Gentiles and Crap<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As we continued working our way through Hebrews today in my Sunday school class, the mention of the curtain (separating the holy place from the most holy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/06\/gentiles-and-crap.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gentiles and Crap\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As we continued working our way through Hebrews today in my Sunday school class, the mention of the curtain (separating the holy place from the most holy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/06\/gentiles-and-crap.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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{"id":14850,"date":"2013-06-09T13:36:54","date_gmt":"2013-06-09T17:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=14850"},"modified":"2013-06-09T13:36:54","modified_gmt":"2013-06-09T17:36:54","slug":"gentiles-and-crap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/06\/gentiles-and-crap.html","title":{"rendered":"Gentiles and Crap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ In talking about the possible meanings of the action of Jesus in the temple (sometimes called the \u201ccleansing of the temple\u201d or the \u201ctemple tantrum\u201d), I listed the issue of the presence of animals in the court of the Gentiles bringing impurity, and next to it the issue of the presence of animals interfering with Gentiles coming to worship there. For the first time, it struck me that the two possibilities can be combined. Those who thought it acceptable to bring animals into (and as a result have their dung in) the court of the nations must have considered and articulated the view that, just as Gentiles are inherently impure (that is why they are not allowed further in), additional impurity from animal dung is no big deal. In other words, non-Jews and dung are being equated, whether subtly or bluntly.<\/p>\n

And so the driving out of animals, and the reference to the temple being a \u201chouse of prayer for all nations\u201d may be closely and naturally connected. Whether or not these particular aims are traceable to the historical figure of Jesus is another matter, which we didn\u2019t get into.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ Since we were up to the end of Hebrews 6, and then into chapter 7, we looked at some of the specific allusions to Scripture. Of particular interest is the use of Genesis 22. There was clearly a substantial amount of Christian reflection on this text prior to the earliest of our extant written sources. The notion that \u201cGod did not spare his only Son\u201d make an obvious echo to the passage. On this, see Nils Dahl\u2019s 1969 article, \u201cThe Atonement \u2013 an adequate reward for the Akedah?\u201d in\u00a0Neotestamentica et<\/em> Semitica.\u00a0<\/em>It is only when one is able to identify some of the assumed connections between Jesus and texts in Jewish Scripture that were already familiar to Christians that the author\u2019s logic begins to become penetrable.<\/p>\n

I also showed them the image a former student of mine made, showing the scale of the temple in relation to the Butler University campus<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"