Jesus, Prophet of Islam - The Islamic Bulletin

36 Jesus, Prophet ofIslam

This encounter is known as the 'deansing of the Temple'. John's
Gospel describes the event in these words:

IntheTemplecresus)foundthose whowereselling oxen

and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their

business. And making a whip of cord, he drove them

all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the Temple, and he

poured out the coins of the money-changers and over­

turned their tables. (John 2: 14-15).

Commenting on the words, 'whip of cord', Carmichael says:

They unmistakably imply violence and equally unmis­

takably represent a sort of minimal toning down of what

actual1y must have been a massive undertaking. If we

simply imagine the size of the Temple, the tens and thou­

sands of pilgrims thronging into and through it, the

numerous attendants, the police force, the Roman sol­

diers, as weIl as the normal reaction of the ex-drivers

themselves, to say nothing of the money-changers, we

see that it must have taken much more than mere sur­

prise to have accomplished it at all. The scene behind

this fragmentary recollection in the fourth Gospel must

have been vastly different. The chronicler has softened

it by ,spiritualising' it out of all reality. 15

One of the lessons of every freedom fighter has been that the local
police tend to have their sympathies with the patriots and not with
the army of occupation. This could have been a contributing factor
in the complete collapse of the defence of the Temple.
The Romans had suffered a local setback, but their power was
not crushed. They called for reinforcements, and fresh troops be­
gan to move towards [erusalem. The defence of the gate of [erusa­
lem lasted for a few days, but ultimately the Roman army proved
too strong for the patriots, and all the followers of Jesus melted
away. Even the disciples ran away, leaving Jesus with very few
men around mm. Jesus went underground, and the Romans began
an intensive search to find him.
The'arrest', the 'trial', and the'crucifixion' are hedged about
with 50 many contradictions and mis-statements, that it is extremely
difficult to untangle and penetrate through them in order to arrive

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