Here, at the beginning of the Olivet Discourse, the longest speech in Mark and perhaps the oldest written document about Yeshua/Jesus, Yeshua responds to the disciples question of “When the heck is the Temple going to be destroyed??!!” with a bunch of false signs which won’t tell them much of anything because, as He says, “These are all just part of normal life.” And so why, when so many non-scholars read them, do they get moved out of the immediate context and into predictions of still future events?
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3 And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” 5 And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. 7 And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains. 9 “But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them. 10 And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations. 11 And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. 12 And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. 13 And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have six years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that shows them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.
All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. A list of my resources can be found attached to the transcript for Part two of this series at theancientbridge.com.
3 And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately
Now, if you tuned in last week, you remember that Yeshua/Jesus had just exited from the Temple complex with His disciples after all of the disputations with the various leadership factions. After delivering the damning Parable of the Tenants and the Vineyard against them and accusing them pre-emptively of murder and rebellion, they have decided to kill Him. Yeshua signed His own death warrant. Seemingly oblivious to the extent of the drama, the young disciples begin gawking over the Temple complex, which was undoubtedly a wonder of the ancient world. Yeshua responds by telling them that it will all be destroyed and evidently does it in such a way as they do not doubt Him. Whereas only one remarked on the grandeur of the many buildings of the Temple complex, and He told all of them of the impending destruction, only four come to Him privately to ask him a question. And surprisingly, it isn’t three this time. Usually, it is the three—Peter, James and John but this time Peter’s brother Andrew joins them. So, we have the original Fab Four.
One more thing, they have waited until they have left Jerusalem to speak to Him. The fact that they retreated to the Mount of Olives should remind us of the account of the Presence of the Lord departing from Solomon’s Temple in Ezekiel 11:21-23, after Ezekiel was shown all the abominations being performed there: “But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord God.” Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city.” Again, as it was before the Babylonian exile, the Temple and the leadership stand condemned and the Spirit of God, who only ever visited this Temple in the person of Yeshua, has left and will never return to it, heralding its destruction.
4 “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?”
There are two questions here that cannot be separated from Yeshua’s Covenant Lawsuit indictment against the Temple and its leadership. We cannot change the subject and make this about a future tribulation completely stripped from the context of the prophesied destruction of the Temple but that’s exactly what so many people do. Two questions. The first is “When will these things be?” What things? Let’s go back to verse 2—”And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” So, let’s rephrase the question from the four—“When will the Temple complex be destroyed?” Because, it isn’t one building. It was truly a city on a hill. The “Temple” itself, the Heikal, was just at the center. It was immediately surrounded by four huge buildings, each joined together by walled in gatehouses. To the west was another courtyard surrounded with smaller rooms and gates. The Temple was a fortress. For that matter, so was the entire Mount and insanely defendable. Which was why it was so difficult for invaders to breach it and especially with the Herodian Improvements. This is, however, exactly why the Romans took over the Antonia, the fortress that sat on the northeastern corner of the Temple Mount and actually emptied into the Court of the Gentiles. In addition to all of this, along the outside edges of the greatly expanded platform from Hasmonean and Herodian improvements, which we see today and is huge compared to the original 500×500 amot platform of Solomon—all around the edges were huge colonnades. I am not kidding in calling it a city with its own government, commerce, and infrastructure. To bring it down was no small thing, and so their first question is when. Shockingly, they never asked how. I would want to know how. Divine judgement could spare Jerusalem but foreign invaders would not.
Second question—what will be the sign of when all these things are about to happen? Again, same things—the destruction of the Temple complex, the city on a hill. And Yeshua, well, being Yeshua He isn’t going to answer them right away. What He is going to do is give them a list of things that are going to happen that aren’t signs—and the reason why is very important.
5 And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray.”
First of all, we have a new theme word—blepo. Which, I know, sounds hilariously unimpressive. Sounds like a failed soft drink brand name. But it is very important because it means, “Be on your guard” even though it is translated as “see” in the above verse. So, it isn’t a mild kind of suggestion. This is borderline harsh. They have asked for a sign and He replies with something like, “Hey there, get your focus where it needs to be so that you aren’t going to be easy pickings for the pretenders that are coming!” This is very parental, very much a stern warning.
Why does He say this to them? Frankly, because they are committing the classic blunder, on full display from the Pharisees in Mark 8, of asking for signs. In Matthew’s version of the account, in chapters 12 and 16, Yeshua calls their generation evil and adulterous for even asking. And we are like that—we want to know the future, right? But Yeshua is warning us here that wanting to know the future makes us vulnerable to deception and distraction. And we’re going to talk about some examples from their immediate national future where there were those promising signs and wonders who would lead the people astray—to their deaths even. But Yeshua, in the Olivet Discourse, it not going to give them what they wanted—He’s flat out going to tell them that they are going to have to cope with ignorance. They are not going to know what it is they want to know but will be called to endure faithfully until the end—their own end, come to find out. But as for the distractions and temptations of false prophets during times of turmoil we have a couple handy.
Josephus tells this account from during the procuratorship of Fadus, who served from 44-46 CE: NOW it came to pass, while Fadus was procurator of Judea, that a certain magician, whose name was Theudas, persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them, and follow him to the river Jordan; for he told them he was a prophet, and that he would, by his own command, divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it; and many were deluded by his words. However, Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt, but sent a troop of horsemen out against them; who, falling upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them, and took many of them alive. They also took Theudas alive, and cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem. This was what befell the Jews in the time of Cuspius Fadus’s government. (Antiquities 20.5.1)
Then there was this account from circa 66 CE at the beginning of the Great Revolt: “There was also another body of wicked men gotten together, not so impure in their actions, but more wicked in their intentions, which laid waste the happy state of the city no less than did these murderers. These were such men as deceived and deluded the people under pretense of Divine inspiration, but were for procuring innovations and changes of the government; and these prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen, and went before them into the wilderness, as pretending that God would there show them the signals of liberty. But Felix thought this procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt; so he sent some horsemen and footmen both armed, who destroyed a great number of them But there was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet also, and got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by him; these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which was called the Mount of Olives, and was ready to break into Jerusalem by force from that place; and if he could but once conquer the Roman garrison and the people, he intended to domineer over them by the assistance of those guards of his that were to break into the city with him. But Felix prevented his attempt, and met him with his Roman soldiers, while all the people assisted him in his attack upon them, insomuch that when it came to a battle, the Egyptian ran away, with a few others, while the greatest part of those that were with him were either destroyed or taken alive; but the rest of the multitude were dispersed every one to their own homes, and there concealed themselves. (The Wars Of The Jews, 2:13:4-5)
6 Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.
We saw above some of the reasons for the warning. Jeremiah said the same thing in Chapter 14:13-16, “Then I said: “Ah, Lord God, behold, the prophets say to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place.’” And the Lord said to me: “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name although I did not send them, and who say, ‘Sword and famine shall not come upon this land’: By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed. And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and sword, with none to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. For I will pour out their evil upon them.”
In the same way as had happened under Jeremiah before the Babylonian conquest, as things heated up in Jerusalem and Judea over the coming decades, there would be pretenders popping up—claiming authority and position and voice that they do not possess to speak on behalf of God. People who want signs and to know the future will forever be deceived by false prophets. They would make big promises, the kinds of promises that desperate, oppressed, overtaxed, and angry people love to hear but they would be empty lies and people would die. They would be led to their deaths for any number of reasons. Some were convinced to retreat into the Temple as the armies gathered and they ended up starving or falling to the factional zealot against zealot violence or committing suicide or dying in the flames that engulfed the Temple or taken into slavery—all because they believed the assurances of false prophets that God was going to destroy the Roman army at any moment and save them from destruction. Yeshua is warning them ahead of time that it will not be the case. In relating the deaths of all the people who sought refuge in the Temple, Josephus says this about the many who were led astray:
A false prophet was the occasion of these people’s destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get upon the temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Now there was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose on the people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait for deliverance from God; and this was in order to keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. Now a man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of hopes of such his deliverance. (Wars 6.5.2)
But not all voices were promising destruction of the Romans and salvation. There were some who were prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. There were also omens in the sky and in the Temple itself, as we talked about last week.
Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. (Wars 6.5.3)
The really tragic thing is that all this confusion and deception would happen all over again in the Kitis War of 115-117 CE and twenty years later under a man called bar Kochba, a Messianic pretender backed by Rabbi Akiva.
7 And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet.
Wars and rumors of wars are a normal part of life, but Yeshua is telling them not to pay any attention to it. In fact, what is translated here as “do not be alarmed”, again, is blepo. This is again a stern warning not to be distracted. The end of the Temple and Jerusalem is not immediately in sight. Seriously, they are living on the border between the Roman empire and the Parthian empire! Over the course of the next four decades, there’s going to be an unending succession of drama and skirmishes there and everywhere. Caligula Caesar would be assassinated. Claudius was possibly murdered by his own wife. Nero had to flee from Rome and later killed himself. Then came the year of the four emperors. Herod Antipas got into a war with his former father-in-law. There were always problems. But they would have to ignore them—and we will be told why later. As the Roman historian Tacitus wrote, “The history on which I am entering is that of a period rich in disasters, terrible with battles, torn by civil struggles, horrible even in peace. Four emperors fell by the sword; there were three civil wars, more foreign wars, and often both at the same time.” (The Histories, 1:2).
But there is more here than just being told not to be distracted. How are such times distracting and especially for men? There is always the temptation to take up arms and fight. And as we have seen from the stories of the false prophets, they convinced many to do just that—to no avail. Jerusalem and the Temple are a lost cause and not their battle to be fought. From the beginning of His ministry, Yeshua has been showing them that their battles are not against flesh and blood. Theirs is the path of non-violence. They will all die and many of them violently, but they will not die as, say, the false prophet Joseph Smith, with a gun in his hand and willing to kill to preserve his own life.
8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.
I already shared from Tacitus about the terrible wars that rocked the Roman and Parthian empires within and without. But there were also a great many earthquakes, ones which especially would have been known to the Marcan audience centered in Rome. Here is another one of his writings describing events during the reign of Claudius, “Many prodigies occurred during the year. Ominous birds took their seat on the Capitol; houses were overturned by repeated shocks of earthquake, and, as the panic spread, the weak were trampled underfoot in the trepidation of the crowd. A shortage of corn, again, and the famine which resulted, were construed as a supernatural warning.” (The Annals of Imperial Rome, 12:43). There are also records of earthquakes in the years leading up to the destruction of the Temple—including a very destructive one in Pompei in 62 CE but also in Laodicea, Hierapolis and Colossae in 60 CE. “That same year one of Asia’s famous cities, Laodicea, collapsed in an earthquake, but recovered through its own resources with no help from us.” (Tacitus The Annals 14:27). Josephus, in Wars 4.4.5, reported a storm so terrible during the siege that he described it as being like an earthquake and any of you people who have lived in like Missouri and experienced one of those lightning storms and if you have ever had a strike close to you, you know he ain’t kidding. I grew up in California and I went through several earthquakes and none were as impactful or scary as what happened to my house when we had lightning take down a tree next to the house.
The famine mentioned above was also prophesied by Agabus as recorded in the book of Acts 11:27-28, “Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius).” Josephus also wrote about it, “Now her coming was of very great advantage to the people of Jerusalem; for whereas a famine did oppress them at that time, and many people died for want of what was necessary to produce food withal, queen Helena sent some of her servants to Alexandria with money to buy a great quantity of corn, and others to Cyprus, to bring a cargo of dried figs” (Antiquities, 20:2:5). But these are common events that signify nothing. They have happened from the beginning and will continue through all of time. And that’s a good thing to keep in mind whenever there are natural disasters. It’s the way of the world. It isn’t weird. It isn’t divine judgement when a hurricane hits Florida or any of the Gulf states. It isn’t a judgement when an earthquake hits California or Idaho. Those things are normal. Or when fires consume the western states in the summer and fall. Or when Malaria ravages Africa or other tropical locales. Now, if a hurricane hits Idaho then, yeah, totally divine judgment because it’s weird. If fires rage across Alaska, weird. But Yeshua is saying that this sort of thing doesn’t qualify as a sign because it’s always happened and always will. Some people are just gleefully itching for divine judgment just as long as it affects someone else’s family. It’s frankly really sick. Like Yeshua says, these aren’t even birth pangs. They are like the beginning of them. The normal stuff is the beginning. Nothing to see here, folks. Go about your business!
9 “But be on your guard.
Okay, here we have blepo again. That stern warning. Don’t be on guard about wars or rumors about wars or earthquakes all over the place or famines. None of that—it’s beneath your notice. You’ll have bigger fish to fry and other things to worry about. Now, the subject changes to what they need to pay attention to:
For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them.
This is what you need to worry about and not all that stuff that will send everyone scattering and freaking out. And, you have to think right now that all of a sudden, the Temple being destroyed is the least of their concerns. Here, they were wanting insider information and signs of the coming destruction and not only didn’t they get a single sign, but the other shoe drops and the news is really, really bad. Probably with the exception of Peter, these are little more than teenagers. They had originally thought they would be following a Rabbi and becoming important men, and then it appeared that they were the inside men to the new Davidic king, the Messianic conqueror, himself. And then, Yeshua begins to tell these guys that He won’t be the Messiah they are looking for. He’s going to die, horribly and now He is saying that they will be arrested and beaten themselves. Whoever it was that was marveling about the Temple buildings is probably sorry now that he said anything at all. These are largely uneducated, small town guys—fishermen, maybe some farmers, one or two tax collectors if Matthew and James son of Alphaeus are brothers. Being told they will be delivered over–paradidomi, which as you recall is never good and carries with it the notion of betrayal, to councils aka sanhedrins, and that in the synagogues they will be beaten. Oh, we have to talk about that—being beaten in the synagogues was part of administrative justice, okay? If you were leaving the synagogue for good, you wouldn’t submit to a beating. They were not separating from the synagogues, they were just going to be non-violently enduring persecution as the price tag for continuing to preach the Gospel.
They would also, and here’s where it would get really scary for them, be brought before governors and kings. Educated men. Powerful men. Foreigners, which is even worse! Sometimes we forget that these were real people—and really young people at that. Can you even imagine how intimidating this idea is? Bad enough they have to remain in the synagogues and endure the lashes in order to continue to give Yeshua’s message, but at least those are their own people whom whom they can expect some mercy. Not kings though. Not governors. Not foreigners. That’s where people went to die—horribly.
10 And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations.
And here is their second thing to be focused on. Again, not the wars or rumors of wars or the earthquakes or famines but the job, their job, of proclaiming the message of the Kingdom to the nations. It’s almost as though He is telling them, “Let those without eyes to see and ears to hear panic and pay attention to those other things—you, follow me and preach this message to the ends of the earth.” Ignore appearances. Your life will not look like their lives. And this was probably just as scary as appearing before the governors and kings. These kids had probably never left Galilee and Judea except for with Yeshua and briefly at that. They weren’t world travelers. How are they even going to do it? That had to be on their minds. But of course, it has been the plan all along, that they would be a light to the Gentiles—that was the true intention for them being called in the first place. Even though, as we will see in Acts, they weren’t really keen on leaving the borders of Eretz Israel until they were forced to. Gee, glad God never has to force us to do stuff….
11 And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.
“And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over…” that right there must have been pretty depressing. Maybe they were like, “Maybe he’s just talking about Peter, because, dang, dat boi. Maybe it won’t happen to me. But no, we have a promise that this is in their future and that they will not only be tried but also paradidomi, delivered over—which, in the Bible, is usually to the Gentiles in order to be killed. But they are commanded not to be anxious about it ahead of time either concocting speeches or getting educated or whatever because they were not being left to their own devices or cleverness. They are told not to even give it a thought to learning judicial procedures or to how to speak to powerful, educated and clever people but that the Holy Spirit of God would speak through them as He did with the prophets of old—and perhaps even as He had been doing when they went out in two’s. We really don’t know. But Yeshua is promising a prophetic level of empowerment—the kind that Elijah and Elisha and Isaiah and Jeremiah had. They spoke to kings and were bold about their testimony. Yeshua is telling them that it will be the same for them. I want you to imagine hearing this as an uneducated fisherman, as all four of these young men were. This was a concrete promise that the Spirit of prophecy and that level of anointing would fall on them.
However, there is also something else here. Words are promised. Through the Spirit even, but no deliverance or acquittal is promised in these trials. They will witness with the power and authority of the prophets of old and they will do it with the same guarantees—none at all. Many of the prophets were killed performing their missions. The disciples would face the same.
12 And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death.
This is the painful part. For as much as you and I might love our families, we are largely individualistic. We can even move away from them and be content. Ancient times were not the same. People were all part of a larger dyadic or community based mindset where you found your entire identity not only in your associations but in your family. You were “son of” or “daughter of” or whatever, of the clan such and such of a larger people. You weren’t your own person—such a concept didn’t even exist in those days, where you could be a unique individual and no one cares about where you are from or your family and your identity isn’t bound up with theirs. You can be excellent or a goat on your own and your reputation isn’t bound up with theirs. But in those days, you were your family and they were you. Dishonor to one was ruinous to the entire family—financially, socially, and in every other way. If you dishonored the family as a man, perhaps your family business would be destroyed and they would starve and your sisters couldn’t find husbands. If you were dishonored as a woman, you would likely be killed in order to restore family honor and save them all from ruin. On one hand, families were close in ways that we can’t imagine—on the other hand, they were for better or worse all desperately dependent on everyone following the social rules. Following Yeshua was going to have consequences not only with the leadership, foreign and domestic, but also with families scrambling for acceptability within the communities. This was specifically why Yeshua said things like, “You must hate your own family” and “here are your mother, brothers, and sisters.” Yeshua had to create a new system where more honor aka loyalty aka love was owed to this new family in Yeshua than to the community/family unit that depended on them to be normal and respectable. Family members would turn on one another—we have already seen this with Yeshua’s own family, who would rather see Him branded as crazy instead of as a false prophet. As funny as it is, in retrospect, His brothers (James and Jude at least) were given positions of prominence within the early congregations because of familial associations—due to this same honor/shame dynamic, even though they rejected Him while He was ministering.
Yeshua is telling them that not only will they be rejected, but handed over, paradidomi again, to death. And they would do this in order to avoid persecution themselves. Just think of what would happen if your kid or sibling or whoever—if they began or joined a crazy cult that was turning the world upside down. You’d just be worried or embarrassed but no one would start harassing you at work or refuse to do business with you, unless they were a total jerk. But to these guys, it was a matter of life and death.
13 And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
There was no way to dress this up nicely. He’s offering them no hope of the popularity they once fantasized and debated about. “Who would be the greatest among them” indeed? Now, they were just wondering who would live the longest. And yet, here we have this wonderful promise that pops up in the prophets and in apocalyptic writings—you will have tribulation because of me but if you endure then you will be saved. You may die but you will experience the reward and resurrection of the righteous. We see that in the prophets and Daniel and Revelation. We also see that in some of the apocryphal writings because such encouragements and warnings and promises were very common motifs in Second Temple era Judaism. Whenever anyone was facing temptation to give up or give in or to collaborate, we see this kind of writing telling people to expect harsh treatment but telling them that there is a reason to endure. In the Hebrew Bible, the resurrection of the dead is not really seen in their beliefs. It really only shows up in Daniel, which was probably written during Hellenistic times. Before that, they had the idea of Sheol, the underworld, and we aren’t seeing them talking about the resurrection. But throughout Hellenistic times, we see it as a theme. I have no idea when it happened or why—it seems to be very much a mystery when they began to see the Resurrection as a reality. Certainly, Yeshua preached it but it was already on the scene before He ever got there.
One more thing here—all these things that Yeshua is telling them will happen to them—the trial, and the being delivered over, the beatings, the standing before governors, the being hated and rejected by relatives and betrayed by brothers and children—this is what is about to happen to Yeshua. There will be a trial, He will he handed over to the Gentiles, He will stand before Pilate, He will be beaten, He will be abandoned by His closest associates and even betrayed to death. If it happens to Him, they can obviously expect it too.
Next week, we will be talking about the Abomination which causes desolation and about the meaning of the phrase “let the reader understand”—and how ironic it is.
