lying for Jesus

[rightcoaster]

Do you think the "cleansing of the Temple" story was a fabrication? If so, what purpose might it have served, since it reflects so badly on Jesus?

I incline to the view that the cleansing of the Temple had a factual basis. I take for granted that Jesus was a real itinerant teacher and also that he really was crucified. So the disturbance in the Temple would be the cause of his trial and execution. The story is found in all 4 gospels, which means it is independently attested and thus more likely to be historical.
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Probably MIN: What's curious here is that the temple complex was an enormous area and the commercial aspects were conducted in the outer courtyards - not the holy of holies. Why wouldn't a "jew" know that? For that matter, why wouldn't a "jew" know that the temple tax had to be paid in the half-shekel coin?

Even more to the point, why was this act of sacrilege not brought up while the priests were questioning jesus? The gospel accounts...bullshit though they may be....suggest that the priests were searching around for a charge but they ignored this violent disruption of the temple operations just a few days before? Sorry. That doesn't make any sense at all.

XP or MIN: What does make some sense is the general Roman aversion to usury and the suggestion that Jews were the primary usurers of the day.

This is good progress. The notion of usury is of course nonsense, just an added sliming: the moneychangers were there properly, as were the offerings-sellers. Both were essential to the smooth operation of the Temple, and had been for a very long time. However, the point about the gospels-ignored act of sacrilege (really, an insult to the Temple cult) is a good one, and it's what led me years ago to consider this issue, one totally ignored by each and every writer (Ehrman, Vermes, Crossan, even Sanders, and others included). Once we agree on the historicity of the Temple micro-riot initiated by Jesus there arises the issue of the remarkable silence of the gospels and the rest of the NT on actual crimes committed. It seems that any reasonable review of the situation shows that Jesus was arrested alone because he alone was accused of a crime or crimes. Crime(s) certainly committed were, in addition to the insult to the Temple, the assault on both the moneychangers and the offerings-sellers, the destruction of the property of both types of merchant, and causing or risking a riot. The notion of "sedition" is implausible at best. Sedition does not explain away the utter silence about the actions against the merchants and against the institution and civil order that would be crimes today. Further, a sentence of death by crucifixion for sedition would have made the removal of the corpse before sundown on the day of the crucifixion equally implausible -- the corpse of a rebel would have been left to feed the crows, but the removal of a dead Jew "from a tree" for interment would have been required by the Torah, which would trump even the insult to the Temple. The gospel stories of trials were therefore also a complete fabrication. A magistracy proceeding by a low-level Temple authority, remanding for trial to the Romans the accused, with a bill of particulars (such as eye-witness verification of identity) would have sufficed. No Sanhedrin on a holy day night, etc. This is an Occam's Razor solution that explains all possible facts, requires no imagined "trials". That plus my prior explanation of the myth of the resurrection covers all of the Passion Week. Pretty good, I say. Over to you ...