What is 'the abomination that cause desolation' in Mark 13:14?
One (of many) rather puzzling verses in the ‘little apocalypse’ of Mark 13 and parallels is Jesus’ warning about the ‘abomination that causes desolation’ standing in the Temple as being a sign of the imminent coming of the Son of Man. I’m a rather strong preterist when it comes to the apocalyptic passages in the Gospels, and although it’s fairly common to read Mark 13 as being about Jesus’ prediction about his Second Coming, I’m less sure that this is what Jesus is talking about and what he is trying to communicate to his disciples.
The Coming of the Son of Man
Jesus is clearly alluding to Daniel 7 in this passage, where we see that the ‘coming of the Son of Man’ does not speak of a downward descent of Jesus on a cloud towards the Earth at the end of time, but of his ascending to God and his vindication over and against the evil beasts who had been seeking to dominate and rule. The ascending Son of Man is given the Kingdom and all authority, which he shares with the saints. I think in Jesus’ allusion to this he is not offering a series of signs that will precede his return to earth many centuries in the future, but referring to a series of events that are about to unfold in the history of Israel and Jerusalem that will bring an end to the current age and herald the handing over the Kingdom to the Son of Man and his saints.
AD70 and the Destruction of the Temple
So I’m a bit of a preterist when it comes to Mark 13, and I believe that the best explanation of the text is likely to be found in and around the events of AD70 and the destruction of the Temple (which is also around the same time Mark was writing his Gospel) and that the ‘abomination that causes desolation’ is not the Dome of the Rock or some kind of Left Behind style statue of a future global antichrist.
Mark sees the warning of Jesus as being directly relevant for the audience he is writing his Gospel for, hence his warning: ‘let the reader understand’ is interjected into the monologue. Clearly Mark realised that his readers (and hearers of course) needed to be aware that the coming ‘abomination that causes desolation’ would be the trigger for a series of disastrous events from which the only course of action would be to flee to the hills as quickly as possible.The abomination that causes desolation
This term has plenty of references in Jewish literature from the period pre-dating the life and ministry of Jesus, most notably in the Book of Daniel (11:31, 12:11) and also in the history of the Maccabees (1 Macc 1:54-59) when the tyrannical enemy of Israel, Antiochus Epiphanes, erected an idolatrous altar in the centre of the Temple, setting on top of the Jewish altar of sacrifice and also installed a statue of Zeus, declaring the Jerusalem temple to be the temple of Zeus. This blasphemy of blasphemies took place in 167 BC and triggered the violent Maccabean uprising in Israel.
Any reference to the ‘abomination that causes’ desolation in Jesus’ day would have undoubtedly cast the minds of Jesus’ hearers back to this horrific and tumultuous event in Israel’s recent bloody history.
The desecration of the temple spoken of in Daniel and the Maccabees happened in 167 BC, so what does Jesus have in mind when he uses the same terminology almost two hundred years later? As I have already said, I think Jesus is referring to the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the temple at the hands of the Romans, as this best fits the text as a whole (rather than this being some prediction about an ‘end time’ event millennia after Jesus’ ministry) and Jesus is appealing to well-established scripture and history to illuminate the seriousness of the coming tribulation which Jerusalem will face, but which will be a sign of his own vindication over and against the system which has opposed him and would ultimately put him to death.
Some possible suggestions
There are numerous scholarly suggestions as to what the ‘abomination that causes desolation’ might be, though some make better cases than others.
1. A statue of the Emperor Caligula?
Roman emperor Caligula ordered a statue of himself to be built inside the Jewish Temple (which would explain why Mark gives a masculine ending to the Greek rendering of ‘desolation’), which would have undoubtedly brought back memories of Antiochus and spurred the Jews into the final violent (and ultimately disastrous) conflict with Rome which would have indeed been reason for the inhabitants of Judea to flee to the mountains. Against this case however is the fact that Caligula’s order was never actually carried out, and that the date for this (AD40 – approx) is far too early to constitute a ‘sign’ of the destruction of Jerusalem, and happens well before Mark wrote his Gospel.
2. Roman standards?Conquering Roman legions carried standards into the Jewish temple, which would have provoked outrage. The Romans gave religious significance to their standards, and the Jews naturally viewed them as blasphemous and idolatrous. Josephus tells us that Pilate attempted to bring them into Jerusalem (Antiquities of the Jews 18:55-59) and caused an outrage. He also records that the Roman soldiers offered sacrifices to their standards in the temple courts (War 6:316), which fits with Luke’s version of the story, which has Jerusalem ‘surrounded by armies’. I am more convinced by this interpretation than the first one, but against it is the simple fact that if the Temple was already occupied and being profaned by the Romans, it would already be too late to ‘flee to the hills’.
3. Rebel Jewish desecration?We also learn from Josephus that in AD 67/68 a Jewish Zealot group took over the Temple, appointed mock high priests, and carried out their own twisted versions of the original temple cultic system. The Jews of Josephus’ time saw this as having been an act of grievous defilement in the mould of Antiochus two hundred years before. This option is stronger than the second one as being in AD 67/8 it would be during the war when Jerusalem was ‘surrounded by armies’ but still leaving time for those in Judea to flee to the hills before the final and irreversible destruction of the Temple by the Romans in AD70, and although I need to research a little more this is currently my favoured option of the three outlined thus far.
Not all scholars would agree with this however. Martin Hengel takes the more traditional view that Mark 13:14 is about the Parousia of Jesus and that it could not possibly refer to the Roman occupation of the Temple, as by then advice to flee to the hills would be useless, and he contends that this is the way that Matthew (writing after the fall of the temple) interprets Mark’s text. Against Hengel, I would say that to fit this passage into a Parousia mould downplays the sense of urgency that Mark is trying to convey to his original audience, because it means that in effect Mark is warning his readers about the Second Coming when Jesus was in fact talking about an event that would not take place for centuries. In any case, if Jesus is warning about his sudden Parousia here, the advice to flee to the hills for safety is hardly relevant. N T Wright argues in favour of option 2 (Roman standards) though I disagree with him on this one as the idea of the Romans actually being in the Temple makes the Lukan warning about Jerusalem being ‘surrounded by armies’ rather redundant if the armies are in fact already inside Jerusalem. Additionally, escape to the hills would already be too late by this point.
Conclusion
I haven’t covered all the possibilities of course, and I’d love to hear what anyone else’s views on the subject. Personally I think option 3 is the strongest possibility, as it fits more comfortably within the Jewish context in which the text has originated and where it finds its meaning. The passage would have to make sense to Mark’s original readers, particularly to those in Judea who would have to flee to the hills in the very near future. It seems to be inappropriate to describe this text as being about Jesus’ return to earth on a descending cloud at some point the future without robbing the text of the meaning it held for its original features.
Anyone else have any thoughts/insights on the matter?