The Photo shows stones from the Second Temple in Jerusalem thrown by the Romans who destroyed the city in the 1st century AD. Robinson’s Arch is visible above the Herodian street in the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount. It was named after scholar Edward Robinson who discovered it. The arch supported a large staircase which was buit by Herod the Great as part of the expansion of the Temple Mount. Ophel Archaeological Park. GPS: N31.77580°, E35.23594°.
Note on the recording: the recording from No one wants this that comes towards the end of this recording is garbled but you can hear the clear version below in the text.
It is not an exaggeration- though it may come as a surprise to some when I say that the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70AD was a seismic event – the shock waves from which continue to ricochet down the historical timeline. In the Jewish Revolt from 68-70AD, the Romans laid waste across the Jewish homeland in town and countryside – culminating in the catastrophe of the Temple’s destruction along with much of Jerusalem around it.
It’s interesting to speculate had the Temple continued as the national and religious center of Jewish life might the subsequent course of Jewish-Christian relations have followed a different trajectory? If the Jews had not been forced into diaspora by Roman devastation of town and countryside – becoming the perpetually resented other at the heart of Christian Europe – might the long and sorrowful history of antisemitism have been avoided?
Imagine, no antisemitism, no Holocaust, no need for the Zionist project and the creation of a Jewish state – no Nakba expulsion of Palestinians from their historic lands -no Jewish-Israeli Arab conflict – no Intifada – no Gaza or West Bank – no denial of Palestinian statehood through military occupation and illegal settlements. What if there had continued an evolution of Jewish life in the biblical homeland whatever the wider imperial superstructure of the region. What if no post-1914 British and French power grab – drawing impossible nation-state borderlines in the sand. Instead, imagine a collage of Jewish and Arab communities living side by side – enjoying the same rights and freedoms of religious and community expression in contrast with the drawing of sharp ethnic divisions between Jewish and Arab identities. As with all alternative visions of history, we can only dream.
For fledgling Christianity, the destruction of the Temple was also a seminal event reshaping early Christian memories of Jesus and redefining the subsequent development of post-Temple Jewish-Christian rivalries as the early Church and Rabbinic movements vied for supremacy in an increasingly hostile race for the heart and soul of post-Temple religious reconstruction.
For Mark, writing around 70AD, the destruction of the Temple is a contemporaneous event of such significance that surely Jesus must have prophetically predicted it 40 years before it came to pass. In service of the theological purpose of his narrative – Mark, therefore, puts words into Jesus’ mouth – establishing a long gospel tradition of projecting late 1st and 2nd-century Christian-Jewish tensions into Jesus’ relations with the Pharisees and other Jewish sects in the early 1st-century Jewish homeland.
In chapter 13, Mark presents Jesus after several days teaching his disciples in the Temple precincts. Mark records him leaving the Temple with his disciples – one of whom remarks on the massive stones in the Temple’s construction. Even with our contemporary engineering capabilities the construction of Herod’s great Second Temple is still awe-inspiring. Standing before the Wailing Wall we can still imagine the size of the original Temple Mount platform upon which the Muslim Dome of the Rock now stands. Jesus responds with a prophecy that not one stone shall remain upon another – for all will be thrown down. Mark makes no mention here of Jesus’ claim to rebuild the ruined Temple in three days. We need to wait for John to embellish his version of Mark’s story in 2:19 with this detail.
On the Mount of Olives facing the Temple Mount across the Kidron Valley, his disciples ask for clarification on when his prophecy of the Temple’s destruction will happen. Jesus avoids the direct question and begins to warn them about the dangers of mis and disinformation campaigns that will sow the seeds of confusion – seducing many and leading them astray by false claims of leadership in his name. He warns them not to be alarmed by news of conflict and rumors of wars – such will be necessary to herald a true vision capable of taking them into the future. But for the future to arrive it must begin in the painful stage of birthing that must first destroy the familiar patterns of life as they knew it.
Jesus in Mark 13 is presented as laying out his eschatological vision. Eschatology is theology of expectation that constructs a sweeping view of events that will mark the end of the present age in preparation for an end time. In chapter 13 Mark reminds the first Christians that Jesus’ conception of Messiahship begins not in a triumph in the present age but in a series of events of impending disaster culminating in his eventual triumphal coming again at the end of time as judge and savior of the whole world. But first, the kingdom of God must be born through a process marked by great convulsions and upheavals heralding the arrival of the end time.
When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; This must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and Kingdom against Kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.
Christians throughout history have associated major convulsion and upheaval in the socio-political and economic fabric as heralding the imminence of the end time. Yet for most of us whose lives have been lived in the peace and predictability of the post-1945 Pax Americana – an expectation of the end time has been confined to millenarian sects while the rest of us accepted that the world – as we experienced it – had now come of age – marked by a time of social and scientific progress accompanied by the steady growth of economic prosperity.
Yet, we now awake to find ourselves in a world where war and rumor of wars disrupt our sleep. A world in which many are being led astray by the dark arts of dis and misinformation – perpetrated by foreign actors and aided and abetted by the charlatans of the political class who have no interest other than the accumulation of power beyond limit.
The last four years of the Biden Administration may well be seen in the rearview mirror of history as that last gasp of a world we grew up to expect. From now on things are going to be markedly different.
Last week Bishop Nicholas commented on the recent election results suggesting we don’t yet know what any of this means. Well, maybe? What is clear is that a majority of voters voted for change. Motives for doing so seem mixed with no clear vision for what change will look like. It’s the time and tested response – of repeating failed choices in the hope of a different result.
As a scientist, Bishop Nicholas in essence reframed the gist of Jesus’ words in Mark 13 with the scientific observation of large systems transitioning from one stable phase to another. He commented that as it nears that point of change, fluctuations in a system become larger and more frequent. This is why water gets cloudy before it freezes or boils—the fluctuations signal that a significant change is coming. In our current political system, the jury’s still out on whether the direction of change is towards freezing or boiling.
Beyond endless analysis of what has now happened the more pressing question is – so how will we weather the convulsions and upheavals of the large socio-political paradigm change that is upon us?
Reading Mark 13 our attention is captured by the dire nature of Jesus predictions – because they mirror the instabilities we are now experiencing. Adding to the socio-political instabilities we should not fail to note instability in the largest system of all – the environment of the planet. Thus we are likely to miss the line where Jesus tells us not to be alarmed by the process that must take place – a process he identified as the beginning of the birth pangs. What are birth pangs other than the signal that new life is on the way?
In the Netflix romcom, Nobody Wants This – a sexy, youngish rabbi and his remarkably godless gentile girlfriend find themselves in a restaurant talking about the meaning of Shabbat. Listen
Buildings – and the systems they represent – may crumble – but that doesn’t matter – what matters is gathering with people we care about and who care for us. In the time that is upon us – solidarity, caring for one another in communities of solidarity and support – together sheltering within the protection of belonging – this has always been for Christians – and is now for us – the best survival strategy for enduring the birth pangs that will in the end result in the arrival of new birth. This is Jesus’ message to us about the promises of God – and God is always faithful.
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