Is there a cure for homophobia? Introducing Lovelace......

[rogue06]

Apparently they were either ineffective, or simply weren't around when Jesus ran the money changers out, because there is no mention of any temple guards.

I figure that the incident was over fairly quickly.

Moreover, imagine the chaos that would have taken place the moment all those coins spilt onto the floor when Jesus overturned the money-changers tables. They very well might have had their hands full.

[rogue06]

I recommend you read the extract from Goldhill that I quoted. The Jewish lay public could not simply wander around wheresoever the fancy took them. And non Jews certainly could not go beyond the outermost court.

Your irrelevant passage about how temples where animal sacrifices took place would be like a charnel house?

I don't think anybody said that there was unrestricted access whether it was during the day or night. That is your straw man.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Apparently they were either ineffective, or simply weren't around when Jesus ran the money changers out, because there is no mention of any temple guards.

One can hardly use those narratives in support of a argument premised on known historical facts. We do not know [a] if that event ever took place or [b] if it did, what it actually involved.

[Mountain Man]

It had its own guards/police.

Apparently they were either ineffective, or simply weren't around when Jesus ran the money changers out, because there is no mention of any temple guards.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

As far as I know, the Temple was an open structure and could not be practically locked up at night. Not that Temple services were being offered around the clock, but there wasn't anything to prevent someone from entering it at night.

It had its own guards/police.

[tabibito]

[QUOTE=tabibito;n1291254]

You haven't even floated the section in Mark that might call my hypothesis into doubt, for all that it plainly exists. No attempt to make a reasoned argument to call my hypothesis into question - despite the fact that it the Biblical record can be used to do so. True enough, that hypothesis can't be disproven on the basis of scripture, but there are grounds to call it into question.

[tabibito]

[QUOTE=eider;n1291252]

So you cannot explain to me why you have decided that Jesus and disciples went in to the Temple at night-time to clear out the money changers and ransack the dove sellers, picketing the Temple Courts afterwards. Not with chapter and verse, anyway. If you can't, you can't.

You can't accept the fact that the Hebrew concept of the next day does not mean the next morning? Not that Mark says "next morning," anyway: what he says is "in the morning." You can't accept that the temple might have continued conducting secular business after the proper time? So be it. You haven't even floated the section in Mark that might call my assessment into doubt, for all that it plainly exists. To date, the strongest support that you have advanced for your contention is incredulity.

But you do want to tell us what you know about that first day, at last. Yes.... I do have to laugh.... or I would cry.

Continue lying to yourself if you must.

[eider]

Am I correct in thinking some here hold the view that the Temple operated 24 hours a day like some kind of modern convenience store? If so, what evidence is there for such a contention?

I don't think that the Temple was closed, but it did not operate at night.

Furthermore why are the current English days of the week [which are primarily German in origin - apart from Saturday] being proffered as corresponding with the period in question? There was no Thursday or Sunday in first century Jerusalem.

How many days do you think a Jewish week held?

[eider]

[QUOTE=tabibito;n1290799]

You'll need something better than bare assertion and mockery to convince me that you even might know what you're talking about.

So you cannot explain to me why you have decided that Jesus and disciples went in to the Temple at night-time to clear out the money changers and ransack the dove sellers, picketing the Temple Courts afterwards. Not with chapter and verse, anyway. If you can't, you can't.

But you do want to tell us what you know about that first day, at last. Yes.... I do have to laugh.... or I would cry.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Huh? Are you unaware of such things as massive Court of the Gentiles? While there were definitely areas where access was strictly restricted (no women allowed for instance -- and they had a separate courtyard as well), the vast majority of the temple grounds were open to the Jewish people (lay public). How else were they supposed to make offerings and attend services?

I recommend you read the extract from Goldhill that I quoted. The Jewish lay public could not simply wander around wheresoever the fancy took them. And non Jews certainly could not go beyond the outermost court.

[rogue06]

The Temple was nothing like a church and g[/FONT]eneral access was not permitted to the lay public.[/SIZE]

Huh? Are you unaware of such things as massive Court of the Gentiles? While there were definitely areas where access was strictly restricted (no women allowed for instance -- and they had a separate courtyard as well), the vast majority of the temple grounds were open to the Jewish people (lay public). How else were they supposed to make offerings and attend services?

There were ritual practices being performed. The Temple was the centre of the national religious cult and its function was sacrifice to Yahweh. The place would have borne a remarked resemblance to an abattoir given the offering of vicarious sacrifices. Other temples for other ancient religions would not have been dissimilar.


For those who are interested, here is a passage from Simon Goldhill's short work The Temple of Jerusalem [taken from pages 70 - 73]

Like most religious sites, the Temple practised a careful regulation of the insiders and the outsiders. It was structured, like Solomon’s Temple, to lead through a series of rectangular courts to the innermost sanctum, and there were increasing levels of prohibition. The main entrance to the Temple itself opened into the Court of the Women. This was the area which Jewish women, along with men, were allowed to enter in order to participate in the religious ritual. There were four small square chambers, one in each corner of this courtyard: in two of them materials, wood and oil, were prepared for the sacrifices; in the other particular groups of men needing ritual purification, lepers and Nazirites, prepared themselves.

From the Court of the Women, steps rose to another single gate opening into the Court of the Israelites, an area open only to ritually cleansed Jewish males. In front of this was the Court of the Cohanim, the priests. There stood the slaughtering space where sacrificial victims were slaughtered, the altar where the victims were burnt, and the laver for ritual washing. Around the outside of this court was a corridor of rooms, with entrances to the outside courtyard: these rooms were used for the storage and preparation of wood, water, fire and animals for the ritual, which were brought in through the gates, named according to their use.

The Chamber of Hewn Stone however, the rabbis say, was used for meetings of the cohanim. Inside the inner Court of the Cohanim stood the Temple building itself. This was constructed according to the pattern of Solomon’s Temple, with a porch (ulam), a hall (hechal) – into which only priests would go – and the Holy of Holies (dvir), into which only the High Priest went, and on only one occasion during the year, at the climax of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most solemn religious festival of the calendar. The pilgrims could only imagine what lay beyond the altar.

[...]

There were two daily services, morning and evening, with a third in the afternoons on the Sabbath, the New Moon and on the festivals, which attracted huge crowds into Jerusalem (the economy of the city was wholly dominated by this calendar). Individuals came to make offerings, too, in the times between services – sin offerings to expiate transgressions, to fulfil vows, or in thanksgiving. Sacrifice was central to all of these occasions, and one of the things that is extremely difficult for a modern visitor to recapture is the overpowering smell of the ancient Temple. It would have been a heady mixture of incense (which was burnt on a small altar), together with the distinctive odours of fresh blood, slaughtered carcasses, animal dung, roasting meat and, no doubt, the smell of the crowd, all exacerbated by the heat of the sun in the open-air courts.

Goldhill also notes that at Passover every family in the country was required to bring an offering of a lamb which was slaughtered, roasted, and consumed on the same day. According to the Talmud, the number of kidneys roasted on one such festival was 600,000 pairs.

The noise of animals being brought to be slaughtered and the mess of blood, entrails, hides, and dung that needed to be cleared up afterwards must have been quite horrendous. In hot weather the whole scene does not bear thinking about.

Keep the above in mind the next time you get upset about me posting anything that is irrelevant.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Convenience store? Maybe more like a large church today?

The Temple was nothing like a church and general access was not permitted to the lay public.

Just because services aren't being performed

There were ritual practices being performed. The Temple was the centre of the national religious cult and its function was sacrifice to Yahweh. The place would have borne a remarked resemblance to an abattoir given the offering of vicarious sacrifices. Other temples for other ancient religions would not have been dissimilar.


For those who are interested, here is a passage from Simon Goldhill's short work The Temple of Jerusalem [taken from pages 70 - 73]

Like most religious sites, the Temple practised a careful regulation of the insiders and the outsiders. It was structured, like Solomon’s Temple, to lead through a series of rectangular courts to the innermost sanctum, and there were increasing levels of prohibition. The main entrance to the Temple itself opened into the Court of the Women. This was the area which Jewish women, along with men, were allowed to enter in order to participate in the religious ritual. There were four small square chambers, one in each corner of this courtyard: in two of them materials, wood and oil, were prepared for the sacrifices; in the other particular groups of men needing ritual purification, lepers and Nazirites, prepared themselves.

From the Court of the Women, steps rose to another single gate opening into the Court of the Israelites, an area open only to ritually cleansed Jewish males. In front of this was the Court of the Cohanim, the priests. There stood the slaughtering space where sacrificial victims were slaughtered, the altar where the victims were burnt, and the laver for ritual washing. Around the outside of this court was a corridor of rooms, with entrances to the outside courtyard: these rooms were used for the storage and preparation of wood, water, fire and animals for the ritual, which were brought in through the gates, named according to their use.

The Chamber of Hewn Stone however, the rabbis say, was used for meetings of the cohanim. Inside the inner Court of the Cohanim stood the Temple building itself. This was constructed according to the pattern of Solomon’s Temple, with a porch (ulam), a hall (hechal) – into which only priests would go – and the Holy of Holies (dvir), into which only the High Priest went, and on only one occasion during the year, at the climax of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most solemn religious festival of the calendar. The pilgrims could only imagine what lay beyond the altar.

[...]

There were two daily services, morning and evening, with a third in the afternoons on the Sabbath, the New Moon and on the festivals, which attracted huge crowds into Jerusalem (the economy of the city was wholly dominated by this calendar). Individuals came to make offerings, too, in the times between services – sin offerings to expiate transgressions, to fulfil vows, or in thanksgiving. Sacrifice was central to all of these occasions, and one of the things that is extremely difficult for a modern visitor to recapture is the overpowering smell of the ancient Temple. It would have been a heady mixture of incense (which was burnt on a small altar), together with the distinctive odours of fresh blood, slaughtered carcasses, animal dung, roasting meat and, no doubt, the smell of the crowd, all exacerbated by the heat of the sun in the open-air courts.

Goldhill also notes that at Passover every family in the country was required to bring an offering of a lamb which was slaughtered, roasted, and consumed on the same day. According to the Talmud, the number of kidneys roasted on one such festival was 600,000 pairs.

The noise of animals being brought to be slaughtered and the mess of blood, entrails, hides, and dung that needed to be cleared up afterwards must have been quite horrendous. In hot weather the whole scene does not bear thinking about.

[tabibito]

If trading itself had been so offensive, the response should have been immediate ... Not that anything I have found is really solid, but some comments here and there indicate that the temple gates were supposed to be shut between sunset and sunrise.

In fact, the Bible even tells us that people could go to the temple both during the day as well as night when Luke mentions how the widow "Anna, the daughter of Phanuel ... did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day." (Luke 2:36-38).

IOW, it wasn't closed up at night even if it wasn't open for sacrifices and services.

Which would point to a probability that the gates would not have been physically shut. Just that the temple was supposed to be closed for non-religious activity.

[tabibito]

JEWISH_TEMPLE00000018.jpg

[rogue06]

As far as I know, the Temple was an open structure and could not be practically locked up at night. Not that Temple services were being offered around the clock, but there wasn't anything to prevent someone from entering it at night.

Yeah, the building itself was actually relatively small (I've heard it said it would fit within a baseball infield diamond), but there were various porticos and of course that large plaza. And then given it was right before Passover, it was probably busy both day and night getting preparations in order. And even on non-holidays there were morning offerings made daily likely requiring someone to be working there at night.

In fact, the Bible even tells us that people could go to the temple both during the day as well as night when Luke mentions how the widow "Anna, the daughter of Phanuel ... did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day." (Luke 2:36-38).


IOW, it wasn't closed up at night even if it wasn't open for sacrifices and services.