Mark: Criticism or Rejection?

This chapter focuses on Mark's criticism of the Temple. The Temple plays an important role in Mark 11–15. It is central in Jesus's cleansing of the Temple, the reference to the “abomination of desolation,” the purported prediction of the destruction of the Temple in Mark 13, and several additional passages—all of which leads interpreters of Mark to conclude that Mark holds a completely negative view of the Temple. Important commentators think that Mark introduces Jesus as a new Temple that substitutes for the old one. Others argue that Jesus's mission in Mark is “anti-Temple”—that the Temple “stands condemned of corruption by trade and politics,” leading to Jesus's “disqualification” of it since “the Kingdom has been dissociated from the Jerusalem Temple.” The chapter then looks at an alternative approach which views Mark as less critical of the Temple.

Sacrificial Practice and Language

This chapter deals with sacrificial practice and language among the earliest Christians according to New Testament literature. It notes the ambivalent attitude of Jesus towards Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem and its sacrificial worship, which is manifest in the episode called ‘Cleansing of the Temple’ (Mark 11:15–19). This tendency probably led early Christians to discontinue actual sacrificial practices in their own worship; New Testament texts mention the Jewish sacrificial cult occasionally, but mostly employ sacrificial metaphors. The only exception is the celebration of the Eucharist, which appears as a renewal ritual to substitute for the early Jewish sacrificial cult. Hence this chapter explores sacrificial rituals in the Hebrew Bible, first, through a ritual theory approach and, second, with a theological perspective. The New Testament authors embrace the latter in their use of sacrificial metaphors in Christological concepts and paraenetic contexts.

The transformation of the temple in the Fourth Gospel

In at least two stories of the Fourth Gospel the transformation of the temple is an explicit theme. In the story of the cleansing of the temple the narrator comments that Jesus spoke of the temple of his body. In the dialogue with the Samaritan woman Jesus explains that God is no longer worshipped at mount Gerizzim or in Jerusalem, but in spirit and truth. In this article I will try to describe some aspects of this transformation against the background of the conflict between the Johannine congregation and the synagogue. As the dwelling place of God the temple is a holy place. Characteristic for the temple that Jesus is, is the mutual indwelling of God and Jesus and the mutual connection of Jesus and his disciples. The two mutual relations make it possible that the disciples come into contact with God. In the new temple that Jesus is, Jesus himself is the sacrifice of atonement. This atonement restores the relation of God and the believers. In the situation that is characterised by the absence of Jesus, the function of Jesus is taken over by the spirit of truth. That God is worshipped in spirit and truth makes a new inclusiveness and universality possible, where the conflict between the ‘Jews’ and Jesus’ disciples is unsolvable because of the exclusive claims of the conflicting parties.

The cleansing of the temple in early medieval Northumbria

While the attitudes of Stephen of Ripon and Bede toward church-buildings have previously been contrasted, this paper argues that both shared a vision of the church as a holy place, analogous to the Jewish temple and to be kept pure from the mundane world. Their similarity of approach suggests that this concept of the church-building was widespread amongst the Northumbrian monastic elite and may partially reflect the attitudes of the laity also. The idea of the church as the place of eucharistic sacrifice probably lay at the heart of this theology of sacred place. Irish ideas about monastic holiness, traditional liturgical language and the native fascination with building in stone combined with an interest in ritual purity to give power to this use of the temple-image which went on to influence later Carolingian attitudes to churches.