Could Jesus Have Predicted 70 CE?
Many New Testament scholars cite Jesus’ prediction of the temple’s destruction as a datapoint for dating the Gospels. According to Mark 13:2, Yeshua says to one of his disciples, “Do you see these large buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” Since the default tendency in secular scholarship is to disbelieve the possibility of predictive prophecy, many interpreters conclude that Mark must have been written after the fall of the temple; the evangelist, so the argument goes, writes after 70 CE and retrojects the realities of Roman destruction back onto Jesus’ lips. However, from an historical perspective, there is simply no reason to assume that Jesus did not envisage the temple’s demise ahead of time. While it's certainly true that the Messiah would have divine knowledge about this future event, one does not even need this appeal to the supernatural since Jesus was only one of several first-century figures to foresee the fall of the temple.
The Jewish historian Josephus records the rhetoric of another “Jesus”—a common name in first-century Israel—who also foretold the catastrophe of 70 CE. Josephus writes, “Four years before the war… Jesus (Ἰησοῦς),son of Ananias… began to call out, ‘A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the sanctuary, a voice against the bridegroom and the bride, a voice against all the people…. Woe to Jerusalem…. Woe once more to the city and to the people and to the temple’” (Jewish War 6.299-308). Jesus ben Ananias draws on the words of the prophet Jeremiah, who predicted the fall of the first temple under Babylon: “The cities of the Negev are shut up, with none to open them; all Judah is taken into exile…. Woe to you, Jerusalem (אוֹי לָךְ יְרוּשָׁלִַם; oy lakh yerushalaim). How long will it be before you are made clean? (Jer 13:19, 27).
Rabbinic literature also records the first-century rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai predicting the destruction of 70 CE. The Talmud says that “the doors of the temple would open by themselves until Rabbi Yohanan be Zakkai scolded them. He said, ‘O Temple, Temple, why do you frighten yourself? I know about you that you will be destroyed; Zechariah son of Iddo has already prophesied concerning you [saying], “Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars” [Zech 11:1]’” (Babylonian Talmud Yoma 39b; cf. Jerusalem Talmud Yoma 6:3). Here, Rabbi Yohanan reads Zechariah’s mention of “Lebanon” as a reference to the Jerusalem temple being burned. The rabbi’s terminology is similar to that of Yeshua in Matthew’s Gospel: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it…. Look, your house is left to you desolate” (Matt 23:37-38). Both Yeshua and Yohanan begin with repetitions—“Jerusalem, Jerusalem” and “Temple, Temple”—and they both express their visions via personifications of the city and temple, respectively. Thus, insofar as multiple first-century spokesmen expected the destruction of the temple, there is no reason to see Jesus’ prediction as an indication of a post-70 date for the Gospels. On the contrary, readers have a solid historical basis to assume that Jesus foretold the fall of the temple.
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