JOHN 134 - How Much Did Herod’s Temple Cost?

John 2:18-22

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Music by Jeff Foote

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Hey my friends, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible Hour Podcast. And yesterday we were talking about this great big mega project where I lived. It's a monument to a character in the Old West called Crazy Horse. It is huge. And I I think they started on it before I was born. And I don't think they'll have it finished until after I am dead. And we don't have projects like that very much anymore, but there was a great big project going on like that that was just in the background. Everybody knew about it. Everybody felt it. Everybody felt the effects of it. There was a multi-generational, unbelievably expensive mega project happening in Jerusalem at the heart of Judaism. And that was Herod the Great's temple project. Herod died before, you know, before we flip over to the AD side of the BCAD divide. And yet the project persisted without him for decades to come. It was gigantic. And we're trying to put ourselves in the shoes of the original audience and think about how they would have thought about the temple and think about why Jesus' remarks, where he says, destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days. You know, we were thinking about why those remarks would have hit the original audience the way it did. I abruptly paused yesterday, halfway through this conversation. I abruptly unpause now, right after my close personal friend Jeff Foote plays some music for us. Here we go. And if we had a certain hard start date for Herod's time in office as king, then this would be the smoking gun that would tell us, like, oh, we're right here. This is exactly when Jesus was doing stuff. But there are a couple of problems. Number one, we don't know exactly when Herod became king or what we're counting from here, because he was appointed by in Rome, but then he also had to go and like conquer the city himself in order to consummate that appointment by Rome. It was a conditional appointment. So we're not sure if what year of Herod's reign we're counting from, the appointment or the actual conquest and seizing of the throne. We don't know for sure. Also, which we'll get to this at the end of John chapter 2, there's some debate about whether we're talking about the beginning of Jesus' ministry here with this temple cleansing or the end of Jesus' ministry. John might move around certain parts of his story for thematic purposes as opposed to chronological purposes. If that's the case, then you know we got a couple-year window of wiggle room here. So it might seem to you like, ah, right there, we can know exactly the dates and everything of all the Jesus stuff just off of this 46 years to build the temple, but unfortunately, it doesn't quite solve that problem for us. Here's the deal this project was gigantic. The point I'm trying to make is it it's all anybody would have been thinking about. It would have dominated the landscape, dominated the economy. I tried a bunch of different ways to run the numbers on this. I like episodes where I'm like, how much would that have cost? And then I don't figure it out. And we just like I click on the keyboard and we try to do the math. These numbers got too big. I really struggled to figure out how much stone would cost back then, how much food is it going to take? What would that cost to feed all these workers and everything? I came up with a ballpark in modern terms of something between $50 and $100 billion for this project, but I can't believe you could get something this size done for $50 or $100 billion. Also, you know, they would have had slave labor, cheap labor back. I I have no idea how they did it. Let's say $50 billion gives you a ballpark on my sloppy pencil on napkin math of how much this thing would have cost. So let's just go all the way back to John chapter 2 here. The Jews replied, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and you're gonna raise it in three days on the ancient world. People got pretty defensive about big projects like this. People they know died building big projects like this. Also, earthquakes and fire just kept coming along and ruining the wonders of the ancient world. And if it weren't for 70 AD, I think this would qualify as one of the wonders of the ancient world. This was about the most impressive thing that anybody had ever built anywhere. But, well, 70 AD did happen, and it all ended up getting destroyed before it really ever even got totally finished, which is I mean, what a what a wild twist of irony there for Herod's ambitions regarding this thing. But the bottom line is this these people live in the shadow of this temple construction. They hear it day and night. Nothing is bigger than the temple, nothing matters more than the temple, theologically or practically, economically, traffic-wise. It's just always front and center. And Jesus is walking in like he owns the place. People are talking about, you know, zeal for your house will consume me. And it it's it raised a lot of questions, and it would have been very concerning, and it would have been very hard for these people who are demanding a sign to hear Jesus as saying anything other than I'm gonna raise the temple, R-A-Z-E, the temple, and then I'm gonna R-A-I-S-E, the temple, again in three days. So, of course, they got hung up on the literal meaning. Of course, Jesus, as the text indicates, was thinking about something else. And finally, I think it was worth taking a couple of days on this for the obvious reasons. That is just, you know, to understand how the original audience would have been thinking. I cannot overstate how significant the temple and the project that had been ongoing was. It defined this age in so many ways of Jerusalem. But it's also really important to talk about this little exchange about the temple and how people took it and their sensitivities about the physical temple and Jesus talking about the temple that it was his body. It's important to talk about this because in the end it comes full circle. And the charges that get brought against Jesus in a kangaroo court, kangaroo trial, a mockery of justice trial at the end of Jesus' life involves what he said right here, and it involves a defensiveness about the temple. And I'm we got time. I'm just gonna give it to you right now. Matthew 26, verse 57. Jesus has just been sold out by his friend and under cover of darkness, he's been dragged before Caiaphas, the high priest, maybe the guy I've been talking about who authorized the sale of the bazaar, the sale of animals and coins and stuff in the court of the Gentiles. I mean, if so, maybe that's kind of where the Jesus-Caiaphas feud started. Maybe that's where Caiaphas started to resent him. Like Jesus came in and said, My decision wasn't good, and he messed up my markets that I put together. Who knows? There's probably a lot of reasons Caiaphas didn't like him. There's also a lot of reasons that Caiaphas was a coward, and he had Jesus arrested at night because they were afraid of the people. And so those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the teachers of the law and the elders assembled, but Peter followed him at a distance right up to the courtyard of the high priests. He entered and sat down with the guards to see the outcome. Obviously, that is going to play out with Peter denying Jesus. That's the way the story goes. The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they didn't find any, though many false witnesses came forward. Finally, two came forward and declared, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you? But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, I charge you under oath by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. Yes, it is as you say, Jesus replied. But I say to all of you, in the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, He has spoken blasphemy. Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you've heard the testimony. What do you think? He's worthy of death, they answered. Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists, and others slapped him, and so on and so forth. Okay, but how did they get to the conviction? They came back to this thing he said right here after purging the temple. They came back and they got witnesses to frame that in the way that it was not intended. But it kind of it casts the whole thing in an interesting light. That surely didn't surprise Jesus. Surely he knew how they were going to frame that later. Surely he knew that would be the quote unquote evidence that would be brought against him. He knew the dynamics of the temple that you and I just spent a couple days trying to bring ourselves up to speed on. He knew the vulnerability of making that statement, and he made that statement that way, anyways. And all it took was that to get to a place where the high priest could demand of him, answer the thing, and it could escalate from there, as Jesus is charged under oath. And he's like, Yeah, you've said it is so. It is as you say. And of course, you know, from there it's to the cross. So the temple thing's a big deal. We've talked about how it's a big deal a bunch of different ways. Sorry I couldn't get you a tighter number on what this project cost, but it costs an amount that gets beyond what you and I can comprehend and into the realm of just unbelievable amounts of money and an unbelievably just huge thing that would have dominated everybody's thought and that everybody would have had really strong feelings about. And that apparently, uh ultimately, the religious leadership decided Jesus was against. He was on the opposite side of all of that. Well, in the end, Jesus is vindicated because what he meant was he would die and be raised back to life. And the religious leaders, citing him saying that, put him in a place where he's executed and then is raised back to life. Cool. That's fun. I like these kinds of, I wouldn't even call this a rabbit trail. I would call this like a main trail trail. This is just, I enjoy digging into the history stuff. I appreciate your willingness to go to these kind of places with me. All right, we'll end the plane on chapter two, probably next time around. Fun. All right, that's good for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.