Mark 14:58: Apocryphal or Authentic Jesus' Words?

Adolfo Roitman

doi:10.47182/rb.87.n3-4-2025451

Authors

Adolfo Roitman Curator Emeritus, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47182/rb.87.n3-4-2025451

Keywords:

ipsissima verba Iesu, early Christians, Second Temple

Abstract

Contrary to the claims of earlier Christian scholars that Jesus’ words about the Temple in Mark 14:58 were apocryphal, or at most, reflected the way early Christians understood his words, my purpose in this article is to argue that this literary tradition preserved an echo of the ipsissima verba of Jesus himself. As can be concluded from some Second Temple Jewish literary sources (4Q174, Acts 7, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra), the ontological difference between the historical Temple “made with hands” and the eschatological one “not made with hands” was a clearcut theological topos widespread in ancient Judaism.

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