GEMS FROM JEREMIAH (35) The Temple as political Tool, part II

 

Legitimization: Herod’s Temple

     The Temple was rebuilt by those Jews who returned from Babylon and was dedicated in 515 B.C.[1]  Although it was attacked repeatedly and desecrated by the Seleucids[2], it was rededicated by the Maccabees in the year 164.  Due to a dynastic rivalry between two Hasmonean brothers, the Roman general Pompey, upon their invitation to arbitrate the dispute and following a 3-month siege, captured Jerusalem in 63 B.C. and brought Judah under the hegemony of the ever-expanding Roman empire.  When the Parthians captured Jerusalem, the Romans backed an Idumean warlord by the name of Herod who, with the help of the legions of Mark Antony, recaptured Jerusalem for Rome in the year 37 B.C. (Herod was granted the title “King of the Jews” and reported to the Roman legate in Syria).  As part of a campaign to legitimize his kingship, Herod undertook a gargantuan renovation project on Mount Zion – including the construction of the “Antonia Fortress” (named after Mark Antony) adjacent to the Temple[3] – which would continue long after his death in 4 B.C. and finally be completed in AD 63![4]

     Owing to the fact that Herod was not a descendant of David (or even a Jew!) and that the Jerusalem priesthood was considered by many to be illegitimate, ambivalent feelings about the (current) house of Yahweh were widespread among the contemporaries of Jesus.  Also, the poorer classes regarded the Temple as symbolizing the oppression they suffered at the hands of the rich elite.[5]

     In the first century AD, the chief priests[6] formed a permanent secretariat, based in Jerusalem, wielding considerable power.  They belonged to a small group of families, tight-knit and inbred, and formed the heart of Jerusalem’s aristocracy.  It was with them that the Roman governors had to deal in the first instance, holding them responsible for the general conduct of the populace.  This aristocracy had no solid ancestral claim to its prestige.  To the Jerusalemite priests, the Temple was their power-base, the economic and political centre of the country.  The fact that they controlled the shrine gave powerful religious legitimation to the status which they had been granted under the Romans and Herod.[7]  So, at the time of Jesus, the Temple had been co-opted by both Herod and the Chief Priests; for the former, to legitimate his claim to be King of the Jews, and for the latter, to legitimate the status granted them by the Roman overlords of Judaea.  Both Herod and the priests were using the house of Yahweh for their own selfish ends.  Where was the God of the Exodus?


[1] The (re)builder of the Temple was supposed to be a “son of David”.  Cf. the attempts to depict Zerubbabel, the Persian-appointed governor of Judah, as a candidate for Davidic kingship: Haggai 2.21-23.

[2] “the abomination of desolation”: cf. Dn. 8.13; 9.27; 11.31; 12.11; it was during this period of persecution that the major sects of Judaism appeared: Caird, G.B. The Apostolic Age, London: Duckworth, 1955, p. 23; Harrington, Daniel J. The Maccabean Revolt: Anatomy of a Biblical Revolution, Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1988, pp. 36-56.

[3] Chenuet, Gérard, sous dir. Jésus et son Temps, Sélection du Reader’s Digest, Paris, Bruxelles, Montréal, Zurich, 1992 [1987], p. 71.

[4] Cf. Jn. 2.19-22.  The First Jewish War would begin 3 years later and the temple would be destroyed in AD 70.  Cf. Wright, N.T. The New Testament and the People of God, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992, pp. 160-61; the Temple occupied 25% of the area of Jerusalem: Ibid., p. 225.

[5] Wright, N.T. Jesus and the Victory of God, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996, p. 412.

[6] There were at least 20,000 priests in first-century Palestine: Wright, N.T. The New Testament and the People of God, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992, p. 209.

[7] Ibid., p. 210.

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