(July 24, 2014 at 2:21 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: The Temple was 35 acres filled with livestock, vendors and money changers. There were also many Roman guards scattered around. Just to give you an idea, 35 acres is about the size of 26 American football fields.Why would there be Roman guards inside the temple? How would they even be allowed in? We're not talking about the whole temple, we're talking about an area near the East wall close to the entrance where the entrance was. In the very next verse it says "and the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them" - hence this is where the unclean can come, and Jesus is now occupying the space that the money changers did. This is in contrast to what the Pharisees taught which is that the unclean didn't need to come to the temple, even though it was of course not forbidden for them to come under OT law, although entering into the further chambers of the Temple wasn't allowed. Thus we know that the unclean could come to the temple, but weren't required to as taught by the Pharisees and so what likely happened was that the space that the unclean were allowed to enter was being occupied by the money-changers.
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke