I rented The Last Temptation of Christ from Netflix. I had never seen it, nor read the book. It got me thinking (again, still, always) about Christianity, especially in relation to Judaism… which usually gets me in trouble of one sort or another.

I was struck particularly by the scenes in The Temple, the parts of The Gospels which I feel are the most condemning of Jewish society. The problem, as I see it, was not with the priestly nor the Temple system inherently. It is an emotionally disturbing thought to picture money changers around a place of worship making profit off of people’s piety. However, my understanding of the role of money in the Temple was that in a time of sacrificially-based worship where the pious would make pilgrimage from all corners of a nation in order to fulfil their religious/societal obligation, the transport of sacrificial animals, grains etc. over large distances sometimes covered entirely by foot, was too cumbersome, and as such a system of exhange was established whereby worshippers could change their sacrificial assets for money near their home, travel with the money to Jerusalem, and then buy a sacrificial animal there.

The real problem comes with the post-pre-exilic period (I have no idea if that’s a real term…) by which I mean the return from the first exile to Jerusalem under Persian, then Roman rule. Exilic Judaism is a very different animal from the Israelite Temple religion. Exilic Judaism is rooted in Scholarship and a more abstract worship in the form of prayer and community- and home-based ritual. This was the tradition in which Jesus (and many others including the Pharisees, though they apparently disagreed on the application of law) found the greater meaning and virtue.

After creating what was essentially a new form of the old religion, a portable Judaism which didn’t rely on location-specific active sacrifice but rather on the recollection thereof and the maintenance of peoplehood, loyalty to God and adherence to a law set, the Israelite people were suddenly returned to their land and encouraged to rebuild their temple, which creates a set of problems which end up dividing and nearly destroying the people.

to be continued…