Jesus and the money changers

[Simon Moon]

I am unaware of any historical reference to Roman 'guards' at the fucking temple.

Why would they be there? To inflame the locals? There was a small Roman garrison at the Antonia Fortress near the temple. Close enough.

Even if there were none in the Temple, the soldier at Antonia Fortress were on constant alert for any disturbance in the Temple.

So, the result would have been the same.

They would have been there without delay to put an end to the commotion.

And then there's this:

"As George Wesley Buchanon pointed out in Symbolic Money-Changers in the Temple? (1991), the temple was the most fortified place in Jerusalem, for it acted as the treasury, and could even be used as a Fortress. As such, Jesus could not have simply walked in and thrown the moneychangers out as depicted in the Gospels. Michael Turton explains in Historical Commentary of the Gospel of Mark:

The moneychangers undoubtedly had their own guards and servants, and so did the local priests. It is therefore unlikely that Jesus could have generated an incident there that was prolonged enough for anyone to notice. There were too many warm bodies to squelch it before it got rolling. A further problem, as Buchanon (1991) points out, is that the Temple was not merely the main religious institution of the Jewish religion; it was also the national treasury and its best fortress. The Temple's importance should not be underestimated: all three sides in the internal struggle during the Jewish War fought to gain control of the Temple. Not only is it highly unlikely that Jesus could have simply strolled in and gained control of the Temple, it is also highly unlikely that anyone would have permitted him to leave unmolested after such a performance.[76]

In Jesus' Temple Act Revisited: A Response to P. M. Casey (2000), David Seeley states some of the practical obstacles that Jesus would have had to countenance. For example, at least one of the moneychangers would have been angry at having his table overturned and wrestled with Jesus. It would have been next to impossible for an individual to prohibit hundreds of people from carrying vessels"