Jesus and Capitalists

Note also that in the only gospel where the whip is mentioned, the construction of the weapon is premeditated. He didn’t just grab some leather strips off a table and start swinging; the action in John 2:15 starts specifically when he has made a φραγέλλιον, phrageillon in Greek, more famous in Latin as the flagellum.

φραγέλλιον phragéllion, frag-el'-le-on … a whip, i.e. Roman lash as a public punishment:—scourge. source

A different Greek word is used for ‘whip’ elsewhere in the New Testament; this one only occurs here in John, and in Matthew and Mark to describe the particularly Roman whipping Jesus receives later on.

Anyway, a flagellum is basically a cat o’ nine tails, and has either a braided leather handle or a heavy stick attached to cords with knots. Making one takes a while, and one worth using to drive out the cattle is going to take some chunks out of a moneychanger. Fancy Roman flagella that feature later on in the scripture had hooks and chains, and were sometimes gladiatorial weapons. Castlevania shit.

This has been your regularly scheduled moment of the dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. There you go.

Please don't conflate markets, products and services with capitalism. That's yee old liberal con. Capitalism is a modern invention and it's all about speculation, non-existent liquidity, shell and shelf companies and bringing back usury run amok, what would have people burned at the stake during Jesus times.

Sort of. The part of the story that's often overlooked is the original emphasis on the sale of animals for sacrifice.

Everyone zeros in on the money changers as if Jesus was worried about FIAT rates, and overlook that it was people selling animals to be sacrificed as sin offerings that was the whole reason the money changers were there in the first place, and then why it's followed in Mark with a prohibition on carrying things (i.e. sacrifices) through the temple.

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves, and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.

• Mark 11:15-16

The bit about not carrying things through the temple is noticeably missing from Matthew, despite copying the rest nearly verbatim from Mark.

So while yes, the commercialization of salvation didn't seem very favorably considered, it may have had more to do with the of salvation part than the commerce part in general.

This attitude is further reflected in the apocrypha too, such as saying 88 of the Gospel of Thomas:

The messengers and the prophets will come to you and give you what belongs to you. You, in turn, give them what you have, and say to yourselves, "When will they come and take what belongs to them?"

Capitalism wasn't a thing back then but don't let the subtleties and context of the events stop you from your conclusion that Jesus would not like capitalism because he clearly would not on any level think it is OK.

He also killed a fig tree out of spite when he was hungry but there was no figs on it

Hey, why are you spoiling the ending?

He was upset that it was happening in a church you walnut, not that they were selling goods and services.

First off, Jesus isn't against Capitalism. He never said that selling things wasn't allowed. Get your facts right.

Capitalism didn't even exist at the time, wtf are you smoking

Figure out a way to implement communism without creating a Stalin that takes advantage of the situation to seize power, and we can talk. Until then, that is a major problem requiring a solution, and ignoring it makes people look blind.