so… Jesus wasn’t actually against the rich nearly as much as people make him seem these days.
The flipping of the tables wasn’t that they were doing business or even taking advantage of people. it was that they were doing business inside the temple.
as for all the “go sell your shit and follow me” stuff… well. yeah. Imagine, if you will Jesus with a cheesy sleazey-car-salesman grin and his hand out. Also notice that he really had a thing for hanging out with rich people.
none of the disciples were particularly poor. Mathew was a tax collector. James and John were both heirs to a successful fishing business, two of the others were senior employees in that business. he dined with and partied with the rich all the time, too. Joseph himself would have been well off (as a tekton, he wasn’t exactly poor. He was the guy that built everyone’s homes and such.) (though Mary probably fled from Joseph when he found out she was preggers. details)
basically, he acted and sounded like every half-baked cult leader you can imagine.
he was angry they were charging a bit extra for a bit of extra service. the money changers were presumably vetted by the Temple so they weren’t outright cheating their customers. the whole reason the temple required the tributes to be in silver shekels (or half shekels) from Tyre was that Tyre was known to not debase their currency; and the money changers would easily vetted to avoid the ones clipping or outright forging coins.
As for the livestock merchants, keep in mind there were (are?) stringent requirements for sacrifices that made bringing animals from outside the city difficult to do. These were not the goats being raised to be put into a stewpot. Even just raising them for sacrifice was expensive. Bringing them into the city was another expense. Keeping them in the city, too.
It’s very easy to imagine that Jesus was just being like “I can buy goats back home for (whatever a generic goat was worth)! These are ripoffs” and then going full-karen, while being too stupid to understand all that.
And I’m guessing if we were talking about anybody else who did similar, you would too.
First off, lets address the whole “people couldn’t worship because it was too expensive thing”, the law Jesus supported and said was eternal in Mat 5:17-20 makes it pretty clear if you cannot afford the prescribed sacrifice, you can give a lesser one in it’s stead (so like doves or even grain,) If you can’t even afford a grain offering, you don’t actually need to do that.
So there’s already a remedy in place for the destitute, and it’s pretty simple. (Side note, does that suggest Jesus and his followers overrode that? yeah. that’s a dick move.)
The other thing is that it was absolutely about location. Because evicting the merchants and money changers would not solve the prices it was effectively a captured market. there was a lot of demand for those services and animals. the merchants and money changers had the supply.
So if you make them go <over there>, they’re still gonna be dicks charging whatever they’re charging. and it’ll be less convenient, too, and chances are extremely high that your piligrims and worshipers, the people you seem to think Jesus was protecting- would be getting conned and scammed. Which just makes things worse for everyone.
Further more, Jesus didn’t just flip tables. He violently assaulted the merchants in a toddler rage. And yes. I would consider that to be wrong, immoral, and perfectly in line with the character of the real Jesus. The Jesus who wasn’t divinely born, who wasn’t the son of god, and who was running around the nether-regions of the ass-end of the empire conning rubes and yokels out of their stuff.
you’re defending a charlatan asshat who thought violence was the proper answer when there was already established a non-violent answer. (If you can’t afford the animal, you can just skip that part.)
congratulations. You’re defending a violent con artist. who criticized pharisees for not stoning unruly children and faked miracles to steal from people who were already struggling. Jesus is not a hero. Jesus isn’t even a decent person.
so… Jesus wasn’t actually against the rich nearly as much as people make him seem these days.
The flipping of the tables wasn’t that they were doing business or even taking advantage of people. it was that they were doing business inside the temple.
as for all the “go sell your shit and follow me” stuff… well. yeah. Imagine, if you will Jesus with a cheesy sleazey-car-salesman grin and his hand out. Also notice that he really had a thing for hanging out with rich people.
none of the disciples were particularly poor. Mathew was a tax collector. James and John were both heirs to a successful fishing business, two of the others were senior employees in that business. he dined with and partied with the rich all the time, too. Joseph himself would have been well off (as a tekton, he wasn’t exactly poor. He was the guy that built everyone’s homes and such.) (though Mary probably fled from Joseph when he found out she was preggers. details)
basically, he acted and sounded like every half-baked cult leader you can imagine.
Jesus was mad at those using the temple for commerce but also said they were robbing people. “Den of robbers” It wasn’t just the location.
he was angry they were charging a bit extra for a bit of extra service. the money changers were presumably vetted by the Temple so they weren’t outright cheating their customers. the whole reason the temple required the tributes to be in silver shekels (or half shekels) from Tyre was that Tyre was known to not debase their currency; and the money changers would easily vetted to avoid the ones clipping or outright forging coins.
As for the livestock merchants, keep in mind there were (are?) stringent requirements for sacrifices that made bringing animals from outside the city difficult to do. These were not the goats being raised to be put into a stewpot. Even just raising them for sacrifice was expensive. Bringing them into the city was another expense. Keeping them in the city, too.
It’s very easy to imagine that Jesus was just being like “I can buy goats back home for (whatever a generic goat was worth)! These are ripoffs” and then going full-karen, while being too stupid to understand all that.
It sounds like you think Jesus was wrong.
Yes.
And I’m guessing if we were talking about anybody else who did similar, you would too.
First off, lets address the whole “people couldn’t worship because it was too expensive thing”, the law Jesus supported and said was eternal in Mat 5:17-20 makes it pretty clear if you cannot afford the prescribed sacrifice, you can give a lesser one in it’s stead (so like doves or even grain,) If you can’t even afford a grain offering, you don’t actually need to do that.
So there’s already a remedy in place for the destitute, and it’s pretty simple. (Side note, does that suggest Jesus and his followers overrode that? yeah. that’s a dick move.)
The other thing is that it was absolutely about location. Because evicting the merchants and money changers would not solve the prices it was effectively a captured market. there was a lot of demand for those services and animals. the merchants and money changers had the supply.
So if you make them go <over there>, they’re still gonna be dicks charging whatever they’re charging. and it’ll be less convenient, too, and chances are extremely high that your piligrims and worshipers, the people you seem to think Jesus was protecting- would be getting conned and scammed. Which just makes things worse for everyone.
Further more, Jesus didn’t just flip tables. He violently assaulted the merchants in a toddler rage. And yes. I would consider that to be wrong, immoral, and perfectly in line with the character of the real Jesus. The Jesus who wasn’t divinely born, who wasn’t the son of god, and who was running around the nether-regions of the ass-end of the empire conning rubes and yokels out of their stuff.
Oh, the poor exploitive business owners. Why doesn’t anyone think of the poor exploitive businesses?
yeah.
That’s not actually what I’m saying.
you’re defending a charlatan asshat who thought violence was the proper answer when there was already established a non-violent answer. (If you can’t afford the animal, you can just skip that part.)
congratulations. You’re defending a violent con artist. who criticized pharisees for not stoning unruly children and faked miracles to steal from people who were already struggling. Jesus is not a hero. Jesus isn’t even a decent person.