Description:Cho responds to claims that the Markan Jesus regards the kingdom of God as fundamentally opposed to the ancient Levitical system, and argues that, just as with most of its related Jewish literature, the earliest Gospel assumes the expectation that the royal messiah would bring the Jerusalem institution to its eschatological climax. But Mark also depicts Jesus’s stance towards the priests in terms of a call to allegiance and warning of judgement. Cho concludes that the Markan Jesus anticipates the destruction of the Jerusalem temple because the priests have rejected Israel’s end-time ruler and thus placed themselves outside the messianic kingdom.