Article

Journal for the Study of

the New Testament
Jesus in Jerusalem: Armed and 2014, Vol. 37(1) 324
The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0142064X14544863
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Dale B. Martin
Yale University, USA

Abstract
In debating the meaning of Jesus arrest and death at Jerusalem, scholars have paid too
little attention to normal Roman practices of dealing with persons found armed in public
in Rome or other cities under their control. Moreover, the idea that only one or two
of Jesus disciples were armed has been accepted uncritically in spite of the probability
that more or all of them were armed. This article highlights the signicance of Jesus
disciples being armed when he was arrested just outside the walls of Jerusalem, linking
that fact with other details from the sources, such as Jesus opposition to the temple,
the presence of Samaritans among his early followers, the absence of lamb at the last
supper, and the fact that he was executed by the Romans as a social rebel. Jesus led his
followers, armed, to Jerusalem to participate in a heavenly-earthly battle to overthrow
the Romans and their high-priestly client rulers of Judea.

Keywords
Jerusalem, Jesus, Passover, rebel, swords, temple

Many scholars, over many decades, have written about the events and meaning
of Jesus last days in Jerusalem, and one recurring hypothesis, though it has
never won over majority opinion, is that Jesus led his disciples to Jerusalem to
provoke a violent battle against the Roman overlords and their Jewish, priestly
client-rulers in Judea.1 That Jesus was a revolutionary has been suggested and

1. Michael Thate has provided extensive research assistance for this article, for which I am most
grateful. Others who have offered helpful suggestions are Kirk Freudenburg, Olivia Stewart,
Matthew Larsen, Sonja Anderson, Jeremy Hultin, Colin McCaffery and Michael Zimm.

Corresponding author:
Dale B. Martin, Department of Religious Studies, Yale University, PO Box 208287, New Haven, CT 06520-
8287, USA.
Email: dale.martin@yale.edu
4 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)

rejected many times. I revisit the debate because I hope to highlight observations
that have received little attention, such as the issue of what the Romans would
have done when discovering Jews carrying swords in Jerusalem during the
Passover, or even just outside the city walls. The legality of bearing arms in a city
ruled by the Romans has received too little attention when connected with the
historical evidence that at least some of Jesus disciples were so armed when he
was arrested. Moreover, this article attempts to bring together, in one hypotheti-
cal construction, several other details of our early texts: the anti-temple sayings
in the Gospels and Acts, the content of the last meal Jesus shared with his disci-
ples, the presence early in the Jesus movement of Samaritan followers, and how
Jesus, who was apparently not insane, could have intended armed opposition in
Jerusalem with only a few untrained and badly equipped Jewish peasants and
workers. This article attempts not only to second others claims that Jesus was
leading a band of armed insurrectionists, but to strengthen that hypothesis by
bringing in other details from our sources that deserve further emphasis and
explanation.2
At least one of Jesus disciples was armed when Jesus was arrested. The mis-
take made by most readers is to read the Gospel of Mark in light of the Gospel of
Luke, which insists that only two swords were involved (Mk 14.47; Lk. 22.36-
38, 50). What happens if we read Marks account pretending we know nothing

2. For a survey of earlier revolutionary proposals, see Bammel 1984. For several decades, per-
haps the most famous argument that Jesus was a revolutionary was that of Brandon 1967.
See also Brandon 1951, 1968. Brandon was dependent on the much earlier arguments of
Eisler 19291930 (English version 1931). Eisler had argued that Jesus secretly armed his
followers and led them to Jerusalem (1931: 480), but in the end, apart from perhaps some
hope for divine intervention, Jesus was resigned to his arrest and execution and prohibited
his followers from further violence (1931: 512-13). Among many criticisms that can be and
have been lodged against Brandons thesis (including, for instance, his dating of the party
of the Zealots to the beginning of the rst century ce), one is that Brandon does not explain
why Jesus would have thought he could have mounted a successful armed rebellion against
the Romans. Brandons thesis may be refuted by the arguments made by other scholars (see
below) that Jesus was not crazy: Jesus would have realized that a rebellion with a rag-tag
bunch of peasants, shermen, and manual laborers could not succeed. As I argue below, Jesus
apocalyptic expectations must be brought into any scenario that would explain why his dis-
ciples were armed in Jerusalem. Richard Horsley is justly well known for constructing a
revolutionary Jesus. My differences with Horsley are clear. Horsley takes Jesus not as leading
an armed revolt, but as focused on the renewal of village communities (Horsley 1987: 321).
The recent popular book by Reza Aslan (2013) has brought the debate to a wider public. My
ideas differ from his in that, though he believes that Jesus was executed by the Roman state
for the crime of sedition (156), Aslan does not seem to believe that Jesus intentionally had his
disciples arm in order to participate in an imminent battle. Aslan actually reads the Gospels
too uncritically, taking as historical all sorts of details most professional critics of the New
Testament take as unhistorical or at least doubtful. For a brief review of Aslans book, see
Martin 2013.
Martin 5

of how it is presented in the other Gospels? Mark describes the people who come
to arrest Jesus in Gethsemane as more like a mob than soldiers. They come with
swords and clubs, they are sent by the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders,
and led by Judas Iscariot (Mk 14.43). As soon as the mob arrests Jesus, Mark
tells us that one of those standing there drew a sword and struck the slave of the
high priest and cut off his ear (14.47).3 Note that if Marks version were the only
one we possessed, we would probably assume not that just one or two of Jesus
disciples were armed, but that most or all of them were: one of them pulled out
his sword, as if they simply were armed. If Marks Gospel were the only account
we had, we would assume, I think, that the group, as a group, was armed.4
That this was the way the other Gospel writers likely read Mark is made clear
by the way they edit the story before transmitting it into their own accounts. All
the other Gospel authors are embarrassed by the event. Matthew copies the basic
event from Mark but adds that Jesus rebuked the disciple and even took the
action as an opportunity for a useful aphorism: Put your sword back in its place;
for all who take the sword will perish by the sword (Mt. 26.52). We cannot be
sure whether the author of the Fourth Gospel knew the Synoptic accounts or just
the tradition, but he likewise put distance between the intentions of Jesus and the
violence. The author of the Gospel of John spruces up the event somewhat.
Instead of depicting the arresting group as a mob, Jn 18.3 depicts the scene with

3. It has been argued that Marks language must mean that the one who struck was not one of
Jesus disciples, but someone else standing by. When Mark wants to refer to the disciples,
so goes the argument, he uses the twelve, the disciples or calls them by name (see Senior
1995; Gundry 1993; Meier 1994; Brown 1994; France 2002). I think this cannot be the best
interpretation. For one thing, the narrative depicts only two groups on the scene: on one side,
Jesus and his followers (not necessarily only the twelve) and, on the other, the group that has
come to arrest him. According to the narrative (and that is after all what we have to go on),
there are no other people present. The narrative depicts Jesus alone in the Garden with his
followers. Are we to suppose that one of those who came to arrest him would attack one of
his own group? Moreover, the people in the arresting group would have their swords already
drawn. None of them would have needed to draw a sword (spasa&menoj; 14.47). But taken
by surprise, someone of Jesus group would have had to do so. As for the departure from his
normal means of designating Jesus followers, it would not be surprising if Mark did alter
his wording; after all, he, like all other Gospel writers after him, is going out of his way to
de-emphasize any act of violence on the part of Jesus or his disciples. His wording is likely
just one more way of playing down the action rather than approving it. Finally, that this is the
more natural reading of the text is demonstrated by the fact that it is precisely how Marks
later readers read the text (Mt. 26.51; Lk. 22.49; and if its author knew Mark, Jn 18.10).
4. How many of them would need to be armed in order for me to satisfy myself that the group,
as a group, was armed? I dont think we need to decide. I think it must have been more than
one or two, and might well have been all of them. So also Brandon: With how many swords
the disciples were armed is immaterial; it is scarcely likely that it was only two, and the arma-
ment of the party sent to arrest Jesus suggests that Judas had given warning that the disciples
were well armed and that armed resistance was to be expected (1967: 341).
6 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)

Judas leading a detachment of soldiers () together with police

() from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They show up with lan-
terns and torches and weapons (NRSV). The author of the Fourth Gospel help-
fully informs us that it was Peter who struck, that the high priests slave whose
ear was cut off was named Malchus, and that Jesus then rebuked Peter for the
incident.
The author of LukeActs, as we might expect from his depiction of the non-
violent, innocent early church and the basically benevolent Romans, goes the
furthest in attempting to play down the incident and protect Jesus from any sus-
picion of rebellion. This author rst has Jesus tell his disciples to arm them-
selves, but only in order to fulll a prophecya prophecy, incidentally, that says
nothing about swords or arms of any kind. When the disciples rather ridiculously
produce only two swords and ask, Will just two be enough?, Jesus says yes,
two will be plenty. According to Lukes account, the disciple who strikes the
slave even rst asks, Lord, should we strike with the sword? He strikes, though,
without waiting for explicit permission. Just to make sure we know Jesus himself
meant no harm, the author informs us that Jesus immediately and miraculously
healed the mans ear. I am sure we are to suppose that the slave enjoyed even
better hearing afterwards.
Lukes account of Jesus instructing the disciples to get swords merely in order
to fulll prophecy, his insistence that there were only two swords involved, the
disciple asking permission, and Jesus response are in all likelihood inventions of
the author. The prophecy that the incident is meant to fulll is from Isa. 53.12:
He was counted among the lawless. We could think of that prophecy being
fullled when Jesus is in fact crucied among rebels (more about
this term later). But nothing in the text from Isaiah demands swords or violence.
Luke invents the account of the fulllment of prophecy precisely because he
knows that if Jesus disciples were armed in Jerusalem, and especially during the
celebrations of the Passover festival, Jesus and his disciples would in fact be a
band of lh|stai/brigands, bandits, or rebels.5 So Luke, more than any of the
others, goes to lengths to explain away any rebellious or political signicance of
the idea that Jesus disciples may indeed have been armed at his arrest. (For the
apologetic purposes of Luke and Acts, see Sterling 1992 and Kinman 1995.)
But why would Jesus disciples be armed in Jerusalem at Passover? I propose
a scenario that helps make sense of several details of the texts of the Gospels as
well as Acts. Jesus was expecting the inbreaking of apocalyptic events.6 If he had
come to believe that he himself was the Messiah (something I think is possible
but not certain), he was expecting an angelic army to break through the sky,

5. For the different kinds of groups that might be designated as such, see Horsley 1999.
6. For two accounts of the range of what might constitute such events, see Collins 1998 and
Rowland 1982.
Martin 7

engage the Romans and their Jewish clients in battle, overthrow the Jewish lead-
ers and Roman overlords, and establish the kingdom of God on earth, all under
his own leadership as Gods Anointed. If Jesus thought of himself as a prophet
and precursor of the Messiah, he would have expected that army to be led by the
Messiah. In either case, he would expect that he and his followers would partici-
pate in the battle, along with the much more numerous angels, just as some docu-
ments from the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that those Jews thought they would
participate in an apocalyptic battle.7 Jesus expected the event to take place dur-
ing Passover and to be centered on Jerusalem. He therefore led his band of
Galileans to Jerusalem at Passover and had them arm themselves so they could
participate in the overthrow of the Jewish ruling class and the Romans.
This is the best way, it seems to me, to make decent historical sense of the fact
that they were armed in Jerusalem at Passover. Historians usually do not seem to
recognize how the Romans would have viewed the signicance of being armed
in a city, and especially during an important and sometimes turbulent festival.8
Laws prohibited anyone from walking around armed with weapons in Rome
itself. The prohibition may originally have been only for the pomerium, but cer-
tainly by the late Republic it included the city itself.9 It was therefore illegal and

7. See especially the War Scroll (1QM). For recent scholarship on the War Scroll, see Schultz
2009; Garca Martnez 2010. For other texts that assume a battle starring heavenly armies, see
Horsley 1999: esp. 182-83.
8. Scholars regularly pass over the problem by assuming that being armed would not be unusual
in the situation. France (2002: 594), for instance, insists that for a Jew to be armed here would
not be odd: weapons were carried for protection, then as now. That strikes me as reecting
a remarkable ignorance about how the Romans actually ruled their empire.
9. This is regularly stated by modern scholars but seldom with sufcient references to the
ancient sources (see, for example, Kaster 2012: 33: It was forbidden to carry a sword within
the pomerium; no references are given because the observation is so universally accepted).
But for some evidence, see Digest 48.6.1: collecting weapons beyond those customary for
hunting or for a journey by land or sea is forbidden; 48.6.3.1 forbids a man of full age
appearing in public with a weapon (telum) (references and translation are from Mommsen
1985). See also Mommsen 1899: 564 n. 2; 657-58 n. 1; and Linderski 2007: 102-103 (though
he cites only Mommsen). Other laws from the same context of the Digest sometimes cited
in this regard are not as worthwhile for my purposes because they seem to be forbidding the
possession of weapons with criminal intent. But for the outright forbidding of being armed
while in public in Rome, see Ciceros letter to his brother relating an incident in Rome in
which a man, who is apparently falsely accused of plotting an assassination, is nonetheless
arrested merely for having confessed to having been armed with a dagger while in the city:
To Atticus, Letter 44 (II.24). See also Cicero, Philippics 5.6 (17). Finally we may cite a let-
ter that Synesius of Cyrene wrote to his brother, probably sometime around the year 400 ce.
The brother had apparently questioned the legality of Synesius having his household produce
weapons to defend themselves against marauding bands. Synesius points out that there are
no Roman legions anywhere near for protection, but he seems reluctantly to admit that he is
engaged in an illegal act (Letter 107; for English trans., see Fitzgerald 1926). For descriptions
8 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)

dangerous to walk around Rome at this time with a sword under ones toga.
Simply being armed with a swordor even a daggerin Rome, and especially
during an important public festival, would in itself have been taken as an illegal
and potentially revolutionary action.
Though not as explicit as the Roman sources about the illegality of carrying
arms, other texts indicate that it was either illegal or strictly contrary to custom
in other cities also, including Greek cities. Thucydides says that only foreigners
carry arms around with them: The Athenians were the rst to give up the habit
of carrying weapons and to adopt a way of living that was more relaxed and more
luxurious (The Peloponnesian War 1.6; trans. Rex Warner; the word is rendered
as barbarians in the translation of Steven Lattimore). The notion makes it into
ction. Encolpius, a character in the Satyrica by Petronius, is caught in public in
what he calls a Greek city (probably intended to be one of the Greek cities in
southern Italy) with a sword strapped to his person. A soldieror perhaps an
imposter posing as a soldierstops him and demands he identify his legion and
commander. Encolpius rst lies but is found out when the man asks whether the
men of his legion regularly walk about in girly slippers (phaecasiati). The sol-
dier then conscates the sword and brusquely sends Encolpius packing. As a
commentator on the passage notes, The people seem to have had no special
rights to bear arms, and thus the actions of our miles are not extraordinary.10
Josephus seems to be aware that going about in a city in the Empire armed
with a sword would normally be shocking if not outright illegal. He remarks that
a man named Orodes, whom the elders of Parthia intended to invite to become
the next king, was killed at a dinner and drinking party by other men present, for
it is customary for everyone to carry a sword at such affairs (Ant. 18.45). This is
noted as a Parthian custom precisely because it was not a Roman or Greek cus-
tom, and it seems even to Josephus to be odd and dangerous.11

of the relation of weapons to the pomerium, see Pomerium, in Cancik and Schneider 1996
2003; Beard, North and Price 1998: I, 179-80; II, 93-95; Rpke 2007: 182.
10. Schmeling 2011: 347. The passage is Satyrica 82; that he is in a Greek city is at 81. See
also Diodorus Siculus 12.19: the lawgiver of the Thurians, Charondas, had outlawed being
armed in the Assembly. After he rushes into the Assembly, forgetting he is armed with a dag-
ger, in order not to seem to nullify his own law, he uses the dagger to kill himself. Diodorus
concludes the passage by admitting, Some historians, however, attribute this act to Diocles,
the lawgiver of the Syracusans (trans. C. H. Oldfather, Loeb). Diodoruss words indicate that
people are familiar with laws, in Greek cities as well as Rome, that prohibit carrying weapons
in the city entirely or at least in designated areas.
11. For an argument that Roman law generally respected the right of private citizens to possess
weapons and to use them in self-defense, see Tysse n.d. I believe Tysse overstates his case
somewhat, and it is not relevant in any case for the argument that being armed in public in
an urban environment was at least contrary to custom and in some places illegal. Ones sus-
picions of the article may be raised by the fact that, as far as I have been able to see, it was
published only on the website of a pro-gun lobby.
Martin 9

I think we may take it for granted, therefore, that any Roman governor or
soldiers would assume much the same for Jerusalem. We know that Roman proc-
urators and prefects were wary of Jerusalem and especially were careful to keep
a lid on things during important festivals.12 That is no doubt the reason why
Pilate was in Jerusalem during Passover. His normal base and court was in
Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast. He and a signicant contingent of Roman
soldiers are in Jerusalem precisely to make sure that armed Jews attempt no dis-
ruption during the festival.
Both Mark and Matthew know that Passover was considered a dangerous time
and presented possibilities for riots by discontented Jews. Mark 14.12, copied by
Matthew, says that the chief priests wanted to arrest Jesus, but they demurred
from doing so during Passover so as not to provoke a riot (see also Mt. 26.5). If
Jesus little band of young Galilean men were armed in Jerusalem during
Passover, that in itself would have merited, in the eyes of Roman rulers, arrest
and execution. A Roman prefect needed no more reason for crucifying a Galilean
than discovering him surrounded by a band of armed men in Jerusalem at
Passover.

Jesus against the Temple

The detail about Jesus disciples being armed also puts another event into prob-
able context, an event that almost all scholars believe is historical: the incident in
the temple usually called the cleansing of the temple. Like many other scholars,
including prominently E. P. Sanders, I believe the incident was no attempt to
purify the temple or its cult, nor to get money-changing or trade out of the temple
precinct. I believe the incident was a prophetic, dramatic demonstration meant to
predict the imminent destruction of the temple.13 It may even have been an
attempt to catalyze that destruction and instigate an angelic, armed overthrow of
the rulership of the high priests and their Roman protectors. Jesus may have

12. Note Josephus, Ant. 17.213-18: Jews who are especially concerned about the law, the tem-
ple and purity gather in the temple at Passover and cause disturbances. They are apparently
unarmed because when Archelaus sends soldiers against them, they seem able to attack the
soldiers only with stones. See also Josephus, War 2.224-25 (2.12.1) for Roman troops espe-
cially on guard during festivals. See also Isaac 1990: 279.
13. Sanders 1985: 61-76. Sanders believes that the combination of the temple demonstration
along with a noticeable following provoked Jesus arrest and execution (304). Where my
thesis departs from Sanders relates to his belief that Jesus and his followers did not expect to
help bring about the destruction and restoration through armed conict: neither Jesus nor
his disciples thought that the kingdom would be established by force of arms. They looked for
an eschatological miracle (326). I say, instead, that they looked for an eschatological mira-
cle that would include an armed battle in which they would participate. The two expectations
need not be mutually exclusive.
10 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)

thought that if he initiated proceedings and perhaps provoked a riot in the temple
and Jerusalem, the nal battle would actually begin. At any rate, I see no evi-
dence elsewhere that Jesus believed he was supposed to purify the temple or
regulate its cult. But I do see evidence that he prophesied its destruction.14
Some of that evidence comes from the various prophecies by Jesus found in
our texts about the future destruction of the temple. The earliest such text is Mk
13.1-2: As he was coming out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him,
Teacher, see what stones and what buildings! And Jesus said to him, Do you
see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left on stone that will not be
totally destroyed. Then, withdrawing and sitting down opposite the temple on
the Mount of Olives, as if facing the guilty party, Jesus gives the apocalyptic
predictions that make up Mk 13. Later, at his trial, Jesus is accused of saying, I
will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days build another not
made with hands (Mk 14.58; my emphasis, though I think it justied by the
Greek). A similar saying does actually occur on Jesus lips in Jn 2.19-21, though
there Jesus challenges them to destroy the temple: Destroy this temple and in
three days I will build another. Although Mark claims that they were false wit-
nesses who said that Jesus made such a statement, it seems that is Marks attempt
to absolve Jesus from any such anti-temple threat and the sure violence such a
destruction would entail. Jesus certainly did prophesy the destruction of the tem-
ple, and he may have even threatened to do it himself.
With some basically inconsequential alteration in wording, Matthew takes the
prediction of the temples destruction from Mk 13 and uses it to introduce his
own account of Jesus apocalyptic predictions. Oddly, when it comes to the
charges made against Jesus at his trial, Matthew departs slightly but perhaps
signicantly in how he presents the charges. He rst says that the chief priests
and council were indeed searching for false witnesses against Jesus that would
merit the death penalty, but Matthew insists that they found none, even though
many false witnesses came forward (26.60). But then Matthew writes, Finally,
two came forward saying, This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of
God and in three days build it (26.61; in both Mark and Matthew the charge is
again hurled at Jesus on the cross: Mk 15.29; Mt. 27.40). Matthew does not label
this particular charge a false one, at least not explicitly. Is it possible that Matthew
knows that Jesus had indeed made such a claim?
These potentially anti-temple sayings in Matthew also pass the criterion of
dissimilarity, or as it sometimes is called, the criterion of embarrassment. In Mt.
23.16-22, Jesus, in a controversy story with the scribes and Pharisees, insists

14. We should note that opposition to the temple was in no way unique at the time. As Alan Segal
put it, Virtually everyone but the Sadducees had a critique of the Temple, including the
Pharisees and the Dead Sea Scrolls sectarians. Segal believes that both Jesus and the early
church were anti-temple (Segal 2002: 138).
Martin 11

that the gold in the sanctuary is not greater than the sanctuary because it is the
sanctuary that makes the gold holy or sacred. Likewise, the gift on the altar is
not in itself holy, but is made holy by the altar. He concludes, Whoever swears
by the sanctuary by that deed also swears by the one who lives in it (23.21). So
the author of the Gospel of Matthew shares no negative sentiment against the
Jerusalem temple. He believes the temple is sacred and even the dwelling place
of God. It is all the more likely that his preservation of those potentially anti-
temple sayings by Jesus witnesses to their authenticity.
The presence of the saying about the destruction of the temple in the Gospel
of John provides added weight to its claim to historicity. The Gospel of John is
not itself opposed to the temple or its cult. Jesus is regularly depicted as teaching
in the temple (Fuglseth 2005: 117-28; Kerr 2002). The so-called cleansing of the
temple is placed early in the Fourth Gospel rather than in the last week of Jesus
life, and thus does not play the role it may in the Synoptic Gospels, as possibly a
catalyst for Jesus arrest. And the Fourth Gospel interprets the prophecy about
the destruction of the temple and its rebuilding in three days to be only a symbol
or metaphor for Jesus own death and resurrection. So again, John retains an anti-
temple saying even though it does not match his own apparent theology. The
saying passes the tests of dissimilarity and multiple attestationwe nd it in
more than one independent written source, and it goes against the tendencies of
the authors of the Gospels.15
This is true even more so for Luke and Acts. The author of the Gospel of Luke
and the Acts of the Apostles presents a favorable view of Jerusalem and its tem-
ple.16 The Gospel begins with scenes in the temple (Lk. 1.8), and the holy family
presents the infant Jesus in the temple, where he is blessed by two holy people in
residence there (2.22-38). We are told that Jesus family goes up to Jerusalem for
the Passover feast every year (2.41), and it is on one such occasion that the
12-year-old Jesus lingers in the temple in Jerusalem for at least three days,

15. My argument here is not affected by recent critiques of the traditional criteria of authentic-
ity, for which see Allison 2010 and the essays in Keith and Le Donne 2012. I am under no
illusion that the traditional, modern criteria render the kind of condent certainty imagined by
some scholars in previous generations. But the simple argument that a saying or event passed
along by different independent sources has a better chance of being historical is a sound one.
Also, the argument that a saying or event that goes against the tendency of the relevant text
or the pieties of early Christians renders that saying or event more likely historical seems to
me still to be a valid point. I am not, that is, advocating a rigorous use of a particular method
designed to produce facts; I am simply mounting what I take to be persuasive arguments.
16. See Weinert 1981; Taylor 2004; Head 2004; Garca Serrano 2012. I disagree with Weinert in
his interpretation of Stephens speech in Acts (Weinert 1987). Indeed, I believe that Weinert,
in his attempt to present as positive a view of the temple in Acts as he can, harmonizes
Stephens speech with the more positive views of the temple admittedly expressed elsewhere
in Luke and Acts.
12 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)

discoursing with teachers there and amazing everyone with his poise and learn-
ing (2.41-51). He even calls the temple his fathers house.
Acts continues the authors attention to Jerusalem and its temple. The early
church is said to meet regularly in the temple in the early chapters of Acts (2.46;
5.12, 42). The apostles go there regularly at designated times for prayer (3.1).
Even Paul, for all his travels outside Judea, is careful to pay proper respects to
the temple and its cult when he is in Jerusalem (that is, according to Acts 21.26-
30; 22.17). This is all why it is so signicant that the speech of Stephen contains
rhetoric that can be read as critical of both the Law of Moses and the Jerusalem
temple. Anti-temple sentiments detectable in the speech of Stephen go against
the overall tendency of the author of LukeActs to treat the temple and its cult
with respect and honor.
I believe this shows that the author derives the speech of Stephen, or at least
much of it, from a source before him. We can discern Lukes authorial activity in
his use of sources when we compare the Gospel of Luke with one source we
know he used, the Gospel of Mark. He is perfectly willing to move things around
in the narrative, to place the sermon of Jesus in his hometown at the beginning
of his Galilean ministry rather than later in that ministry. Though I cannot dem-
onstrate it here, I have elsewhere noted the authors editorial activities in Acts,
where he splits apart narrative that he derives from one source to insert materials
that he is obviously taking from other sources (Martin 2012: 130-32, cf. 132-33).
This is what he has done with the speech of Stephen, as is demonstrated by the
fact that Stephens speech advances a harsh critique of the Jerusalem temple and
something of a derogation of the law of Moses, both sentiments the author of
Acts does not himself share.17
First, we notice that the author moves the anti-temple accusations against
Jesus, which he found in Mark, out of the trial of Jesus in the Gospel. He trans-
fers those accusations away from Jesus and into the narrative of the trial of
Stephen (unlike the accounts of Matthew and Mark, there is no anti-temple
charge at the trial of Jesus in Luke). In Acts, the charge still goes back to Jesus,
though purportedly through the mouth of Stephen, as the accusers say: We heard
him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the cus-
toms that Moses gave us (6.14). The author models the trial and execution of
Stephen on that of Jesus. The author clearly knows that people thought that Jesus
was going to destroy the templeand perhaps knows that some Christians were
boasting about it. The author, in any case, presents both Jesus and Stephen as

17. I disagree somewhat, therefore, with many other interpreters of the speech, who demur from
seeing it as actually anti-temple. Kilgallen (1989: esp. 177-78), for instance, insists that
Stephen (that is, Luke) is not against the temple, just against the claim that it is the house of
God. Kilgallen actively resists reading the speech as a mine for sources or views that predate
Acts.
Martin 13

prophetic gures rejected by the Jews, their own people, and martyred because
of their message. In fact, the rejection of Jesus and Stephen is modeled on the
depicted rejection of the prophet Moses by the Jews (Acts 3.22-26).
Although the author of Acts tells us the anti-temple charge against Stephen
comes from false witnesses, once we read the speech itself, we can see that
Stephens message does seem to oppose the temple. Stephens speech contains a
narrative of the biblical history of the people of Israel. Moses is portrayed less as
a lawgiver than as a prophet rejected by his people and a forerunner of the prophet
and martyr Jesus, a common theme for Luke and Acts (7.35, 37). Stephen speaks
of the Mosaic Law as oracles given not directly by God himself but by angels
(7.38, see also 7.53). Stephen highlights the divine commands that resulted in the
construction and use of the tabernacle, the tent of testimony in the wilderness
(7.44), and he mentions that David had wanted to build a house for God, but did
not.
It is precisely when Stephens narrative gets to Solomon and the building of
the rst temple in Jerusalem that his tone makes an abrupt turn to condemnation.
He echoes Hebrew prophets in making the point that God did not need or want
that temple, that God dwells in heaven and earth, not in houses made with
hands (7.48-50). This last phrase would have been recognized as a common one
used by Jews to designate the gods of the nations, their images and idols that
were handmade and contrasted to the living God of Israel.18 Stephens words
could have been taken, and no doubt would have been taken at least by many, to
equate the temple in Jerusalem to Gentiles idols. As he had just implied that the
temple was an idol, so Stephen accuses the Jerusalem Jews of having uncircum-
cised hearts and being, practically speaking, Gentiles and idolaters themselves.
He reaches the climax of his speech in his condemnation of those Jews who cher-
ish the temple and its cult: You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and
ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do
(7.51). It is with this accusationthat the Jews maintenance of the temple cult
is equivalent to Gentile idolatrythat the people erupt in violence and end up
stoning Stephen. The climactic ending of his speech, with its implied denuncia-
tion of the Jerusalem temple, prompts his execution.
I have argued that the author of Acts did not make up this story and at least the
main content of the speech. Primary points of the speechthat demote the
Mosaic Law to angelic authorship and repudiate the Jews on account of their
loyalty to the temple in Jerusalemare sentiments not shared by the author of
LukeActs. But that means these notions derive from sources within the early

18. Examples are many, but for a selection, see Isa. 2.8; Ps. 113.12 (LXX); 134.15 (LXX); Bel
1.5 (Theodotian); Wis. 13.10; 15.17; Jer. 1.16; Acts 7.41; 17.24; Josephus, Ant. 8.280; Philo,
Life of Moses 2.168; On the Decalogue 156; Embassy 290 and 310; Pseudo-Heraclitus, Ep.
4.10-15.
14 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)

Jesus movement that predate Luke and Acts. I suggest they may derive from
Jesus himself. Jesus himself must actually have prophesied the destruction of the
temple. And I believe we must suppose that he was himself not simply prophesy-
ing its destruction, but advocating it. For some reason, Jesus of Nazareth was
staunchly opposed to the temple in Jerusalem and its cult. He brought a band of
Galilean men armed with swords with him to Jerusalem at the festival of Passover
to participate with a messianic, angelic army in the overthrow of the high priestly,
Sadducean Jewish caretakers of the temple and necessarily, as a consequence,
their Roman patrons. Jesus was looking for and advocating the destruction of the
temple itself. The speech of Stephen preserves, strangely ensconced in the pro-
temple Acts of the Apostles, this message of the historical Jesus that had been
later forsaken by most of the movements followers.
I cannot give demonstrable reasons why Jesus of Nazareth set himself against
the temple in Jerusalem. People have speculated that he believed that temple
needed to be destroyed simply because an eschatological temple would be
needed to take its place.19 I think his opposition must have been more robust than
that. His actions in the temple demonstrate, I believe, that he was opposed to the
temple, its cult and its caretakers, the high priests and Sadducees, for more prin-
cipled reasons (so also Brandon 1967: 334). He may have opposed the temple
and its caretakers because they were currently the highest Jewish authorities in
Judea. There was no Jewish king at the time. The only Jewish authorities who
had any real power in Judea under Pontius Pilate were the high priests. Jesus may
have concentrated on opposition to that class precisely because they were the
clients of the Romans, who obviously had to be overthrown to establish a king-
dom of Godindeed, to translate the word basileia as it is when referring to
Roman rule, the Empire of God. Any possible Jewish Messiah had to over-
throw the empire of Roma in order to establish the empire of the God of Israel.20

19. I believe that if Jesus expected the destruction of the temple, he would have also assumed that
it would be replaced by another, earthly but eschatological, temple. In other words, like other
Jews, Jesus, I think, assumed there would be a replacement temple, and not just a spiritual
(in the modern sense of non-physical) temple. See Tob. 13.9-18; Sibylline Oracle 3.702-31;
Rev. 21.122.5; Flusser 2007: 207-13; Goldenberg 2006. See also the discussion in Najman
2014: esp. 121-22.
20. Though this is from a later source, there is also a (certainly Jewish) rejection of the temple and
its cult preserved in Sib. Or. 4.24-32:
Happy will be those of mankind on earth
who will love the great God, blessing him
before drinking and eating, putting their trust in piety.
They will reject all temples when they see them;
altars too, useless foundations of dumb stones
(and stone statues and handmade images)
deled with blood of animate creatures, and sacrices
Martin 15

Or perhaps Jesus opposed the temple system because he believed its mainte-
nance drained resources from the rest of the country. Poor Jewish peasants barely
eked out an existence, but they were taxed and burdened to maintain the temple,
an elite in Jerusalem, and the privileges of the Jerusalem rulers and upper class.21
Temples in the ancient world, after all, could be expensive things to maintain,
and in Palestine at least, we know that even the poor had to pay temple taxes.
Whether Jesus opposition to the temple and its caretakers was motivated by
purely political issues or by political and economic issues is impossible for us to
discern. But I do believe there is more than enough evidence to posit that a cen-
tral part of the prophet Jesus message was a condemnation of the temple in
Jerusalem, its cult and caretakers, and a prophecy of its destruction.22 That would
have been enough motivation for this Galilean apocalyptic prophet to arm a band
of his followers and lead them to Jerusalem at Passover with the expectation that
they would have the privilege of joining an eschatological, heavenly army in
overthrowing the Romans and their Jewish client-rulers.

Samaritans and Lambs

This hypothesis also may help make sense of some other details of our evidence.
We have hints in several New Testament texts that at least a notable number of
Samaritans seem to have joined the movement at an early date. We need not take
the story of the conversion of a village of Samaritans during the ministry of
Jesus, as depicted in Jn 4, as historical in itself, but it may provide some evidence
that actual historical Samaritans, early on, found the message of Jesus compel-
ling. There is Lukes story of the good Samaritan in Lk. 10. There are stories of
early conversions of Samaritans in Acts 8. What could have been more natural
than Samaritans, who also rejected the temple in Jerusalem, nding attractive an

of four-footed animals. They will look to the great glory of the one God
and commit no wicked murder, nor deal in
dishonest gain, which are most horrible things.
(Trans. John J. Collins; see Charlesworth 1983: 384.)
21. For an overview, see Horbury, et al. 1999; for the temple in particular: 124-25. For taxation as
providing temple treasuries, see Schmidt 2001: 37. Schmidt also provides much material on
other Jewish groups opposed to the Jerusalem temple, such as those who produced the Dead
Sea Scrolls (see 132-97).
22. For a survey of the various prophetic gures depicted in Josephuss texts, see Gray 1993.
I disagree, of course, with Grays characterization of the ministries of John the Baptist and
Jesus as apolitical (140). I believe her taxonomy of different kinds of prophets is too neat,
and her denition of what counts as political is anachronistic. That John and Jesus were
both killed on political charges should be evidence enough that at least their movements were
perceived at the time as political. For a briefer survey comparing John the Baptist with these
other gures, see Evans 2006.
16 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)

anti-temple message still lingering among at least some of Jesus followers after
his death?23
If Jesus was opposed to the temple cult, that would also explain a detail of the
Gospel narratives seldom noted by Christians. I speak of what we may call the
silence of the lambor to be more precise, the silence about the lamb. Even
though all three Synoptic Gospels portray the Last Supper as a pascha, a Passover
meal, there is no mention in any of them of the disciples buying, or procuring by
any other means, a lamb or of them taking it to the temple, where paschal lambs
were supposed to be sacriced during the day before the evening meal that began
the Passover celebration.24 Even though the texts go out of their way to discuss
Jesus instructions to the disciples about preparations for the meal, and even
though those same texts actually describe some of that preparation, none of them
depicts the disciples taking care of the rather elaborate preparations that buying,
sacricing, butchering and cooking a lamb would require for the meal.
And there is no mention of lamb in the supper itself, in spite of the fact that for
a Passover meal that certainly would have constituted the central dish.25 We see,
of course, bread and wine at the meal. And Mark and Matthew also mention a
bowl containing some kind of sauce or gravy, though we know nothing more
specic than that (Mk 14.20; Mt. 26.23; a similar bowl or dish is mentioned in Jn
13.26-27, but the meal is not a Passover meal in John). Some commentators have
insisted that a lamb must have been included because Jesus uses the word pas-
cha as that which he wants to eat with his disciples, and a normal meaning of
that word was as a reference to the Passover lamb itself.26 But the word might be
used to refer to the feast or the festival or the meal without necessarily including
a lamb, especially if Jesus, because of his opposition to the temple cult itself and
therefore his unwillingness to sacrice at the temple, wanted to stage a symbolic,
lambless, Passover meal to make a point.
Other commentators point to Mk 14.12: And on the rst day of Unleavened
Bread, when they were sacricing the pascha, his disciples said to him The

23. Josephus narrates one event in which Samaritans intentionally dele the temple in Jerusalem
by scattering human bones in the porticoes and throughout the temple during the feast of
unleavened bread (Passover): Ant. 18.30. For recent treatments of the Samaritans, including
their opposition to the Jerusalem temple cult, see Samkutty 2006; Crown 2005: esp. IV, 2376.
24. Deut. 16.2, 5-7; 2 Kgs 23.21-23; Exod. 12.6; Josephus, War 6.421-27 (6.9.3).
25. See, for example, Schmidt 2001: 214, for a description of how a family or group would typi-
cally prepare and partake of the meal.
26. Joel Marcus seems to assume that lamb was supplied by the disciples who prepared the
meal, including also bitter herbs (2009: 948). France (2002: 560, and n. 24) believes there is
no mention of lamb at the Last Supper because there was not one there. But France believes
that Marks chronology agrees with Johns, and so the meal took place on the evening (before/
of) Nisan 14. In Frances view, it wasnt a Passover meal, and the lambs would be sacriced
only in the daytime of Nisan 14, after the previous evening of Nisan 14.
Martin 17

disciples question, then, introduces Jesus instructions about preparing the meal.
Some readers say the they refers to Jesus and his disciples, and that it was while
they were performing the sacrice of their lamb that Jesus gave these instruc-
tions.27 But, much more likely, they refers either to the priests or to Jews in
general. Another commentator argues that the imperfect tense of the verb were
sacricing indicates customary practice, and thus the meaning would be, On
the rst day of Unleavened Bread, when they [the priests or people] customarily
sacrice the pascha (Gould 1896: 260 n. 2; Marcus 2009: 944). The argument
is that were the action being described as the one-time sacrice done by Jesus
and his disciples, the tense would be aorist (or perhaps historical present). In
any case, even if I am not eager to depend on the tense of a verb, I do not think
the verse is supposed to be depicting a sacrice performed or requested by Jesus
or his disciples. In the absence of a lamb in our texts, combined with the temple-
destruction prophecies of Jesus, combined with the demonstration against the
temple performed by Jesus just before his arrest, I suggest that Jesus and his
disciples would not have wanted to participate in the sacricial cult of the
Jerusalem temple, and that they therefore could have no lamb for dinner. The
absence of any mention of lamb ts the overall scenario.28

Answering Objections
Some scholars have argued that Jesus must not have intended an armed revolt
against the Jewish leaders and their Roman patrons because Jesus was not, after
all, crazy: he could not have believed that a small band of Galilean peasants
could take on the Roman legions. But that ignores that Jesus was an apocalyptic
Jewish prophet, and he quite probably believed that the main ghting would be
done by an angelic army led by the Messiah, as was certainly believed by other
Jews, including, I think, the author of Revelation. As the keepers of the Dead Sea
Scrolls apparently believed, Jesus could have believed that he and his followers
would join in the battle, armed alongside the military angels of Israel.29 Jesus

27. Casey 1998: 222-24. Casey even insists that Jesus himself, as the leader, slit the lambs throat
at the sanctuary site.
28. Though I would not want to project this evidence back into the time of Jesus as evidence sup-
porting my position, it should be noted that Epiphanius preserves sayings from the Gospel
of the Ebionites that has Jesus refusing to eat the lamb at Passover and teaching against
sacrices. Jesus refuses to eat the meat of this pascha with the disciples. The Ebionites
are vegetarians, and so also insist that John the Baptist ate cakes rather than locusts. The
Ebionites also have Jesus reject all sacricing, which would necessarily involve a rejection
of the sacricial cult of the temple: I have come to abolish the sacrices: if you do not cease
from sacricing, the wrath [of God] will not cease from weighing upon you (Epiphanius, adv.
Haer. 30.22 and 30.16; trans. Elliott 1993).
29. See the War Scroll, and n. 7 above.
18 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)

need not have believed that he and his small band of Galileans would accomplish
the deed. They would simply be a small detachment in a much larger army.
Some scholars argue that Jesus must not be numbered among those rebellious
Jews who occasionally rose up against the Romans because, when push came to
shove, the Romans were content to execute Jesus without pursuing or attempting
to capture or punish his followers (Sanders 1985: 294-318). But there is no rea-
son why they would have done so. The Romans typically exerted themselves
only enough to squash any rebellion. They felt no need to exert themselves more
than was necessary. The Romans were pragmatists. When the so-called
Samaritan prophet promises to uncover the golden vessels that Moses had bur-
ied on Mount Gerizim, many people ock to him and arm themselves. Pilate
responds by blocking their way up the mountain. Pilate has many of them killed
in a skirmish and takes many prisoners, but he then executes only the principal
leaders. There is no mention of any attempt to pursue the many others who had
ed. Pilate does not seem to care about the followers once he has killed the lead-
ers and disbanded the group (Ant. 18.85-87).
The most obvious example of authorities executing a person suspected of
rebellious leadership and yet not pursuing his followers is that of John the
Baptist. According to Josephus (who differs here from our Gospels), Herod
Antipas arrested and executed John because he was afraid Johns popularity
might lead to some kind of uprising (Ant. 18.113-19). But Herod never made
any attempt to pursue the followers of John. We hear of them present during
Jesus ministry while John is in prison (Mt. 11.2 and par.), his disciples are said
to retrieve and bury his body (Mk 6.29 and par.), and we see them still active
during the time of the early church depicted by Acts (Acts 18.24-26; 19.1-7).
Herod followed the Romans example: in the absence of an actual assembled
and armed band or large mob, just kill the ringleader and let the mob disperse.
Execute the leader, disperse the crowd, brush off your hands and go back to
Caesarea or Jerusalem.30
Our Gospels are fairly unanimous in saying that upon his arrest Jesus follow-
ers ed into the night. If that actually happened, the Romans had no reason to get
out of their barracks to chase them or hunt them down in the following days. The
men who arrested Jesus in the night, by all our accounts, were either a mob or
guards and police under the authority of the high priests and Sadducees, the
authorities of the temple and thus of Judea under provincial

30. Note how summarily a governor or other authority could legally punish, torture or execute
a lh|sth/j. No actual trial was even required; see Shaw 1984: esp. 20. I have doubted that
the Gospels trial scenes can be historical. There were certainly no disciples present who
could have observed them and reported on them later. Our surviving accounts of the trials are
ctional. In any case, I doubt Pilate would have bothered to conduct a trial of Jesus. None was
necessary, as Shaws sources show.
Martin 19

Roman gubernatorial rule. Yet the execution of Jesus was done by the Romans. I
consider it possible that Romans themselves arrested Jesus, and that later
Christian accounts shifted the blame to Jewish authorities. But in either case, the
Romans, once Jesus followers had ed into the night, had no reason to pursue
them and attempt to arrest them also. They could see that, for the moment, they
had taken care of the problem. With the ringleader in their hands, they could
predict there would be no armed uprising the next day.31
And that the authorities saw Jesus as a rebel is evident in the Gospels admis-
sion that he was executed among lh|stai/ and was no doubt considered by them
a lh|sth/j himself. The Greek word, unfortunately traditionally translated thief,
does not here mean thief.32 In Josephuss writings, it refers to marauding,
armed men who attack other people sometimes just for money, but sometimes as
intentional revolt against ruling authorities.33 Along with the word go&hj, which
usually in Josephus refers to some kind of miracle-worker, magician or prophet
considered by Josephus an imposter, lh|sth/j refers to other social actors dis-
dained by Josephus, in this case to armed rebels against the Romans or other
ruling authorities.34 That Jesus was crucied by the Romans as a lh|sth/j along
with other lh|stai/ demonstrates that at least they thought he was the leader of a
rebel band, a potential instigator of armed revolt against the Romans and their
Jewish clients, the high priests.35
Many details from our Gospels and Acts make more sense if we propose that
Jesus disciples were armed in Jerusalem at Passover because Jesus was expect-
ing the inbreaking of a divine army that would overthrow the Romans and their

31. Brent Shaw discusses the capture and execution of the social rebel (latro) Bulla. In that case
also, the Romans seem to make no attempt to round up his entire band of six hundred. Without
their leader, the band reportedly just disintegrated (1984: 51).
32. This is similar to the difference in Latin between latro (a violent bandit or rebel) and fur (a
common thief). See Shaw 1984: 31.
33. For references outside Josephus and Palestine, see Shaw 1984.
34. See Josephus, Ant. 17.285, for example. The translation by Ralph Marcus (And so Judea
was lled with brigandage) can be misleading if brigandage is taken to be common theft
or mere robbery. These are clearly all rebels against the (now dead) kings troops and Roman
forces. In some cases, they are led by people claiming, after Herods death, to be a king.
In some cases they are certainly seeking Herods wealth, but they are nonetheless in revolt
against the combined royal (Herodian) and Roman forces. See also 17.271; 18.274; 20.160,
163, 168, 172. Benjamin Isaac translates lh|stai/ as guerrilla ghters, mostly from Josephus
or rabbinic sources, when it does seem to refer more to such militants than simply to ban-
dits (1990: 84-85). See also Hengel 1989: 24-46, who uses the term guerrilla warfare as an
appropriate modern translation for the tactics practiced by such gures (43).
35. Another detail of our texts is often overlooked when considering Jesus as a lh|sth/j. According
to Shaw (1984: 46-48), possibly in historical fact but denitely in narrative commonplace, the
main way latrones (the Latin term for the same social role) are captured is by betrayal. Judass
role in the story plays into normal expectations for the capture of a lh|sth/j.
20 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 37(1)

Jewish clients.36 Jesus band would not need to do the ghting on their own. But
they were armed so that they could participate in the battle, alongside angelic
soldiers and cavalry. Being armed with swords inside a city, and especially at an
important and potentially turbulent festival, was always a cause for alarm for the
Romans. For whatever reason, Jesus opposition to the authorities was linked to
his opposition to the Jerusalem temple and its cult. Jesus was crucied because
his followers were armed in Jerusalem and he was perceived by the authorities
as a brigand and rebel. Jesus band was not particularly dangerousonly because
the Messiah and his heavenly forces failed to show up. But those disciples, and
possibly Jesus himself, were armed.
Of course, it is easy to see why most of Jesus followers would have given up
on that vision after his death. Whatever they actually saw when they later
believed they saw the risen Jesus, that experience, along with the failure of their
previous mission in Jerusalem, caused them radically to reinterpret the meaning
of Jesus and his message. But they never succeeded in completely erasing his-
torical evidence that they were themselves armed in Jerusalem at Passover, and
that the execution of Jesus was a result of that fact.

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