Just picked up an oldies CD from the local lending library.
Just realized how much of the 70s music was on the "Jesus bandwagon."
It was bad enough listening to "One Toke Over the Line" - I figure that the guy was stoned anyway and not responsible for what was sung.
"One Toke" was followed by "Put Your Hand in The Hand (of the Man from Galilee)".
I guess I never paid attention to the words before - I'm a child of the Eisenhower "Silent Generation" whose general opinion is that "good music" stopped in the mid-(19)60s.
Anyway, there is a line in the song that rails against the buyers and sellers in the Temple.
Like many things, Jesus groupies lack an understanding of the Temple and its environment.
They make a big deal of their man-god wielding a whip on "money changers" in the Temple courts.
First, where did Jesus get the authority to administer corporal punishment to anyone, especially lacking an appearance before a bet din (court).
But forget that; one more thing the groupies fail to consider.
What is bothersome is their lack of knowledge about WHY there were money changers in the Temple court (but not in the Temple) and buying and selling going on.
We are told that three times a year (Pesach, Shavuot, Sukot) we are to go up to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to HaShem. (We were a primitive people who were not yet fully weaned from idolatry and the superstitious rites that accompany it.)
If a rancher came from near Jerusalem, he could bring an animal for the sacrifice.
A farmer somewhere in Israel could bring grain.
But pity the poor Jew coming from, say, Rhodes or Rome or Beni Malal. There is no way that Jew could bring live stock - it was a bit more difficult to travel in Temple times than it is now, and no safer.
So the pilgrim-from-afar brings something portable - money or precious metal - to trade with someone at or near the Temple for the goods the pilgrim intends to sacrifice.
If the merchant was an honest Jew, some of his profits went into the Temple coffers and he also made his sacrifices.
So here we have Jesus allegedly - if you recall, none of the gospels were written in "real time" and Jesus' #1 PR guy, Paul (nee' Saul) only met Jesus in an hallucination, ergo "allegedly" - assaulting people providing a service to pilgrims. If the stories in the Jesus testament are accurate, Jesus was indeed a criminal and should have been hauled before a Jewish court - except that at the time the Romans had taken away Jews rights to administer courts - and punished for wounding others. Whips tend to leave marks and sometimes open wounds.
Even in today's world what Jesus is alleged to have done is considered "not PC." Today an activist would hold up protest signs; only the most extreme would get physical.
Which brings up an interesting - to me - question.
If the Temple is rebuilt, will sacrifices resume? I know there are those who will demand it.
But think how we and the rest of the world react to animal sacrifices by the Santerians and others. (See http://www.religioustolerance.org/santeri1.htm for more information.)
There already is a movement, mostly in Europe, to ban shechita.
The Jesus groupies once again only have half the story.
Unfortunately, they keep telling it in catchy tunes.
