Mark 13

Mark 13 gives us Jesus' predictions about the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD70--or does it? Of course, the Left Behind series thinks Mark 13 is about end time events. An Antichrist will set himself up as god in a rebuilt Jerusalem temple. On the one hand, it is not too hard to see where this interpretation comes from. There are some things in Mark 13 that don't seem to have happened in AD70, like Christ coming on the clouds, sun darkening and moon turning to blood, etc...

On the other hand, the context of Mark 13 leads us to believe that the prophecy is about the destruction of that temple right in front of them. Jesus says that the stones they are looking at will be torn down; the disciples ask when; then the discourse begins. Then there are thornier issues still. There is the statement that "this generation will not pass until all these things happen." Well, that generation's past, which works fine if Jesus means the destruction of Jerusalem. If Jesus meant the second coming, then we have a problem, Houston.

From what I remember, N. T. Wright has a clever solution (so are they all, all clever solutions). He suggests that rather than "coming on the clouds," the sense is "going on the clouds." The Greek word erchomai can mean either. So, he suggests, perhaps it is a reference to Christ abandoning Jerusalem. Since such a going can be coordinated with AD70, and since sun darkening and moon turning can be taken metaphorically (e.g., Acts 2 seems to relate this passage to the Day of Pentecost), case solved.

Then again, is that really what Mark 13 is saying? Should a convenient possible solution trump an inconvenient probable one?

If we leave comfortable surroundings, the discussion gets thornier and thornier. Scholars debate, for example, whether Jesus even predicted that the temple would be destroyed. James Dunn, in Jesus Remembered, makes a pretty good case that Jesus was remembered for predicting some sort of judgment and "rebuilding" of the temple. The main basis I would say is the so called "multiple attestation" of the idea in so many different sources. Some sort of prediction is found not only in the synoptic gospels but in John and the Gospel of Thomas as well. So even an unorthodox person like John Dominic Crossan believes Jesus was remembered for saying something against the temple (man, he likes Thomas).

On the other hand, it is reasonably argued that whatever Jesus said, it surely wasn't as clear as Mark 13 currently is. The disciples in Acts don't seem to have a clue that the temple is going to be destroyed. They continue to worship there, preach there (not against the temple, although Stephen apparently does), heal there, even take vows and offer sacrifices there (Acts 21). Paul talks about a man of lawlessness setting himself up in the temple as God, but says absolutely nothing that would lead us to believe the temple was about to be destroyed.

Indeed, even a close read of Mark 13, other than its beginning, says nothing about the destruction of the temple. It only implies the temple's desecration. Is it possible that it was only in hindsight, after the temple's destruction, that the early Christians came to understand just what Jesus' action in the temple must have signified. Was it only then that they came to understand exactly what Jesus must have meant by destroying and rebuilding the temple?

It seems to me that these are difficult issues to sort out, and they of course run rough shod over simplistic conceptions of the biblical text. My hunch is that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple must have shocked the Christian community almost as much as it shocked the Jewish communities of the world. It is quite possible to read books like Matthew, Luke-Acts, and Hebrews against the backdrop of these events and the ripples they created among Christians.

Of course you would expect that something having to do with Hebrews was driving my interest in this question...

Things to think about... or not.