Cleansing the temple -- once or twice?

[Tim Bonney]

[Rvaughn]

[Jim]

Hilarity is inspired when the “professional religionists” try to make the Bible say what they want it to say no matter how contrary to the printed word. This may be traced back to bonehead seminary professors who brag (so do preachers) of their ability to read in Greek or Aramaic when they have trouble positing three grammatically correct English sentences consecutively. A good example: accounting the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as a lack of hospitality, which cannot be called a sin even today, but mod/lib preachers still insist upon this nonsense. Jesus was in Jerusalem the year before the crucifixion (A.D. 29) for the Feast of Tabernacles and probably a number of other times and just as probably did the same number (cleansing) on the crooks in the Temple, who this time were probably selling tents/spikes and food, for instance, necessary to the observance, which was a family thing including a lot of fun. He went in secrecy because he was a target of both the synagogue Ph.d's (sometimes called Pharisees) and the Roman soldiers. Indeed, the Pharisees ridiculed the soldiers for not having either the brains or the guts to assassinate (or at least arrest) Jesus. Jesus preached in the Temple and at the Mount of Olives (actually argued probably quite vehemently) to the elitists, who accounted him as a country-bumpkin, though dangerous nevertheless. John 7-9 reads like a novel of intense intrigue. The hangup of today's elitists always has to do with Christ's use of force, verbal and physical, anathema to the “gentle, kind” souls populating current pulpits and trying to interpret the scripture as normalizing a marriage between two men while their denominations are rotting inside-out. Naturally, John told it just like it was—violence and all—and let the chips fall where they may. He also was the only disciple recorded at the foot of the cross. Ask Peter if this took guts. Like Jesus, rough John the calloused fisherman was a man's man, who stared down the Roman soldiers and guarded the women. I love him and Jesus because they were tough as nails but gentle as lambs when necessary. Yeah...that makes at least three of Christ's recorded trips to the Jerusalem Temple and he most likely "cleansed" it every time. Some folks who did a lot of walking back then used long walking-sticks. I can see Christ using such in a "cleansing."

[Haruo]

The Bible is very clear on the sin of Sodom. "Hospitality" is too weak a term as normally understood, but it's not particularly about gay sex, either.

[Haruo]

Idolizing the printed word when the inspiration happened long before Gutenberg is problematic, too, Jim.

[Haruo]

[Haruo]

And just for the record, I have only taken one seminary class in my 64 years (tomorrow), and I'm certainly NOT what could sensibly be called a professional religionist.

[Jim]

Anything else? Good luck with the seminary course. I was in a church study-class led by a Southern professor back in the day who insisted that the Gadarene (or is that Gerasene [my Greek is bad]) demoniac was just a nutcase and not indwelled by the demons that Christ transferred to the swine who immediately drowned both themselves and the demons...or is that just a myth? In any case, I call that a huge sinful lack of hospitality on the part of the pigs...or on Christ's part for that matter since he no doubt terribly offended the demons, if not the demoniac who seemed perfectly at peace in his raging at the population. The prof (well-known and respected but I can't remember his name) became a bit flustered when someone dared to contradict him. Watch those profs and call them out if they exhibit even a smidgeon of inhospitality.

[JE Pettibone]

[JE Pettibone]

[Jon Estes]

[Jon Estes]

[JE Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

[Jim]

[Jim]

[Jim]

[Jim]

Egad!!! I have just been struck with the name of the prof I mentioned somewhere in this thread vis-à-vis the swine and the demoniac. I believe it was Frank Stagg who insisted that the madman was not mad at all but just crazy, like out of his mind...maybe a schizophrenic or some such malady, meaning that Christ didn't cast out any demons and that the pigs survived to the stockyard, although I don't think the Israelites were allowed to touch them with a ten-foot pole and so just sold them to the Philistines, maybe, of whom well over a thousand died when God answered Samson's prayer for suicide and made him strong enough to pull down the roof on them and him. If I'm wrong about Stagg, my apology to him wherever he may be and will be happily corrected by anyone who was around SBTS in the 60s-70s and has knowledge of what he thought about demons and such.

[JE Pettibone]