Introduction
The earliest known gospel is Mark. The gospel was subsequently expanded and redacted by Matthew and Luke. A hypothetical source used by both Matthew and Luke is named Q. Aside from these three gospels and Q, we have other gospels named for John, Thomas, Peter, and fragments of lost gospels.
In every one of these gospels, Jesus clashes with the religious elite of Israel, identified by the authors as members of the Pharisee and Sadducee parties, as well as members of the scribal and priestly classes. His sharp criticisms of their perceived sins and hypocrisies occasionally turn to declarations of end-times doom. This theme is so prevalent in Mark that it fills several chapters. Once Jesus arrives in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, his criticism of the city, its leadership, and its temple is brought up repeatedly. In the center of these chapters is a section called the ‘Olivet Discourse’ or ‘Little Apocalypse’ (somewhat inaccurately
About four decades later, in 70 CE, the temple was destroyed when the Romans razed Jerusalem after waging war for more than three years. Certain details in other parts of Mark indicate the author wrote his gospel after the war had ended. However, even with those details aside, for the author to decide to shape the entire final third of his book around Jesus’ prophetic announcement of the city’s fate—as opposed to emphasizing another theme of his teaching—still suggests the author was looking back on 70 CE.
[Mark] sens[ed] that the end of the age was in fact fast approaching in light of the Jewish war, [and] gave a prominent place to the eschatological discourse and edited it accordingly.3
This begs a question. Prophecy of this sort is invariably invented after-the-fact. Such is the case with eschatological predictions made in apocalyptic texts like Daniel, 1 Enoch, or 4 Ezra. Can the prediction of the temple’s destruction (especially as found in the centerpiece in Mark 13) credibly be attributed to Jesus, decades before 70 CE?
The Olivet Discourse
To approach the question, we need to first summarize and explore the contents of Mark 13.
After being in Jerusalem for a few days in preparation for Passover, Mark 13 begins with Jesus’ disciples admiring the grandiosity of the temple (13.1–2). Jesus promptly shatters this expression of awe by declaring that the temple will be completely destroyed. This sparks a few of the disciples to approach Jesus in private, on the Mount of Olives, to ask him when his prediction will come true and what sign to watch for when the time is near (13.3–4). He outlines a series of events (13.5–23), which concludes with his second coming amid the apparent destruction of the universe (13.24–27). He follows this up with a few brief parables concerning the need to remain observant (13.28–37).
The main part of Mark’s Olivet Discourse, the series of events that Jesus predicts will unfold, is usually divided into three sections.
‘Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.
As for yourselves, beware; for they will hand you over to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them. And the good news must first be proclaimed to all nations. When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the holy spirit. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.’
This section can be divided into two halves, as seen above. The first paragraph (13.5–8) shows the upheaval of the world order, which manifests in typical ways for the ancient Mediterranean (war, earthquakes, famines), as well as false messiahs or prophets. The second paragraph (13.9–13) has the upheaval of the disciples’ lives as they are sent out to evangelize the world. These two are not chronologically sequential.
Next, there is the tribulation (13.14–23).
‘But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then those in Judah must flee to the mountains; someone on the housetop must not go down or enter the house to take anything away; someone in the field must not turn back to get a coat. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that it may not be in winter. For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, no, and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut short those days. And if anyone says to you at that time, “Look! Here is the Messiah!” or “Look! There he is!”—do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But be alert; I have already told you everything.’
Jesus restricts the end times to the land of Judah. While worldly disorder does happen leading into the end, the final act of history takes place in the historical land of the Israelites. The instigating sign that the ‘tribulation’ has begun is called
Finally, there is the eschaton itself (13.24–27), the arrival of salvation via divine intervention.
‘But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.’
Jesus invokes the classic language of decreation (the wording appears to be borrowed directly from LXX Isa 13.10) and envisages God’s executor of the final judgment making his appearance to the world. Though judgment is not explicitly mentioned here, a reader would be justified in inferring it. By this time in Second Temple Judaism, the traditional concept of an ‘end times’ consisted of divine judgment on Israel’s enemies and the return of scattered Israelites from their diaspora. The description of the ‘son of man’ gathering God’s chosen ones is close to LXX Deut 30.3–5, a passage explicitly about God rewarding an exiled Israel by restoring the people to their homeland.
The prophecy itself is followed by Jesus’ declaration that the events will ‘all’ take place in the lifetime of his own generation (not a distant future).
So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.
The choice of vocabulary in Mark 13.2 look like it was taken from Dan 2 (more on this below), and δει γενεσθαι, ‘this must take place’, in Mark 13.7 comes from Dan 2.28–29.
Mark 13 is almost universally understood by scholars as referring to the first war between Judah and Rome (66–73 CE). For example, the evangelist most likely intended the false messiahs and false prophets to be identified by his readers with historical figures like Theudas, the ‘Egyptian’ prophet, Simon of Gischala, and Simon son of Gioras.
Synoptic Expansions
Matthew and Luke, following their usual methods of modifying Mark, each expand on Mark 13 with text from another written source about Jesus (called Q), while also changing details to fit their own perspectives. The primary reason for such adjustments to Mark 13 was to solve an obvious problem: Jesus did not return after the Judean-Roman War ended.
Luke’s redactions make explicit what was before only contextually implied.
Mark 13
Luke 21
‘But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand). Then those in Judah must flee to the mountains’
‘When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then those in Judah must flee to the mountains’
Luke goes on to call the Roman conquest of Jerusalem ‘days of vengeance’ and ‘wrath against this people’. The Judeans’ loss in the war was divinely ordained as punishment. But Luke then inserts a new item into the prophecy. After this loss the world will transition into a new ‘age of the nations’. Mark was written just a few years after Jerusalem was conquered, but Luke was written decades later. The lack of the prophecy’s fulfillment had only become more pronounced. With the introduction of this ‘age of the nations’ into the eschatological program, the prediction could not be said to have failed. Jesus has as much time before his return as the conveniently undefined ‘age of the nations’ must last.
Although Luke 21 rewrites the predictions being made to give his spin on them, the author nevertheless keeps the source material from Mark 13 in the same order, with only occasional additions or subtractions. The largest item Luke removes is the parable of the absent master (Mark 13.33–37). Luke’s material from Q contained two versions of the same parable, which the author already used earlier in his book (Luke 12.35–48).
Matthew’s approach to Mark 13 is different. He makes several more additions than Luke, some of which he also took from Q. For example, where Luke kept Jesus’ words about lightning, vultures, and Noah in a separate context (Luke 17.22–37), Matthew inserts them into the Olivet Discourse (Matt 24.26–28, 37–41).
Matthew’s version of the Olivet Discourse contains some items not found in either Luke or Mark. Whereas Luke 21.12–19 keeps the persecution of the disciples by synagogues, governors, and kings (Mark 13.9–13), Matthew relocated that passage to a much earlier position, overriding a parallel saying in Q (Matt 10.17–22; cf. Luke 12.11–12). Instead of repeating the persecution of the disciples, Matthew inserts a vaguely similar text that mentions torture, false prophets (for the third time), lawlessness, and love turning cold (Matt 24.9–14).
Luke’s unique additions are identifiable as an author looking back on the events of 66–73 CE, making them clear to his readers while also providing an airtight excuse for Jesus’ continued absence.
Matthew’s unique additions cannot be explained the same way; they don’t serve a hermeticizing function. Rather, Matthew’s unique additions are oddly shared by two other texts, one decades older and one roughly contemporary or perhaps a little later. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians shares a similar matrix of terms with Matt 24.30–31 in context of Jesus’ return: clouds, an angel, and a trumpet (1 Thess 4.16).
Matthew 24
Didache 16
‘Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name.
they will hate and persecute
Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another.
and betray one another.
And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
For in the final days false prophets and corrupters will be multiplied, and the sheep will turn into wolves,
And because of the increase of lawlessness,
As lawlessness increases,
the love of many will grow cold.
and love will turn into hate.
But anyone who endures to the end will be saved.
but those who persevere in their belief will be saved by the curse itself.
Then the sign of the son of man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn,
And then the signs of truth will appear: first, the sign of extension in heaven;
And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call,
next, the sign of the trumpet call;
Though there is disagreement over how many of the stories in Q go back to Jesus himself and how many were created by his followers and attributed back to him, the text of Q is dated before 70 CE. Whatever interpretation either Luke or Matthew brought to the parables they received from the Q source, those stories were not made-to-order explanations for Jesus’ apparent delay after the Judean-Roman War ended. Likewise, the material shared by Matt 24, Did 16, and 1 Thess 4–5 appears to come from an existing tradition about the eschaton independent from either Q or Mark.
We can detect three sources at play in Matt 24.
With Matthew’s post-70 usage of two pre-70 eschatological sources as precedent, it becomes much more justifiable to identify the content of Mark 13 as originating before 70 CE.
An Apocalyptic Tract
Mark incorporates the Olivet Discourse into a context that so thoroughly condemns Jerusalem and its religious establishment, the book demands readers recognize the evangelist was looking at 70 CE as past.
First, Jesus claims ‘not one stone’ of the temple ‘will be left here upon another’ (13.2). If the Gospel of Mark was written after 70 CE, the author should be aware the temple was burned, and parts of the temple grounds were still standing by the time the war ended (they still stand today, nearly two millennia later). How could the author neglect to mention any fire, especially considering how prevalent fire is in the older prophets?
Second, Jesus warns his disciples to flee Jerusalem when they see the ‘abomination of desolation’. In the Book of Daniel and in 1 Maccabees, the ‘abomination’ was Antiochus Epiphanes’ unclean sacrifice inside the temple of Jerusalem. He didn’t destroy the temple, he desecrated it. Apocalyptic Judeans during the Maccabean Revolt believed this desecration marked the turning point in history, kicking off the countdown to the world’s end. When this end did not materialize, later readers reinterpreted Daniel. As mentioned above, Luke 21 identifies the ‘abomination of desolation’ as the Roman armies surrounding Jerusalem. Alternatively, the closest Judean-Roman War equivalent to what Antiochus did was when the general (and future emperor) Titus led his forces to the temple grounds and offered sacrifices to the legionary standards. There have also been attempts to identify the ‘abomination’ with a faction of Judeans who set up residence in the temple during the war. None of these is chronologically coherent. In each case, it was too late to flee Jerusalem because the city had already been surrounded by the Romans, and in the case of Titus the temple had already been destroyed. There seems to be no viable explanation for what a post-70 author could have identified the ‘abomination of desolation’ with when looking back at the Judean-Roman War. The language essentially requires the event be the installation of an idol and/or profane sacrifices in the temple, but no such thing happened before the temple was destroyed in the war.
Third, when Jesus instructs the disciples to flee Jerusalem, he says ‘Pray that it may not be in winter’. This is taken as an overt tip to the reader that the author genuinely expected the eschaton would take place during winter. Or, perhaps, winter had already arrived and the author believed the eschaton was already underway. Instead, the destruction of the temple took place in late summer.
Fourth, there seems to be serious tension between the prophecy providing a clear list of ‘signs’ to watch out for in order to know when the eschaton is about to arrive, and Jesus’ statement later in the chapter that his disciples have no way to know ‘when the time will come’ because it will happen ‘suddenly’ at a time ‘no one knows’.
These points have led some scholars to accept the Olivet Discourse did originate before 70 CE, but not because they think Jesus uttered the prophecy. Instead they suggest it originated as an ‘apocalyptic tract’,
The evangelist, then, came across the tract and attributed the prophecy to Jesus himself, while also inserting a few thematically relevant teachings of Jesus taken from other sources.
When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then those in Judah must flee to the mountains; someone on the housetop must not go down or enter the house to take anything away; someone in the field must not turn back to get a coat. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that it may not be in winter. For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, no, and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut short those days. But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
The other parts of the chapter—the setting, the persecution of the disciples, the parables, and probably the warnings of the false prophets and messiahs
If this is the case, it would mean the Olivet Discourse cannot have come from Jesus (it would be about ten years too late), but also that Mark’s author neglected to ‘correct’ the details incongruent with 70 CE.
A Divisive Saying
If the bulk of Mark 13 did not originate as a prophecy from Jesus—which, though not certain, is a strong possibility that should be considered—how is it that Jesus was accused of threatening to destroy the temple during his trial (Mark 14.57–58)? Why was the prophecy inserted here at all?
‘We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.”’
This accusation is then repeated during Jesus’ crucifixion (15.29). Mark claims the accusation came from false witnesses, but Matthew’s changes to the passage (‘many false witnesses’ come forward, but none are found credible) suggest he understood the accusation against Jesus as truthful.
‘This fellow said, “I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.”’
Luke’s version of the trial omits the accusation, but it doesn’t disappear from the author’s narrative altogether. The sequel volume, Acts, depicts another rigged prosecution, this one of Jesus’ follower Stephen. The author intended for Jesus’ trial to be mirrored in Stephen’s. At the equivalent point (Acts 6.14), Stephen is accused of the same thing.
‘we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place’
Instead of refuting this accusation, Stephen goes on a diatribe against Israel’s history of disobedience to God, concluding with the warning that ‘the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands’. His speech is meant to justify the prediction which he (i.e. Jesus by proxy) was accused of uttering. The accusation is ‘essentially true’.
John 2.19 has Jesus declare:
‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’
Thomas 71 instead has:
Jesus said, ‘I will destroy [this] temple, and no one will build it […]’
None of the five versions of the saying completely agree, but the widespread, divergent attestation of this saying indicates it most likely was something Jesus said,
John accepts that Jesus said it, but interprets it as a metaphor of Jesus’ resurrection: it is not him, but his enemies who will destroy the ‘temple’, which is his body. This leads to a statement found nowhere else in the New Testament, that Jesus would raise himself from the dead (cf. John 10.18).
Thomas keeps the saying with Jesus, but seems to definitively reject rebuilding the temple altogether. The text in Thomas’ version breaks off before the last word, so a permanent rejection of a new temple is somewhat hypothetical.
We cannot know what the original wording was, but we can make a reasonable guess based on the commonalities between the five versions, and by detecting how each author made their own changes.
Compare this to Mark 11.
Between Mark 11.18 directly saying the temple disruption was the catalyst for Jesus’ arrest, Mark 14.49 showing that the sole accusation made against Jesus in his trial is that he threatened to destroy the temple, and John 2.13–22 depicting the temple disruption was directly followed by that exact threat, we should expect to find Jesus uttering his divisive ‘I will destroy this temple’ saying somewhere in Mark 11–14, after he arrived in Jerusalem but before he was arrested. It cannot be the Olivet Discourse oracle proper (Mark 13.5–37), which only mentions the temple’s desecration (13.14). This leaves us with Mark 13.2.
‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’
For those scholars who see the prophetic section of Mark 13 as a pre-existing apocalyptic tract copied into the gospel narrative, it is generally agreed that 13.1–2 was part of Mark’s base passion narrative.
Jesus prophesying the temple’s destruction is not the same thing as him saying he would destroy it. However, he does make this statement publicly, ‘as he came out of the temple’, separate from the private setting of the Olivet Discourse. And, in fact, textual witnesses ranging from the third to the twelve century contain an extended version of Mark 13.2.
‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down, and in three days another will be raised without hands.’
In the rare occasions scholars show awareness of it, this textual variant is usually dismissed as a later scribe harmonizing Mark 13.2 with the accusation in 14.58.
Conclusion
The formation and interpretation of the Olivet Discourse, and Jesus’ condemnation of the temple, is complex.
The bulk of evidence places the Gospel of Mark as written around 75 CE, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. But this does not mean everything in Mark was invented at that time. Most of the book’s contents predate the Judean-Roman War,
A few decades before the Gospel of Mark took shape, a short and fairly generic apocalyptic treatise was written by an anonymous author. This tract, an elaboration on the predictions about the end of the world found in the Book of Daniel, was possibly made in response to Emperor Caligula’s attempt to profane Jerusalem’s temple about a decade after Jesus was crucified.
The author of Mark, like most of Jesus’ followers glimpsed through the New Testament and early Christian literature, believed the end of the world was in the process of unfolding, with the grand finale imminent. The catastrophe that befell Jerusalem was, in his mind, the last major event of the end times. All that was left was Jesus’ return, which he saw in the arrival of the son of man described in that apocalyptic tract. If this tract indeed existed, the evangelist found it and incorporated it—with a few additions but little editing
At the same time, Jesus’ overt hostility to the temple was downplayed by the gospel authors.