relda wrote: "Per se, a violent act is perhaps natural so, as with the strong and instinctual drive for sex, I wouldn’t necessarily condemn it."

Dear relda,

I don't know how an act cannot be natural. I think nature is all there is, and there is no supernatural.

The moneychangers were at the Temple for the same reason that they are at international airports. People came to the Temple from places with other currencies and wanted to get food, lodging and possibly buy some souvenirs. It makes as much sense to whip the moneychangers from the Temple as it would be to do the same to the moneychangers at Brisbane International Airport. It is easier for a Christian to accept it as a holy act rather than one performed by an unstable person given to violent episodes.

If Kevin Rudd or Malcolm Turnbull had trashed the moneychanger facilities in Sydney Airport it would be rightfully regarded as a nutty act. Their followers would switch their allegiance elsewhere. We really don't know if the New Testament accounts of Jesus' activities is reliable. Certainly the accounts re the miracles should be doubted. However, if he actually whipped the moneychangers from the Temple it was a nutty act even if Jesus did it.

Apparently the strong and instinctual drive for sex which exists in normal people was absent in Jesus. Maybe it did exist in him, and his propensity for violence was due to frustration.

There was an unnatural avoidance of sex in his conception. Even his mother was conceived in immaculate circumstances rather than the ‘dirty’ normal way of the rest of us.

There apparently is a connection between Islamic terrorism and the sexual frustration in that society. Many branches of Christianity are arguing about abortion, homosexuality, virginity and other activities connected with the sex drive. It would have better if Jesus could have been a role model for normal sexuality and avoided unjustified violence. Then Christians could be more concerned about social justice rather than concerning themselves with who is poking what into which orifice.

David, I don't think driving the money changers from the temple was a nutty act at all.
I think it was an indictment of the questionable morality of making a profit from the sale of money itself, in the absence of any labour created commodity; an act that must have been -and still is- abhorrent to many tradesmen.
Remember, his cry was “you have turned my father's house into a den of THIEVES”.
This is a very similar situation to the recent spike in oil prices; although oil is a labour created commodity, the spike was largely caused not by disruptions in supply, or an increase in demand, but by some barrels being traded up to 47 times, between well and bowser.
I have always been amazed that capitalists have so warmly embraced Christianity, despite Jesus on so many occasions condemning greed and the acquisition and keeping of wealth. But then I guess it's no more amazing than fighting wars in the name of a peaceful God.
A classic case of people only seeing what they want to see.

Great points, David.
In one of my less edifying rants of late, I said there were not too many (sane) Australians who were consciously emulating the teachings and asceticism of Jesus Christ or the Buddha et al, and that the so-called "great religions" and their values were the endlessly picked-over, mouldering and unrecognisable entrails of their tortured forebears, transformed into holy writ. The great religions (a perfectly valid designation in terms of their respective wealth, power and influence) are a cancer in our societies, whose tumors manifest as guilt and self-loathing; as thanatos, or Freud's superegoic death wish.
Religious ideals, often based originally on asceticism and suffering, cannot be emulated today (except on special occasions, like Easter, when we have a spot of mock crucification) and so mutate into psychological self-flagellation.
But the point is that they could never be "emulated"; mystical or religious experience cannot, and should not have been, "institutionalised". Jesus and the Buddha certainly never intended that.
But since ancient religions "have" been institutionalised, their punishing requirements have been a perennial scourge for centuries as they "impose" religion, read psychological (and physical) asceticism, on their hapless adherents.
But here's the rub; in our now "enlightened" and materialistic times, Jesus' is a more impossible ideal than ever. This impossible ideal "metastasises" in some as self-loathing derived from sexual and material indulgence and, ironically, in others as a drive to "excesses" of the flesh--an open rebellion against an unrealistic scourge. These latter are the worst off; their guilt is merely buried deep, moreover they suffer the bodily maladies born of their moral rebellion--they are Falstaff's all.
This would make a good thesis: What are the effects of ideal ancient asceticism on modern cosmopolitan Wo/Man?
We see the effects most startlingly both in Middle Eastern terror and in the United State's righteous war against it!

Relda,

I wonder if others experiencing the horrors of war would have had similar thoughts to Tillich, say those facing the Mardian archers at the Battle of Issus or Maxentius’ soldiers confronting Constantine at Milvian Bridge. And many, many other wars up to today’s Afghanistan conflict, of course. I suspect Tillich, the soldier, would have had plenty of company (ahem).

Taking up the Milvian Bridge case, Constantine won, yet his army would have suffered death and injury. In what light would this tragedy been seen by the common soldiers (like Tillich)? “Has Sol Invictus abandoned me?” The victory was sweet for Constantine, but there was a huge human cost, despite God’s (Christ’s, Sol Invictus’ or whomsoever’s) patronage. Is this how God works?

Can you please elaborate on the notion that fabrications are permitted in Christianity, but not other religions? Herein, Christian scripture does not need to be taken literally, yet the scriptures of other religions must be dismissed as fabrications and any falsifications treated literal.

Picking up on Grim’s post, does the Christian God know Satan objectively? Does Christian God know what it is like to Satan? If not, Christian God is not all knowing. If so, the Christian God to some extent needs to be imminent in Satan.

>> As a claim without force, this ‘God’ does not physically or metaphysically intervene in nature.
>>This does not counter in any way the essence of Christianity,..

you've turned God into 'God' and claim it doesn't counter the essence of christianity? i have a feeling a couple of billions of christians might beg to differ. that doesn't mean you're wrong, but it means your "christianity" is dramatically different from what the overwhelming majority of self-professed christians believe it is.

let's say you're right. if 'god' doesn't intervene in any way, shape or form, then who cares? if it's merely a way of thinking, if there's only 'god' not god, that's fine. chat about what you like, think how you like. but then your dusty old book is nothing but a dusty old book, which stands or falls on its merits. any claim of divine inspiration is meaningless. in brief, you're welcome to your 'god', and we can agree there is no god.

Dear david f,
Jesus appeared to place a balance between the avoidance of conflict (somewhat akin to our idea of pacifism) and the right to defend oneself. We can certainly restrain or subdue our natural urge for violent reaction – but here, that’s not the issue, nor was it then.

Grim touches on the subject of morality, but it is likely the portrayal of the temple incident went far deeper than just exposing the ‘ripping-off’ of hostage ‘consumers’. The loud market-like atmosphere of money changers and livestock in the Temple are at odds with our likely anachronistic perceptions of ancient worship, which often involved the sacrificial slaughter of animals. That the understanding of pre-Christian ritualistic practices would intersect with any modern notions of contemplative worship (for many Christians at least) is probably a long stretch.

The reference to ‘den of thieves’ is most likely a reference to something more sinister, where a religious cult exploits the poor. The phrase makes to exaggerate and articulate the lecherousness of the traders. The accusation is leveled against the Temple authorities of thieving where deprived widows are pointed to as their victims. Dove sellers sold doves that were sacrificed by the poor who could not afford grander sacrifices – these were often women.

The overturning of the stations used by lepers and women had great symbolic effect. They represented the concrete mechanisms of oppression within a political economy that doubly exploited the poor and ‘unclean’. Not only were they considered ‘second class’, but the cult obliged them to make reparation, through sacrifices, for their inferior status - from which the marketers profited. Utterly repudiated by Jesus was the temple state, which is to say, the socio-symbolic order of Judaism. His objections were consistently based upon one criterion: the ‘system's’ exploitation of the poor.

Undoubtedly his accusation attacked the emoluments of the priestly class, which accordingly asked him to declare by what authority he had interfered with the sacrosanct arrangements of the Temple. His somewhat enigmatic reply placed his own claims on a level with those of John the Baptist, and gained popular support.