No Stupid Questions

How do they explain? Some variation on God spoke to me.

Naw.

For context at this time the Jewish people were under strict roman rule and oppression, treated as second class citizens. And a lot of Jewish folks had stopped giving a fuck about respecting their own culture/religion.

Jesus shows up to this huge, extremely sanctious, temple. It's not just any temple, its one of THE temples for Jewish worship.

Inside he finds that the romans+Jewish merchants have pretty much turned it into an animal pen + marketplace. It's filthy, there's animals shitting all over, there's people doing business, people are being extremely disrespectful.

So yeah Jesus goes apeshit and starts flipping tables, chasing ppl out of the temple, whipping people and animals, basically being like "all you assholes gtfo how dare you"

It's less about the money stuff and more about the donkeys actively shitting on the floor and ppl spitting on the temple.

Contextually its likely people were doing stuff like pissing on the wall (no bathroom in a makeshit marketplace, what do you think would happen), graffiti'ing, spitting, throwing garbage on the floor, so on and so on.

Now, originally, this business made sense. Specifically, pilgrims traveling a long distance needed to stop for some key stuff on arrival.

Pilgrims needed animals and approved currency for sacrifices, which they'd do at the temple, so setting up to do that stuff right at the temple made sense.

But what happened is a simple lil currency exchange + buy a sacrifice stall exploded to be a whole marketplace as seedier and more sus ppl moved in, and soon the original point was lost.

It probably originally just started as one guy just exchanging coins and selling goats/chickens outside the temple as a legit business.

As further insult/context, consider the fact that once they moved this process to be in the temple, it meant they were controlling people's access to worship.

Effectively it became a state of "you have to pay to pray" at the temple, and not a tithe, but more like literally having to pay a bunch of money to even get the right coins, the approved animals, etc.

You couldn't bring your own stuff now.

You know how movie theaters wouldn't let you bring in your own food, and would charge you an arm and a leg for anything? Yeah, think of it like that.

Assume that this is an apocalyptic Jew before rabbinic judaeism. That should frame thinks a bit better. The problem, at least as I understand it, is people doing commerce, particularly for a profit, in a sacred space. I do t think the money was the problem in and of itself, but rather the execution and motive. In another story, biblical Jesus tells someone of wealth and power that what he needs to do is give all of that up and he was quite miffed (in a very tldr telling)

Pretty much, even though its voluntary, and that is why I don't give any money (I'm catholic BTW)

The pastor never reads that passage. His job is to make people feel better about themselves and to enrich the church! If people start feeling bad about themselves, they'll stop coming!

And don't ask about why people don't read the bible. That sounds hard...

Not at all?

Edit: they don't explain at all.

It's all fiction. None of it is real. The character jesus was not a real person, and he didn't have superpowers.

Stop writing stupid fictional jebus fanfiction in your head. Find better, less hate filled, fiction.

The difference is that the church doesn't give you anything in return for the money unlike the traders /j

But seriously, much like everything else in the bible, those verses get ignored when inconvenient