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Historicity of the passion narrative

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  • Historicity of the passion narrative

    So it has occurred to me for a while that the Marcan Passion timeline is problematic. Most specifically, the claim that Jesus was crucified during Passover. However I have now found that the timeline is contradictory, Palm-Sunday to Good Friday as it appears in Mark cannot happen in the same week. Here is the problem:

    1. Palm Sunday begins at Mark 11:1 with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem
    2. The Cleansing of the Temple happens (Mark:15-19)
    3. Jesus is crucified by the Romans (Mark 15:21-32)

    Do you see the problem? How about if I put in the dates:

    1. Palm Sunday begins at Mark 11:1 with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem
    2. On 25 Adar the Cleansing of the Temple happens (Mark:15-19)
    3. On 14 Nisan Jesus is crucified by the Romans (Mark 15:21-32)

    To be fair, I'll explain where we get the date of the Cleansing from. The Mishnah Shekalim which you can read for yourself is the only Jewish source that tells us when money changers were allowed in the Temple, and they were only permitted there on the 25th of Adar because that was the day the temple tax was due. And they weren't allowed to charge fees, not that the NT says they did, but if Jesus really did get into an altercation with them then it wasn't because of that reason. From the 15th leading up to the 25th they set up tables in the city but not the temple. So that's it, there's only one day per year the money traders were in the temple for Jesus to have an altercation with.

    Also, we must keep in mind that Mark is woefully uninformed about Jewish customs. Hence why he has the women go to give Jesus a second anointing.

    So Jesus is crucified 18 days later? But within the gospel narratives this all happens within one week. I have identified three plausible solutions... take your pick:

    1. That the Cleansing happened about 2 weeks earlier then the gospel narratives suggest
    2. That the crucifixion happened earlier than Passover (despite the gospel
    or
    3. That the Cleansing didn't happen, or that if it did that the money changers were not involved after all.

  • #2
    Originally posted by Aractus View Post
    To be fair, I'll explain where we get the date of the Cleansing from. The Mishnah Shekalim which you can read for yourself is the only Jewish source that tells us when money changers were allowed in the Temple, and they were only permitted there on the 25th of Adar because that was the day the temple tax was due. And they weren't allowed to charge fees, not that the NT says they did, but if Jesus really did get into an altercation with them then it wasn't because of that reason. From the 15th leading up to the 25th they set up tables in the city but not the temple. So that's it, there's only one day per year the money traders were in the temple for Jesus to have an altercation with.
    Unless Jesus was complaining that the traders and vendors had set up their stalls when/where they were not supposed to, which is consistent with his complaint about them turning the temple into a den of thieves.

    End of problem.
    Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

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    • #3
      The Mishnah Shekalim doesn’t say that’s the only time they were allowed in the temple; it just says that’s the day they set up tables for that one particular tax. It speaks of various taxes paid at different times of the year. It mentions that tables were set up for the annual temple tax on Adar 25. It does not say when those tables were taken down. It does not say the tax was due that day (the tithe was due on the 29th). It does not say that no other tables were ever allowed, just that this is how that particular tax was handled. It does not say that no money-changing was ever allowed or done for other donations that were being given throughout the year. And there was in fact a surcharge for money-changing, one silver meah. It just wasn’t charged to priests, women, slaves, and children.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
        The Mishnah Shekalim doesn’t say that’s the only time they were allowed in the temple; it just says that’s the day they set up tables for that one particular tax. It speaks of various taxes paid at different times of the year. It mentions that tables were set up for the annual temple tax on Adar 25. It does not say when those tables were taken down. It does not say the tax was due that day (the tithe was due on the 29th). It does not say that no other tables were ever allowed, just that this is how that particular tax was handled. It does not say that no money-changing was ever allowed or done for other donations that were being given throughout the year. And there was in fact a surcharge for money-changing, one silver meah. It just wasn’t charged to priests, women, slaves, and children.
        From what I understand the money changers were exchanging "dirty" money for clean money that was to be used as a temple donation, not just a tax. This would probably happen before every service.

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        • #5
          When you look at the sophistication of banking and currency exchange and you imagine the sort of security around such activities it is hard not to see this as invention.
          “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
          “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
          “not all there” - you know who you are

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          • #6
            Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
            When you look at the sophistication of banking and currency exchange and you imagine the sort of security around such activities it is hard not to see this as invention.

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            • #7
              The triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the Jewish calendar would be the 9th of that month. The Julian date was March 31, 30CE. Which happens to be a Friday, BTW.
              . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

              . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

              Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Just Passing Through View Post
                The Mishnah Shekalim doesn’t say that’s the only time they were allowed in the temple; it just says that’s the day they set up tables for that one particular tax. It speaks of various taxes paid at different times of the year. It mentions that tables were set up for the annual temple tax on Adar 25. It does not say when those tables were taken down. It does not say the tax was due that day (the tithe was due on the 29th). It does not say that no other tables were ever allowed, just that this is how that particular tax was handled. It does not say that no money-changing was ever allowed or done for other donations that were being given throughout the year. And there was in fact a surcharge for money-changing, one silver meah. It just wasn’t charged to priests, women, slaves, and children.
                Okay, I think you may be correct that the temple tax was due on Nisan 1. And I noticed Shekalim 3:1 actually gives three different times that the money changing happens in the Temple... but still only three times in the entire year. And the closest to Passover is half a month before (ending on Nisan 1). There's no other time Jesus could have found money traders in the Temple. So if the Cleansing event occurred, the closest to Passover it could have occurred was in the period 25th of Adar-1st Nisan.

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                • #9
                  It talks about three times a year when a tax was due, and the authorities provided their own official money-changing service for the payment of the taxes. Perhaps the authorized tables displaced the ubiquitous entrepreneurial tables at tax time (or just gave a more consistent, less exploitative rate of exchange than people could get at the unofficial tables). It doesn’t say that no money changing was done for donations that came in throughout the year (and there would have been a lot of Jews from around the world at the Passover needing their coins exchanged if they wanted to give any free-will offerings). It’s only about collecting a tax, not about free-will offerings. It doesn’t say anything was forbidden. It doesn’t talk about when or where individuals would or could do business. It just gives a date when authorities set up their own table. I might even imagine that Jesus wouldn’t have had a problem with the official tables, since it was necessary temple business, the surcharge went into the temple treasury, and wasn’t robbing people who simply came to worship and give a free-will offering.

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                  • #10
                    What you've just said is a clear admission that I'm right.

                    We learned in the Shekalim that the money changer's tables are OUTSIDE the temple from the 15th-24th Adar. There is no way that they are outside, with the security required, while there are entrepreneurs inside the temple set up with tables changing money. I will grant you that money changing is one of the oldest trades there is, and people would have done it everywhere, and it's certainly possible for unofficial informal trading to be taking place even in the temple. However, Mark says they were money changers with tables. So they were not information trades between private individuals, they were people set up at tables to trade money.

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                    • #11
                      From the 15th to the 24th, tables were set up throughout the land. It's not that tables were set up outside the temple and only allowed inside on the 25th, it's that people in other cities could pay their taxes early, with official tables both for paying the tax and for exchanging money to pay with the correct coins. That was done early because the money had to be collected and brought to Jerusalem during the final week. There was simply no need for an early collection in Jerusalem. And these tables were official tables only for the tax, with both the tax and the money-changing surcharge going to the temple. They would have had nothing to do with other money-changing pertaining to continuous free-will offerings at the temple, with individuals charging whatever exorbitant rates they wanted to and gouging temple worshippers right in the temple courts. Why wouldn't unofficial traders use tables? It wasn't informal, it was unofficial. They were setting up business where people regularly needed to make exchanges.

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                      • #12
                        Right, you've just blatantly made that up. Where's your evidence that private entrepreneurs set up money changing tables year-round in the temple?

                        Also, the money changers only changed different currencies. We know the Levant was not fully monetised in Jesus' day - people more commonly traded directly in raw commodities. Like wheat, and olive oil. Yet there's nothing that suggests that Jews could bring their grain offerings and exchange them with official traders for shekels. So we expect that they were able to do so commonly enough in the market. Denarii are not of any use in Jerusalem. You can't take them to the market and purchase goods. This is why money traders charge fees - they have to leave and go into Rome or somewhere else across the Mediterranean to purchase goods (or exchange for commodities) with the currency. Their fee, ultimately, is to cover their expenses in exchanging the money for something of use.

                        In Leviticus, Yahweh gives his subjects an impossible commandment. While they're living at the base of Mt Sinai, in the middle of the desert, completely dependant on their God for manna, where they can't grow or purchase any grain, God declares they need to offer up grain offerings to him. Choice flour. What we notice here is that what makes sense to an Israelite writing around the 7th century BC, would not make sense to his supposed ancestors living in the Sinai desert. Anyway, clearly the Jews were willing able and regularly made grain offerings for centuries in the Temple - this makes sense because it is a common commodity. But, notice that they project their contemporary experience onto the past, and this too is what Mark has done. He imagines what trading in the Temple would have been like, having never set foot in it himself. He thinks there are money changers set up in the Temple with tables in week leading up to Passover, but he has absolutely no solid information to go on. Moreover he's a gentile and is basing his view of the Jews on whatever distorted stereotypes he has for them.

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