The Historical Jesus for Dummies by Catherine M. Murphy Phd

Author:Catherine M. Murphy, Phd
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Christian, The Gospels & Acts, Biblical Biography, New Testament, Jesus, Religion, General, Biblical Studies, Christology, Christianity, Christian Theology, History
ISBN: 9780470167854
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2007-12-04T22:00:00+00:00

Corinthians 7:10–16, Luke 16:18 [possibly

the original Q form], and Mark 10:11–12).

You cannot swear falsely

You cannot swear at all (Matthew 5:33–37).

(Leviticus 19:12).

You can retaliate (eye for eye)

You can’t retaliate (that is, you must turn

(Exodus 21:24).

the other cheek) (Q: Matthew 5:38–42 ||

Luke 6:29–30).

Love neighbor, hate enemy

Love enemy, do good to your persecutors

(first part, Leviticus 19:18).

(Q: Matthew 5:43–48 || Luke 6:27–28, 32–36).

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Part III: Exploring the Life of Jesus the Jew 174

Jesus’s “Bible”

The Torah wasn’t the only source of revealed law around the time of Jesus. The books of the great prophets who served as royal advisers during the Israelite monarchy preserved oracles that challenged the king and the people to live according to God’s law. By Jesus’s time, “the law and the prophets” was a stock phrase that referred to the scriptures (Matthew 7:12; Luke 16:16; 24:27). Luke adds the psalms to this list as well (Luke 24:44). During this time, people seem to have used this phrase like we might use the term “Bible” today.

Jewish groups, including the Samaritans (see Chapter 7), agreed about the authority of the Torah, although the exact contents of their Torahs differed a bit from each other. However, among those groups that looked to additional books as scripture, there were more significant differences over which books counted as “prophets”

and authoritative wisdom books or “writings.” Even some of the New Testament authors mention authoritative scriptures that aren’t in the Bible today (see Jude 6

and possibly Matthew 2:23).

These “new rules” set the bar pretty high for Jesus’s disciples! No lustful looks and no anger? What fun is that? It’s a pretty impossible standard, but in a way, that’s the point: No one is really righteous; no one is really like God. The first step in following this law is to realize that humans aren’t the authors of it. There’s no room for the self-righteous here. That’s why Matthew follows this up with advice against religious hypocrisy (Matthew 6:1–18) and the accumulation of money (Matthew 6:19–25) — the hypocrites consider themselves the ultimate judges of what God’s law is (Matthew 7:1–5; 12), while the wealthy risk thinking that they’re self-sufficient and don’t need God at all (Matthew 6:25–34; 7:7–11).

Jesus as God’s Wisdom

When it comes to the rules of the kingdom of God, Jesus appears to assume the authority of a legal expert. He determines how the Torah should be read, and he feels free to define the principles behind the Jewish law. The gospel authors, especially Matthew, set Jesus up on par with the greatest legal expert in Jewish history: the lawgiver himself, Moses. When Matthew presents Jesus going up a mountain to teach followers about the Jewish law, he’s emphasizing that Jesus is like Moses, who also went up a mountain and proclaimed a law (Matthew 5–7). But when he presents Jesus giving the law rather than receiving it from God (as Moses did), he’s positioning Jesus well above Moses and in league with God.

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Chapter 11: Teaching

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