The temple, as the ultimate symbol of the Judean religious establishment, which the people took to be the symbol of God's glory (compare Jer 7:4), would be utterly destroyed.

It is difficult to deny that Jesus accurately predicted the temple's destruction. Even on minimal historical grounds, we have good reason to agree with Matthew that Jesus did so (see, for example, Hill 1979:62-63; Aune 1983:174-75; E. Sanders 1993:257). First, although the later church may have forgotten the significance of some of Jesus' words and deeds against the temple, they preserved them. Thus we learn of a symbolic act of judgment there (Mt 21:12), testimony of witnesses the Christians believed to be false (26:61; compare Mk 15:29; Jn 2:19; Acts 6:14), and a tradition about its destruction that must come from before it was destroyed (Q tradition in Mt 23:38 par. Lk 13:35). Jewish Christians who continued to worship in the temple (Acts 2:46; 21:26-27) nevertheless remained faithful to a saying of Jesus which they would surely not have created (compare Hare 1967:6). Finally, someone making up Jesus' prediction after the event would have fitted it more literally to its fulfillment, whereas Jesus' saying retains its prophetic hyperbole (such as not one stone . . . on another).