Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

8. This is the point of Ludwig Weimer’s book, Die Lust an Gott und seiner Sache. Oder: Lassen sich Gnade und Freiheit, Glaube und Vernunft, Erlösung und Befreiung vereinbaren? (Freiburg: Herder, 1981).

9. For what follows, cf. Norbert Lohfink, Das Jüdische am Christentum. Die verlorene Dimension (Freiburg: Herder, 1987), esp. 12.

10. In the next three sections I am making use of my book, Does God Need the Church? On the Theology of the People of God, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 139–50.

11. Feeding of the five thousand: Mark 6:30-44; Matt 13:13-21; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-15; the feeding of the four thousand is a variant narrative: Mark 8:1-10; Matt 15:32-39.

12. Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity [1968] (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 257.

13. Ibid., 260.

14. This alludes to ibid., 261–62.

15. Cf. esp. John 12:23-24; 13:31–32; 17:1.

Chapter 15

1. Another and a whole newer version is offered by John 12:12-19. Matthew and Luke are both dependent on the Markan version.

2. In John 12:12-19 the Zechariah text is explicitly cited; Mark only alludes to it.

3. There are many ancient parallels for this. Cf. esp. Erik Peterson, “Die Einholung des Kyrios,” ZST 7 (1930): 682–702. For spreading out garments as a sign of respect cf. 2 Kgs 9:13 and Acta Pilati I.2.

4. So Jürgen Roloff, Jesus, 4th ed. (Munich: Beck, 2007), 107.

5. In Matthew’s gospel the action in the temple follows immediately on the entry into the city (Matt 21:10-12), as it does in Luke’s (Luke 19:37-46). Mark (or the model he was following) inserts a day between the two (Mark 11:11-15).

6. Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), write correctly (p. 554): “Why, in view of the temple and the holy city that lay before him in all their beauty, should Jesus himself not have carried out a—messianic—parable–action, as he had done previously in establishing the Twelve, as he would a little later in cleansing the temple, and then at the Last Supper?”

7. Marius Reiser pointed out to me that under Roman rule Herod, the tetrarch Archelaeus, the Syrian legate Quirinius, the Roman governors, Kings Agrippa I and II, and Herod of Chalcis all installed and removed the high priests at will. The full list with all the evidence, arranged according to the person who made the appointment, can be found in Emil Schurer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135), new English version rev. and ed. Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, and Matthew Black (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1979), 2:229–32. Cf. Josephus, Ant. 20.224-51.

8. See the details in Christiana Metzdorf, Die Tempelaktion Jesu. Patristische und historisch-kritische Exegese im Vergleich, WUNT 2d ser. 168 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), but esp. also Jostein ädna, Jerusalmer Tempel und Tempelmarkt im 1. Jahrhundert n. Chr., ADPV 23 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999), and idem, Jesu Stellung zum Tempel. Die Tempelaktion und das Tempelwort als Ausdruck seiner messianischen Sendung, WUNT 2d ser. 119 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000).

9. Cf. esp. Zech 6:9-15; 14:20-21. Chapters 40–48 of the book of Ezekiel set out in detail the plan of an eschatological temple. In the book of Tobit the eschatological Jerusalem is painted in glowing colors in 13:17. A little later it says: “But God will again have mercy on them, and God will bring them back into the land of Israel; and they will rebuild the temple of God, but not like the first one until the period when the times of fulfillment shall come.… [the house of God will be rebuilt in Jerusalem, a glorious edifice for all the generations forever], just as the prophets of Israel have said concerning it” (Tob 14:5, Codex Vaticanus).

10. Thus also Joachim Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus 2, EKK II/2 (Zürich: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1979), 131.

11. Cf. esp. 1 Cor 3:9, 16-17. The Essenes also saw their community as the eschatological temple; cf. 1QS 8.4-10; CD 3.19, and elsewhere.

12. For the remainder of this chapter I am using material from my book, Does God Need the Church? On the Theology of the People of God, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 190–201.