Jesus and the money changers

[vorlon13]

And note the Commandments Jesus did not list; no other Gods, honor the Sabbath, take not the name of the Lord in vain. I'm confused that if 'thievery' at the temple was what set Him off, then just (apparently) a few days later, he is acknowledging thieves being crucified with Him as going to Heaven.

Scripture doesn't record any other 'outraged' conduct from Jesus regarding murderers or liars, for example. (Although He was really pissed at the fig tree. If it was privately owned, He is guilty of vandalism, or destruction of property)

The Commandments not listed substantially define humanities relationship with God, and Jesus has the opportunity to list them, but doesn't.

Any kind of 'disrespect' or 'profaning' of the temple grounds by commercial transactions, currency exchange, or imperfect offerings, would substantially be covered by those Commandments not listed.

Like so many other items in Scripture, this doesn't add up to me, either.

[psychoslice]

To me the money changers represents those who try to sell you the idea of religion, it cannot be brought, it can only be experienced by ones own self., and this is what is going on all over the world, there is so many out there trying to sell you their own concept of religion.

[Aractus]

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.

[Minimalist]

That's weird, because three out of the four Gospel writers were Jewish by their own narrative, and Christianity began as a Jewish movement.

An interesting statement since we have no fucking idea who wrote your silly gospels, boy. These are anonymous documents and the names were attached in the late 2d century. Scholars have determined that 'mark' was first and matty and luke were fanfics...add-ons, if you will with invented parts to fill in some of mark's blanks. John seems to come from a completely different tradition.

[Purplundy]

That doesn't change the fact that the Gospel writers made themselves Jewish characters in their own story.
That and the fact that Christianity sprung from Judaism socially, theologically, and ideologically.
Jesus was a Jew.

[The Grand Nudger]

They made "someone" "something". Is this registering at all? They aren't autobiographies. In the sense that any author is bound to write himself into something somehow - we could say that they "made themselves" some sort of character, but that doesn;t go very far. Is Dostoyevsky "Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov"? Not in any "actual" way, no. Similar with the gospel writers.

[Purplundy]

Except the part where the authors actually claimed to be the Jewish characters in the Gospels in the titles. The first Gospel is practically called, "The author of this book is the Jewish guy in the book." They books even claim to be autobiographies.
But maybe I'm missing the big question. Was there some sort of antisemitic movement in the first century Roman Empire? And if there was, did four guys seriously think that the best way to spread their propaganda was to write not one, but four books about a superhuman Jew?

[vorlon13]

Whatever was going on on the temple grounds aggravated Jesus to the point of violence.

And then consider something there that did NOT.

What was going on inside.

Should we read in to that act of omission considerable import ??

[Minimalist]

That doesn't change the fact that the Gospel writers made themselves Jewish characters in their own story.
That and the fact that Christianity sprung from Judaism socially, theologically, and ideologically.
Jesus was a Jew.

"Only on his mother's side." - Archie Bunker c 1970

It's fiction. They can make it whatever the fuck they want. That's what author's do.

The point is, for alleged "jews" they don't seem to have a fucking clue what the money changers were doing in the temple.

[DeistPaladin]

Well this event appears in all 4 gospels, so it very likely did happen.

*Facepalm*
The destruction of the Death Star is mentioned in all three of the original Star Wars movies (4-6), so by the same logic, it very likely did happen.