John 2:19, 20 and Naos

by IsaacHorwitz 17 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  IsaacHorwitz

  Hi,

  My question is this- How do I answer a JW who says "The word naos in John 2:20 refers to the entire temple. I agree verse 19 is jesus talking about his body BUT in verse 20 the Jews said ' “This temple (naos) was built in forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?' The Jews are hear talking of the literal earthly temple, thus naos here means entire temple. So, naos in Rev 7:15 does not have to mean inner sanctuary, or heaven. It can mean an outer portion of the temple, thus meaning earth."

  How do I answer this argument regarding naos in Rev 7:15 meaning an outer portion of the temple when the JW tries to say it means the entire temple in John 2:20? I have copied and pasted below John 2:18-21 from the NWT for reference.

  18 Therefore, in answer, the Jews said to him: “What sign have you to show us, since you are doing these things?” 19 In answer Jesus said to them: “Break down this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 Therefore the Jews said: “This temple was built in forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was talking about the temple of his body.
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  Narkissos

  Welcome IsaacHorwitz,

  There's no discussion that naos can mean either the inner sanctuary (narrower sense) or the whole temple (broader sense). In the NT it is often used in the latter sense, as a loose synonym for hieron, hagion, etc. However the identification of the "great crowd" in Revelation doesn't rest on the mere use of this word.

  Please see Leolaia's thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/96705/1.ashx

  
  
  Edit: in Revelation naos is used in a number of ways (partly due to the different apocalyptic sources being involved) but the concrete reference of the diverse metaphorical uses is usually to something narrower than the whole temple complex.
  
  3:12: "He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the naos of my God, and he will never go out." (a building is suggested)
  11:1f: "measure the naos of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the naos." (here the naos is neither the outer courtyard nor the inner courtyard with the altar).
  11:19: "God's naos in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his naos." (here the Holy of Holies)
  14:15,17: "Another angel came out of the naos."
  15:5f: "the naos of the tent of witness in heaven was opened, and out of the naos came the seven angels."
  15:8: "and the naos was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the naos."
  16:1,17: "a loud voice from (ek) the naos."
  Interestingly the occurrence of naos which might best apply (as a metaphor's concrete reference) to the whole complex is 21:22:
  "I saw no naos in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb."
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  peacefulpete

  Isaac....I guess you didn't find the article I linked interesting but it shows the dishonest approach to the Rev 7 intepretation. Not only do they misdirect their readers from the passage in question but they actually lied about the Greek words in a couple verses in the Gospels they claim were precedents. My advice is to show your student the WT article from 1980 with an interlinear in hand, let them see the dishonsty then go to Rev and show the usage in the verses Narkissos offered. Then finish it off with Leolaia's irrefutable logic in the thread narkisssos linked to.
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  Leolaia

  Ooooo, this is really neat! I just discovered a link between the logion being discussed and a statement by Paul:

  Mark 14:58: "I will destroy (kataluein) this Temple (naon touton) that is made with hands, and in three days I will build (oikodomein) another, not made with hands (akheiropoiétos)".

  John 2:19-20: "Destroy (lusate) this Temple (naon touton), and in three days I will raise it up...It has taken forty-six years to build (oikodométhé) this Temple, are you going to raise it up in three days?"

  2 Corinthians 5:1: "If the earthly tent we live in is destroyed (kataluein), we have a building (oikodomé) from God, a house not made with hands (akheiropoiétos), eternal in the heavens".

  Paul thus appears to be yet another witness to the saying, and the formal parallels are closer to Mark than John, but what is especially striking in Paul is that he shares the Johannine characterization of the "building" as referring to the body (earthly body = earthly tent, heavenly body = house not made with hands), and thus sides with John in this respect. The language is also applied to circumcision in Colossians, again supporting the somatic interpretation: "In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands (akheiropoiétos), by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ" (2:11). All of this suggests that Temple=body interpretation in John is early as well.

  However, the allusiveness of the saying itself in Mark 14:58 suggests a different original meaning of the logion. The phrase "not made with hands" (akheiropoiétos) derives from Daniel 2:34, 45, which describes a stone "not made with hands" (l' b-ydyn) that will "crush" (likmései, Th) the earlier kingdoms and establish an enduring kingdom (interpreted as the "Kingdom of God" in the gospels). The opposite phrase kheiropoiétos "made by hands" is also used in the OT (LXX) primarily to refer to idols (Leviticus 26:1, Isaiah 2:8, 10:11, 19:1), and most especially in Daniel (OG LXX) to refer to gods of gold and silver, "idols made by human hands (ta eidóla ta kheiropoiéta tón anthropón)" (cf. 5:4, 23, 6:28). Since the Temple is described as "made with hands" using this same word, there is a suggestion in light of the allusions to Daniel 2 and 5 that the Temple cult has idolatrous connotations and is destined to be overthrown when the Son of Man comes (cf. Mark 14:62, which is an allusion to Daniel 7:13-14). What is interesting about this view is how well it fits into the narrative setting of the saying in John....i.e. the cleansing of the Temple, sparked by outrage at the commercialism in the Temple (which put idolatrous images on coinage inside the Temple courts), and which according to v. 16 degraded the Temple into an unholy market. There is a similar interpretation of ch. 2 of Daniel in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants in Luke, which is viewed in the critical literature as another condemnation of the Temple cult (tenants = corrupt priesthood and Temple authorities), and v. 16 states that the owner of the vineyard "will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others"....a statement that evokes the saying about destroying the Temple and replacing it with a superior one. That Daniel 2 lurks behind the Lukan version of this parable can be seen in v. 17-18: "The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but when it falls on anyone it will crush (likmései) him". John seems to have preserved the appropriate setting for the more original apocalyptic understanding of the saying (i.e. closer to the apocalyptic source of the saying), but has interpreted the saying in terms of his overall realized eschatology, i.e. the saying was fulfilled in Christ's own death and resurrection.
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  peacefulpete

  So then John-Paul/Marcion-Mark? There are some that suggest this order.
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  THE SHOOTIST

  First of all I would like to adress Senior Member with his request for my source of references. I really like this quaint little book called A Short History Of The Bible written in 1881 by Bronson C, Keefer.
  
  Next I would like to address that fine research by Supreme One. First of all the sources I referred to in my statements did not seem to go into the same depth as yours but they basically said close to the same thing leading to the same conclusions. By the way, Theophilus of Antioch did NOT use the word APOSTLE but called John, as you said, a disciple. Just because the other gospels quote the same information in various ways does not make the subject any more valid by saying Jesus said this and meant that and the Jews said this but meant that.
  
  For instance, we both mentioned Papias, but isn't it the truth that his works are lost. We have a quotation by Eusebius in Ecclestical History and we know only what Eusebius said he said? Let's consider what some consider Papias' referral to our present Gospel of Mark around 150 A.D. and let us remember this is the testimony as to the authenticity of Jesus' words as contained in it. Eusebius says that Papias said that John the presbyter said that Mark said that Peter said that Jesus said and this is the historical lineage of the Gospel of Mark. Do you get my drift?
  
  Of Matthew, Eusebius said Papias said Matthiew composed his history in the Hebrew dialect and everyone translated it as he was able, but was Papias referring to our present Gospel of Matthew? Isn't our gospel in Greek? Jerome asserts the translation was uncertain. There was formerly another Gospel passing under the name of Matthew which was used by Christians. How do we know which one is correct? Nobody can tell. Don't scholars like Constantine Tischendorf and Davidson grant that Papias was not referring to the gospels of Matthew and Mark as we know them.
  
  Some religious theologians assert in the most positive manner that Justin recognizes all four of the evangelists and that he quotes from the Memoirs of the Apostles, asserting this is the four gospels under a different name. Orthodoxy is doing this under a deperate ruse because in but two or three instances of nearly a hundred quotations made by Justin are they exactly the same as the New Testament Passages. They differ either in sense or construction showing Justin's book to be different from the Gospels. Justin says the Memoirs say that when Jesus went into the Jordon to be baptized a fire was kindled on the river. Ever read that in the Gospels? The Memoirs quoted by Justin says that the devil tempted Jesus when he was coming up out of the river. Find that one in the gospels.
  
  Remember, we don't hear mention of ALL FOUR EVANGELIST till the year 200 A.D. with the books being circulated under their present names. Dr Wescott calls the first two centuries the dark age of Chrisian literature and its remains scant, as he put it, "A few letters of consolation and warning, two or three apologies addressed to a heathen, a controversy with a Jew, a vision, and a scanty gleaning of fragments of lost works, comprise all Christian literature up to the middle of the second century".
  
  In conclusion I think that the Gospels were no more than oral tradition and the only thing considered as of divine authority and inspirations was the Old Testament as of 150 A.D. and the New Testament was not considered so till towards the close of the second century. The 3 men primarily responsible for laying the foundation of the canon, Iranaeus, Clement of Alexandria,and Tertullian had neither the ability nor the inclination to examine the genesis of documents surrounded with the apostolic halo. Their Polemic motives, their uncritical, inconsistent assertions, their lack of sure data, all these things detract from their testimony. Their decisions were made as a result of pious feeling, and theological speculations of the times. Their arguments show a weakness of perception and their world rocked with traditional ease. Their assertions show ignorance and exaggeration. Tertullian and Clement both believed the fable of the phoenix that renews its life every 500 years and Origen even defended the fable. Tertullian believed the hyena changed its sex and that the stag renewed its youth by eating poisonous snakes, that eclipses and comets were signs of God's anger and forerunners of national disasters, that volcanoes were the openings to hell, and I could go on and on about these men God used to give us the beginnings of the New Testament. That why my answer was that John 2 whatever is probably all bull crap anyway with no proof the conversation actually happened.
  
  s
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  Narkissos

  Leolaia,

  The use of kheiropoiètos / akheiropoiètos in Mark 14:58 directly points to the Hellenistic tradition imo, especially the Alexandrine one, inasmuch as a depreciative assessment of the "earthly" temple is implied. Here the parallelism between Acts 6--7 and Hebrews is revealing.

  The "saying" in Acts 6:14 is furthered by Stephen's discourse:

  At that time they made a calf, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and reveled in the works of their hands (tois ergois tôn kheirôn autôn).
  But God turned away from them and handed them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:
  'Did you offer to me slain victims and sacrifices
  forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
  No; you took along the tent of Moloch,
  and the star of your god Rephan,
  the images that you made to worship;
  so I will remove you beyond Babylon.'
  "Our ancestors had the tent of testimony in the wilderness, as God directed when he spoke to Moses, ordering him to make (poièsai) it according to the pattern (tupos) he had seen. Our ancestors in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our ancestors. And it was there until the time of David, who found favor with God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built (oikodomèsen) a house for him. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands (en kheiropoiètois); as the prophet says,
  'Heaven is my throne,
  and the earth is my footstool.
  What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,
  or what is the place of my rest?
  Did not my hand make all these things?

  Cf. Acts 17:24:

  The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands (ouk en kheiropoiètois naois katoikei).

  Hebrews 9:11,24

  But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent not made with hands (ou kheiropoiètou), that is, not of this creation.

  For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands (kheiropoièta hagia), a mere copy (antitupa) of the true one.
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  Narkissos

  One additional comment (too late to edit my previous post):

  The radical thrust of "Stephen's" discourse, although somewhat lost or toned down by the author of Acts, basically equates the tent-temple with idolatry -- implicitly with the use of kheiropoiètos, which usually translates 'lyl, "false god / idol" in the LXX as Leolaia pointed out, exceptionally miqdash "sanctuary" in Isaiah 16:12; explicitly with the quotation of Amos 5:26.