Here are the verses in particular:
| Quote: |
| 12And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. 13And He said to them, "It is written,'MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER'; but you are making it a ROBBERS' DEN." 14And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. 15But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they became indignant |
So lets investigate it a little more:
Verse 12 simply reports the facts of the event. We read the word anger or angry in the actions, but they are not in the prose. We assume that if Christ did those things, it would have been in anger why? Because we would have done it in anger. So we transfer our emotion to Christ and give it that intepretation. For the record, the Greek words there have two different connotations -- one implies with anger, the other implies without -- I am not a Greek scholar, so I don't really understand which context it was in -- but, the possibility of without anger does exist in the specific Greek root word being used.
Verse 13 records Jesus' words -- pretty strong words...but, are they really? He was quoting scripture!
Mark records the act with a slightly different passage:
| Quote: |
| On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17And as he taught them, he said, "Is it not written: " 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'" 18The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. 19When evening came, they went out of the city. |
Here it says not only was he quoting scripture, but, did so as he taught them! Think for second...how many teachers begin with an angry tirade would ever get your attention!
To read anger into the actions, you must assume he rampaged through the temple, stopped, calmed himself and people sat to listen to him teach, then irritated the chief priests by evening! That would be a tall order for a man. If he scattered the people in a rage from the temple, how many do you think would have welcomed his teaching? And the Chief Priests and teachers began to conspire against him not because he rampaged through the temple -- but, because of his teaching. Which one would really inspire more hatred?
Was Jesus ever angry? Not sure. What my intention was is to divorce ourselves from our own interpretation based on our feelings -- and really investigate Christ for who/what he is. Quit reading with tradition, and really look at what is written -- those stories are far richer!
