Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS' SELF-UNDERSTANDING §15.4
e. The Cleansing of the Temple
The cleansing of the Temple points in a similar direction. We can rule out the
suggestion that Jesus attempted a military coup, intended presumably to seize the
vacant throne of Herod the Great. That leaves us with a prophetic protest which
acknowledged the centrality of the Temple for God's dealings with Israel, but
also enacted some kind of aspirations for the Temple (or a new temple) to fulfil
its eschatological role. Again the lack of reference to the episode in Jesus' trial
(unless it is implicit in the testimony about Jesus' Temple word) may indicate
that it was not reckoned as particularly serious, either politically or prophetically.
And that is about as much as we can say with confidence. How the episode contributes
to the question of whether Jesus saw his role in messianic terms is hard
to say. 164 But he acted presumably in the light of the eschatological expectations
for the Temple (renewed Temple), and possibly as a self-conscious actor in the
eschatological drama already beginning to unfold.
f. Tribute to Caesar
Our question is not much further clarified by Jesus' response to the question
about tribute to Caesar. For it has always been recognized as a classic example of
diplomatic ambiguity. Brandon's argument that it would have been heard as forbidding
tribute, since the land and all its produce belongs to God, has an echo in
the accusation attested only in Luke 23.2 ('We found this man perverting our nation,
and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar'). 165 But the clearer inference,
given that the saying was uttered with reference to a denarius bearing the head of
Tiberius (Mark 12.16 pars.), 166 is that Jesus acknowledged the right of the Em-
doubt that Jesus associated himself with Zech. 9:9' (Witherington, Christology 106); 'clearly
messianic' (Wright, Jesus 491); Jesus deliberately evoked and enacted the kingly role indicated
in Zech. 9.9 — Israel's 'divinely appointed king who was to lay claim to his city to inaugurate
the eschatological restoration' (Tan, Zion Traditions 149-56). In some contrast, Fredriksen,
though dubious of most of the detail in the Gospels' accounts, argues that it was the crowd, not
the disciples, and not Jesus himself, who first identified and proclaimed Jesus as Messiah (Jesus
241-58).
164. Bolder again is Witherington: 'Only royalty would dare to interfere as Jesus did';
'. . . he saw himself as the messianic figure of Zechariah' (Zech. 14.21) (Christology 113-15).
See further below, §17.3.
165. The phrase is the same in Luke 20.22 (Kaisari phoron dounai) and 23.2 (phowus
Kaisari didonai), although Mark 12.14/Matt. 22.17 use the Latin loan word kensos (census)
rather than phoros (see further BDAG ad loc).
166. On the identity of the coin see H. St. John Hart, 'The Coin of "Render unto
Caesar . . .'", in Bammel and Moule, Jesus and Politics 241-48.
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