Jesus “cleansed” the temple. Why he did so is a mystery.
In the Jewish Law, Deuteronomy 14:25 allows the exchange
of a sacrifice for money and allows another animal to be
purchased for offering in the Temple.
All of the four canonical gospels tie the “cleansing”
of the temple to Jesus’ eventual crucifixion:
And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and
his disciples came to him for to shew him the
buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See
ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there
shall not be left here one stone upon another, that
shall not be thrown down. (Matthew 24:1-2)
The attitude itself is amazing, but his actions in the
temple itself are even more so:
And they came to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the
temple, and began to cast out them that sold and
bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the
money-changers, and the seats of them that sold
doves…(Mark 11:15)
The ensuing riot is also related in Matthew 21:12,
Luke 19:45, and John 2:14-15. We are also later
informed that a widespread insurrection (Mark 15:7)
had taken place in the City which the “cleansing of
the Temple” was probably a part of. If so, the insurrection,
and was not spontaneous but planned as a pre-Passover
against the pro-Roman establishment.
It was less than a week before the Passover, which the
Romans always considered a tinder dry period when
anything could, and did, happen. Jews flocked in
their millions to attend this Holy Festival, for every
healthy male over the age of 12 living within ninety
miles of the Temple was compelled by the Law to attend
his God and give an account of himself. A popular uprising
would involve every Zealot in and around Jerusalem.
So why was the rebellion a failure? The beginnings of
the attempted coup are described in the canonical
Gospels where Jesus extremely publicly enters
Jerusalem riding on an ass. This tipped off the Romans
to his plans from Zechariah 9:9 which says: “Behold
thy King cometh unto thee…meek…and riding upon an
ass…!” Shouting his name and imploring him to rise
and save them from Rome”as their King and Messiah
surely would”the crowd’s acclamations became one
mighty, thunderous roar. Undoubtedly, the Romans used
this intelligence to concentrate their forces around
the Temple Mount and subdue the rebellion, executing
the leader in the process.
In Jerome’s Vulgate version of the Bible in John 18:3,
the term cohort is used to describe the size of the
military unit that came to arrest Jesus in what was the
Battle of Gethsemanie. Such Roman military units were
quite large, being 500-600 men strong, usually accompanied
by generous contingents of local auxiliaries. The gospels
confirm that elements of the temple guard accompanied the
Roman soldiers as they came to arrest Jesus in the Garden.
Around the time of the Great Persecution of Diocletian in 303
CE, Sossianus Hierocles wrote a two-volume anti-Christian
entitled The Lover of Truth. He stated that Jesus gathered 900
men and committed robberies. The Zealots then as terrorists
do now rob enemies they deem as infidels for the holy causes that
they promote.
Certainly, Pontius Pilate expected a pitched battle
and took no chances by responding with overwhelming
force at that spot where Jesus was most vulnerable.