According to the Synoptics, Jesus prophesied the destruction of the temple (Matt 24.2; Mark 13.2; Luke 21.6). At his trial, Jesus was accused of having said that he was able to destroy the temple and to build it in three days (Matt 26.61) or that he would destroy the temple that was made with hands, and in three days would build another, not made with hands (Mark 14.58). At his crucifixion, some people mocked him, recalling that he said that he would destroy the temple and build it in three days (Matt 27.40; Mark 15.29). Although John's gospel has no reference to a temple-destruction prophecy nor to a trial accusation regarding the temple, it is usually assumed that John 2.19 and 4.21 allude to the destruction of the temple. This interpretation is linked to the traditional dating of John's gospel in the last decade of the first century, which generally assumes Johannine dependence on the Synoptic gospels, especially Mark and Luke.

A number of scholars have called this consensus into question,Footnote ¹ arguing for the literary independence of John's gospel, its value as an independent historical source, its strong Jewish identity, and its early dating (before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE).Footnote ² Some others have suggested a reciprocal oral influence between John and Mark,Footnote ³ or mutual influence between John and the Synoptics through successive stages of literary development,Footnote ⁴ or even Johannine influence on Q, Matthew,Footnote ⁵ and, particularly, Luke.Footnote ⁶

However, the saying attributed to Jesus in John 2.19 is still interpreted as originally concerning the Jerusalem temple, subsequently reinterpreted as referring to Jesus (John 2.21).Footnote ⁷ From a different perspective, Dodd proposed that John 2.19 was from the outset associated with both the temple and Jesus.Footnote ⁸

In this article I will argue that there is linguistic evidence for the interdependence of John 2.19 and Mark 14.58 // Matt 26.61; Mark 15.29 // Matt 27.40, but I will demonstrate that the saying attributed to Jesus in John 2.19 (‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’)Footnote ⁹ does not make reference to the Jerusalem temple and does not depend on the Synoptics. It could derive ultimately from Jesus himself in reference to his own death and resurrection, but it has been formulated in distinctively and exclusively Johannine symbolic language. At the same time, I will suggest that the second half of the accusation against Jesus in Mark 14.58 // Matt 26.61; Mark 15.29 // Matt 27.40 (the building of the temple in three days) cannot be explained by other evidence in the NT, except as a distorted version of John 2.19, which was known to Mark via a source hostile to Jesus.Footnote ¹⁰

1. Linguistic Evidence for the Interdependence of John 2.19 and Mark 14.58; 15.29

There are striking similarities between the saying attributed to Jesus in John 2.19 and the false accusations levelled against him in Mark 14.58 // Matt 26.61; Mark 15.29 // Matt 27.40; but there are also some remarkable differences:

The term ναός is very common in the NT, occurring 46 times (9 in Matthew, 3 in Mark, 4 in Luke, 3 in John, 3 in Acts, 8 in the Pauline Epistles, and 16 in Revelation). But, as M. D. Hooker has noted. the term for ‘sanctuary’ used in Mark 14.58; 15.29, and 15.38 ‘is ναός, instead of Mark's more usual word for the temple, ἱεϱόν… A similar interesting change from ἱεϱόν to ναός takes place in John 2.14–22’.Footnote ¹¹ This coincidence does not prove, but it suggests interdependence between John 2.19 and Mark 14.58; 15.29.

The phrase τϱεῖς ἡμέϱας appears 7 times linked to the resurrection,Footnote ¹² preceded 3 times by μετὰFootnote ¹³ and twice by ἐν.Footnote ¹⁴ On the other hand, ‘three days’ appears 6 times associated with the building or raising up of a temple, preceded twice by διάFootnote ¹⁵ and 4 times by ἐν.Footnote ¹⁶ The common presence of ἐν τϱισὶν ἡμέϱαις in John 2.19, 20 and Mark 15.29 // Matt 27.40 leads us to suspect interdependence between them, because they are the only four verses in the whole NT with the phrase ἐν τϱισὶν ἡμέϱαις, and all of them are about the raising up or building of a temple. But there is no reason to exclude a priori the common dependence of Mark 15.29 and John 2.19 upon a primitive source, or even the dependence of Mark 15.29 on John 2.19.

On the other hand, there are some remarkable differences between the saying attributed to Jesus in John 2.19 and the false accusation against him in Mark 15.29 // Matt 27.40. In fact, λύω and ἐγείϱω are found only in John 2.19, while καταλύω and οἰκοδομέω are found only in Mark 15.29 // Matt 27.40. Two observations must be made. In the first place, the verb ἐγείϱω can be applied to a material building, but it is primarily used for raising the dead to life, both in John's gospel (2.22; 5.21; 12.1, 9, 17; 21.14) and in the rest of the NT.Footnote ¹⁷ In the second place, the verb καταλύω in Mark 15.29 // Matt 27.40 is also found in the accusation against Stephen concerning the destruction of the temple (Acts 6.14).

2. Mark 11. 17 and John 2.19 in Context: The Destruction or Cleansing of the Temple

The saying of John 2.19 (‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’) was attributed to Jesus in the context of the so-called cleansing of the temple episode. If Jesus' action in the temple was a gesture prophesying its destruction and its replacement by a new temple, John 2.19 must be interpreted in the light of that prophecy. But in this section, I will argue that the overturning of the tables in John does not symbolize the destruction of the temple, only its cleansing, in the light of Zech 14.21.

E. P. Sanders has argued that Jesus' action in the temple—overturning the tables and driving out the traders and animals—was a prophetic demonstration symbolizing that the Kingdom was at hand and that the old temple would be destroyed, so that the expected eschatological temple might arise.Footnote ¹⁸ Although Sanders argued that ‘there was current in some circles the expectation of the destruction and rebuilding of the temple’,Footnote ¹⁹ C. A. Evans has shown that ‘there are no texts that predict the appearance of a messianic figure who first destroys (or predicts the destruction of) the Temple and then rebuilds it. These texts only suggest that a new Temple will be built, perhaps through the agency of the Messiah’.Footnote ²⁰ Since Sanders could not quote any Jewish text from the period of the Second Temple that predicts the destruction and rebuilding of the temple,Footnote ²¹ he argued that the building of a new temple naturally implies the destruction of the old.Footnote ²² But the only text quoted by Sanders that specifies the destiny of the old temple is 1 En. 90.28, where the temple desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanes is completely carried off (not destroyed) and laid ‘in a place in the south of the land’.Footnote ²³

In Sanders's view, Jesus' action symbolizing the destruction of the temple was reinterpreted by the embarrassed Mark as a mere act of protest against dishonesty, attributing to Jesus some words about a ‘den of robbers’,Footnote ²⁴ a saying rejected by most scholars as an addition:Footnote ²⁵ ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”? But you have made it a den of robbers’ (Mark 11.17). But since Mark presents Jesus as prophesying the destruction of the temple explicitly in Mark 13.2 (‘Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down’), C. A. Evans has rightly asked: ‘why would the presentation of Jesus' symbolic action in the Temple, an action that only implied the Temple's destruction, be such a cause of embarrassment that he felt it necessary to reinterpret it as an act of cleansing?’Footnote ²⁶ According to Evans, it seems highly unlikely that Mark has transformed a prophetic gesture portending destruction into a protest against business activities, since Mark wished to emphasize that Jesus prophesied the destruction of the temple.Footnote ²⁷ In fact, the Markan narrative of Jesus' action in the temple was intercalated between Jesus' curse of the fruitless fig tree (Mark 11.12–14) and the notice regarding the fig tree having withered away to its roots (11.20–21). This symbolizes a fruitless and doomed temple,Footnote ²⁸ making use of the imagery of Jer 8.13 and Hos 9.10, 16. R. T. France confirms that the withering of the fig tree is a symbol of ‘the failure and the coming dissolution of the temple worship’.Footnote ²⁹ In his opinion, ‘Mark, by associating Jesus' action with the cursing of the fig tree, ensures that his readers see it in this wider and more ominous perspective’.Footnote ³⁰

Moreover, according to the Markan narrative, when Jesus died the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom (Mark 15.38). The tearing of the curtain seems to symbolize the abolition of the old worship,Footnote ³¹ a warning sign of the impending destruction of the temple,Footnote ³² and the partial fulfilment of the prophecy in Mark 13.1–2.Footnote ³³ The ‘destruction of the sanctuary has already begun (or, indeed, is done)’.Footnote ³⁴ ‘For Mark the rending of the veil after the death of Jesus both effected a present destruction of the holiness of the sanctuary and served as a sign of a future, less symbolic destruction’.Footnote ³⁵

In conclusion, Jesus' action in the temple was interpreted by Mark as an act symbolizing its destruction because (a) the Markan narrative of Jesus' action is preceded by the curse of the fruitless fig tree (11.12–14) and followed by its withering (11.20–21), symbolizing the destruction of the fruitless temple; (b) a prophecy of the temple's destruction was explicitly attributed to Jesus in Mark 13.1–2; and (c) Jesus' death was followed by the tearing of the temple curtain (15.38), symbolizing the partial fulfilment of this prophecy.

In this context, I propose that the ‘den of robbers’ saying attributed to Jesus in Mark 11.17 is not only a quotation of Jer 7.11, but also an allusion to Jeremiah's prophecy of the destruction of the temple, which is clearly established in the following verses:

In this sense, according to the saying attributed to Jesus in Mark 11.17, when he drove out the merchants from the temple, he was following Jeremiah, who denounced the profanation of the temple and prophesied its destruction.Footnote ³⁶

This argument can also be applied to Matthew and Luke. In the first case, the expulsion of merchants and purchasers from the temple (Matt 21.12) is followed by the quotation of Jer 7.11 (21.13), the curse of the fruitless fig tree (21.19), and the temple destruction prophecy (24.2). In the second case, the expulsion (Luke 19.45) is preceded by the Jerusalem destruction prophecy (19.41–44) and followed by the quotation of Jer 7.11 (19.46), and another temple destruction prophecy (21.6).

This prophecy seems to have been known very early in the primitive community of Jerusalem, as it was preached by Stephen (Acts 6.14) and preserved by the three Synoptics. But its authenticity is very questionable, since the prophecy was not apparently preached by the Twelve or the ‘Hebrews’, and it is omitted in the rest of the NT, including key texts such as 2 Thess 2.4, Hebrews 8–10, and Revelation 11.Footnote ³⁷

Unlike Mark, who interpreted the ‘cleansing of the temple’ episode in the light of the temple destruction prophecy attributed to Jesus, John interpreted this episode as an act of purification of the temple. According to his gospel, Jesus exclaimed: ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a market-place!’ (John 2.16). These words allude not to Jeremiah, but to Zechariah,Footnote ³⁸ who prophesied the coming of God and the inauguration of his Kingdom (Zech 14.1–19), with Jerusalem and Judah wholly consecrated to God:

In this passage, the prophet says that Jerusalem and Judah, with all their utensils, will be consecrated to the worship of God, and that there will be no impure man or ‘Canaanite’ (כנעני in MT, Χαναναῖος in LXX) in the temple. But since the word ‘Canaanite’ was often used as a synonym for ‘trader’ (cf. Job 41.6; Prov 31.24; Hos 12.7; Zeph 1.11), Aquila translated the כנעני of Zech 14.21 by μετάβολος (huckster, retail dealer) and the Targum of the Minor Prophets rendered it by עובד תגרא (someone doing business).Footnote ³⁹ This was precisely the reading of John 2.16: ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a market-place!’ According to this Johannine saying, when Jesus drove the merchants from the temple, he was following Zechariah, who prophesied an eschatological higher level of worship.

If the Johannine allusion to Zech 14.21 in John 2.16 was constructed after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, it would be inexplicable in terms of scriptural exegesis, because Zech 14.21 is not associated with the temple's destruction, but with a higher level of worship. That is very far from the Synoptic quotation of Jer 7.11 which is associated with Jeremiah's prophecy about the destruction of the temple in Jer 7.12–14. Since the destruction of the temple was prophesied correctly in the three Synoptic gospels, John 2.16 must be a pre-70 saying, which shows no literary dependence on the Synoptics.

C. H. Dodd maintained that the narrative of the cleansing of the temple is given in John's gospel ‘with little substantial difference from the Marcan version, though with no great measure of verbal agreement’.Footnote ⁴⁰ But as we have just seen, the Johannine allusion to Zechariah is linked to a higher level of worship, while the Synoptic quotation of Jeremiah alludes to the destruction of the temple. Moreover, in the following section we will see that, according to John, Jesus did not prophesy the rebuilding of the temple in three days if it was destroyed, but his own resurrection in three days if he was killed; John attributes the misunderstanding to his adversaries. The verbal disagreement between the Johannine and the Synoptic versions is also a substantial disagreement.

3. John 2.19: Meaning and Function

According to John 2.19, Jesus proclaimed his power to raise up the temple in three days if it was destroyed by his opponents. This proclamation was pronounced by Jesus as a sign of his messianic authority to cleanse the temple:

In this section, I will argue that John 2.19 makes reference only to Jesus' death and resurrection, excluding any allusion to a supposed destruction and rebuilding of a physical temple or a spiritual temple of believers. In the cleansing of the temple episode, John 2.19 carries out the same function as Mark 11.29–30, that is, to proclaim the heavenly origin of Jesus' messianic authority: in the case of Mark, this occurs by associating the heavenly origin of John the Baptist's authority with Jesus' own authority, in the case of John, by proclaiming Jesus' power to raise himself from the dead in three days if he was killed by his opponents. In another context, Jesus' resurrection as a sign of his messianic authority is also found in Matt 12.39; 16.4, and, more ambiguously, in Luke 11.29 (the sign of Jonah).

Regarding the meaning of John 2.19, it might be argued that Jesus uttered these words in reference to the physical temple. But this option must be discarded. In the first place, we have already seen that prophecies about the building of a new temple in Jewish literature are never linked to the destruction of the old one. In the second place, Jesus' challenge to others to destroy the temple only makes sense if the ‘temple’ alludes to Jesus himself, since ‘the Jews’ had no intention to destroy the physical building. Thirdly, the notion of another physical temple being built or raised up by Jesus is completely absent from the NT, including Mark 13, John 4, Hebrews 8–9, and Revelation 21. Finally, although ‘three days’ is an expression that also means ‘a short, but indefinite time’,Footnote ⁴¹ it is strongly associated with Jesus' resurrection. In this last sense, the phrase τϱίτῃ ἡμέϱᾳ appears 13 times in the NT,Footnote ⁴² while the phrase τϱεῖς ἡμέϱας appears 8 times.Footnote ⁴³

Another possibility is that Jesus alluded to his community. The temple as a symbol of the community can be found in many passages in the NT.Footnote ⁴⁴ The believers are, collectively speaking, a temple (ναός; 1 Cor 3.16–17; 2 Cor 6.16; Eph 2.21), a dwelling-place for God (Eph 2.22), and the house of God (1 Tim 3.15). The same idea is found in 1 Peter (2.5), and in one of the Qumran texts, where the new eschatological temple is the community itself, the ‘Sanctuary of men’ (4QFlor 1.6).Footnote ⁴⁵ Individually, believers are identified with the stones and pillars of a building: Jesus Christ is the cornerstone (Eph 2.20); the apostles and prophets are the foundation (Eph 2.20); James, Cephas, and John are pillars (Gal 2.9). Similar symbols are found in 1 Peter: Jesus Christ is the cornerstone (2.6), the head of the corner (2.7), a living stone (2.4)—a symbol which is applied also to believers (2.5). In the Synoptics, Jesus Christ is the head of the corner (Matt 21.42; Mark 12.10; Luke 20.17). The same idea was preserved in Acts 4.11. In Matthew, Peter is the rock upon which Jesus will build his community (16.18). In Revelation, the believer is a pillar in the temple (ναός; 3.12).

But the hypothesis that ‘this temple’ (John 2.19) refers to the believing community does not make much sense, since the saying in John 2.19 clearly implies that the temple to be raised has the same nature as the temple destroyed. But Jesus could not have challenged ‘the Jews’ to destroy his community, and promised to raise it up. According to Mark 13.13, 20 and Rev 11.1–2 he prophesied persecution and preservation, not destruction and reconstruction. Moreover, the reference to the ‘three days’ reveals that, in this specific saying, the temple does not symbolize the congregation of believers but the person of Jesus.

Individually, the symbolic identification between the believer and the temple can be found only in one of the Pauline epistles: the believer must not desecrate his body because it is a temple (ναός) of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6.19). But the Johannine literature reserves the symbol of the temple exclusively for Christ. His body is a temple (ναός; John 2.19, 21). The water that flows from the side of his crucified body (John 19.34) is linked to the rivers of living water that flow from the belly of his glorified body (7.37–39), in allusion to the stream of life-giving water that comes from under the eschatological temple and flows down from its side (Ezek 47.1–12). The eschatological corollary of this identification between Jesus and the temple is found in Revelation: at the end of time, God and the Lamb will be the temple (ναός) of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21.22) and from their throne will flow the river of the water of life (22.1).

In this symbolic context, Jesus is presented as proclaiming—as a sign of his messianic authority—his power to raise up the temple of his body if it is destroyed by his opponents. The use of this distinctively and purely Johannine symbolic language of ‘Jesus as temple’ reveals that, even if Jesus actually prophesied his own death and resurrection in three days, the wording found in John 2.19 is completely and exclusively Johannine.

The phrase ‘Destroy this temple’ implicitly assumes that ‘the Jews’ looked for its destruction, an assumption that can only make sense if the ‘temple’ alludes to Jesus, not to the material sanctuary.Footnote ⁴⁶ John clearly states that ‘the Jews’ want to kill Jesus, not to destroy the Jerusalem temple. Moreover, he maintains that the Sanhedrin decided to put Jesus to death in order to preserve the temple from destruction (John 11.47–53). That the ‘temple’ alludes to Jesus is confirmed by the presence of the verb ‘raise up’: as we have already seen, ἐγείϱω can be applied to a material building, but is primarily used for raising the dead to life, both in John's gospel and in the rest of the NT.

John's gospel denies explicitly (John 2.21) that Jesus alluded to the Jerusalem temple when he proclaimed (2.19) his power to rebuild the temple in three days if it was destroyed by his opponents; John attributes the misunderstanding to ‘the Jews’:

In fact, the topic of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple is missing from John's gospel and there is no evidence that allows us to assume that John 2.19 alludes at all to the destruction and rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple. In the first place, as we have already seen, the overturning of the tables does not symbolize the destruction of the temple, only its cleansing. Secondly, the allusion to Zech 14.21 in John 2.16 is linked to Zechariah's prophecy about a higher quality of worship, in sharp contrast to the Synoptic quotation of Jer 7.11, associated with the destruction of the temple. Thirdly, Jesus' announcement that the end of the Jerusalem temple worship would come in an imminent future (‘the hour is coming’, John 4.21), and that the time for worshiping God in spirit and truth had already arrived (‘the hour is coming, and is now here’, John 4.23) does not necessarily imply the destruction of the temple.Footnote ⁴⁷ Fourth, all the Synoptic topics linked to the prophecy of the temple destruction (Jeremiah's saying in the temple episode, the curse of the fruitless fig tree, prophecies about the throwing down of the temple and the setting up of the ‘desolating sacrilege’, the call to flee from Jerusalem, the false testimonies at Jesus' trial, and the tearing of the temple curtain) are missing from John's gospel.

John 2.19 fits rather into the following sequence:

John 2.18–22 carries out the same function as Matt 21.23–27; Mark 11.27–33; Luke 20.1–8, that is, to proclaim the heavenly origin of Jesus' messianic authority, which had been called into question by his opponents. While the dialogue between Jesus and ‘the Jews’ was placed by John just after the overturning of the tables (John 2.18), the dialogue between Jesus and the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders was placed by Mark early on the next day (Mark 11.20; cf. Matt 21.18). Luke placed the discussion some days later (‘one day’, Luke 20.1). While ‘the Jews’ of John asked Jesus: ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ (Τί σημεῖον δεικνύεις ἡμῖν, ὅτι ταῦτα ποιεῖς; John 2.18), the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of Mark asked him: ‘By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?’ (Ἐν ποίᾳ ἐξουσίᾳ ταῦτα ποιεῖς; ἢ τίς σοι ἔδωκεν τὴν ἐξουσίαν ταύτην ἵνα ταῦτα ποιῇς; Mark 11.28; cf. Matt 21.23). By ‘these things’, Mark means the overturning of the tables, because Jesus did nothing more in Jerusalem after that. In Matthew, ‘these things’ seem to mean Jesus' teaching (21.23), which is clearly implied also in Luke 20.1. But ‘it is often suggested that the question originally referred to the cleansing of the temple; indeed it would be surprising if that event had not provoked a reaction (cf. Jn. 2.13–22). Perhaps the whole activity of Jesus in the temple is in mind’.Footnote ⁴⁸ Both John and the Synoptics present Jesus as proclaiming the heavenly origin of his messianic authority: in the case of the Synoptics, by associating his authority with the heavenly origin of the authority of John the Baptist (Matt 21.24–25; Mark 11.29–30; Luke 20.3–4); in the case of John 2.19, by proclaiming his power to raise ‘this temple’ in three days if it is destroyed by his opponents. As we will see, the heavenly origin of Jesus' messianic authority is better supported if John 2.19 does not allude to the building of a material temple, but to his own rising from the dead.

Jesus' resurrection as a sign of his messianic authority is found not only in John 2.19, but also in Matthew and, more ambiguously, in Luke:

There are several similarities between these passages. The sign asked for by ‘the Jews’ in John 2.18 is also requested in Matt 12.38 (by scribes and Pharisees), Matt 16.1 (by Pharisees and Sadducees), Matt 12.39; 16.4 (by an evil and adulterous generation), and Luke 11.29 (by an evil generation). While Jesus answers in John 2.19 with a cryptic allusion to the temple destroyed and raised up in three days, he answers with a cryptic allusion to Jonah's sign in Matt 12.39; 16.4, and Luke 11.29. This sign alludes to the well-known story of Jonah devoured and liberated after three days and three nights. While the allusion to the temple is explained in John 2.21, the allusion to Jonah's sign is explained in Matt 12.40 and, more ambiguously, in Luke 11.30.Footnote ⁴⁹

Although John, Matthew and (more ambiguously) Luke agree that Jesus proclaimed his own resurrection as a sign of his messianic authority, there are a number of differences between them: (a) while Matthew and Luke made use of an OT figure to allude to Jesus, John used the symbol of Jesus-as-temple; (b) while the allusion to Jonah is a mixture of warning, promise, and prophecy, the Johannine saying is also an act of defiance: ‘Kill me, and in three days I will raise myself from the dead’; (c) unlike the sign of Jonah, the Johannine saying not only prophesies Jesus' resurrection, but also proclaims Jesus' power to raise himself from the dead (cf. John 3.35; 10.17–18); (d) unlike the sign of Jonah, the Johannine allusion to Jesus' power to raise up his temple-body as a sign of his messianic authority is linked to the controversy about Jesus' authority to cleanse the temple.

In conclusion, there is no evidence that allows us to maintain the dependence of John 2.19 upon the prophecy of the temple destruction (Mark 13.2), the false accusation at Jesus' trial (14.58), or the mockery during his execution (15.29). John's gospel claims that Jesus proclaimed, as a sign of his messianic authority to cleanse the temple, his power to raise himself from the dead in three days if he was killed by his opponents. The same topic (Jesus' resurrection as a sign of his messianic authority) is also found in Matthew and (more ambiguously in) Luke, but with a different symbolic language: while John 2.19 made use of a Jesus–temple identification, Matt 12.39; 16.4, and Luke 11.29 made use of the sign of Jonah. Due to their conceptual affinities, John's allusion to Jesus' power to raise up his temple-body was linked to the controversy about Jesus' authority to cleanse the temple. According to John, some ‘Jews’ believed that Jesus had boasted of being able to raise the Jerusalem temple in three days. Due to this misunderstanding of the proclamation attributed to Jesus in John 2.19, it is explicitly denied in 2.21 that 2.19 had referred to the Jerusalem temple. In other words, John 2.19 does not here depend on the Synoptics.

4. The Second Half of the Accusation against Jesus in Mark 15.29: A Distorted Version of John 2.19

According to the Markan (and Matthean, but not Lukan) version of Jesus' trial, some witnesses falsely accused Jesus of having said that he would destroy the temple and that in three days he would build another (Mark 14.58). Although the witnesses did not agree (14.59) and the charge was thrown out (14.63), the accusation was repeated as a cruel mockery when Jesus was crucified (15.29).

The first half of the accusation against Jesus in Mark 14.58 (‘I will destroy this temple’), repeated in Mark 15.29 (‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple’), can be explained as a distortion of the prophecy attributed to him in Mark 13.2, according to which Jesus announced the destruction of the temple.Footnote ⁵⁰ Regarding the second half of the accusation, I will argue in this section (a) that the building of a temple not made with hands in Mark 14.58 is secondary to the building of a temple in Mark 15.29; and (b) that the origin of this second half cannot be explained in the context of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Synoptics, Acts, and the rest of the NT, with the remarkable exception of John 2.19 (the raising up of the temple in three days). The common presence of ναός and ἐν τϱισὶν ἡμέϱαις in Mark 15.29 and John 2.19 leads us to suspect some interdependence between them. But the saying attributed to Jesus in John 2.19 can be perfectly explained in the context of the Johannine narrative (Jesus' power to raise himself from the dead in three days, as a sign of his messianic authority) and as Johannine symbolic language (Jesus' body as temple).

In this context, I will propound the following hypothesis. The four gospels describe Jesus as prophesying his own death and resurrection in three days. By making use of his distinctively symbolic language, John has Jesus proclaim—as a sign of his authority—his power to raise the temple (of his body) in three days (John 2.19). This saying, attributed posthumously to Jesus, was misunderstood by some who believed that Jesus had boasted of being able to raise the Jerusalem temple in three days (John 2.20). This misunderstanding turned into mockery against Jesus, which was known to Mark through a hostile source. Mark mixed this mockery about the building of the temple in three days with the accusation concerning the temple destruction, attributing the double accusation to some witnesses in Jesus' trial and to hostile bystanders at Jesus' execution.

Regarding the authenticity of Mark 14.58, O. Cullmann maintained that: ‘The second half of the (false) witness borne against Jesus probably corresponds to an actual saying of his, that he would “build a temple not made with human hands” (Mark 14.58); other sayings of his suggest that this was a reference to the eschatological community of disciples’.Footnote ⁵¹ But in Dodd's opinion, ‘the sophisticated Greek χειϱοποίητος […] and ἀχειϱοποίητος are almost certainly secondary’.Footnote ⁵² Brown wrote:

In fact, the Markan use of the term χειϱοποίητος (Mark 14.58) seems to be inspired by a very early negative attitude to the temple within the ‘Hellenist’ Christian Jewish faction headed by Stephen, for whom the Jerusalem temple was a house ‘made by human hands’ or χειϱοποίητος (Acts 7.48), ‘a derogatory word used of idol worship’.Footnote ⁵⁴

The distinction introduced by Mark in 14.58 between the destruction of the worthless Jerusalem temple (‘made with hands’) and the building of a superior temple (‘not made with hands’) reveals that he thought that the statement attributed to Jesus was not totally false. In his view, Jesus had announced not only the destruction of the Jerusalem temple (cf. Mark 13.2), but also the building of another temple, whose superior nature was established by the Markan contrast between χειϱοποίητος and ἀχειϱοποίητος. Mark affirmed that the accusation was false because the agent of the temple destruction would be not Christ—as the witnesses said—but a powerful enemy of God, who would try to enforce a pagan worship (the Danielic ‘desolating sacrilege’ set up where it ought not to be, Mark 13.14).

In conclusion, the second half of the accusation in Mark 14.58 seems to be a Markan development of a more primitive formulation, which is found in Mark 15.29 and Matt 26.61; 27.40.

But this more primitive formulation (the building of a temple in three days) also presents several difficulties. In the first place, it cannot be explained in the context of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Synoptics. It is striking that the prophecy about the temple destruction attributed to Jesus in Matt 24.2// Mark 13.2// Luke 21.6 does not make reference to the building of any temple, not even after the coming of the Son of Man in Matt 24.30–31 // Mark 13.26–27 // Luke 21.27–28. L. Gaston proposed that the second half of the accusation could refer to a saying actually uttered by Jesus, that is, the founding of the eschatological community as the ‘temple’ of God.Footnote ⁵⁵ On the other hand, R. T. France has argued that the proclamation of the good news to all nations in Mark 13.10 must precede the temple destruction, so that the new ‘temple’ (that is, the gathering of the elect from all over the world in 13.27) replaces the physical building.Footnote ⁵⁶ In fact, ‘there is evidence that some Jews in the first century believed that the existing temple was to be replaced with a new one in the last days. And while this was normally regarded as the work of God himself, there were some who thought that the work of rebuilding would be the task of the Messiah’.Footnote ⁵⁷

If this hypothesis is right, Jesus prophesied not only the destruction of the temple in Mark 13.2, but also the rebuilding of a new one in 13.27. But it is unlikely that the gathering of the elect in Mark 13.27 was the origin of the accusation against Jesus that he would build a temple in three days. In fact, a building of the temple-congregation ‘in three days’ is not attested in the NT. With regard to the Synoptics, the identification between the temple and the holy congregation is made loosely in only one verse. According to Matt 16.18, Jesus said that Peter was the rock upon which he would build his community, which implies the construction of a symbolic building, perhaps a temple. But the saying itself, ‘you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church’ (which is absent from Mark and the rest of the NT), can be considered the origin of the accusation that Jesus said that he would build a temple in three days only with great difficulty.

Although it has been argued that the period of ‘three days’ in Matt 26.61 ‘alludes to the change or decisive turn of events (see Hosea 6:2)’,Footnote ⁵⁸ the accusation about the building of a temple in three days must be linked in some way to the raising of Jesus, because ‘the “three days” are too intimately linked with the resurrection to be used without implicit reference to it’.Footnote ⁵⁹ In this sense, the temple to be built in three days in Mark 14.58; 15.29 may be an allusion to Jesus' resurrection. It could have been attributed to his accusers by Mark, weaving a true statement into the false charge.Footnote ⁶⁰ R. T. France has argued that ‘a Christian reader, even without knowing Jn. 2:19–22, could hardly fail to recognise…a reference to Jesus' resurrection… Mark, while dismissing the charge as false, has taken the opportunity to remind his readers that the prediction on which it was based (13:2) had more far-reaching implications than merely the destruction of a building’.Footnote ⁶¹ On the other hand, B. Witherington sees a ‘latent Markan irony’ in 15.29, for ‘the true conclusions are found on the lips of the mockers’, that is, Jesus crucified ‘is the one who will bring judgment on the temple and even be a temple raised up in three days’.Footnote ⁶² But the verb οἰκοδομέω (Mark 14.58; 15.29; Matt 26.61; 27.40) is not consistent with the allusion to Jesus' resurrection implied in the expression ‘three days’, since this verb can only be applied to a material building, unlike ἐγείϱω (John 2.19), which can be applied both to a temple and to Jesus' body. More important, neither Mark nor Matthew wrote a word about Jesus' resurrection in terms of the raising of a temple.Footnote ⁶³ Moreover, they never referred to Jesus as a temple (as in John 2.19) or as the eschatological temple (as in Rev 21.22).

In the second place, the second half of the accusation (the building of a temple in three days) cannot be explained in the context of the sayings attributed to Jesus in Acts. Stephen seems to have taught that Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, since he was accused by false witnesses of having said that Jesus would destroy ‘this holy place’ (Acts 6.13–14), but neither Stephen nor his accusers said anything about a new temple rebuilt in three days. Acts 6.14 seems to be more primitive than Mark 14.58; 15.29, because it only includes the first half of the accusation (the destruction of the temple), but not the second half (the building of another one). If Acts 6.14 depends upon Mark 14.58; 15.29, there is no reason for Luke to omit in Acts 6.14 the second half of the saying attributed to Jesus.Footnote ⁶⁴ It is more probable that Mark added the second half, maybe following another source.

In conclusion, the second half of the accusation against Jesus in Mark 15.29 cannot be explained in the context of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Synoptics or Acts. The origin of this accusation must be found from elsewhere. But the building of a temple in three days, whatever is the meaning of ‘temple’ (material building, holy congregation, or Jesus' body), cannot be found in the rest of the NT either, with the remarkable exception of John 2.19. R. T. France recognizes that Mark has not recorded a promise to rebuild the temple:

R. H. Gundry has proposed that Jesus' prophecy of the temple destruction in Mark 13.2 would have been reported to the authorities by Judas. In this process, the prophecy would have been mingled with Jesus' prediction of his own resurrection.Footnote ⁶⁶ If this hypothesis is right, the origin of the accusation can be found in Jesus himself, whose words were misunderstood by his enemies:

But how could a prediction about Jesus' resurrection in three days be misunderstood and transformed into a prediction about the building of a temple in three days? The prediction of Jesus' resurrection must have been formulated in a certain kind of symbolic language that made possible its transformation and its merger with the prediction of the temple's destruction. That symbolic language must have been some Jesus–temple identification, the only one that makes possible that mutation:

But this Jesus-temple identification is distinctively and solely Johannine, a circumstance that excludes the trial of Jesus as the scenario for this process of mutation.

We have already seen that the common presence of ναός and ἐν τϱισὶν ἡμέϱαις allows us to suspect some interdependence between the saying attributed to Jesus in John 2.19 (misunderstood by ‘the Jews’ in John 2.20) and the mockery in Mark 15.29 // Matt 27.40. In fact, there are only four passages with the phrase ἐν τϱισὶν ἡμέϱαις in the whole of the NT, and all of them are about the raising up or building of a temple.

I have already argued that there is no evidence of dependence of John 2.19 upon Mark. The proclamation attributed to Jesus in John 2.19 can be explained fully in its own context and is formulated in distinctively Johannine language. On the other hand, the second half of the accusation in Mark 14.58; 15.29 cannot be explained in the context of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Synoptics or the rest of the NT—with the notable exception of John 2.19.

But Mark could not know John 2.19 directly from a Johannine source, because (a) he was not able to explain the origin of the second half of the accusation regarding the building of another temple in three days; (b) he thought that the temple to be destroyed was χειϱοποίητος, a derogatory adjective not applicable to the body of Christ; and (c) he used the verb οἰκοδομέω, only applicable to a material building, not to Jesus' body. We may conclude that Mark must have known the material underlying John 2.19 from another source, which misunderstood the Johannine saying attributed to Jesus. It is striking that this misunderstanding was mentioned in John 2.20, attributing it to ‘the Jews’. In the light of John 2.20 we can conclude that Mark knew the saying in John 2.19 from a hostile source.

My hypothesis is the following: the Johannine saying attributed posthumously to Jesus in John 2.19 was misunderstood by some (Jews?) who believed that Jesus had boasted of being able to raise the Jerusalem temple in three days (John 2.20). This misunderstanding turned into mockery against Jesus, which was known by Mark through a hostile source. Mark mixed this mockery about the building of the temple in three days with the accusation concerning the temple's destruction, attributing the double accusation to false witnesses in Jesus' trial and to hostile bystanders at Jesus' execution. In my view, this hypothesis can satisfactorily explain the origin of both John 2.19 and Mark 15.29, including the interdependence between them.