Culture, Critics & Coercion - part 1

We could outline our overall passage like this:

The Cultural Context vv.22-23

The Crooked Con-Job v.24

The Confounding Counter vv.25-27

The Constant which Comforts vv.28-30

The Conspiracy of Coercion v.31 etc. etc.

The Cover-Up Confronted v.32-39

The Cultural Context

At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. (10:22-23)

John’s note that it was now the time of the Feast of the Dedication sets the stage for the next episode.

There is a gap of approximately two months between verse 21 (which is still set at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles [7:2, 10, 37]) and verse 22.

Some commentators think that Jesus left Jerusalem during that two-month period, because verse 22 calls attention to Jerusalem again as the setting for this dialogue.

Others believe our Lord remained in the vicinity of Jerusalem, because verse 22 does not say again that He went up to Jerusalem—and THAT’s the usual wording for going to the city from another region (cf. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ,; ; ,; ).

I think the first view is slightly more speculative, since the gospels do not explicitly say that Jesus returned UP to Jerusalem nor that Jesus was somewhere else during those two months…nor would they imply that He HAD to return for a non-compulsory feast.

This Jewish tradition is known today as Hanukkah which means the Feast of Lights.

(It’s called that because of the celebration using lamps and candles; they’re still lit in Jewish homes to this day as part of the commemoration.)

The Feast of the Dedication was celebrated on the twenty-fifth day of the Jewish month Chislev (Nov.–Dec.).

It was not one of the feasts legally prescribed in the Old Testament Law.

Rather, it originated during the intertestamental period.

The feast commemorated the Israelites’ victory over the infamous Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes (175–164 b.c.).

This Antiochus was an extreme devotee of Greek religion & culture.

So, Antiochus, in a decree given by him in 167 b.c., sought to impose his religious philosophy upon all his subjects in a process known as Hellenization.

Antiochus had captured Jerusalem and desecrated the temple in 170 b.c. by sacrificing a pig on the Temple-altar;

he set up a pagan altar in its place, and then erected a statue of Zeus in the most holy place, the holy of holies.

He attempted to systematically stamp out Judaism and in doing so Antiochus brutally oppressed the Jews.

For their part the Jews most often clung tenaciously to their religious practices.

Under this despot’s direction, the Jews were forcibly required to offer sacrifices to pagan gods;

they were not allowed to own or read the Old Testament Scriptures, and copies of it were destroyed;

and they were forbidden to perform such mandatory religious practices as observing the Sabbath and circumcising children.

QUOTE: Ancient Devotion to Old Testament Scripture

Nearly two centuries prior to the rise of the church, Jewish communities showed the same zeal for Old Testament teaching and commands that Jesus and the early church did.

These excerpts from the Old Testament Apocrypha dramatize that zeal.

The hostile “king” is Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Syrian overlord of Jerusalem 175–163 B.C.

… the king sent an Athenian senator [to Jerusalem] to compel the Jews to forsake the laws of their fathers and cease to live by the laws of God, and also to pollute the temple in Jerusalem and call it the temple of Olympian Zeus.… Harsh and utterly grievous was the onslaught of evil. For the temple was filled with debauchery and reveling by the Gentiles, who dallied with harlots and had intercourse with women within the sacred precincts.… It happened also that seven [Jewish] brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to partake of unlawful swine’s flesh. One of them, acting as their spokesman, said, “What do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers.” The king fell into a rage, and gave orders that pans and caldrons be heated. These were heated immediately, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on. When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The smoke from the pat spread widely, but the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, “The Lord God is watching over us and in truth be compassion on us, as Moses declared.…” —, ;

Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough, Encountering the New Testament: A Historical and Theological Survey, Second Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005) p.25

Antiochus was the 1st & most notorious pagan king to persecute the Jews for their religion in this way.

That’s why he was predicted in prophecy (cf. ,; ). [John F. MacArthur Comm]

Antiochus’ savage persecution caused the pious Jews to rise in revolt, led by a priest named Mattathias and his sons.

After three years of guerilla warfare the Jews, under the brilliant military leadership of Judas Maccabeus (the son of Mattathias), were able to retake Jerusalem.

On 25 Chislev 164 b.c., they liberated the temple, rededicated it, and established the Feast of Dedication.

This apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees recounts an historical version of the story:

Now Maccabeus and his followers, the Lord leading them on, recovered the temple and the city;

and they tore down the altars which had been built in the public square by the foreigners, and also destroyed the sacred precincts.

They purified the sanctuary, and made another altar of sacrifice;

then, striking fire out of flint, they offered sacrifices, after a lapse of two years,

and they burned incense and lighted lamps and set out the bread of the Presence.

And when they had done this, they fell prostrate and besought the Lord that they might never again fall into such misfortunes,

but that, if they should ever sin, they might be disciplined by him with forbearance and not be handed over to blasphemous and barbarous nations.

It happened that on the same day on which the sanctuary had been profaned by the foreigners, the purification of the sanctuary took place, that is, on the twenty-fifth day of the same month, which was Chislev.

And they celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the feast of booths, remembering how not long before, during the feast of booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals.

Therefore bearing ivy-wreathed wands and beautiful branches and also fronds of palm, they offered hymns of thanksgiving to him who had given success to the purifying of his own holy place.

They decreed by public ordinance and vote that the whole nation of the Jews should observe these days every year. [John F. MacArthur Comm]

The Feast of Dedication, which celebrated the successful revolt, took place in winter, which may explain why Jesus, who was walking in the temple, was specifically in the portico of Solomon. It was probably cold, and may have been raining, since winter is the rainy season in Judea.

The portico of Solomon would have provided a measure of protection from the elements;

it was a roofed colonnade supported by pillars, located on the east side of the temple area and overlooking the Kidron Valley below.

Many people frequented the site, especially in inclement weather.

Some walked there to meditate, and rabbis sometimes taught their students there.

Later, the early Christians would gather in the portico of Solomon to proclaim the gospel (; ). [John F. MacArthur Comm]

Some see in John’s reference to winter a metaphor for the Jews’ spiritual state

—that it described not only the season of the year, but also Israel’s spiritual coldness.

“The thoughtful reader of the Gospel understands that time and temperature notations in John are reflections of the spiritual condition of the persons in the stories (cf. 3:2; 13:30; 18:18; 20:1, 19; 21:3–4)”

(Gerald L. Borchert, , The New American Commentary [Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2002] pp.337–38).