The Chosen: Temple Market Mayhem

Is driving out the money changers and merchants from the Temple what got Jesus killed?

I previously looked at the first episode of The Chosen’s “More to the Story” series here.

If you enjoy deep dives into the accuracy of The Chosen, I strongly recommend Laura Robinson’s articles on The Chosen (especially the one on anointing the Passover lamb).

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The Chosen have released a second episode in their “More to the Story” series, which looks at some of the historical context for Season 5 of The Chosen. This episode is titled “Temple Market Mayhem” and looks at the circumstances around Jesus’s cleansing of the temple, as portrayed in Episode 2 of Season 5 of The Chosen. As per the video’s description:

There’s only one time and place in all four Gospels where we see Jesus use physical force. He never attacked a Roman fort or burned down a pagan shrine, but He did strike a hard blow against the corruption at His people’s own Temple. And He did it during one of their most sacred holidays.

In this episode of More to the Story, Amber Shana Williams (Tamar) walks us through the historical situation in Season 5, Episode 2—and why Jesus couldn’t stand what His Father’s house had become.

This episode is shorter than the previous one, coming in at 3:24, but there’s still plenty to unpack.

Passover in Jerusalem

The video begins with Williams setting the scene:

It's the Passover: a feast so important to thousands of Jews from all over the Roman Empire that they would travel for days, even weeks, just to make pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

The Temple sure is busy during the Passover, as shown in The Chosen

Right away I found this particular description interesting, as only a few days earlier, Dallas Jenkins (creator of The Chosen) had affirmed that the description of over a million people being in Jerusalem for the Passover was “yes, absolutely” historically accurate.¹

As far as I can tell, there is only one ancient source that describes there being millions of people in Jerusalem: an account of the Passover in AD 70 (just prior to the siege of Jerusalem) written by Jewish historian Josephus:

(425) […] amounts to two million seven hundred thousand and two hundred persons that were pure and holy²

However, many scholars view Josephus’s number here to be inaccurate and physically impossible: Jerusalem just wasn’t big enough for this many people!³ From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia:

The total population today within the walls cannot be more than 20,000, and the total population of modern [Jerusalem], which covers a far greater area than that of those days, cannot at the most liberal estimate exceed 80,000. Three times this, or, say, a quarter of a million, seems to be the utmost that is credible, and many would place the numbers at far less.⁴

Most other ancient sources (including the Bible—see John 11:55, Acts 2:5–11), describe great crowds at the Passover, but don’t use specific numbers. In a separate passage Josephus describes the people as “an innumerable multitude”,⁵ similar to the expression used by Philo:

For innumerable companies of men from a countless variety of cities, some by land and some by sea, from east and from west, from the north and from the south, came to the temple at every festival, as if to some common refuge and safe asylum from the troubles of this most busy and painful life, seeking to find tranquillity, and to procure a remission of and respite from those cares by which from their earliest infancy they had been hampered and weighed down⁶

These sources (and others) all affirm that large numbers of people travelled to Jerusalem to celebrate the passover, and that they came from all over the Empire. However they all (except Josephus) decline to provide a specific number, and the number Josephus provides appears to be physically impossible.

All this to say, that in contrast to Dallas’s claim, More to the Story seems to be more in line with academic consensus here: that the number of people was more likely to be closer to the hundreds of thousands than the millions.

Summary: True. Great crowds of people travelled to Jerusalem from all over the empire to celebrate the Passover in the first century.

Temple finances

The video then goes on to talk about the financial and economic impact of the influx of pilgrims into Jerusalem:

And we all know what happens when thousands of tourists come to town: all the prices go up. And the Sanhedrin had allowed all the greedy merchants right into the temple courts and it was profitable. Road-weary pilgrims had nowhere else to get their sacrificial offerings so they bought their goats, their lambs, their cattle, and their doves right there at the temple doors.

The claim of inflation during festivals is pure speculation. It seems more based on our modern-day understanding of economics than it does rooted in historical evidence.

Similarly, there is no evidence that the Temple courtyard was the only place to purchase animals for sacrificial offerings. It certainly was a place, and logically seems to have been the most convenient place, but there is no reason why such animals couldn’t be purchased elsewhere.

Money is changed to the correct coins for purchasing sacrifices in The Chosen

The video then expands on the claim that the merchants in the Temple courtyard was profitable, saying:

Add a surcharge and an exchange tax to the already high prices and there was plenty of money to flow upward to Rome and the Sanhedrin.

As discussed, there is no evidence for the “already high prices”, nor can I find anything about a surcharge or an “exchange tax”. There is however, evidence that money changers charged a small (not unreasonable) fee when exchanging money. This doesn’t seem to be a tax though, just a small charge made by the money changers, presumably to provide themselves with an income:

The moneychanger functioned as both a banker and a financier. He sat in the gate of the city or the gate of the Temple and made his services available for a fee. For example, when Antiochian tetradrachmas were exchanged for local shekels, a premium of 4%–8% was exacted. Since coins of different origins were used, the moneychanger’s services were often required.⁷

It seems that one of the primary uses of the money changers was for Jews from outside Jerusalem to obtain the correct coinage to pay the Temple tax:

Many people took the opportunity of a visit to the temple at this season to pay the annual half-shekel, contributed by Jewish men of twenty and over throughout the world for the maintenance of the temple. The only coinage acceptable for this purpose was Tyrian (because of the exceptional purity of its silver content), and two Jews would frequently pay their contributions together with the Tyrian stater or tetradrachm (the coin which was to pay the joint contributions of Peter and his Master in Matthew 17:27). From 25 Adar onwards (nineteen or twenty days before Passover) exchange tables for this purpose were set up in Jerusalem.⁸

This could be the Temple income that the video is referring to, but it’s worth noting that this was a fixed amount per Jewish male, and not a percentage of any other transactions that occurred in the Temple courts. In addition, F. F. Bruce specifically debunks the idea that the chief priests profited somehow from the sale of animals:

Nor is there evidence for the common idea that the sale of the animals was a means of lining the pockets of the chief priests.⁹

Lastly, there isn’t any specific mention of Rome adding tax to either money changing or the sale of sacrificial animals. There may have been a land tax and a crop tax, and things like customs, tool, and tribute,¹⁰ but no ancient source seems to explicitly mention or even imply that Rome made any money from the goings on at the Temple.

Summary: Mostly untrue. While pilgrims may have paid the fixed-price Temple tax, paid a small fee when changing coins, and purchased animals for sacrifices, there is no evidence for especially high prices during the Passover, or of the Sanhedrin or Rome receiving any commission or tax on dealings at the Temple.

Cleansing the Temple

This all leads up to Jesus’s cleansing of the Temple as described in Scripture.

Jesus grabs his whip and he drives them out, cleansing his Father's house.

The Chosen’s Jesus wields his whip

This account can be found in all four Gospels accounts, in Matthew 21:12–13, Mark 11:15–17, Luke 19:45–48, and John 2:13–17. The portrayal of this in The Chosen (and in this video) seems to follow the version in John’s Gospel account. It is only in this version that Jesus is explicitly said to use a whip (John 2:15) and refer to his Father’s house (John 2:16), although in the other Gospel accounts Jesus does quote Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11 when he says:

My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers (Matthew 21:13, NRSV)

This is then followed by the claim that Jesus messing with the Sanhedrin’s money and causing a scene in the Temple courts is what puts him in the crosshairs of the religious leaders:

Needless to say this did not go over well. I mean, calling them names and challenging their theology was one thing, but you started messing with Sanhedrin money and yelling in their courts; just go ahead and tape a target to your back.

It is true that in Mark and Luke’s accounts, the religious leaders are described as wanting to kill Jesus right after this event. E.g.

And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. (Mark 11:18, NRSV)

However the connection to money is absent. This seems to be a bit of an overreach on The Chosen’s part, not in the least because Jesus’s actions don’t appear to have had a financial impact of the chief priests. This verse clearly states that the motivation for wanting to kill Jesus is because “they were afraid of him”. This motivation is also given again in Mark 14:1. In fact, the beginning of the plot to kill Jesus in Mark’s Gospel account is found in Mark 3:6 after Jesus healed a man’s withered hand.

Neither Matthew nor Luke’s accounts give an explicit motivation of fear, but neither do they give a motivation of finance. In John, the plan to kill Jesus comes in John 11:45–53 after Jesus had raised Lazarus back to life, and identifies fear of Roman retribution as their motivation:

So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” (John 11:47–48, NRSV)

This is even further removed from the cleansing of the Temple, which happens in John 2:13–17, near the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. This is presumably a different Passover than the one in John 11:55, during which Jesus’s crucifixion takes place.

Finally, the video claims that Jesus’s actions had also upset Rome:

And Rome wasn't too happy either, Jesus's outbursts had all the markings of a revolutionary about to incite a revolt.

This is not the impression that we find in the Bible. In all four Gospel accounts, Rome doesn’t appear to take any proactive action towards Jesus until the religious leaders bring Jesus before the governor, Pontius Pilate. It certainly seems plausible that causing a scene at one of the religious hotspots in the city would warrant the attention of Rome, but Craig Keener notes that:

[…] given the enormity of the outer court and the loudness of the crowds thronging it, a small-scale act by a single person need not have drawn the attention of the Roman guards, at least not in time for intervention.¹¹

Ultimately, this is nothing more than speculative given the lack of evidence.

Summary: Partly true. Jesus did use a whip and cleanse the Temple, calling it his Father’s house, and this seems to be one of the reasons that the religious leaders decided to try and kill him. There is no evidence that this has any relation to money, nor is there any evidence that Rome was particularly concerned by it.

Righteous anger

The video ends with an emphasis on the nature of Jesus’s anger:

But the most striking thing is that Jesus's anger wasn't provoked by the things that make most of us angry like an injured ego or not getting our way. It was brought on by love, a love for what is good, and true, and beautiful, and a refusal to let it be corrupted or stolen by a den of robbers.

Jesus overturns a table in The Chosen (cf. John 2:15)

While this isn’t spelled out in Scripture, it does seem accurate (to me, at least). As mentioned above, Jesus quotes Isaiah 56:7 in the Synoptic Gospel accounts. Verses 6–8 can rightly be described as a vision of what is “good, and true, and beautiful”:

And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered. (Isaiah, 56:6–8, NRSV)

In a place that was supposed to be a joyful house of prayer for people of all nations, Jesus instead finds a marketplace with “people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables” (John 2:14, NRSV). This is particularly poignant given that the Temple cleansing likely occurred in the Court of the Gentiles—the very area where “people of all nations” could come to pray.¹²

Jesus isn’t angry because people are buying and selling in the Temple courts, but because their doing so is preventing it from becoming a place where Gentiles could come and worship God.¹³

Summary: True. Jesus’s anger was caused by his love for what the Temple was supposed to be and a refusal to let it be turned into a mere marketplace.

Summary

Like the previous episode, this video is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to historical claims. It correctly claimed:

• That thousands (not millions) of people flocked to Jerusalem from all over the Roman Empire to celebrate Passover

• Most pilgrims probably bought animals for sacrificial offerings at the Temple

• Pilgrims paying the Temple tax would have had to pay an exchange fee when changing their coins

• That Jesus cleansing the Temple seems to be one of the reasons that the religious leaders tried to kill him

• That Jesus’s anger was provoked by his love for what the Temple was supposed to be: a house of prayer for all nations

But it also made some claims that don’t have any historical attestation:

• That prices were higher in Jerusalem during the Passover

• That the Sanhedrin or chief priests financially benefited from the transactions that were taking place within the Temple courts

• That Rome financially benefited from the transactions that were taking place within the Temple courts

• That the religious leaders decided to kill Jesus due to loss of Temple income caused by Jesus’s cleansing of the Temple

• That Rome viewed the cleansing of the Temple with concern

As usual, I could’ve missed something, so please let me know if you’re aware of any historical sources for any of the above.

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1. The Chosen, “Season 5, Episode 3: The Chosen Global Livestream”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClxBcZJscws&t=7099s at 1:58:19.

2. Josephus, J.W. 6:425. All translations of Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities follow the translation in The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, trans. William Whiston (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).

3. E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief (London: SCM Press, 1992), 125–128.

4. E. W. G. Masterman, “Jerusalem,” ISBE, 3:1595–1622, 1619.

5. Josephus, Ant. 17:214.

6. Philo, Spec. Laws 1 69. All translations of Philo’s On the Embassy to Gaius follow the translation in The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged, trans. Charles Duke Yonge (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995).

7. John W. Betlyon, “Coinage,” AYBD, 1:1076–1089, 1086.

8. F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John: A Verse-by-Verse Exposition (Nashville: Kingsley Books, 2018), 74.

9. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 74.

10. Sanders, Judaism, 158. See pages 157–169 for a detailed discussion on the matter of tax in first century Jerusalem.

11. Craig S. Keener, Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 520.

12. Jan H. Nylund, “Court of the Gentiles,” in Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2016).

13. Brandon Robbins explores this more in depth in his video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGFvW1CCEVc.