The Temple Incident: An Integral Element in the Fourth Gospel's Narrative
Mark A. Matson
Milligan College

An analysis of the Temple Incident (a term preferable to the "Cleansing" since that implies a prior judgement of the meaning of the action) in the Fourth Gospel shows that it is an integral part of John's narrative construction, and thus originates from the earliest strata of the gospel's construction. The Temple Incident in John marks the beginning of Jesus' public messianic ministry, as well as the beginning of opposition by "the Jews," a fundamental theme throughout the Fourth Gospel. And John's Temple Incident anticipates the Passion, thus providing an initial frame with which to interpret the entire gospel story. Moreover, the way the incident is understood and developed shows that it is best understood as an independent interpretation of a core Jesus tradition rather than a secondary adaptation of the Synoptic story.

A Starting Point for Comparison: The Use of Scripture

John's presentation of the Temple Incident is in broad terms very similar to that found in the Synoptics. In each case Jesus enters the Temple in Jerusalem during the Passover festival and creates a disturbance, driving out those who are providing sacrificial animals for the Temple. Moreover, Jesus is depicted in Matthew and Mark, as well as John, as interfering with the money-changers' work of exchanging money for the temple offering, and they are very similar in their description of Jesus turning over the tables of the money-changers. In support of these actions, Jesus quotes or paraphrases texts from the Old Testament alluding to the Temple as God's house: Isaiah 56:7 in the Synoptics; Zechariah 14:21 and Psalm 69:9 in John.

But while the Johannine Temple Incident has strong similarities with the Synoptic account, it also has striking differences. The most obvious is the placement of the narrative, with John's account located near the beginning of the gospel, shortly after the first sign. In contrast, of course, the Synoptics relate the story near the close of the gospel, at the beginning of the Passion week shortly after Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. This difference is crucial, and has prompted a number of explanations. The first and most common explanation is that John has transferred the account from its proper place in the Passion story to the beginning of the gospel for a theological purpose (Brown, 1966, p. 118; Fortna, 1970, p. 104). The second explanation is that John's placement is more historical, and the Synoptic account is located in the passion narrative because they only relate one trip to Jerusalem and thus had no other option (Robinson, 1985, p. 185). It is difficult to assess with any certainty the historicity of either placement. But the fact that the early placement in John supports its theology does not automatically imply a secondary transferral from a Passion event; each of the gospels has a systematic and coherent theological conception that has guided the selection and ordering of events.

The actual detail of the accounts is also different, although not strikingly so. In John, Jesus drives out not only the sellers of animals, but also drives out sheep and oxen as well. To illustrate this, John has Jesus making a whip of cords to help drive out the animals, thus underscoring the presence of animals in the Temple court, and emphasizing the dramatic nature of the action. In similar fashion, John's account has Jesus actually pouring out the coins of the money-changers - again a dramatic emphasis of an action implied in the other accounts.

And finally, one must note the different Old Testament citations offered by John. All of the Synoptic accounts quote two texts, Is. 56:7 and Jer. 7:11, strung together as a composite quote. In each case, both Synoptics and John, the Old Testament citations are specifically used as references to the Temple. John's first citation does share an affinity with Is. 56:7 in that it seems to refer to the Temple as the house of God. In the case of Is. 56:7, this is an oracle, in God's name, referring to "my house". John's quotation though, appears to be a loose adaptation of Zech. 14:21, in which the term "house of the Lord of hosts" has been changed to "my Father's house," and follows the LXX translation of "Canaanites" as "traders," so that this should no longer be a house for traders. John's second citation, from Psalm 69, bears no relationship to the Synoptics' use of Jeremiah 7:11. Instead, it places a future orientation on Jesus' own activity; the LXX verb "consumed me" has been transformed from an aorist to a future: "zeal for your house will consume me." These citations in John and the Synoptics, support, but do not clearly explain, the theological focus of the action in the Temple. The difference in the citations suggests a different tradition history, while the modification in John's citations gives us some indication of how that tradition was reinterpreted by the Fourth Evangelist.

In every case, the Temple Incident should probably not be understood as a critique of the current Temple practices, but rather should be seen as a prophetic symbolic act pointing to God's eschatological intervention which would involve the Temple. In the Synoptics, the Isaiah citation seems to suggest a coming time when the Temple would be open to all peoples, not just the Jewish people. So the Isaiah quote in Mark, "it shall be a house of prayer for all nations," seems crucial. And the use of "brigands" from Jeremiah (Gr. lestes) probably did not refer to economic chicanery so much as political resistance or interference in the Temple, thus preventing or discouraging Gentiles from access to the Temple. By tipping over the tables and driving people out, Jesus was enacting the coming destruction of the Temple as a precursor to God's restoration of it. His subsequent teaching about the destruction (Mk 13:1) confirms this. Jesus' actions seem to have been understood by the Jewish hierarchy as predicting this destruction, hence the charge against Him at his trial (Mk 14:58, cf. Jn. 2:19!!) Although many of the implications have been lost in the transmission of this account and the retelling by the Synoptic Evangelists, the Temple Incident in the Synoptics is best understood in terms of expectations for a restored Temple in God's Coming Kingdom. (Sanders, 1985, p. 61 ff.; p. 78 ff).

I suggest that John's version of the Temple Incident supports that same understanding; that is, that Jesus' action in the Temple was primarily prophetic, and one referring to God's coming eschatological activity on behalf of His people. John's presentation is, once again, somewhat cryptic, but not necessarily viewed as opposition to the Temple practices. The Jews ask, almost benignly, why he does what he does, and Jesus' answer is based on an anticipated destruction of the Temple. It coheres, in other words, with a prophetic act about the coming new Temple. This appears to explain Jesus' allusion to Zechariah 14:21, which comes from the apocalyptic conclusion to the prophetic work. There Zechariah is referring to the conclusion of God's intervention on behalf of His people, a final victory with eschatological significance. The result of God's final intervention is the sanctification of all of Israel, so that all will turn to the Lord (Jews and Gentiles) and worship in Jerusalem year after year (Zech. 14:16). At that time, there will no longer be any need for traders in the Temple since everything will be holy to God. This is, then, a future eschatological prediction that John's Jesus uses as a basis for His activity. Of course, John understands the eschatological significance to refer to Jesus Himself, as the rest of the narrative makes clear. In the same way, the use of Psalm 69 is transformed into a future reference, and thus its use becomes in John an even more poignant prophetic prediction, since the Passion does indeed consume the physical life of Jesus.

While John's and the Synoptics' accounts have, at root, a similar focus on an eschatological action by God, John understands the restoration of the Temple to be metaphorical in and through the body of Jesus, not a literal Temple (Jn. 2:21). But the eschatological tension and expectation, as reflected in the use of Scriptures which draw on this expectation, still remain central to John's understanding of the event. Moreover, the eschatological expectation in John is more directly linked with the rejection of Jesus and his death. While the Synoptic gospels place the Temple Incident at the beginning of the Passion Week, linking it temporally with the rejection and death of Jesus, John links it explicitly by means of the narrator's interpretation in which the action which connects the action in the Temple to its spiritual reality: the destruction of Jesus' body.

The Temple Incident's Function in the Developing Narrative

Does the Temple Incident in John, by being linked directly to the death of Jesus, reflect an earlier placement in the Passion narrative? Is this, then, an indication that the current placement is simply a dislocation of the event from its proper place in the sequence of events that take place in the final week of Jesus' life? A close examination of the Temple Incident in John suggests, to the contrary, that this event is a tightly constructed and integral part of the developing narrative as it currently stands in the Fourth Gospel. Reading John's account as a developing coherent narrative shows the integral function of the Temple Incident in the construction of John's story of Jesus.

The Temple Incident in John follows the Wedding in Cana. As has been noted (Moloney, 1993, p. 94), there are some structural similarities between the Cana event and the Temple event. The Temple scene opens with a setting of the account (v. 13), followed by an action (vv. 14-17), then a verbal exchange (vv. 18-20). After this "plot," the action slows down so that the narrator can interpret the words of Jesus (vv. 21-22), and finally there is a concluding passage which rounds out the event (vv. 23-25). This is essentially the same structure as in the Cana event, however there Jesus' words precede his action, whereas in the Temple Incident the action leads to the question by the Jews and the response by Jesus.

More important than the structural similarities, though, are some indications that both events are used primarily as foreshadowing for the rejection and death of Jesus, as well as for developing the distinctive difference in the reception of Jesus - by disciples and opponents. Note that the initial reaction of Jesus to his mother's request is " My hour has not yet come," a pregnant comment that has no meaning except to anticipate the coming Passion. The editorial comment at the conclusion of the Temple Incident, interpreting Jesus' "sign" to the Jews, is a stronger and clearer anticipation of the Passion. The dialogue at Cana anticipates the stronger statement in the Temple Incident, linking the two passages together.

It has been suggested that both the Cana miracle and the Temple Incident are dealing with purification issues since the water turned to wine was stored in stone jars used for the immersion rites of purification, suggesting a purification interest in the Cana miracle which anticipates a purification of the Temple (cf. Witherington, 1995, p. 86). This is, however, unlikely. The Cana miracle makes nothing of the purification aspect other than as the circumstance that allows large volumes of water to be handy. Nor is there inherently an interest in purification at the Temple Incident.

The Cana miracle does conclude with the important editorial statement that this was the first of Jesus's signs, and that this sign functioned as a revelation of His glory and a basis for the disciples' belief in Him. Following this motif of signs from the Cana miracle, "the Jews'" request for a sign following the Temple action, and Jesus' prophetic description of that sign - the destruction and raising of the "sanctuary" - provides a significant and telling counterpoint to the Cana event. Contrary to arguments that Jesus does not comply with the Jews' request for a sign (Brown, 1966, p. 115), Jesus does in fact offer the most compelling of signs, the death and resurrection of Himself. Of course this sign is only apprehended in hindsight. But in the story world of John, Jesus does offer a compelling sign. What is different about the Temple Incident, however, is the difference in the reaction. "The Jews" react with astonishment and consternation, but not faith. In contrast, the disciples are again characterized as faithful; in view of the resurrection (the sign) they believed the scripture and Jesus' word. Both Cana and the Temple Incident, then, allow John to develop the importance of Jesus as the giver of signs, signs which are apprehended and believed by some, but result in a failed belief by others.

The linkage of the Cana event and the Temple Incident can perhaps be most clearly seen in the concluding passage to the two events, John 2:23-25. Here John inserts a generalizing statement that suggests Jesus was widely performing "signs" of his glory. These signs are the basis for faith by many ("many believed in His name because of the signs"), but also fail to produce faith in many others ("...but he would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people..."). For John, then, the Cana miracle and the Temple Incident provide a two-sided perspective of signs that anticipates and frames the entire gospel story.

Just as the Cana story anticipates certain themes in the Temple Incident, themes which John fleshes out and interprets by contrast in the Temple story, so also the Temple Incident anticipates the exchange which follows with Nicodemus. The Temple Incident establishes the geographical and temporal setting for the Nicodemus exchange, since it is the Passover celebration that brings Jesus to Jerusalem where he meets Nicodemus. And the Nicodemus incident begins with an inquiry about the signs.

More importantly than simply providing the geographical framework for the Nicodemus exchange, the Temple Incident provides the first indication of a major motif in the Fourth Gospel: the failure of "the Jews" to believe in Jesus, a failure which drives them to oppose and ultimately persecute and kill Jesus. The entrance of "the Jews" as opponents to Jesus is found in the Temple Incident with the request for a sign, a request which results in a lack of understanding. This disjuncture between Jesus' speech and the reception by "the Jews" provides the conceptual backdrop and foreshadowing for the Nicodemus exchange.

The exchange with Nicodemus in John 3 is a further commentary on the reaction of "the Jews" at the Temple Incident and the summary statement in vv. 23-25. Nicodemus, a leader of "the Jews" ultimately shows a lack of understanding himself, which is indicative of disbelief and an inability to accept metaphorical or spiritual language (3:10-12). Nicodemus is clearly not one of the believers from 2:23 (contra Brown, 1966, p. 135). More importantly, the Fourth Evangelist has interpreted Nicodemus' lack of understanding in terms of "the Jews'" lack of faith; the plural forms of the verbs in vv. 11 and 12 appear to be rhetorical expansions from Nicodemus alone to "the Jews" (notice the shift from "I say to you (sing.)" in v.11a, to "you (pl.) have not received ... you (pl.) don't believe ... how will you (pl.) believe?" in v. 12). The Nicodemus dialogue, then, expands on and carries further the initial reaction of "the Jews" to Jesus' prophetic action in the Temple. While some of the people do believe in Jesus, "the Jews" fail to apprehend the prophetic nature of his actions or his sayings, and in doing so they are increasingly portrayed as negative opponents to Jesus.

The Temple Incident, then, as the beginning of Jesus' public ministry is also the beginning of opposition by "the Jews," a motif which dominates the structure of the gospel. Note the following crucial developments in the narrative design of the Fourth Gospel:

* Jesus comes to Jerusalem for the Passover (2:13-25), and while there finds a failed understanding of the nature of the Temple Incident, and then a failed understanding of being "born again," a failure characterized as lack of faith by the Jews (3:11-12) .

* Jesus returns to Jerusalem for a "festival of the Jews" (5:1), and at the conclusion of a healing "the Jews" seek to kill him because he broke the Sabbath and called God his own Father.

* Once again Jesus comes to Jerusalem to celebrate Tabernacles and goes to the Temple, despite the fact that "the Jews" are looking for him. He is almost arrested for his teaching in the Temple precincts (7:30).

* At the festival of Dedication in Jerusalem (10:22) "the Jews" attempt first to stone Jesus, and then to arrest Him. Jesus narrowly escaped, and goes out then to the desert regions.

* Following the raising of Lazarus at Bethany, near Jerusalem, "the Jews" form a council to deal with Jesus. The result is that they plan to put him to death. This immediately precedes the Passover, in which Jesus enters Jerusalem for the last time.

What is apparent is a steady increase in misunderstanding and opposition by "the Jews" throughout the Fourth Gospel. It begins, however, at the Temple Incident. The Temple Incident, then, seems to anticipate and provide the initial narrative basis for this major theme which runs through the entire Gospel like a backbone.

What is particularly interesting about the pattern of developing opposition by "the Jews" is the way they are almost entirely centered around Jerusalem and the Temple, and mostly on feast days. Since the feast days have their center in the Temple, even if it is not explicitly mentioned, it serves as a conceptual backdrop. John's Gospel sees the opposition to Jesus being focused on those days which exemplify the Temple worship, and the Jewish festival calendar. With good reason, one can say that John's Jesus is depicted as the replacement for the Temple (Davies, 1992, p. 230-233). Especially in the Tabernacle discourses, Jesus claims imagery that is attached to the eschatological temple: "I am the light of the world,"(8:12), "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me... out of [them] shall flow rivers of living water" (7:38). These are especially important given the passages in Zechariah 14 about the eschatological Temple: the whole of Jerusalem will be lighted by God, presumably from the Temple (Zech. 14:7); living waters flowing from Jerusalem (Zech 14:8, cf. Ezek. 47:1-9). And this identification of Jesus with the eschatological Temple is exactly what the Temple Incident makes clear, again drawing on Zech. 14 for much of its basis. This Jerusalem and Temple-oriented theology, which is closely linked to the growing opposition by "the Jews," runs throughout John and is anticipated in the Temple Incident in such a way that it serves as an interpretational grid for the subsequent incidents.

Dislocation or Reliance on Synoptics?

What I have argued in the preceding sections can be summarized under two major heads:

1. The Temple Incident in John has an underlying theme of eschatological expectation. Jesus' action in the Temple is related to an expectation of God's action in coming to Israel and restoring the Temple in such a way that all people will know Him and worship Him. But John has interpreted this eschatological expectation of a new Temple, in light of the resurrection, as being present in Jesus Himself.

2. The Temple Incident is an integral part of the narrative, such that it picks up smoothly from the Cana incident and anticipates major themes and structures that dominate the rest of the gospel.

The question can be raised, however, whether this is a derivative understanding of the evangelist, perhaps in a final redaction. Specifically it has been proposed that the Fourth Evangelist has transposed the Temple Incident from a previous narrative in which it was located in the Passion narrative. This could have been from a former narrative (Gospel of Signs) or from the Synoptic gospels.

It is certainly possible, and even probable, that the writer of John based his gospel on a previous narrative which consisted of a number of signs (Fortna, 1970; von Wahlde, 1989; Heekerens, 1984). But our study suggests that any earlier narrative has been systematically and effectively reworked, so that the Temple Incident is crucially located in the new narrative structure. It is difficult to imagine the gospel in even an approximate reflection of its current form without the Temple Incident being located near the beginning of the gospel. The narrative structure of developing opposition to Jesus, of repeated trips to Jerusalem and the Temple, of Jesus revealing Himself as uniquely related to God as Father, as bringing in His life and death the glory of the Father -- all these find an anticipation in the Temple Incident. Even if we stripped the Fourth Gospel of the revelatory discourses, the remaining narrative structure which carries the plot of the gospel has, as a central motif, the developing opposition from "the Jews." The Temple Incident is a key to this developing opposition. If, then, the Fourth Gospel was based on a previous "signs" account, the Fourth Evangelist has done a thorough reworking of the material, a reworking which would make any reconstruction at most tentative and conjectural. The narrative analysis of the Temple Incident, then, supports the literary analyses of Ruckstuhl and Schweizer, who have demonstrated a consistency of language and style throughout the Fourth Gospel, a consistency that resists easy attempts to locate displacements or seams in the narrative.

In a similar fashion, it is very difficult to see reliance on the Synoptic gospels in John's Temple Incident. From a strictly literary point of view, it is difficult to imagine John's Temple Incident account as derivative of the Synoptics (Cf. Matson, 1992, 495-499). There are simply too few points of literary contact to suggest a literary relationship, despite the overall similarity.

But more importantly, the role the Scripture citations play in the formation and meaning of the various narratives seems to resist any derivation of John's account from the Synoptics. Both accounts seem to record memories of Scripture that had an eschatological reference to the Temple. But the various evangelists (Mark and John) have not extensively developed this idea -- the Scriptures cited remain somewhat ciphers in the current texts. For Mark the Temple does not yet become a house of prayer for all nations - the destruction of the Temple and its rebuilding remain still a future and unfulfilled expectation (Mk 13: 1-2; 13:14-27); perhaps these predictions were a bit of an embarrassment to him. In John, the expectation is viewed as having been fulfilled, but not in a literal restored Temple, rather in the risen Jesus. But if John were derivative of Mark, then we must imagine the Fourth Evangelist as having chosen to replace the Is. 56 and Jer. 7 citations with those from Ps. 69 and Zech. 14. And if so, one would expect a far clearer use of the citations in support of John's central understanding. While one might understand John's use of Ps. 69 as an anticipation of the Passion, the Zech. 14 passage is vague and only tangentially tied into John's understanding of the event by means the reference to traders. John appears to have retained a citation from his independent tradition, a Scripture reference whose future restorationist ideology made less sense in light of the resurrection and his understanding that Jesus was the new Temple, and modified it to fit the action of disrupting activity in the Temple courts. The underlying eschatological nature, which coheres with the response of Jesus for a requested sign, has been lost by John. This disjuncture between the eschatological meaning of Zech. 14 and its final use in John hardly suggests John's active replacement of the Synoptic texts, but rather the struggle with a received tradition - an independent tradition.

Works Cited

Brown, Raymond A. The Gospel According to John I-XII. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1966)

Davies, Margaret. Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992).

Fortna , Robert T. The Gospel of Signs (Cambridge: University Press, 1970).

Heekerens, Hans-Peter. Die Zeichen-Quelle der johanneischen Redaktion (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984)

Matson, Mark A. "The Contribution to the Temple Cleansing by the Fourth Gospel," SBL 1992 Seminar Papers (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992).

Moloney, Francis J. Belief in the Word (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993)

Robinson, J. A. T. The Priority of John (Oak Park, IL: Meyer-Stone Books, 1985)

Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985)

von Wahlde, Urban. The Earliest Version of John's Gospel (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989)

Witherington, Ben, III. John's Wisdom (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995).