Start Here · John 2:13-25
The Temple of His Body
Forty-six years in building, three days to raise up. How the cleansing of the Temple points to the Immaculate Conception, the New Eve, the Woman of Revelation 12, and the risen Christ.
Key Text
"Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."
"But he was speaking about the temple of his body."
Read the whole passage: John 2:13-25
The Temple of Stone
Herod began rebuilding the Second Temple in about 20/19 BC. By the first Passover of Christ's public ministry it had been under construction for forty-six years (John 2:20), which places this scene in about AD 27/28.
The Living Temple
In the same season the first stones were laid, this meditation places the Immaculate Conception: God creating the New Eve, the purer dwelling place from whom the Son would take his flesh. The Litany of Loreto calls her "Ark of the Covenant" and "House of Gold."
The Temple Raised Up
The body Christ received from Mary is destroyed on the Cross and raised on the third day. In the new Jerusalem there is no temple, for its temple is "the Lord God almighty and the Lamb" (Revelation 21:22).
Approximate dates
Timeline
c. 20/19 BC
The Temple of stone
Herod begins rebuilding the Temple (Josephus, Antiquities 15.380)
The living temple
The Immaculate Conception of Mary, the New Eve (on this meditation's reckoning)
c. 6-5 BC
The Temple of stone
Construction continues
The living temple
The Annunciation: Mary, about 15, conceives by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:26-38)
c. 5-4 BC
The Temple of stone
Construction continues
The living temple
The birth of Christ: Mary about 16 (Luke 2:1-7)
c. AD 27/28
The Temple of stone
"Forty-six years" in building (John 2:20)
The living temple
The cleansing of the Temple: Jesus "about thirty" (Luke 3:23), Mary about 46
c. AD 30
The living temple
The Cross and Resurrection: the temple of his body destroyed and raised on the third day (John 2:22)
AD 70
The Temple of stone
The Temple destroyed by Rome, as Christ foretold (Matthew 24:1-2)
The Study
The scene
John places the cleansing of the Temple at the start of Christ's ministry, at the first Passover (John 2:13). Jesus drives out the merchants and money-changers and forbids them to make his Father's house a marketplace (John 2:16). When the authorities demand a sign, he gives only one: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). John adds that the disciples understood this only after the Resurrection (John 2:22).
Why "forty-six years" matters
The Jewish historian Josephus records that Herod the Great began rebuilding the Temple in the eighteenth year of his reign, about 20/19 BC (Antiquities 15.380). Forty-six years later brings us to about AD 27/28, which fits the opening of Christ's public ministry. The number in John 2:20 is not decoration. It is a date.
The New Eve and Genesis 3:15
After the Fall, God speaks to the serpent of enmity "between you and the woman" (Genesis 3:15). The Church calls this verse the Protoevangelium, the first announcement of the Gospel, and sees in "the woman" the Mother of the Redeemer (Catechism 410-411).
The Fathers of the Church named her the New Eve. Saint Justin Martyr and Saint Irenaeus taught that as the first Eve, still a virgin, brought death through disobedience, so the Virgin Mary brought life through her obedience. Irenaeus wrote that "the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary" (Against Heresies 3.22.4). The Second Vatican Council repeats this teaching (Lumen Gentium 56), and so does the Catechism (CCC 494).
The Immaculate Conception: when the New Eve began
The first Eve came from God's hand without sin. If the New Eve was to undo Eve's work, she too had to begin her life untouched by sin. This is the Immaculate Conception, defined by Blessed Pius IX in 1854: from the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and in view of the merits of Christ, Mary was preserved free from every stain of original sin (Ineffabilis Deus; CCC 490-492). The Church celebrates it on December 8.
The Immaculate Conception is the moment Genesis 3:15 is set in motion. The "woman" who will stand in enmity against the serpent now exists, full of grace (Luke 1:28), and the serpent has no claim on her.
A meditation on the timing
Here is the connection this site proposes for reflection. Early Christian tradition holds that Mary was very young, perhaps about fifteen, at the Annunciation. Add nine months, and she would have been about sixteen when Christ was born. Saint Luke tells us that Jesus was "about thirty years of age" when he began his ministry (Luke 3:23), and the cleansing of the Temple is one of its first public acts. So at that Passover:
Jesus was about 30;
Mary was about 16 + 30 = 46;
and the Temple had been under construction for forty-six years.
Count back forty-six years from about AD 27/28 and we arrive at about 20/19 BC. In the very season that Herod's builders laid the first stones of the Temple of stone, God was creating the New Eve in her Immaculate Conception, the living temple who would give the Son of God his body. The two temples were "in building" side by side for the same forty-six years. When Jesus stands in the Temple of stone and speaks of "the temple of his body" (John 2:21), he speaks of the flesh he received from her, and his Mother, the New Eve, stands among the disciples who will one day understand (John 2:12).
A note on certainty: Scripture and the Church do not give the year of Mary's conception or her exact age. This is a typological meditation built on the known date of Herod's Temple, the Gospel's "about thirty," and ancient tradition about Mary's youth. It is offered as a reflection, not as Church teaching.
From Cana to Calvary to the Woman of Revelation
The Temple scene comes right after Cana in the same chapter, where Jesus addresses his mother as "Woman" (John 2:4), the title of the woman of Genesis 3:15. He calls her "Woman" again from the Cross (John 19:26), the hour when the temple of his body is destroyed. In Revelation, God's temple in heaven is opened and the ark of his covenant is seen (Revelation 11:19), and at once "a great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun" (Revelation 12:1). The Ark, the Temple and the Woman are drawn together in one vision, and the ancient serpent of Genesis appears again as the dragon (Revelation 12:9).
What has been fulfilled, and what remains
Fulfilled: the destruction and raising of the temple of Christ's body (John 2:19-22); the destruction of the Temple of stone in AD 70, foretold by Christ (Matthew 24:1-2).
Being fulfilled: the Church as the Body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:19-22), still at war with the dragon, who wages war against "the rest of her offspring" (Revelation 12:17).
Yet to be fulfilled: the new Jerusalem, where God and the Lamb are themselves the temple (Revelation 21:22).
In summary
Key Themes
1
The New Eve
Genesis 3:15, the Immaculate Conception, the "Woman" of Cana and Calvary, and the Woman of Revelation 12 form one thread.
2
The timing
Herod's Temple began about 20/19 BC. Forty-six years later, about AD 27/28, Jesus is about thirty (Luke 3:23) and Mary about forty-six.
3
The temple
The Temple of stone prefigures the body of Christ (John 2:21), Mary as the dwelling of God, and the Church.
Sources
Scripture: New American Bible, Revised Edition, bible.usccb.org
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 15.380 (Temple begun in Herod's 18th year)
St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 100; St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.22.4 and 5.19.1 (Mary as the New Eve)
Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854)
Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 56
Catechism of the Catholic Church 410-411, 490-494, 583-586
Background on the chronology: John 2:12-21 and Herodian Chronology, Associates for Biblical Research