My favourite Bible story: Mayhem at the temple

[Disclaimer: If you’re a religious nut who gets offended easily, please sit this one out.]

Being the irrational believer in God that I am, I do actually believe that the Holy Bible is the word of God. Perhaps not always in the strictest literal sense, which is probably where the Rev Benny Hinn and I would differ. For instance, if I discovered that Mrs Silwane had been getting freaky with the pool guy, I would not be seen wandering the general Vaal River bed area searching for palm-sized rocks to be used in the stoning ceremony.

I do hope that Benny Hinn wouldn’t mind me saying that, other than the primary objective of the Bible (spreading the Word), reading the Bible for the pure entertainment value of it can be a lot of fun too. People who haven’t read the Bible don’t actually realise that the Bible is full of awesome stories — whether one believes them literally or not.

Take the story of King David and how he snatched Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba and made her his queen. For the benefit of the heathens, Kind David saw her bathing on her roof, through his window, liked what he saw and decided that he should have her even though he was already married and she was also already married. This episode coincided with His Royal Connivingness being involved in a war of attrition with some evil Gentile types. Yeah I know, that’s pretty much the default situation in that part of the world even to this day. So he had her husband, Uriah, sent to the frontlines of the battle where Uriah was inevitably hacked to death with a sword or something. Methinks the sword in question wasn’t even in the hands of an enemy soldier. We’ve all seen those battle scenes from Gladiator and suchlike. General chaos used to be the order of the day.

But enough about my crazy conspiracy theories. To begin with, this is not even my favourite Bible story. But you must admit; it is riveting stuff. David did ultimately marry Bathsheba and she bore him a son who would become King Solomon, the quintessential Wise One who would have put King Mswati to shame with serial androgyny. In the words of Ali G: “Respek’”. This is the type of story that should send shivers down Gwede Mantashe’s spine and lead to the prohibition of all forms of roof bathing in the Mantashe household — if the roof is visible from the president’s office in the Union Buildings.

But my pound-for-pound favourite story in the Bible involves Jesus himself. Now, Jesus is the originator of the famous “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” quote … No wait. That wasn’t the Messiah. That gem was the Mahatma’s. But Jesus said something pretty similar — something about the fact that if someone slaps you hard across the cheek, the proper thing to do is to offer him the other cheek for him to finish the job. [I’m sorry, but every time someone slaps me, I offer him the palm of my hand instead. Even George Bush, the born-again, followed the same model.]

In any case, one day Jesus got so fed up with giving the other cheek to some irresponsible people who were using his dad’s temple as some kind of Oriental Plaza he forgot to offer the other cheek. Jesus went and got himself a whip and, depending on which version of the Bible you prefer, either “chased them away” or “opened a can of whupass on their behind”. To quote John 2:15, “So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables”.

As you can see, the Bible is rather scant on the exact detail. The key lies in how one reads “and drove all”. I prefer to believe that he kicked their asses. That’s just how I roll. Oh I love this story so much! I’m Zulu, you see, and whupass is an integral part of my culture. Humourless born-again types like to argue that Jesus was so meek he couldn’t have actually whipped them — maybe just cracked it in the air to scare them. Either way, he was angry, grabbed a whip and somehow chased them to scatter into the general Fordsburg area … well, you know what I mean.

I like to entertain myself by trying to imagine the exact sequence of events. Did he get to the temple, find them chilling, doing their thing and sommer start whipping them? John 2:15 says he made a whip out of cords. This seems to be rather premeditated. Jesus’s professional trade was woodwork, the Malema Kryptonite. I don’t know how one makes a whip. But I don’t imagine that it takes less than an hour to manufacture a strong, skin-cracking one unless one is used to making whips. But that would mean he made whips regularly, which would make him a serial whipper. I don’t think so. So he would have had to sit there patiently for up to two hours while he made his weapon of temple cleansing (WTC). So far this saga smells of premeditated whupass to me. This is incongruent with how I’ve always assumed Jesus rolled. Also, what was he humming as he rolled his WTC? Amazing Grace? The Holy Rosary? This is the sort of thing I would have wanted inserted in the story if I was writing it.

This raises the question of where he got the ropes he used. I don’t imagine he used to hang out in the general temple area with ropes around his neck in the event of loiterers and vagrants defiling his father’s temple. Well, I’m thinking he probably got the ropes off one of the hawkers. This point always leaves me with a bit of a moral quandary. Should I believe that he went and purchased the WTC raw material or rather that he just snatched them from an arb vendor? This is a big deal for a believer such as me.

You see, if he purchased the ropes, then he inadvertently took part in the trading himself. That means he unleashed violence on people for doing what he also did, you know what I’m sayin’? But if he just took them from the rope trader then he jacked the dude. And I don’t know if I’m ready to believe that Jesus was a ropejacker. So I have to assume that he bought them. And now I start wondering if Jesus walked over to him, tossed five denarius at him and started rolling on the spot. Also, I wonder if the rope retailer was the first one to taste Jesus’s fury. I would call that a bittersweet situation. Can you dig it? Making a sale and then getting donnered with your own ropes.

What grip did he use as he went about moering them? Did he use wide, looping strokes or short, quick ones? Did the street vendors scatter about in all directions? Did a stampede ensue? Did all of them run away or did some stop and fight back? Were there high-pitched girly screams from the merchants? Did he inflict any bodily harm on anyone? Does that mean he would have been charged with assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm if he wasn’t … you know, Jesus? As you can see, I have given this whole situation a lot of thought. I really love this story because the possible scenarios are endless.

I’m a semi-practising Catholic, which means I’m deep into Lent. Lent is a time of reflection and introspection. You might think that it is inappropriate for me to worry myself with such trivial matters. But, like I said, I just roll like that. Other Catholics might be reflecting on bigger issues such as the meaning of their faith and so on. I tend to worry about matters such as which stories are meant to be taken literally and which ones are fictional. Bishop Shelby Spong has often talked about how the authors of the Bible wrote in a style called midrash.

The essence of being Christian is really to try and be Christ-like. You know, “What would Jesus do?” and all that. The reason I like this story of mayhem at the temple is that it always makes me feel better about the many physical skirmishes I’ve taken part in. Fair enough, my reasons for beating the living crap out of people were not quite so noble, but a beatdown is still a beatdown.

If you ever read the Bible, what’s your favourite story?

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