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[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

he was angry they were charging a bit extra for a bit of extra service. the money changers were presumably vetted by the Temple so they weren't outright cheating their customers. the whole reason the temple required the tributes to be in silver shekels (or half shekels) from Tyre was that Tyre was known to not debase their currency; and the money changers would easily vetted to avoid the ones clipping or outright forging coins.

As for the livestock merchants, keep in mind there were (are?) stringent requirements for sacrifices that made bringing animals from outside the city difficult to do. These were not the goats being raised to be put into a stewpot. Even just raising them for sacrifice was expensive. Bringing them into the city was another expense. Keeping them in the city, too.

It's very easy to imagine that Jesus was just being like "I can buy goats back home for (whatever a generic goat was worth)! These are ripoffs" and then going full-karen, while being too stupid to understand all that.

[-] musicalphysics@discuss.online 1 points 9 hours ago

It sounds like you think Jesus was wrong.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Yes.

And I'm guessing if we were talking about anybody else who did similar, you would too.

First off, lets address the whole "people couldn't worship because it was too expensive thing", the law Jesus supported and said was eternal in Mat 5:17-20 makes it pretty clear if you cannot afford the prescribed sacrifice, you can give a lesser one in it's stead (so like doves or even grain,) If you can't even afford a grain offering, you don't actually need to do that.

So there's already a remedy in place for the destitute, and it's pretty simple. (Side note, does that suggest Jesus and his followers overrode that? yeah. that's a dick move.)

The other thing is that it was absolutely about location. Because evicting the merchants and money changers would not solve the prices it was effectively a captured market. there was a lot of demand for those services and animals. the merchants and money changers had the supply.

So if you make them go , they're still gonna be dicks charging whatever they're charging. and it'll be less convenient, too, and chances are extremely high that your piligrims and worshipers, the people you seem to think Jesus was protecting- would be getting conned and scammed. Which just makes things worse for everyone.

Further more, Jesus didn't just flip tables. He violently assaulted the merchants in a toddler rage. And yes. I would consider that to be wrong, immoral, and perfectly in line with the character of the real Jesus. The Jesus who wasn't divinely born, who wasn't the son of god, and who was running around the nether-regions of the ass-end of the empire conning rubes and yokels out of their stuff.

this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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