I was chatting with our priest yesterday about today’s readings, and he mentioned that they had been brought into the Court of the Gentiles, thus disturbing the God-fearing Gentiles who were trying to pray.
The colonnades running along all four walls of the Temple enclosure added up to around three-quarters of a mile in length. There was ample room to accommodate all the money-changers and other merchants.
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The moneychangers would have been in what Josephus describes as the Royal Cloisters- on the left in the picture. It was a hundred feet or so in width and covered which made for an area where the merchants could ply their trade- changing money and selling sacrificial beasts.
Jesus held court, by the way, in Solomon’s Portico, which was in the east cloister opposite the main Temple entrance- in the picture it is in the foreground.
As mentioned, they were probably in the Royal Portico (aka Royal Stoa). In addition to those vendors inside the Temple, there were also stores just outside and below the Mount.
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