Dr Ian Mills, Duke University, argues that Jesus’ action in the Temple in Mark 11 is widely misinterpreted. In the synoptic versions of the Temple story; Jesus does not “cleanse” the Temple of some impurity but disrupts it as a prophetic enactment of the coming eschaton.

Mills draws on the scholarship of EP Sanders, AJ Levine, and Paula Fredriksen.

Really interesting case I haven’t heard before. Would have liked to have heard the implications of this theory on John’s version, and whether John was removing this ‘imminent kingdom’ allusion (as he does elsewhere) by apparently changing Jesus quotation of Jeremiah from ‘robbers hide-out’ to ‘market-place’.

Dr Ian N Mills is an Assistant Professor of Classics and Religious Studies in New York. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Classics and Biblical Studies from Duke University and a BA from University of Minnesota.

Mill’s research explores the tensions within texts and traditions. His forthcoming monograph, The Gospel Hypothesis (Fortress Press), argues that early Christian readers drew on Hellenistic literary theory to make sense of the diverse and often contradictory biographies of Jesus available in the second century.