The Apprentice Apostle

I Was There When Jesus Cleaned the Temple

I’ve never seen anything like it

Passover was coming, and Jesus decided to visit Jerusalem and the Temple.

What a sight! People milling about. The vendors shouting their wares. The horrible sound of the ceremonial slaughtering of thousands of animals and the smell of blood everywhere.

Bulls, rams, goats, oxen, turtledoves, and pigeons were sacrificed. James knows far more than I do and told me these sacrifices were called korbanot and the way they were slaughtered, shechita.

The sacrifices were burned on an altar, making them divine.

I’m not sure I understood everything. My family was casual about our faith. They sent us to a Jewish school and expected the teachers and the priests to take care of that side of our lives.

But my eyes were fixed on Jesus. He did not look happy and stared at the moneylenders. James explained to me that every animal had to be perfect. Also, every man over 19 had to pay a temple tax. The serious-looking men I saw were tax collectors who collected the money and officials who looked over the animals to ensure they were perfect.

This is where the moneylenders came in. The officials would not accept a coin bearing the image of the Roman Emperor, so the people with Roman coins had to pay to exchange their money for the Tyrian shekel.

James had the right money. There were so many people that he stayed with me. He’d been to the Temple before and knew what to expect. I wanted to sacrifice something, but it was a problem. I could not afford a larger animal, and as I had a cove of tame doves at home with which my sister played, it felt wrong to sacrifice a dove.

The next moment, there was a roar, and I recognized Jesus’ voice. He had made a whip out of cords and was chasing out all the sheep and the oxen. He poured out all the moneylenders’ money and kicked over their table.

It was amazing to see him in this role. He was so fierce and angry. He told them to get their animals out of there and not to make his Father’s house a market.

Everyone was quiet that night. The disciples had not seen Jesus angry before and didn’t know what to make of it.

Neither did I.

— The Apprentice Apostle