The Temple

The most notable feature of the Fourth Gospel that distinguishes it from the synoptics is that it chiefly describes events that took place in Jerusalem.

Jesus Christ - His Life and Teaching, Vol. 5: The Lamb of God, by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

Very early in John’s gospel, he describes a visit to Jerusalem by Jesus, when He drove those who traded out of the temple. This immediately followed the scene at the wedding in Cana. On another visit, John describes the healing of the paralytic at the Sheep’s pool.

The synoptics describe neither of these events. In the synoptic accounts, there is also a similar episode of driving out those who trade in the temple, but here it is set at the end of Jesus’s ministry, not at the beginning. When coming across similar events but described at different times or in different ways by the different authors of the gospels, Alfeyev attributes this to the likelihood that the authors are describing two different events.

Just as Jesus could have given similar teachings on multiple occasions, He could also have performed similar actions more than once.

For example, the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain. Alfeyev, in his work on the former, attributed the different settings and slightly different teachings not to an error in memory of one or the other author, but to the likelihood that Jesus taught on similar themes more than once in more than one place.

With John’s placement of the cleansing of the temple, he presents to the reader the gulf that would come to exist between Jesus and official Judaism from the beginning. This matches an idea I recall from Bishop Sheen regarding the Sermon on the Mount, found at the beginning chapters of Matthew: from the beginning, Jesus taught and acted in a manner certain to make of Him a target in the eyes of the Jewish authorities. He was revolutionary (in the eyes of man’s understanding) from the beginning.

The temple was the chief spiritual center and most sacred site in Israel. It was a primary destination for pilgrims, and people would come from all over Palestine and further to offer sacrifices to the Lord. The first temple existed from about 950 to 586 BC, when it was burned by the Babylonians. After return from captivity, the returning Jews would build a second temple, however now without the Ark of the Covenant.

In 167 BC the temple was defiled by the troops of Antiochus IV Epiphanes…

Three years later it was rededicated under Judas Maccabeus. Around 20 BC, Herod the Great launched a large-scale reconstruction of the temple, expanding its borders and transforming it into one of the greatest religious monuments of the ancient world. Its size exceeded that of Solomon’s temple. Along with this reconstruction, the liturgical tradition would also return to its earlier magnificence.

This second temple period saw the appearance of numerous synagogues, or houses of assembly – places for teaching. But the temple remained the center of worship and sacrifice. Worship on the occasion of great feasts took on significant pomp and circumstance; sacrifice was a very bloody affair, and fire for the sacrifice burned continuously.

Jesus acted in respect and reverence regarding the temple. At twelve years old, He was there on His Father’s business; His cleansing of the money changers was done out of this same respect. That He did not appreciate the teaching of the Jewish leaders was not a mark against the temple; in fact, it was another aspect of His respect for it. Even after Jesus’s death and resurrection, His disciples held the temple in this same respect and reverence.

Jesus’s indignation at this lack of respect and reverence for the temple is a continuation of similar themes in the prophets:

Jeremiah 7: 11(a) Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes?

In Jesus time, as evidenced even by non-Biblical sources, bribery and corruption flourished in the temple in Jerusalem. It was not worship that Jesus overturned, but this corruption.

Conclusion

Reference to “the Jews” is made almost two hundred times in the New Testament, and this is quite true in John. Yet this term means different things at different times: it can refer to the religious leaders connected to the temple, or scribes and Pharisees, or even laity. For John, it is a generalized term that can refer to or encompass any of these – but, most generally, he is referring to people or groups that oppose Jesus.

Throughout the entire Fourth Gospel, Jesus rebukes the Jews – not, however, for being Jews, but for not believing His words.

John is hostile toward Jews only insofar as they are hostile toward Jesus. For John, to be a true Jew meant to be a Christian.