ITT- a lot of people who are very confidently wrong even about basic facts about this.
Jesus flipping tables wasn’t aimed at the priests and church authorities, but at people who were based in the outer area of the temple selling supplies to make sacrifices and offerings prescribed in Jewish law (see the book of Leviticus for more descriptions of these sacrifices). Jewish law at the time required a lot of animal sacrifices and monetary offerings at the Temple, and Jesus didn’t seem to have any issues with these- after all, they were a core part of the religion at the time and again, the Torah explicitly states that priests are supposed to live off of Temple offerings (note that in this passage the priestly class are referred to as “Sons of Aaron”). So it would have been odd for Jesus, as someone who at least according to the Bible was very knowledgeable about scripture and Jewish law, would have been surprised at that aspect.
What he was mad about was the commerce occurring around this system. The Gospel descriptions of this event discuss “moneychangers” and people selling doves. These are people who exchanged Roman currency for traditional Jewish currency (which is what ancient monetary offerings were denominated in) and sold animals (and based on other writings in the Torah, probably spiced cakes as well) that could be sacrificed in the Temple on the purchaser’s behalf. As for why this made Jesus mad, that is up for debate. The obvious answer is that it represents greed and people making money off religion, but the large amount of sacrifices required by Jewish law at the time really encouraged this behavior just from a practical standpoint. Myself I think he would have been completely fine with it had it been happening right outside the Temple instead, but the Temple was considered an especially holy place, where God’s presence literally descended down to Earth to be with mankind in the innermost portion, which each concentric ring acting as a sort of “air lock” for ritual impurity.
So the problem was not that the priests were making money from religion (again, this was required by Jewish law at the time) but that these other people were hanging out in the Temple treating it as a marketplace rather than as an exceptionally holy and highly ritualized space. Understanding this is kind of difficult for modern people because we don’t really treat religion the same as people did back then, and especially from a Christian standpoint we tend to view religion as a matter of personal belief and not impurity that occurs as a natural consequence of things that happen and that must be cleansed before encounters with the divine.
This is a very good explanation. To answer the specific question about modern offering plates, those are fine bc it’s not selling anything, it’s a free will offering to support the church. Of course, some churches put a lot more pressure on their congregants and basically force them to give beyond their means by saying shit like “God demands you give x amount” or “buying salvation” and stuff, and that behavior would likely get them whipped by Jesus too. Unfortunately the people who do stuff like that, don’t actually care about Jesus and his teachings
ITT- a lot of people who are very confidently wrong even about basic facts about this.
Jesus flipping tables wasn’t aimed at the priests and church authorities, but at people who were based in the outer area of the temple selling supplies to make sacrifices and offerings prescribed in Jewish law (see the book of Leviticus for more descriptions of these sacrifices). Jewish law at the time required a lot of animal sacrifices and monetary offerings at the Temple, and Jesus didn’t seem to have any issues with these- after all, they were a core part of the religion at the time and again, the Torah explicitly states that priests are supposed to live off of Temple offerings (note that in this passage the priestly class are referred to as “Sons of Aaron”). So it would have been odd for Jesus, as someone who at least according to the Bible was very knowledgeable about scripture and Jewish law, would have been surprised at that aspect.
What he was mad about was the commerce occurring around this system. The Gospel descriptions of this event discuss “moneychangers” and people selling doves. These are people who exchanged Roman currency for traditional Jewish currency (which is what ancient monetary offerings were denominated in) and sold animals (and based on other writings in the Torah, probably spiced cakes as well) that could be sacrificed in the Temple on the purchaser’s behalf. As for why this made Jesus mad, that is up for debate. The obvious answer is that it represents greed and people making money off religion, but the large amount of sacrifices required by Jewish law at the time really encouraged this behavior just from a practical standpoint. Myself I think he would have been completely fine with it had it been happening right outside the Temple instead, but the Temple was considered an especially holy place, where God’s presence literally descended down to Earth to be with mankind in the innermost portion, which each concentric ring acting as a sort of “air lock” for ritual impurity.
So the problem was not that the priests were making money from religion (again, this was required by Jewish law at the time) but that these other people were hanging out in the Temple treating it as a marketplace rather than as an exceptionally holy and highly ritualized space. Understanding this is kind of difficult for modern people because we don’t really treat religion the same as people did back then, and especially from a Christian standpoint we tend to view religion as a matter of personal belief and not impurity that occurs as a natural consequence of things that happen and that must be cleansed before encounters with the divine.
This is a very good explanation. To answer the specific question about modern offering plates, those are fine bc it’s not selling anything, it’s a free will offering to support the church. Of course, some churches put a lot more pressure on their congregants and basically force them to give beyond their means by saying shit like “God demands you give x amount” or “buying salvation” and stuff, and that behavior would likely get them whipped by Jesus too. Unfortunately the people who do stuff like that, don’t actually care about Jesus and his teachings