Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

515.3 Who Did They Think Jesus Was?
Matt. 21.12-13 Mark 11.15-17 Luke 19.45-46 John 2.13-16
12 And Jesus
entered the temple and
drove out
all who 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'.
15 And they came to
Jerusalem. And he
entered the temple and
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
any one 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'.
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'.
13 The Passover of the
Jews was at hand, and
Jesus went up to
Jerusalem. 14 In the
temple he found those
who were selling oxen
and sheep and pigeons,
and the moneychangers
at their
business. 15 And
making a whip of
cords, he drove them
all, with the sheep and
oxen, out of the temple;
and he poured out the
coins of the moneychangers
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'.
There is a wide consensus that Jesus did indeed engage in a symbolic act in the
Temple. 114 The tradition is clear that the action itself involved the upsetting of
some tables of money-changers 115 and pigeon-sellers 116 and the prevention of
the trading involved. 117 Whatever Jesus may have intended (and we should be-
Gospel to serve as a window through which the rest of his Gospel should be read. J. Murphy-
O'Connor, 'Jesus and the Money Changers (Mark 11:15-17; John 2:13-17)', RB 107 (2000) 42-
55, represents the minority opinion when he argues that Jesus' action in the Temple must have
taken place very early in his career, when he was still under the influence of the Baptist.
114. Most recently M. D. Hooker, The Signs of a Prophet: The Prophetic Actions of Jesus
(London: SCM, 1997) 44-48; and below, n. 231. Becker is a fairly lone voice when he concludes
'that Jesus did not engage in the action in the temple and that it cannot have been the
cause of his final fate' (Jesus 333, 345).
115. The Temple tax was paid in Tyrian half-shekels and shekels, not Greek or Roman
coinage (which carried pagan mottoes). So it would be natural for pilgrims to delay payment
till they actually reached the Temple.
116. Peristera can be rendered either 'pigeon' or 'dove' (BDAG). Doves were the offering
of the poor (Lev. 5.7; 12.8; 14.22; Luke 2.24).
117. Sanders accepts the basic scenario: the trading was conducted in Solomon's portico.
But he dismisses the possibility that there was trade in animals (cattle and sheep, John
2.14-15) given the amount of fodder, manure, and noise inevitably involved (the queue of
lambs at Passover was presumably exceptional); that trade was presumably conducted outside
the Temple precincts {Judaism 68, 86-90; cf. Gnilka, Jesus 276). Charlesworth notes that access
was possible from the so-called Solomon's stables beneath the southern end of the Temple
platform, where larger animals could be stalled, to the area within the double Hulda Gate in the
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