temple, and in three
days I will raise it up." (20) The Jews then
said, "It has taken forty-
three years to build this temple, and will you raise
it up in three
days?" (21) But he spoke of the temple of his
body. (22) When there-
fore he was raised from the dead, his disciples
remembered that he
had said this; and they believed the scripture and
the word which
Jesus
had spoken.
Mark
11:15-19
(15) And they came to
began to drive out those who sold and those who
bought in the
temple, and he overturned the tables of the
money-changers and the
seats of those who sold pigeons; (16) and he would not
allow anyone
to carry anything through the temple. (17) And he
taught, and said to
them, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be
called a house of prayer
for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of
robbers." (18) And
the chief priests and the scribes heard It and
sought a way to destroy
him; for they feared him, because all the multitude
was astonished at
his teaching. (19) And when evening came they went
out of the city.
Matt
21:12-13
(12) And Jesus entered the
sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the
tables of the
money-changers and the seats of those
who sold pigeons. (13) He said
to them, 'It is written, 'My house shall be called
a house of prayer';
but you make it a den of robbers."
Luke
19:45-46
(45) And he entered the temple and
began to drive out those who
sold, (46) saying to them, "It is written,
"My house shall be a house of
prayer'; but you have made it a den of robbers."
Synoptics. The Synoptic accounts agree that the
temple event
transpired the last week of Jesus' ministry in
to the arrest of Jesus by temple authorities. The
accounts also concur
that Jesus drove out those "who sold"
animals in the temple courts.
Matthew
and Mark add that the money-changers and the "seats" of
those selling pigeons were dispersed. The Synoptics attest that Jesus
116
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
justified his action by appealing to this
composite OT saying: "'My
house shall be called a house of prayer' (Isa 56:7), but you have made
it a 'den of robbers'" (Jer
7:11). Finally, the Synoptics imply by the
subsequent actions of the priests that the issue at
hand was the
unprecedented authority Jesus took upon
himself in issuing his orders
(Mark
11:18 pars.).
The Marcan
account has three significant differences which
distinguish its testimony as more helpful to our
study. First, Mark inter-
rupts the chronology of the
Triumphal Entry and the
Cleansing by reporting Jesus' curse of the fig
tree.
Upon Jesus' entry
into
(1:11)
and then departs for
Jesus
approaches the temple, he stops to curse the
unfruitful tree. This
arrangement of events effectively makes Jesus'
actions in the temple
calculated ones, and the narration uses the fig
tree incident to introduce
and interpret the
sanctuary is that although both are alive and
thriving, they are
not productive for their intended purposes and
therefore must be
destroyed.35
Second, the Marcan
version gives the fuller rendering of Isaiah:
"'My
house shall be a house of prayer for all
the nations'" (11:17).
This
last phrase better reflects the prophet's original context where all
nations come to worship Yahweh in the ideal
eschatological age.
Mark's
record appears more concerned about the universalistic nature
of worship, whereas Matthew and Luke focus on the
charge of legiti-
mate versus profane worship.36 The phrase
is appropriate for the
temple incident since the temple's commerce took place
in the "Court
of the Gentiles."37 By omitting
"all the nations," Matthew and Luke
contrast more forcefully the "house" of
prayer with the "den" of
robbers;38 by this contrast the
two Evangelists describe what the
sanctuary should be as opposed to what it has
become.
Third, unique to Mark is the
observation that Jesus refused any-
one passage through the temple grounds who was
carrying a vessel
(11:16).
This restriction has been likened to the Mishnah where the
35 L.
Williamson, Jr. Mark (Atlanta: Knox,
1983) 206-7.
36 McKelvey,
37 We know that
money-changers operated in the temple and also there is evi-
dence of cattle sold on the
temple grounds from rabbinic sources (J. Jeremias, Jeru-
been assumed that the trade in Jesus' day occurred
in the "Court of the Gentiles"; this
assumption is reasonable since Jesus came into the
city from the
the East Gate. This would have led him directly
into the larger, outer court first (Hiers,
"Purification," 84).
36 E. Haenchen, John I
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980) 187.
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND THE ESSENES
117
rabbis prohibited transporters using temple grounds as
a thoroughfare
across the city (m. Ber.
9:5).39 This Marcan addition is
significant for
our study and affects our interpretation of Jesus'
attitude toward the
temple since it shows an explicit concern for ritual
purity.
John's Gospel. The Fourth Gospel
shares the main features of
the Synoptic accounts but possesses differences
that are essential for
determining Jesus' response to temple abuse. First,
the event occurs at
the first Passover of Jesus' public ministry and
not during the last
week. Second, whereas the Synoptics
tie the event to Jesus' death, the
theological expansion of John (2:21-22) links the
event to Jesus' resur-
rection as well.
Third, the composite quotation is
absent; instead, Jesus' defense
is an allusion to Zechariah: " . . . you
shall not make my Father's house
a house of trade" (2:16). The allusion
enables a play on the word
"house"40 similar to the Synoptic effect of
drawing attention to "house"
by contrasting it with "den." Also, as
the Isaiah passage provided an
eschatological context in the Synoptics, the prophecy of Zechariah
does the same and with more force: " . . . and
a trader will not again
be in the house of the LORD of hosts in that
day."
Fourth, unlike the Synoptics, the narrative (2:17) adds a post-
resurrection comment by the
disciples where they cite Ps 69:9.41 This
reminiscence is included to further
justify Jesus' actions; as the
Psalmist's
righteousness led to persecution, Jesus' passion for the
temple--not his opposition to it-meant his death. At
the same time,
John
adapts the Hebrew by translating it with a future tense (kata-
phagetai) to create a prophecy
of Jesus' death; this prepares the
reader for the discourse on the resurrection which
follows (vv 18-22).
Finally,
we discover that 2:18-22 has no parallel in the Synoptics.
These
verses explicitly address the question of authority while the
Synoptics only imply it.42 The "sign" (2:28) requested by the Jews to
39 For other opinions,
see C. K. Barrett, "The House of Prayer and the Den of
Thieves,"
Jesus und Paulus
(eds. E. E. Ellis and E. Grasser;
ana Ruprecht,
1975) 14-15. This "vessel" has been taken as a merchant's item and
therefore would fit the context of
commercialization. However, the text does not
describe what kind of vessel it was. While the
precise nuance of Jesus' prohibition may
be debated, it is clear that Jesus expressed here
a concern for temple sanctity.
40 Since emporiou means
"house of trade," the inclusion of oikon is intentionally
redundant to create the play on words (C. K.
Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John
[
41 C. H. Dodd (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel
[
Press,
1953] 301) explains that Psalm 69 was an oft-quoted Psalm of the primitive
church applied to Christ's death.
42 In Mark the explicit
question of authority occurs later in the chapter: "By what
authority do you these things?" (11:28);
"these things" (tauta) refers to Jesus' eruption at
the temple.
118
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
authenticate Jesus' actions is not
answered by him unless he intended
it to be his comment on raising up the temple, by
which he meant his
death and resurrection (2:21).43 This
retort, "Destroy this temple and
in three days I will raise it up," became the
grounds of accusation at
his trial (although garbled by mistaken witnesses
[Matt 26:60-61;
Mark
14:57-59]) and also mockery at his crucifixion (Matt 27:30, 40;
Mark
15:29).44
Typical of John's manner, he
exploits the Jews' gross misunder-
standing of Jesus' words and resolves their
bewilderment by explain-
ing Jesus' deeper meaning.45
For John, Jesus' statement is a reference
to his own "body"; the Resurrected
Christ is the "temple".46 It was
only after the resurrection that the disciples could
so interpret Jesus'
words (2:22). In contrast to the unbelieving
"Jews," the combination
of the prophecy of Psalm 69, Jesus' reply, and the
reality of his
resurrection convinced them that he
was the Christ. 47
John's
Gospel and its plot. In the four Gospels, the main scheme
is the same: the action, the justification of
Jesus' own words, the
question of authority implied or discussed, and
the context of a
Passover setting. These features and
various details in vocabulary that
John
shares with the Synoptics have strongly suggested
that one event
is in view. 48 However, there are
sufficient differences to cause some to
opt for two Cleansings.49
43 Elsewhere, we know
that "three days" is a sign of Jesus' resurrection (Matt
12:38-40;
Luke 11:29-30). G. R. Beasley-Murray (John
[Waco: Word, 1987] 40-41)
compares Jesus' answer to a masal ("riddle") that
is also parabolic. For "three days" as
a sign, see Dodd, Fourth Gospel, 302; contra this interpretation, see R. Bultmann, The
Gospel of John (tr. G. R. Beasley-Murray
et al.;
126 n. I.
44 The saying also was
used at Stephen's trial (Acts 6:14).
45 R. A. Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel. A Study in
Literary Design
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 155. D. A. Carson
("Understanding Misunderstandings in
the
Fourth Gospel," TynBul
83 [1982] 80, 90) observes that the Jews did not so much
misunderstand as they did not
understand. This was true of the disciples who did not
understand until after the resurrection.
46 Cf. Matt 21:6,
"But I say unto you, that in this place is one greater than the
temple."
47 See B. Lindars, The Gospel of John
(NCB;
Scott, 1972) 144.
48 So Haenchen,
John, 186. Brown (John, 1.118) posits that Jesus' early
visit gave a
prophetic warning and the actual intervention
occurred at the last Passover. If Brown is
correct, we must conclude that John has
telescoped the two visits for theological
purposes.
49 For a defense of this
position, see L. Morris, The Gospel According to John
(NICNT;
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971) 100-92, and D. A.
Carson, "Matthew," The
Expositor's Bible
Commentary
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984) 441.
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND THE ESSENES
119
John introduces events in chaps 1
and 2 by specific chronological
notices: "the next day" (1:35),
"the day following" (1:43) and the
"third day" (2:1), but this tight chronology is
abandoned with the
introduction of the temple scene
(2:13). Since John gives priority to
thematic development over chronology in the
writing of the "Book of
Signs,"
it has been argued that John places the
after the
literary effect occurs if in fact there were two
events. It is the sub-
stance of his thesis that concerns us here.
John's Gospel is intent on
contrasting the Jews, who represent
those in disbelief, with the disciples who had
accepted the Risen
Christ.
This contrast is shown by the conflict the Jews had with Jesus
throughout his ministry.
this conflict can be seen at its clearest; by Jesus'
early presence in the
temple, the narrative can establish the plot of
conflict at the begin-
ning.51 Also, the temple
incident continues the idea of succession
established in John 1 where John the Baptist's
disciples switch allegi-
ance to Jesus and where
Jesus provides new wine at
feast. This idea of the old order supplanted by the
new reappears in
the account of Jesus and the Samaritan woman where
we learn that
the place of worship is no longer relevant
(4:23-24).
Reform or Destruction
However, the Synoptics,
particularly when compared to John,
portray Jesus as an outraged reformer who, like
the OT prophets, did
not object to the temple as an institution and did
not reject it outright.
He
showed a concern for the detail of ritual purity (Mark 11:16), and
even in John's account, he is said to have a
"zeal" (2:17) for the temple
which can be taken as a positive sign toward the
cult.52 It is concluded
by some that Jesus' displeasure was not against
sacrifice but against
those who profaned the sanctity of the site where the
animals were
sold.53 B. Lindars
has suggested that Jesus attacked the presuppositions
50 Morris (Ibid., 189-00) states that if one event is adopted, then a
theological/
literary reason is the proper explanation (as
opposed to charging John with a disregard
of the facts [see P. 189 n. 47]).
51 Culpepper (Anatomy, 90, 97) discusses this
relationship between the event and
the Gospel's plot. Cf. also F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (
1983) 77; Dodd, Fourth Gospel, 300. Haenchen (John, 182) points out that the Passover
settings in John are occasions for Jesus to speak
about himself. As a result, the
Cleansing
occurs at the first Passover in John since Jesus' protest against the Jews'
kind
of worship could not wait until the end.
52 Beasley-Murray,
John, 39.
53 Morris (John, 195) is representative of this
position.
120 CRISWELL
THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
upon which the purification laws were founded, but
did not reject the
institution of sacrifice; he argues that this
distinction is consistent with
Jesus'
attitude toward purity rites (cf. Mark 7:1-23).54
John, as we have seen, interprets
Jesus' action as calling for a
disjuncture between the old and new orders of
worship. John's Gospel
comes to this conclusion based on the explicit
warning by Jesus,
"Destroy
this temple and in three days I will raise it up" (v 19).55
Because
the Jews were so tied to the old order of thinking, they
mistakenly took Jesus' reference to the temple as
the physical structure
and therefore missed the whole point of his action
and explanation.
This
interaction highlights the antipathy between Jesus' conception
of
worship and that of the Jewish authorities. The
eventual abolition of
the temple is the only fair conclusion the reader
can draw from John's
spiritual interpretation.56
Since the Gospels present two
interpretations of the
dent, it is not surprising that commentators
integrate both. At one
place L. Morris can speak of Jesus not condemning the
whole sacri-
ficial system, but only the
chosen location of the market, and at
another place in his commentary he concludes
that the deeper mean-
ing of Jesus' words (2:19)
has to do with the "ultimate abolition of the
temple and of the temple sacrifices."57
R. J. McKelvey can insist that
Jesus
broke from the old order, but mitigates this when he says that
Jesus
did not object to the temple per se but only the "institution
symbolized by the temple."58
The reason for this two-fold
depiction is that the temple incident
functions at two levels in the Gospels. First, the
told by the Synoptics, is
the Messiah coming to his temple to inaugu-
rate the eschatological kingdom. In this ideological
context, Jesus'
action is a messianic claim. Certainly, the
authorities understood Jesus'
54 Lindars, John,
137.
55 The imperative is
taken as conditional: "if this temple is destroyed. . ." (Robert-
son, 948; BDF 387, n. 2; cf. also Dodd, Fourth Gospel, 302 n. 1). The succession
of
"temples" is made possible because of the Jews
themselves who by destroying the
body of Jesus doomed the temple they had sought to
defend (P. D. Duke, Irony in the
Fourth Gospel [
destruction is placed upon the Jews, but in the
Synoptic accounts Jesus is responsible
for the threat of temple destruction. Mark 14:58:
"I will destroy this temple that is made
with hands, and within three days I will build
another made without hands." Matthew's
account admits only to the possibility: "I
am able to destroy. . ." (26:61).
56 Cf. Haenchen, John,
187-89.
57
Morris, John, 203; cf. also p. 195.
This can be explained as the result of the
biblical context where his disparate statements
are found. In the first case, Morris is
commenting on the Synoptic passages and in the
latter statement he is commenting
on John.
58 McKelvey,
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND
THE ESSENES 121
actions this way, because they challenged his authority
as a result of
this messianic claim. The parallel recorded in the
Fourth Gospel
(2:13-17)
is consistent with this Synoptic depiction of Jesus as a
messianic rebuilder.
Jesus' warning of destruction in v 19, when inter-
preted in this light, completes
the messianic role anticipated by the
Jews. The messianic age included the building of a
new, heavenly
temple lowered to the earth by God.
At the second level, however, the
appended commentary by
John
(vv 18-22) gives the temple incident a post-resurrection interpre-
tation which takes the action
and saying of Jesus as a prophecy of his
death and resurrection. As the new temple his
"body" has become the
only meeting place with God; this is clearly a
Christian understanding
of the nature of mediation (Heb 10:10). Thus, in a
post-resurrection
context, Jesus' action takes on a different
shape.
We should not take this to mean that
the Gospels are in conflict.59
The
Cleansing in John only states explicitly what the Synoptics
have
implied in their telling of the event. As we
noted of Mark, the cursing
of the fig tree casts the shadow of rejection on
the temple scene;
Matthew
accomplishes the same result by placing the curse of the fig
tree after Jesus' first day in the temple (Matt
21:18-20). Luke chooses
the parable of the wicked husbandman to condemn
temple authorities
(20:9-18).60
When we read the Cleansing accounts
with these two aspects in
mind, there is no inconsistency between Jesus as
Messiah of the new
kingdom and Jesus as the Resurrected Lord of the
new order of
worship. One leads to the other.
Eschatological
Jewish Expectations. The evidence
from Jewish apocryphal and
pseudepigraphal writings of the Hasmonean period and the later
rabbinic works show the Jewish expectation of a
new temple which is
made by God and brought to the earth. Attendant to
this is the belief
that at the coming of the messianic figure he would
establish the
eschatological temple, secure the
city, and draw all nations to worship
at Jerusalem.61 These expectations have
their inception in the OT
vision of the eschaton, yet,
as we saw earlier, it was disappointment in
59 Brown (John, 1.122) argues a two-fold meaning
in John on the basis of his
literary studies; he observes that the purification
scene (vv 13-17) may have been
independent from the rebuilding (vv 18-22). He
admits that the sources are in any case
consistent since the purification is the first step
toward the messianic rebuilding.
60 Luke's account is so
terse that it is not clear how Luke interpreted the temple
incident (I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978] 721).
61 McKelvey,
122
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
the temple during the Hasmonean
era that fueled this recurring theme
of a new temple among the Hasidim.
The sectarians at Qumran shared with
these
both their outrage at the temple and their
expectation of an idealized
sanctuary. From the Essene
writings 4QFlorilegium and the
Scroll
we know they anticipated a future temple. This temple may be
the same one described in an Aramaic manuscript
(5Q15) coming
from the Herodian period.
It describes the city of the New Jerusalem
which possesses a temple based on Ezekiel's design.62
It is apparent that both the Hasidim
and the sectarians saw a final
solution to their problems in such an apocalyptic
sanctuary. The
difference lies in the Essenes'
more critical attitude toward the present
temple and their insistence that only they as the
"true
receive it. Thus, through rites of purification
and an ascetic life the
covenanters prepared themselves for its coming.
Jesus and the Eschatological
showed that Jesus was sympathetic to the concerns of these
pietists.
Before
the First Jewish War (67 A.D.), another Jesus (ben Ananias)
pronounced woes of doom upon
the stirring that city officials attempted to
silence him (J. W. 6.5.3).
This
reflects the atmosphere of impending calamity felt during the
time of the Lord, so he seized the temple setting as
an occasion to
declare that the awaited period of restoration
had arrived.
Jesus laid claim to the role of
messianic Lord over the sanctuary
by exposing the present failure of temple
authorities and by demon-
strating his control over temple
proceedings. First, he exposed the
present faults of the temple in three ways. (1)
He pointed out an
example of ritual uncleanness at the temple
which showed Jesus'
displeasure at the compromise of the sacred grounds
(Mark 11:16).
We
cannot know if Jesus' action is exactly paralleled by the concerns
of the later rabbis who objected to using the
grounds for purposes
other than worship (m. Ber 9.5). At least we can conclude
that Jesus
sees the ritual sanctity of the place somehow
jeopardized by the
presence of profane vessels. Since the Essenes were known for their
strict standards of Purification, no doubt they would
have happily
greeted Jesus' reform.
(2) Jesus' composite quotation in
the Synoptics revealed the Jews'
misuse of the temple sanctuary. In the imagery of the
prophets, Jesus
challenged those who had changed the purpose of the
temple.63
62 For the text, see M. BaiIlet, J. T. Milik, and R. deVaux, Les 'Petites Grottes' de
63 Haenchen
(John, 186-89) concludes that the
original Jeremiah and Isaiah con-
texts were not appropriate for the temple situation.
This is an example, he contends, of
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND
THE ESSENES 123
Rather
than a house of prayer, it had become a ritual haven for the
wicked; as in Jeremiah's day, Jesus charged those in
the temple with
substituting ritual piety for
righteous obedience.
The Gospels are not explicit as to
why Jesus disrupted the temple's
market. It has been assumed that he was angry at the commercializa-
tion because of wide-spread
graft, but this is hard to demonstrate. On
the contrary, N. Q. Hamilton has shown that the
temple treasury
under the high-priestly aristocracy was utilized for
beneficent pur-
poses.64 Money-changers as well
as the selling of animals met the
needs of worshippers, and the absence of
money-changers in fact
would have jeopardized the sanctity of the temple
since they were
necessary to exchange Roman coin for the biblical
shekel (cf. Exod
30:13-16).
Although the priestly house of Ananias prospered,65 there is
reason to believe that Caiaphas'
strict controls over the bazaar would
not have left him open to the charges of robbery.
The Roman pro-
curators oversaw the temple treasury,66
and it seems improbable that
unrestrained avarice could have gone
unchecked.
Jesus is not scoffing at the
merchandizing but at the promotion of
ritual for its own sake. It may be that Jesus was
drawing from a
common catalogue of accusations; from Jewish writings
and the sec-
tarian CD there is listed a
three-fold criticism of lust, wealth, and
defilement. It was the specific image of plunder
that Jesus used to
issue a general attack against what the temple had
come to mean to
the people and authorities who were satisfied with
rite and not
righteousness. In this way Jer 1:11 was perfect for Jesus' point, because
it also provided him this image of robbery.67
(3) To show
ticism of Isaiah's new temple
which Mark tell.s us is "for all the
the Christian community not paying attention to the
OT context and choosing passages
here and there to suit their situations. Haenchen under-estimates the appropriateness of
Jesus' quotation. It is true that the
Isaiah passage does not specifically condemn sacrifice
but the passage establishes the eschatological
setting Jesus desired; it is against this
idealized vision that the present temple can be
seen to fall short. The Jeremiah passage
is used to charge his audience with the same sins
as the prophet's era when the temple
had become the people's false hope for survival.
64 N.
Q.
seems unlikely that if such social causes were
supported by the treasury that they
would warrant so strong a condemnation as "den
of robbers."
65 Josephus calls him the
"great procurer of money" (
(
66 The Roman procurators
were greedy and more concerned about their tax
revenue and share of the profits, and therefore
would have watched for
deception. See
67 C. Roth ("The
Cleansing of the
176-77)
answers the problem of the Jeremiah quotation by defining laston as "rebels";
thus, the "den of rebels" is Jesus' rebuke
against those who advocated nationalism.
124 CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
nations." The temple's market although
expediting ritual had actually
thwarted the higher purpose of the temple. The mishnah tells of four
markets on the
but also during the time of Caiaphas
trade was established in the
temple courts.68 This trade in the
the exclusivism the
priests promoted in Jesus' day; as long as such
trade flourished, the Gentiles no longer had room in
the temple. The
convenience of sacrifice had meant the loss of
religion.
Second, in addition to pointing out
Cleansing
was a demonstration of Jesus' messianic rule. In expressing
his authority by deed and saying, Jesus declared
the inauguration of
the eschatological age. The reaction of the priests
and scribes show
that they understood Jesus' action as a direct
challenge to their posi-
tion. He demonstrated his
rule in three ways. (1) Jesus showed his
dominion over the laws of sanctification when he
prevented the trans-
port of vessels through temple grounds (Mark 11:16).
This must be
construed as an usurpation of priestly privilege.
Also, this verse contri-
butes to the OT picture of
the messianic age painted by the activities
of Jesus in the Gospels. The prophets required a
purging of the
sanctuary to prepare for the eschatological
blessing;69 this gesture by
Jesus
would have met that expectation.70 (2) By
driving out the
animals, Jesus was countermanding the current
policies of the high-
priestly office. If V. Eppstein's
proposal is correct that Caiaphas had
only recently established the bazaar, Jesus' action
could have been
understood by the house of Ananias
as an attack on the high priest-
hood; this would explain the urgency that the
priests felt to rid
themselves of Jesus. (3) The allusion to Zechariah,
"you shall not
make my Father's house a house of trade," drew
attention to his
Barrett
("House of Prayer," 16) agrees that the temple had become a
stronghold for
nationalism and that this was Jesus' criticism of
the people. The difficulty with this
interpretation is two-fold: (1) laston commonly
means robbery and (2) the idea of
exclusivism is at best only
secondary to the Jeremiah context (cf. Marshall, Luke, 720).
68 Jeremias,
of
the Cleansing of the
installed by Caiaphas
only at A.D. 30 after he had expelled the Sanhedrin for the temple;
because they set up commerce at the
reasons to compete by establishing the temple
bazaar.
69 Hiers, "Purification of the
70 This interpretation
has been taken further by C. Roth, '"The Cleansing of the
the last days all domestic utensils shall be
declared holy and therefore appropriated for
use in sacred meals. Thus, Jesus' action was an
appropriation of those vessels that
entered the sacred grounds and thereby he
effectively called for the new age. This
interpretation is doubtful since we
wonder why this portion of the verse was not also
quoted (cf. Barrett, "House of Prayer," 20).
Mathews: JOHN, JESUS AND THE ESSENES
125
messianic position.71 The original
eschatological context of the proph-
ecy and Jesus' use of
"My Father's house" rather than the common
OT
expression "house of God" reinforced the claims of Jesus. The
expulsion of the beasts and the absence of any
trader were signs of
the eschatological order; the idealized temple had
no sacrificial system
and thus no need for commercial exchange.
Jesus as the New
We have seen that Jesus inaugurated
the eschatological temple,
but we have not yet answered the question of the
nature of that new
temple. As we have already implied, the expulsion of
the beasts
symbolized the new order of worship whose temple
will have no
sacrificial rite. If we do not understand the
expulsion as a symbolic
act, we have no reason for it since the animals
were necessary and
were not in themselves an abuse of the temple's
sanctity. Their re-
moval was meant to symbolize
the end of mediation toward God by
sacrifice; the Mosaic system was not condemned but
rather it was
displaced as a result of its being superseded by
the presence of Jesus.
The eschatological temple, then, was
reinterpreted by Jesus meta-
phorically (John 2:21). As R. Bultmann observes, the old eschatology
of the idealized temple had been given new
meaning.72 Jesus linked
the destruction of the present temple with his own
resurrection (2:19);
the word "raise" (egeiron) often refers to the
resurrection in John.73
From
a post-resurrection perspective, John brings out the fuller impli-
cations of Jesus' words; the
death and resurrection of Jesus' body is
the means by which the old has been replaced by the
new.74 This new
mediation is the ultimate resolution Jesus had for
temple abuses.
The Covenant Community continued to
use the temple cult with
reservations due to ritual
differences required by the covenanters, but
they awaited a replacement temple to satisfy their
final purification
requirements. The temple they
conceived of was a physical entity
whose sacrificial system met the specific rites of
purification and
calendaric table they believed God
had revealed to them. Both the
Hasidim
and the sectarians desired a temple made by God and
71 Zechariah was an
abundant source for the Gospels as they constructed the
prophecy's depiction of the coming messianic king
(e.g., cf. Triumphal Entry and Zech
9:9).
See Roth, "Cleansing of the
72 R. Bultmann, John,
128.
73 Cf. John 5:21; 12:1,
9, 17; 21:4 (but see 5:8; 7:52; 11:29 et aI.). C. H. Dodd
(Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel
[Cambridge: University Press, 1963] 90 n. 2)
shows egeiron is used for erecting a building, but egeiron is
contrasted here with
oikodomeo (v 20). Contrast also
Mark 14:58 and Matt 26:61 where the witnesses use
oikodomeo.
74 The theme of
replacement is typical Johannine theology (Brown, John, CXLIII).
126
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
established by the Messiah where they might worship
God in holiness.
The
new temple, in other words, was an extension of the old. It
simply met a higher standard of ritual purity because
of God's
presence.
Jesus and the early church (Acts
2:46) also continued their rela-
tionship with the
between
system as represented in the
and the declaration of John is that mediation is
achieved now through
Jesus' death and resurrection. The essential
difference between the
Jewish
apocalyptists and Jesus was their conception of
worship as
evidenced by different expectations of the new
temple: he is the new
temple "made without hands."75
Only this new spiritual vehicle could
provide the ultimate spiritual meeting ground
for God and his people.
The
question of reform for an impure
Gerizim was made moot by the coming of Jesus.76
The "worship of
God
in spirit" was now possible because of the Resurrected Lord
(John
4:23-24).
There is no indication of this
thought in the Jewish literature of
the day. Jesus' actions were not seeking reforms in
the same sense the
sectarians would have wanted. By his coming the
kind of reforms
the OT prophets had called for were not necessary.
No longer could
the mire of human sin jeopardize the sanctity of
God's meeting place
with redeemed
75 Mark 14:58
distinguishes between the literal Second
temple: "this temple made with hands" versus
"another [temple] made without hands."
John
reads "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it (auton ==
"same") up";
in other words, Jesus could be understood to have
had the physical temple in mind.
The
appended commentary in John, however, makes it clear that the Evangelist
interpreted it as spiritual. Matthew's testimony
(26:61) is uncertain as a result of textual
problems (Dodd, Tradition, 00).
76 See Dodd (Fourth Gospel, 314) who indicates that
the main point of John 4 is
that the old form of worship was flesh and Jesus has
introduced worship in spirit.
This material is cited with gracious
permission from:
The
www.criswell.edu
Please report any errors to Ted
Hildebrandt at: