"Destroy this temple......"

[T_More]

For those that do not believe in the divinity of Christ, how do you explain this verse:

His disciples recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
18
At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?”
19
Jesus answered and said to them, 15 “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
20
The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, 16 and you will raise it up in three days?”
21
But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

If Jesus is not God, how could he claim this? Could he raise himself up if he was not indeed God?

 

[Yerusalyim]

This is a difficult scripture for JWs to work their brains around…not on the “divinity” question…but because they say Jesus’ physical body wasn’t resurrected…yet this verse clearly establishes that it would be his same body resurrected. JWs…what’s up?

 

[T_More]

I wanted to bring this back to see if any JW’s wanted to express their views on this.

 

[cyberwolf001]

Easy for us Pagans. We simply believe the scriptures where written after the fact.

 

[Dokimas]

Easy for us Pagans. We simply believe the scriptures where written after the fact.

Isn’t all historical writing writen after the fact unless it’s prophecy?

 

[MyzTek]

I just checked my copy of the JW’s New World Translation[sic] and this verse also says that, the text hasn’t been altered to resolve this question like the text at the beginning of John was to resolve the question of Christ’s diety (“the word was God” vs. “the word was a god”).

I’d also like to know how JW authorities address this passage.

 

[cyberwolf001]

Isn’t all historical writing writen after the fact unless it’s prophecy?

Very true. But in this case the prophecy wasn’t written down till after the fact.

 

[T_More]

Anyone that’s a JW want to offer an opinion on this verse? The silence is deafening.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Very true. But in this case the prophecy wasn’t written down till after the fact.

And of course you have some documentation to support that view, or is it merely speculation?

 

[wisdomseeker]

Easy for us Pagans. We simply believe the scriptures where written after the fact.

what does it matter if written before or after? what matters is that it did happen. it was spoken and came True.

 

[chaunceygardner]

For those that do not believe in the divinity of Christ, how do you explain this verse:

His disciples recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
18
At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?”
19
Jesus answered and said to them, 15 “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
20
The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, 16 and you will raise it up in three days?”
21
But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

If Jesus is not God, how could he claim this? Could he raise himself up if he was not indeed God?

Anyone can claim anything; claiming it does not make it true.

Jesus could have raised himself if He was God, but even if He wasn’t, God (the Father) could do so. So Jesus could have been raised not because He was God, but rather by the power of God.

I think Jesus did say something like the words in this passage, since they appear in various forms in all the Gospels, and are given not only as quotation from Jesus, but also as something He said that was reported by others.

The problem is whether Jesus said exactly the words that John uses. His Gospel is the only one that has it exactly this way. And when you consider that this Gospel is the one that emphasizes the eternal divinity of Jesus more than the others, it fits the author’s intent. But is it accurate?

In the other Gospels Jesus talks more about the destruction of the Temple (no stone being left unturned), which may be an indication that although physical things can be destroyed (even something so imposing as a temple that took over four decades to build), the Spiritual (meaning His divine essence specifically or perhaps the Kingdom of God which He proclaimed) was eternal. And when it reads “His body” is that referring to a physical body or a new, spiritual one? In Mark 14 Jesus talks about replacing the physical Temple with another that is not a human creation (not a physical body or substance). That sounds a lot like the form He took after the resurrection.

There are a lot of different ways of considering these passages and their meaning. But none of it really “proves” anything. It must be left to our faith.

 

[Publisher]

The gospel of “John” was written at the end of the first century or early in the second. It was composed by a member of the “Johanine community” of those called Christians. It is more of a reflection as to what this Christian community had come to believe about Jesus of Nazareth than about what Jesus claimed for himself. Of the four canonical gospels it has the most developed “Christology”…and it reflects that. The other gospels…also written by members of their communities to reflect what they had come to believe about Jesus…not what Jesus believed about himself…didn’t have as a developed Christology at the time they were written…most of them…if not all written after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and each of the respective communities were trying to show how the “Jesus movement” was the authentic continuation of Judaism.

Apocalyptic expectancy was very high at that time and those first Jesus followers were seeking to make their claim as the heirs of Judaism. Since many passages in the Hebrew Bible said in the last days Gentiles would become part of the covenant people…Christianity was making that claim as the fulfillment of prophesy and claimed to be “True Israel.”

 

[FabiusMaximus]

Easy for us Pagans. We simply believe the scriptures where written after the fact.

The first valid biography of Alexander the Great was written four hundred years after his death. So why are the Gospels not valid considering they were written significantly earlier with respect to the events?

 

[Dokimas]

Very true. But in this case the prophecy wasn’t written down till after the fact.

Was the writer lieing? Was he mistaken? Did Jesus rise from the dead?

 

[Nine_Two]

And of course you have some documentation to support that view, or is it merely speculation?

In this specific case, there isn’t any opposition to what he’s saying. John was most certainly written after the completion of the prophecy of Christs death.

 

[Nine_Two]

The gospel of “John” was written at the end of the first century or early in the second. It was composed by a member of the “Johanine community” of those called Christians. It is more of a reflection as to what this Christian community had come to believe about Jesus of Nazareth than about what Jesus claimed for himself. Of the four canonical gospels it has the most developed “Christology”…and it reflects that. The other gospels…also written by members of their communities to reflect what they had come to believe about Jesus…not what Jesus believed about himself…didn’t have as a developed Christology at the time they were written…most of them…if not all written after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and each of the respective communities were trying to show how the “Jesus movement” was the authentic continuation of Judaism.

Apocalyptic expectancy was very high at that time and those first Jesus followers were seeking to make their claim as the heirs of Judaism. Since many passages in the Hebrew Bible said in the last days Gentiles would become part of the covenant people…Christianity was making that claim as the fulfillment of prophesy and claimed to be “True Israel.”

So did someone build a time machine and go back and see this in action, or what? What evidence (and I don’t want links to names, I want actual evidence) do they have of this? Because without a time machine it would be impossible to prove something like that.

 

[Publisher]

Friend,

I was answering the question posed as I understand how certain beliefs and traditions developed out of this period of history… I do not ascribe to the “religious” myths propagated by “conservatives” that the gospels were “eyewitness” accounts. The gospels were written at a time of great unrest in the Roman Empire. The writings of the gospels reflect what was occuring in the various Christian communities at that time…they are indicative of what was occuring between the Christian communities and the Jewish communities as each struggled to name itself the “authentic” heir of Judaism.

The Rabbinic period of Judaism grew out of this period of history as the Jews now sought to define Judaism without a temple…in the gospels we see the “split” between Judaism and Christianity into two distinct religious traditions.

The “prophesies” of the gospels of “putting you out of the synagouge” and such were describing what was occuring at the time the gospels were written. The clash between “Jesus” and the Pharisees was really a clash between two traditions of “what it means to be a Jew”…as the Christianity became more and more gentile instead of Jewish religious conflicts developed as reflected in the gospel narrative.

If you do not accept this understanding…but believe that the gospels were eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus…I’m ok with that…to proove it however…you too would need a time machine…so unless you have one stashed…we simply disagree.