You know very well that I was not attempting to read your mind. The sentence, as you note, is not as clear as it could be. However, no matter. The point is that the Gospels never explicitly bring up the altercation again. You claim that any further references to the Temple are to that event. But that is you reading it into the text. It would have been so easy for someone to say "Hey we don't like what Jesus did overturning the tables." No one says this or is reported as saying this. You are assuming that it must have been about this, but the Gospels do not say it.

You are also missing the context. When someone questions Jesus about his authority to say or do these things, that is the same question that priests and Sadducees posed to all Pharisees and rabbis. The Pharisees and rabbis did not just verbally criticize the priests. They launched a deep assault on their power and won. The dictated to priests how to behave in the Holy of Holies. One rabbi issued a new ruling on sacrifices for the explicit purpose of driving down the price of doves (so that poor women could afford it). His action had a deeper and more lasing effect than Jesus' action. Yet no one persecuted Pharisees for such things. And no one would persecute Jesus for his relatively milder action.

Jesus does not enter the Temple, as you say above. The vendor activity is not a part of the sacred space. The Pharisees challenged the priests in their sacred space much more.

The Greek text of Josephus is not at all a powerful argument for its authenticity. It comes later than the Agapius Arabic version. Also, it is absolutely certain that the Greek text was altered because we have statements from Origen, Jerome, and other ancient writers about what Josephus said and their remarks are at variance from the Greek text but they are not at variance from the Arabic text.

If you presented the argument about the Arabic and Greek texts and which is more likely authentic to any historian or scientist from any other field —be it American history or French history or biology or nuclear physics or any rational field — the Arabic version would win hands down. There is no contest. The great weight of strong sensible argument is on the side of the Arabic version. Your assertions and assumption of some Jewish guilt in this is not reasoning.

Origen also mentions another thing that Josephus said which is not in our Greek text, and this too is a slight piece of evidence in favor of Jewish leaders in Jesus' case. I am sure you would find a way to dismiss it. At least Raymond Brown was more honest than most about this. He actually said that any interpretation of the evidence that would favor Jewish leaders must be ruled out of the discussion. I love his honesty.

As for the Talmud, the evidence there about Jesus is not helpful. The rabbis were just repeating what they heard from Christians. They had no independent evidence. And that is a serious problem with so many sources. If one source tells a lie and many more sources repeat it, that constant repetition does not prove the lie was true.

I am not trying to convince you. I have learned over and over that it is impossible to cure prejudice through the use of reason. You are assuming your conclusions and dismissing any and all evidence that contradicts these conclusions. No matter how complete a case I present, you will declare in one way or another that exonerating evidence for Jewish leaders is inadmissible. I just believe that the voice of reason must be allowed to be heard. Scholars in any other field will ultimately agree that I have the more rational case.

Leon Zitzer