If the
saying of v. 58 is based on a saying of the historical Jesus, it is likely that
it was a prophetic or apocalyptic saying that concerned the replacement of
Herod’s temple with a new, definitive temple to be established by divine power.
If the contrast between the two temples was expressed at that stage already
with the terms χειροποιητος (“made with hands”) and αχειροποιητος (“not made with hands”), or with
expressions roughly equivalent to these in Hebrew or Aramaic, the contrast at
that stage of the history of the tradition would be between human agency and
divine agency. In the context of Mark as a whole, the saying may be interpreted
as still having this significance.
It could be
argued that, at the Markan stage, the use of the term χειροποιητος (“made with hands”) is a polemical
indictment of the cult of the temple in Jerusalem as equivalent to idolatry. The
term occurs in Lev 26:1 LXX as a substantive with the sense of “(gods) made
with hands” or “idols.”But such a connotation is plausible only if one
overinterprets Jesus’ actions in the temple in relation to the cursing of the
fig tree. Although such a reading of Mark is not well supported by the text, it
does seem to be an aspect of the significance of the speech of Stephen in Acts.
Stephen is accused by false witnesses of saying that Jesus will destroy the
temple (6:13-14). In his defense, he tells how the wilderness generation asked
Aaron to “make gods” for them (ποιησον ημιν θεους) (7:40). They made a golden calf,
offered sacrifice to the idol and “rejoiced in the works of their hands” (ευφραινοντο εν τοις εργοις των χειρων αυτων) (7:41). In criticism of the temple
built by Solomon, Stephen cites Isa 66:1-2 (7:49-50). In introducing this
quotation, he says, “But the Most High does not dwell in (temples) made by
hands” (αλλ'
ουχ ο υψιστος εν χειροποιητος κατοικει) (7:48). If v. 48 alludes back to v.
41, as seems likely, the implication is that having a material temple is a kind
of idolatry.
Whereas the
author and audience of Jubilees and the community at Qumran apparently expected
a glorious temple built by God to be established in the earthly Jerusalem, Paul
and the author of Hebrews used the term αχειροποιητος (“not made with hands”) to speak of
eternal entities in the heavenly world (2 Cor 5:1; Heb 9:11, 24). Heb 9:11 says
that Christ has entered “through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, which
is not made with hands, that is, not of this creation” (δια της μειζονος και τελειοτερας σκηνης ου χειροποιητου, τουτ' εστιν ου ταυτης της κτισεως) (Heb 9:11). This greater and more
perfect tabernacle is “the heavenly or spiritual archetype of the earthly
tabernacle” or “a more abstract ‘heaven,’ represented in its entirety by the skhnhv”
(“tabernacle”). In 2 Cor 5:1, the οικοδομη εκ θεου (“building from God”) is either a
spiritual body that God will grant each of the faithful when they die (or at
least the special dead, like Paul) or the heavenly temple into which the
faithful dead will be incorporated (cf. Rev 3:12).
Somewhat
different from the biblical, Second Temple Jewish, and early Christian
distinctions between that which is “made with hands” and that which is “not
made with hands” is the form that distinction took in Hellenistic critiques of
traditional cults. In the latter, what is “not made with hands” is the universe
or cosmos as a whole.
The most
likely meaning for “the temple not made with hands” in v. 58 at the Markan
stage is the apocalyptic notion of an eschatological, eternal temple of divine
origin. The narrator of Mark calls the saying attributed to Jesus “false”
primarily because of the emphatic first person singular form the saying takes
in both its parts. Another factor may be that the author no longer expects the
appearance of such a temple on earth; calling the testimony “false” creates or
recognizes some distance between the traditional saying behind the testimony
and the views of the author and audiences of Mark. (Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark:
A Commentary [Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible;
Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2007], 702-3)
