Mark: Criticism or Rejection?

This chapter focuses on Mark's criticism of the Temple. The Temple plays an important role in Mark 11–15. It is central in Jesus's cleansing of the Temple, the reference to the “abomination of desolation,” the purported prediction of the destruction of the Temple in Mark 13, and several additional passages—all of which leads interpreters of Mark to conclude that Mark holds a completely negative view of the Temple. Important commentators think that Mark introduces Jesus as a new Temple that substitutes for the old one. Others argue that Jesus's mission in Mark is “anti-Temple”—that the Temple “stands condemned of corruption by trade and politics,” leading to Jesus's “disqualification” of it since “the Kingdom has been dissociated from the Jerusalem Temple.” The chapter then looks at an alternative approach which views Mark as less critical of the Temple.

Concluding Thoughts

This concluding chapter discusses two general issues that build on the previous chapters, namely, the relationship of the early Christians to Judaism and the implications of comprehending the Jerusalem Temple in the first century. Early Christian authors draw heavily on the Temple as a major Jewish institution as well as on the concepts of the Temple and the sacrificial cult. They do so while minimally discrediting the legitimacy of the Jerusalem Temple and the sacrifices, even as they propose alternatives after its destruction. Whether referring to the Temple in the standard manner or a radical one, these authors are undoubtedly aware that they are sharing this key symbol with non-Christian Jews, and this seems to be one of their hidden messages: that they share the same holy center devoted to the one and only God despite their differences and persecution by fellow Jews.