Student Problems

I know that! I just mean that there are so many bit that are retold. There could have been room for the apocrypha then. They could have sent messages by dove to improve the editing but the aforementioned practices could have stopped that method! 

So they were preying on superstitions. Some things never change. Exploiting peoples faith is a massive sin. Mental cruelty.

I just don't get the whole absolution thing. Either don't do something wrong or apologise or make amends directly! Killing some innocent animal is just beyond logic. No wonder Jesus was so miffed.

Jesus would probably be flipping buildings.........

Thanks for that, pretty interesting stuff!

I can understand his table-flipping reaction but he must have remained in a pretty foul mood for a while to have cursed that poor fig tree the next day! Too far Jesus, too far. 

Thanks for the reminder about the story though. It brought back a lot of memories, reading a bible again  :)   

Do you know, all day today I kept thinking about those doves! Why were they there? Why did everyone want to buy doves? Was it some kind of pigeon-post thing? Were they betting on the doves in the same way that some pigeon clubs did / do? Were they fighting doves? Do you even get fighting doves? Was the whole thing a gambling ring? Is that why the moneylenders were there? 

I shouldn't read posts like this before I go to bed, I've never spent so much time thinking about doves in my entire life! 

It's probably also the first entire day I've spent thinking "Where IS that bible I had?". (Found it!) 

Yeah but they must have met up now and again to collaborate on such a momentous project, or at least heard of one another! It's either the earliest recorded case of spamming or they had the project managed by a 'Committee'.  

The gospels were written independently. It's not as if they were emailling each other to get all their stories in line with no overlap.

The background behind the dove sellers is that people would go into the temple to be absolved of ther sins, and they would sacrifice an animal for this purpose. Of course, regular money was considered "impure" so the moneylenders (waiting right there in the temple) would exchange the "dirty" money for "clean" money (basically money laundering) so that people could buy an animal of the suitable type from the dove sellers (I guess the size of the sacrificed animal corresponded to the size of the sin to be absolved) and then sacrifice the animal at the altar in the temple.

Basically, the system allowed anyone to commit any sort of sin, as long as they had enough money to buy a sacrifice animal at the temple (much like today, when people can commit terrible crimes and get off because they can pay for a good lawyer to defend them).

All this stuff has been around for millenia, in a slightly different form. It all started with the moneylenders and dove sellers. I wonder how many tables Jesus would flip in present-day society.....

Moneylenders prey on the weak. Dove sellers are the scum of the earth. They should raise taxes on dove sales, forget cigarettes, sugar, and booze. Dove sellers should be taxed heavily or the sale of doves should be abolished!

Yeah, I went and looked it up after posting that and had a VERY vague recollection of having read the story. I spent most of my childhood around the bible so I should probably remember more of it than I do. Moneylenders and Dove Sellers, the usual suspects   : /    

I laughed at both. Why is it in so many gospels? They could have got one guy to tell the story. Mind you Jesus flipping tables is pretty cool.

When Jesus went badass and started kicking the payday loan lenders out of the Temple of Solomon.

Jesus flipped a table? I don't remember reading that (although it has been quite a while indeed since I read a bible)! What was his reason / situation in the story? 

I've only flipped a table once, when I realised I'd lost a card game to someone cheating.