View of Bethlehem, the place of Jesus' birth.
Perhaps the earliest account (Gospel of Mark) of Jesus begins abruptly when He presented Himself at the Jordan River to the desert prophet John the Baptist as a candidate for baptism. All that is said about His origin is that He came to the river “from Nazareth” (Mark 1:9). “Jesus of Nazareth” was a designation that followed Him to the day of His death (John 19:19).
Matthew's Gospel demonstrates that although Nazareth was Jesus' home when He came to John for baptism, He was not born there. Rather, He was born (as the Jewish Messiah must be) in Bethlehem, the “city of David,” as a descendant of David's royal line (Matt. 1:117; 2:1-6). This Child born in Bethlehem ended up as an adult in Nazareth, described sarcastically by his enemies as a “Nazarene” (literally, “Nazarite” 2:23). The play on words seems intended to poke fun simultaneously at Jesus' obscure origins and at the stark contrast (in the eyes of many) between His supposed holiness (like the Nazirites of the OT) and His practice of keeping company with sinners, prostitutes, and tax collectors (Mark 2:17). The Gospel of Luke supplies background information on John the Baptist, showing how the families of John and Jesus were related both by kinship and by circumstances (Luke 1:5-80). Luke added that Nazareth was the family home of Jesus' parents all along (Luke 1:26-27). Yet he confirmed Matthew's testimony that the family was of the line of David.
Luke introduced the Roman census as the reason for their return to the ancestral city of Bethlehem just before Jesus' birth (Luke 2:1-7). More of a biographer than either Mark or Matthew, Luke provided glimpses of Jesus as an eight-day-old infant (2:21-39), a boy of 12 years (2:40-52), and a man of 30 beginning His ministry (3:21-23). Only when this brief biographical sketch was complete did Luke append His genealogy (3:23-38), which confirms in passing Jesus' Davidic ancestry (3:31; cp. 1:32-33), while emphasizing above all His solidarity with the entire human race in its descent from “Adam, son of God” (3:38). The reflection on Jesus' baptism in the Gospel of John centers on John the Baptist's acknowledgement that Jesus “surpassed me, because He existed before me” (John 1:30; cp. v. 15). This pronouncement allowed the Gospel writer to turn the story of Jesus' origins into a theological confession by tracing Jesus' existence back to the creation of the world and before (John 1:1-5).
Despite His royal ancestry and despite His heavenly preexistence as the eternal Word and Son of God, Jesus was of humble origins humanly speaking and was viewed as such by the people of His day. When He taught in Nazareth, the townspeople asked, “Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren't His sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:3; cp. Luke 4:22). When He taught in Capernaum, they asked, “Isn't this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?” (John 6:42). Though two Gospels, Matthew and Luke, tell of His mother Mary's miraculous conception and of Jesus' virgin birth, these matters were not public knowledge during His time on earth, for “Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them” (Luke 2:19; cp. v. 51).
An overview of Nazareth from the southwest.
The traditional site on the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized.
Even after the momentous events associated with Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River—the descent of God's Spirit on Him like a dove and the voice from heaven announcing “You are My beloved Son; in You I take delight!” (Mark 1:10-11)—His identity as Son of God remained hidden from those around Him. We have no evidence that anyone except Jesus, and possibly John the Baptist, either heard the voice or saw the dove. Ironically, the first intimation after the baptism that He was more than simply “Jesus of Nazareth” came not from His family or friends or from the religious leaders of Israel but from the devil!
Twice the devil challenged him: “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3), and (on the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem), “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here” (Luke 4:9). Jesus made no attempt to defend or make use of His divine sonship but appealed instead to an authority to which any devout Jew of His day might have appealed—the holy Scriptures—and through them to the God of Israel. Citing three passages from Deuteronomy, Jesus called attention not to Himself, but to “the Lord your God” (Luke 4:8; cp. Mark 10:18; 12:29-30). Jesus apparently used this story out of His personal experience to teach His disciples that they, too, must “live … on every word that comes from the mouth of God,” (Matt. 4:4), must “not tempt the Lord your God” (Luke 4:12), and must “worship the Lord your God, and Him alone you shall serve” (Luke 4:8).
Two things about this temptation story have a special bearing on the ministry of Jesus as a whole. First, the God-centered character of His message continued in the proclamation He began in Galilee when He returned home from the desert: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news!” (Mark 1:15; cp. Matt. 4:17). Mark called this proclamation “the good news of God” (Mark 1:14). John's Gospel presented Jesus as reminding His hearers again and again that He had come not to glorify or proclaim Himself but solely to make known “the Father,” or “Him who sent me” (John 4:34; 5:19, 30; 6:38; 7:16-18,28; 8:28,42,50; 14:10,28). Second, the issue of Jesus' own identity continued to be raised first by the powers of evil. Just as the devil challenged Jesus in the desert as “Son of God,” so in the course of His ministry the demons (or the demon-possessed) confronted Him with such words as “What do You have to do with us, Jesus—Nazarene? … I know who You are—the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24), or “What do You have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” (Mark 5:7).
Telephoto close-up of the rugged wilderness terrain on the east face of the Mount of Temptation.
The mystery of Jesus' person emerged in pronouncements of this kind, but Jesus seemed not to want the question of His identity raised prematurely. He silenced the demons (Mark 1:25,34; 3:12); and when He healed the sick, He frequently told the people who were cured not to speak of it to anyone (Mark 1:43-44; 7:36a). The more He urged silence, however, the faster the word of His healing power spread (Mark 1:45; 7:36b). The crowds appear to have concluded that He must be the Messiah, the anointed King of David's line expected to come and deliver the Jews from Roman rule. If Jesus was playing out the role of Messiah, the Gospels present Him as a strangely reluctant Messiah. At one point, when the crowds tried to “take Him by force to make Him king, He withdrew again to the mountain by Himself” (John 6:15). Seldom, if ever, did He apply to Himself the customary terms “Messiah” or “Son of God.” He had instead a way of using the emphatic “I” when it was not grammatically necessary and a habit sometimes of referring to Himself indirectly and mysteriously as “Son of man.” In the Aramaic language Jesus spoke, “Son of man” meant simply “a certain man,” or “someone.” Though He made no explicit messianic claims and avoided the ready-made titles of honor that the Jews customarily applied to the Messiah, Jesus spoke and acted with the authority of God Himself. He gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf; He enabled the lame to walk. When He touched the unclean, He made them clean. He even raised the dead to life. In teaching the crowds that gathered around Him, He did not hesitate to say boldly, “You have heard that it was said … but I tell you” (Matt. 5:21-22,27-28,31-34,38-39,43-44). So radical was He toward the accepted traditions that He found it necessary to state at the outset: “Don't assume that I came to destroy the Law, or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17).
Such speech and behavior inevitably raised questions about Jesus' identity. The crowds who heard Him “were astonished at His teaching. For He was teaching them like one who had authority, and not like their scribes” (Matt. 7:28-29). Despite His reluctance (or perhaps because of it), His following in the early days of His ministry was enormous. He had to get up before daylight to find time and a place for private prayer (Mark 1:35). So pressed was He by the crowds that He taught them on one occasion while sitting in a boat offshore on the lake of Galilee (Mark 4:1). Once when a group of people desired healing for a paralyzed man, the huge mob around the house where Jesus was staying forced them to lower the man through a hole in the roof (Mark 2:4). Everyone needed what he or she knew Jesus had to give. There was no way He could meet all their needs at once.
The Sea of Galilee as viewed from the northwest.
Jesus' primary mission was to reach the lost sheep of Israel. Through their carelessness about the law, the religious leaders had become the enemies of God; but God loved His enemies. Jesus' conviction was that both He and His disciples must love them, too (Matt. 5:38-48). Jesus was challenged on one occasion for enjoying table fellowship with social outcasts (known to the religious Jews as “sinners”) in the house of Levi, the tax collector in Capernaum. He replied to criticism: “Those who are well don't need a doctor, but the sick do need one. I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Another time, when the religious authorities murmured that “this man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2), Jesus told three parables of God's inexhaustible love for those who are “lost” and of God's unbridled joy when the lost are found (the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son—Luke 15:3-32). He claimed that God's joy at the recovery of all such sinners (tax collectors, prostitutes, shepherds, soldiers, and others despised by the pious in Israel) was greater than any joy “over 99 righteous people who don't need repentance” (Luke 15:7; cp. vv. 25-32). Such an exuberant celebration of divine mercy, whether expressed in Jesus' actions or in the stories He told, must have seemed to religious leaders both in Galilee and Jerusalem a serious lowering of ancient ethical standards and a damaging compromise of the holiness of God.
We have little evidence that Jesus included non-Jews among the “sinners” to whom He was sent. Despite the reference in Luke 4:25-27 to Elijah and Elisha and their ministry to foreigners, Jesus explicitly denied that He was sent to Gentiles or Samaritans (Matt. 15:24; 10:5-6). Yet the principle, “not to the righteous, but to sinners,” made the extension of the good news of the kingdom of God to the Gentiles after Jesus' resurrection a natural one. Even during Jesus' lifetime, He responded to the initiatives of Gentiles seeking His help (Matt. 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10; Mark 7:24-30; Matt 15:21-28), sometimes in such a way as to put Israel to shame (Matt. 8:10). Twice He traveled through Samaria (Luke 9:51-56; John 4:4); once He stayed in a Samaritan village for two days, calling a Samaritan woman and a number of other townspeople to faith (John 4:5-42), and once He made a Samaritan the hero of one of His parables (Luke 10:29-37).
None of this was calculated to win Him friends among the priests in Jerusalem or the Pharisees throughout Israel. He described visions that many would “come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness” (Matt. 8:11-12). He predicted that 12 uneducated Galileans would one day “sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28; cp. Luke 22:28-29). He warned the religious leaders sternly that they were in danger of “blasphemy against the Spirit” by attributing the Spirit's ministry through Him to the power of the devil (Matt. 12:31). The whole affair was complicated by the concern of Jesus' relatives over his safety and sanity (Mark 3:21) and by His consequent affirmation of His disciples as a new family based on obedience to the will of God (Mark 3:31-35).
The so-called “Beel-zebub controversy,” triggered by his healing and saving activity, set a grim precedent for Jesus' relationship with the Jerusalem authorities and made His eventual arrest, trial, and execution almost inevitable (Mark 3:20-30). From that time Jesus began to speak in parables to make the truth about God's kingdom clear to His followers while hiding it from those blind to its beauty and deaf to its call (Mark 4:10-12; notice that Jesus is first said to have spoken in parables in Mark 3:23, in immediate response to the charge of demon possession). He also began to intimate, sometimes in analogy or parable (Mark 10:38; Luke 12:49-50; John 3:14; 12:24,32) and sometimes in explicit language (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34), that He would be arrested and tried by the religious leadership in Jerusalem, die on the cross, and rise from the dead after three days. From the start He had defined His mission, at least in part, as that of the “Servant of the Lord” (see, for example the citation of Isa. 61:1-2 in Luke 4:18-19). As His ministry moved toward its completion, the vicarious suffering of the Servant (Isa. 52:13-53:12) came into sharper and sharper focus for Jesus (Mark 10:45; 12:1-11). He also saw Himself as the stricken Shepherd of Zechariah 13:7 (Mark 14:27) and, at the very end, in the role of the righteous Sufferer of the biblical Psalms (for example Mark 15:34; Luke 23:46; John 19:28). Before His arrest He dramatized for the disciples His impending death by sharing with them in the bread and the cup of the Passover with the explanation that the bread was His body to be broken for them and that the cup of wine was His blood to be shed for their salvation. Only His death could guarantee the coming of the kingdom He had proclaimed (Matt. 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:14-20; cp. 1 Cor. 11:23-26).
Olive trees in the traditional site of the Garden of Gethsemane.
The Gospel accounts of Jesus' last days in Jerusalem correspond in broad outline to the predictions attributed to Him earlier. He seems to have come to Jerusalem for the last time in the knowledge that He would die there. Though He received a royal welcome from crowds who looked to Him as the long-expected Messiah (Matt 21:9-11; Mark 11:9-10; John 12:13), no evidence points to this as the reason for His arrest. Rather His action in driving the money changers out of the Jerusalem temple (Matt 21:12-16; Mark 11:15-17; cp. John 2:13-22) as well as certain of His pronouncements about the temple aroused the authorities to act decisively against Him.
During His last week in Jerusalem, Jesus had predicted the temple's destruction (Matt. 24:1-2; Mark 13:1-2; Luke 21:5-6) and claimed that “I will demolish this sanctuary made by hands, and in three days I will build another not made by hands” (Mark 14:58; cp. Matt. 26:61). Jesus' intention to establish a new community as a “temple,” or dwelling place of God (see Matt. 16:18; John 2:19; 1 Cor. 3:16-17), was perceived as a very real threat to the old community of Judaism and to the temple that stood as its embodiment. On this basis He was arrested and charged as a deceiver of the people.
During a hearing before the Sanhedrin, or Jewish ruling council, Jesus spoke of Himself as “Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62; cp. Matt. 26:64; Luke 22:69). Though the high priest called this blasphemy and the Sanhedrin agreed that such behavior deserved death, the results of the hearing seem to have been inconclusive. If Jesus had been formally tried and convicted by the Sanhedrin, He would have been stoned to death like Stephen in Acts 7, or like the attempted stoning of the woman caught in adultery in a story reported in some manuscripts of John 8:1-11. For whatever reason the high priest and his cohorts apparently found no formal charges they could make stick. If Jesus were stoned to death without a formal conviction, it would be murder, a sin the Ten Commandments forbid. (John 18:31 refers to what was forbidden to the Jews by their own law, not to what was forbidden by the Romans.) The Sanhedrin decided, therefore, to send Jesus to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, with charges against Him that the Romans would take seriously: “We found this man subverting our nation, opposing payment of taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is the Messiah, a King” (Luke 23:2). Jesus' execution is therefore attributable neither to the Jewish people as a whole, nor to the Sanhedrin, but rather to a small group of priests who manipulated the Romans into doing what they were not able to accomplish within the framework of their law. Though Pilate pronounced Jesus innocent three times (Luke 23:4,14,22; cp. John 18:38; 19:4,6), he was maneuvered into sentencing Jesus with the thinly veiled threat, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Anyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar!” (John 19:12). Consequently, Jesus was crucified between two thieves, fulfilling His own prediction that “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up” (John 3:14). Most of His disciples fled at His arrest; only a group of women and one disciple, called the disciple whom He loved, were present at the cross when He died (John 19:25-27; cp. Matt. 27:55-56; Mark 15:40; Luke 23:49).
The story did not end with the death of Jesus. His body was placed in a new tomb that belonged to a secret disciple named Joseph of Arimathea (Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42). The Gospels agree that two days later, the morning after the Sabbath, some of the women who had remained faithful to Jesus came to the tomb. They discovered the stone over the entrance to the tomb rolled away and the body of Jesus gone. According to Mark, a young man was there (Mark 16:5; tradition calls him an angel) and told the women to send word to the rest of the disciples to go and meet Jesus in Galilee, just as He had promised them (16:7; 14:28). The most reliable manuscripts of Mark's Gospel end the story there, leaving the rest to the reader's imagination.
According to Matthew, the young man's word was confirmed to the women by the risen Jesus Himself. When they brought word to the 11 disciples (the Twelve minus Judas, the betrayer), the disciples went to a mountain in Galilee, where the risen Jesus appeared to them as a group. He commanded them to make more disciples, teaching and baptizing among the Gentiles (Matt. 28:16-20). According to Luke, the risen Jesus appeared to the gathered disciples already in Jerusalem on the same day He was raised and before that to two disciples walking to the neighboring town of Emmaus. According to John, there was an appearance in Jerusalem on Easter day to one of the women, Mary Magdalene, another on the same day to the gathered disciples, another a week later (still in Jerusalem) to the same group plus Thomas, and a fourth appearance, at an unstated time, by the lake of Galilee, in which Jesus reenacted the initial call of the disciples by providing them miraculously with an enormous catch of fish. Luke adds in the Book of Acts that the appearances of the risen Jesus went on over a period of 40 days in which He continued to instruct them about the kingdom of God. Whatever the precise order of the facts, the disciples' experience of the living Jesus transformed them from a scattered and cowardly band of disillusioned visionaries into the nucleus of a coherent movement able to challenge and change forever the Roman Empire within a few short decades.
Emmaus (Imwas). According to the Sinai manuscript Emmaus is thought to be the site of the house of Cleopas.
Though the physical resurrection of Jesus cannot be proven, alternate “naturalistic” explanations of the disciples' experience and of the empty tomb require without exception more credulity than the traditional confession of the Christian church that on the third day He rose from the dead. The unanimous witness of the Gospels is that the story goes on. Mark does it with the promise that Jesus will bring together His scattered flock and lead them into Galilee (Mark 16:7). Matthew does it more explicitly with Jesus' concluding words, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Luke does it with the entire Book of Acts, which traces the spread of the message of the kingdom of God and the risen Jesus from Jerusalem all the way to Rome. John does it with his vivid picture of the Holy Spirit being given to the disciples directly from the mouth of Jesus Himself (John 20:21-22). Each Gospel makes the point differently, but the point is always the same. The story of Jesus is not over; He continues to fulfill His mission wherever His name is confessed and His teaching is obeyed, and the faith of Christians is that He will do so until He comes again.
146 MESSIANIC PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
146 MESSIANIC PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT (cont.)
147 MAJOR JEWISH SECTS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
147 MAJOR JEWISH SECTS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT (cont.)
148 HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS (cont.)
148 HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS (cont.)
148 HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS (cont.)
149 JESUS' BIRTH AND EARLY CHILDHOOD
Luke 2:4-5
And Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family line of David, to be registered along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was pregnant.
Mark 1:4-5
John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were flocking to him, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins.
151 CUTAWAY RECONSTRUCTION OF A FIRST-CENTURY AD ISRAELITE HOUSE
152 A TYPICAL SYNAGOGUE OF THE FIRST CENTURY AD
153 JESUS' MINISTRY AS FULFILLMENT OF SCRIPTURE IN MATTHEW
154 CONTROVERSY STORIES IN MARK
161 THE APOSTLES AND THEIR HISTORY
162 RECONSTRUCTION OF A FIRST-CENTURY WINEPRESS
Making wine has always been a major industry in Syria-Palestine. The ancient Egyptian story of Sinuhe, dating from the time of the middle Bronze Age (about 2200-1550 BC), describes this land as having “more wine than water.”
In OT times the presses for making wine were usually cut or hewed out of rock (Isa. 5:2) and were connected by channels to lower rockcut vats where the juice was allowed to collect and ferment. The juice was squeezed from the grapes by treading over them with the feet (Job 24:11; Amos 9:13). Recent excavations at Tel Aphek have uncovered two unusually large plaster winepresses dating from the late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BC). The presses were connected to large collection pits that still contained the Canaanite jars for the storage of the wine.
After the juice had fermented, it was collected into jars or wineskins (Matt. 9:17, and parallels). At ancient Gibeon archaeologists discovered a major wine-producing installation dating from about 700 BC. In addition to the presses and fermentation tanks, 63 rockcut cellars were found with a storage capacity of 25,000 gallons of wine. In these cellars the wine could be kept at a constant cool temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Both royal presses and cellars are mentioned in 1 Chronicles 27:27 and Zechariah 14:10. Other activities besides the making of wine could go on at a press site (Judg. 6:11; 7:25). By the NT period both beam presses and presses with mosaic pavements were in use.
The harvesting and treading of the grapes was a time of joy and celebration (Isa. 16:10; Jer. 48:33; Deut. 16:13-15), and the image of the abundance of wine is used to speak of God's salvation and blessing (Prov. 3:10; Joel 3:18; Amos 9:13). But God's judgment is also vividly portrayed as the treading of the winepress (Isa. 63:2-3; Rev. 14:19-20).
163 GALILEE IN THE TIME OF JESUS
John 2:1-2
On the third day a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding as well.
Harbor at Tyre showing ancient Phoenician harbor (facing northwest).
Mark 7:24-30
He got up and departed from there to the region of Tyre and Sidon. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but He could not escape notice. Instead, immediately after hearing about Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit came and fell at His feet. Now the woman was Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Allow the children to be satisfied first, because it isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she replied to Him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” Then He told her, “Because of this reply, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” When she went back to her home, she found her child lying on the bed, and the demon was gone.
164 THE MINISTRY OF JESUS BEYOND GALILEE
165 JESUS' JOURNEYS FROM GALILEE TO JUDEA
John 4:3-5
He left Judea and went again to Galilee. He had to travel through Samaria, so He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph.
166 JESUS IN JUDEA AND JERUSALEM
Luke 19:1-2
He entered Jericho and was passing through. There was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich.
167 RECONSTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
KEY
168 JERUSALEM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT PERIOD
169 THE POOL OF BETHESDA AT JERUSALEM
John 5:1-9
After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. By the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool, called Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five colonnades. Within these lay a multitude of the sick—blind, lame, and paralyzed [—waiting for the moving of the water, because an angel would go down into the pool from time to time and stir up the water. Then the first one who got in after the water was stirred up recovered from whatever ailment he had]. One man was there who had been sick for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been there a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to get well?”
“Sir,” the sick man answered, “I don't have a man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I'm coming, someone goes down ahead of me.” “Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your bedroll and walk!”
Instantly the man got well, picked up his bedroll, and started to walk.
170 FLOOR PLAN OF HEROD'S TEMPLE
Herod's temple (20 BC-AD 70) was begun in the 18th year of King Herod the Great's reign (37-4 BC). According to Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, Herod's temple was constructed after removing the old foundations. The old edifice, Zerubbabel's temple, was a modest restoration of the temple of Solomon destroyed by the Babylonian conquest. The central building was completed in just two years without any interruption of the temple services. The surrounding buildings and spacious courts, considerably enlarged, were not completed until AD 64. The temple was destroyed by the Romans under the command of Titus during the second Jewish revolt in AD 70.
KEY
1. Holy of holies (where the ark of the covenant and the giant cherubim were once enshrined)
2. Holy place
2a. Veil (actually two giant tapestries hung before the entrance of the holy of holies to allow the high priest entry between them without exposing the sacred shrine. It was this veil that was “split in two” upon the death of Jesus)
2b. Altar of incense
2c. Table of shewbread
2d. Seven-branched lampstand (Great Menorah)
3. Temple porch
4. Court of priests
5. Court of Israel (men)
6. Altar of burnt offerings
7. Animal tethering area
8. Slaughtering and skinning area
9. Laver
10. Chamber of Phinehas (storage of vestments)
11. Chamber of the bread maker
12. North gates of the inner courts
13. South gates of the inner courts
14. East (Nicanor) Gate
15. Court of women
16. Court of Nazirites
17. Court of woodshed
18. Lepers' chamber
19. Shemanyah (possible meaning “oil of Yah”)
20. Women's balconies (for viewing temple activities)
21. Gate Beautiful (?)
22. Terrace
23. Soreg (three-cubit high partition)
24. Warning inscriptions to Gentiles
171 RECONSTRUCTION OF HEROD'S TEMPLE
Matthew 24:1-2
As Jesus left and was going out of the temple complex, His disciples came up and called His attention to the temple buildings. Then He replied to them, “Don't you see all these things? I assure you: Not one stone will be left here on another that will not be thrown down!”
There were three historical temples in succession, those of Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Herod in the preexilic, postexilic, and NT periods. Herod's temple was really a massive rebuilding of the Zerubbabel temple, so both are called the “second temple” by Judaism. All three were located on a prominent hill north of David's capital city, which he conquered from the Jebusites (2 Sam. 5:6-7). David had acquired the temple hill from Araunah the Jebusite at the advice of the Prophet Gad to stay a pestilence from the Lord by building an altar and offering sacrifices on the threshing floor (2 Sam. 24:18-25). Chronicles identifies this hill with Mount Moriah, where Abraham had been willing to offer Isaac (2 Chron. 3:1; Gen. 22:1-14). So the temple mount today in Jerusalem is called Mount Moriah, and the threshing floor of Araunah is undoubtedly the large rock enshrined within the Dome of the Rock, center of the Muslim enclosure called Haram es-Sharif (the third holiest place in Islam, after Mecca and Medina). This enclosure is basically what is left of Herod's enlarged temple platform, the masonry of which may best be seen in its Western Wall, the holiest place within Judaism since the Roman destruction of Herod's temple in AD 70.
172 THE PASSION WEEK IN JERUSALEM
Luke 19:41-44
As He approached and saw the city, He wept over it, saying, “If you knew this day what leads to peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you, surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you and your children within you to the ground, and they will not leave one stone on another in you, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.
173 PENTECOST AND THE JEWISH DIASPORA
Acts 2:1-13
When the day of Pentecost had arrived, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like that of a violent rushing wind came from heaven, and it filled the whole house where they were staying. And tongues, like flames of fire that were divided, appeared to them and rested on each one of them. Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different languages, as the Spirit gave them ability for speech. There were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. When this sound occurred, the multitude came together and was confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were astounded and amazed, saying, “Look, aren't all these who are speaking Galileans?
“How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites; those who live in Mesopotamia, in Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own languages the magnificent acts of God.”
And they were all astounded and perplexed, saying to one another, “What could this be?”
174 SECOND PROCURATORSHIP AND THE KINGDOM OF AGRIPPA II
175 EXPANSION OF THE EARLY CHURCH IN PALESTINE
Acts 8:1-5
Saul agreed with putting him to death.
On that day a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria. But devout men buried Stephen and mourned deeply over him. Saul, however, was ravaging the church, and he would enter house after house, drag off men and women, and put them in prison.
So those who were scattered went on their way proclaiming the message of good news. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and preached the Messiah to them.
