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Jesus in Mark 13 reverses Haggai 2:15–16 in the Greek Septuagint. Haggai urged the people to remember their struggles before the temple was rebuilt, speaking of the time “before stone was laid on stone.” Mark reuses this image, describing not the temple’s rebuilding but its destruction, saying that no stone will be left standing.
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LXX Haggai 2:15
Septuagint
14 And Haggai answered and said, “ ‘So is this people, and so is this nation before my face,’ says the Lord. ‘And so is all the work of their hands. And whoever should come near to that place shall be defiled for the sake of their early gains. They shall suffer because of their toils. And you hated those who rebuke at the gates. 15 And now indeed set in your hearts from this day onward, before laying a stone on a stone in the temple of the Lord, 16 who you were when you used to throw twenty satas of barley into a corn bin and it became ten satas of barley, and you used to enter into the wine vat to draw out fifty measures and twenty came.
Date: 1st Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Mark 13:2
New Testament
1 Now as Jesus was going out of the temple courts, one of his disciples said to him, “Teacher, look at these tremendous stones and buildings!” 2 Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left on another. All will be torn down!” 3 So while he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately,
Date: 60-75 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The Jesus of Mark utters a prophetic saying in Mark 13:2 predicting the destruction of the temple. (Wilkinson Duran’s use of the phrase “the unbuilding of the temple” is appropriate in its apparent antithetical allusion to LXX Haggai 2:15-16) Two factors from the cultural context cast light on the significance of this prophecy. One is the expectation of a definitive, eschatological temple in the Temple Scroll and in Jubilees, a work closely related to the Dead Sea Scrolls. It would not be inappropriate to say that such an expectation implies that the current temple must make way for the future, final one ..."
Collins, Adela Yarbro
"What Sort of Jew Is the Jesus of Mark?" in Witte, Markus (ed.) Torah, Temple, Land: Constructions of Judaism in Antiquity
(pp. 197-227) Mohr Siebeck, 2021
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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