OK, Peter Leithart and Doug Wilson (I don’t have access to Nick Perrin so I can’t say more about the source) are claiming that “thieves” or “robbers” in the more conventional sense is the proper translation of lestes in the Gospel accounts. I still think Wright’s interpretation of them as outlaws or insurrectionists is preferable. Full disclosure: I took his perspective in my commentary on Mark’s Gospel.

First some context.

N. T. Wright says repeatedly that the priest/Sadducees were in league with Rome and were economically oppressive to people of Israel. They were opposed by the Pharisees, however, who were much more anti-Rome and tended to be real zealots. So, for Wright, there was never a question of denying that the priests, in Doug’s words, “had a cozy set-up, and were not fired by a revolutionary fervor.”

So there is no denial, in Wright, that such economic exploitation is in view in the Gospels in which the priesthood supports and is supported by Rome.

Now, lets deal with some of the zealot/Pharisee issues first. This was very much an issue for Jesus. As he was going to the cross, Luke tells us:

And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

So what happened a generation later? The Romans crucified so many men that there was, according to Josephus, not room for any more outside the walls of Jerusalem. Why did the Romans do this? Because the youths of Jerusalem grew up to be true rebels against Rome. Why was Jesus being crucified? Because he was accused of rebelling against Rome. Jesus was the green wood and he was crucified; how much more would that be the case for the dry rot that he saw developing in Jerusalem.

Now all this seems quite emphasized by the immediate context in Luke 23. The story of Jesus’ prophecy to the daughters of Jerusalem is sandwiched between too stories about political insurrectionists. Just before this event we are told of who the people chose when they condemned Jesus as a rebel to Pilate:

Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”— a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

So the chief priests, for all their cozying with Rome, had no problem joining with the Pharisees and the crowds in demanding that a terrorist be released. And so Jesus is crucified between two other terrorists in the paragraph after the story of his warning to the daughters of Jerusalem:

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left…  The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”

In Matthew and Mark the ESV’s “criminals” are “robbers, the disputed lestes term.  According to John’s Gospel (beside secular sources like Josephus) the word encompassed terrorists: “Now Barabbas was a robber.” No contemporary reader would doubt this because they knew what sort of criminals would get the attention from Rome rather from other authorities. No doubt Barabbas was supposed to be the one hung between them. Jesus took his place because he was falsely accused of what Barabbas was guilty of doing. (Notice that one “criminal” thinks that, if Jesus were really the King of the Jews, then he would rescue a patriot like himself.)

So this is a huge deal in the story of Jesus’ crucifixion and the priests are right in the middle of it. Even though they depend on Rome and use Rome to exploit the people, their only hold on the people is the Temple. They have control of the nation’s symbol of national hope. They can control the populace to some extent or else they would be no use to Rome.

By the way, the Sadducee hating Pharisee “patriots” could be just as oppressive and exploitative as the Sadducees. They allowed children to disown their parents in the name of “corban” and were accused of devouring widows homes. So the patriotic ferver that led to “robbery” as inssurectionist acts of murder was also the same fuel for “robbery” as economic exploitation of the poor.

And likewise, the “patriots” would appeal to Caesar when it seemed in their interest to do so. Presumably they all heard the chief priest there get Barabbas freed and Jesus condemned by says “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19). So claiming loyalty to Caesar is not exclusive of siding with a “freedom fighter.” And the fact that the Priests were dependents on Rome doesn’t end the question about the Temple’s role in the political ideology of national independence.

So, like those condemned by Jeremiah, both Saducees and Pharisees were economic exploiters. They could be in that sense, “robbers.” But I don’t see how the context of Jesus final confrontation not only with a corrupt ruling regime (both establishment beltway Saducees and talk radio pharisees), but also with the people’s own sinful self-idolatry in which the Temple represented their own pride.

Jeremiah’s warning was that the Temple did not promise continued political independence:

Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever. Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim.

So the Temple would be destroyed. By whom? By Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans. It was no guarantee of continued national sovereignty. And now Jesus is saying that the Temple is no guarantee of restored political independence. On the contrary, when the children of the daughters of Jerusalem grow up to become robbers like Barabbas, the tree will be dry and ready for burning.

This kind of xenophobic, rebellious, patriotic religion, led them do deny the Temple as “a house of prayer for all nations.” They put up a wall to keep Gentiles out, and later rioted against the apostle Paul on the false rumor that he had led four Ephesians Gentiles through it to the Temple court.

So, I don’t see how “robber” in its conventional meaning can be preferred. Peter’s recitation of Perrin’s case certainly doesn’t convince me. The evidence for Jesus concern about economic exploitation is real enough, but it applied to a variety of ideologies and relationships to the Temple. The appeal of the Temple to the general populace was due to its 1. real Biblical significance (i.e. Simeon, Anna, Joseph, Mary, etc) and 2. its prop for a religion of revolution and arrogance against others. This arrogance did lead to levels of economic exploitation and xenophobia. But it also led to support for terrorists, a theme that gets emphasized during Jesus’ final confrontation to Jerusalem.

Finally, I continue to fail understand why it is so controversial to claim that apostate Judaism was “a religion of grace”? It is plainly in the text of the Gospels as far as I can tell.

The idea of the grace of God can be used as a rationale for all sorts of apostasy and idolatry, both in the world of first-century Palestine and in societies somewhat closer to home.