volume i / כרך א || יחסו של ישו אל המצוות / jesus' attitude towards the...

5
World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדות / יחסו של ישו אל המצוותJESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAW Author(s): MORTON SMITH and מורטון סמיתSource: Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies / דברי הקונגרס העולמי למדעי כרך דהיהדות,, VOLUME I / כרך א1965 / תשכ"הpp. 241-244 Published by: World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדותStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23514530 . Accessed: 12/06/2014 21:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדותis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies / דברי הקונגרס העולמי למדעי היהדותhttp://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 91.229.248.187 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:54:25 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Upload: morton-smith-and-

Post on 16-Jan-2017

226 views

Category:

Documents


5 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: VOLUME I / כרך א || יחסו של ישו אל המצוות / JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAW

World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדות

/ יחסו של ישו אל המצוות JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAWAuthor(s): MORTON SMITH and מורטון סמיתSource: Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies / דברי הקונגרס העולמי למדעיכרך א / VOLUME I ,היהדות, כרך דpp. 241-244 תשכ"ה / 1965Published by: World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדותStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23514530 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 21:54

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדות is collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies /דברי הקונגרס העולמי למדעי היהדות

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.187 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:54:25 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: VOLUME I / כרך א || יחסו של ישו אל המצוות / JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAW

JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAW

MORTON SMITH

NEW YORK

For the development of various sects among the

worshipers of Yah weh during the two centuries before

Jesus5 lifetime, differences of legal teaching seem to have

been the most important proximate cause.1 Such

differences, at least, are alleged by our ancient sources as

the occasions of the schism of the Dead Sea Sect2 and

of the Maccabean revolt.3 It was legal considerations

which led the Hasideans to side first with the Maccabees,

afterwards with the High Priest Alcimus.4 The Pharisees

and the Sadducees appear, even in the pages of Josephus,

as sects characterized by special legal teachings.5 It was

reportedly a difference as to a question of law which led

to the break between the Hasmoneans and the Pha

risees.6 And John the Baptist probably owed his title

and his notoriety to a legal innovation — his intro

duction of an immersion ceremony which, he claimed,

would not only cleanse from impurity, but also remit

sin.7

Given all these precedents, it would be surprising if

Jesus' differences with his contemporaries did not at

least take the form of legal contradictions, or if the

persecution of early Christianity and its isolation as a

distinct sect did not result, at least in large part, from

peculiarities of legal teaching. And this all the more so

because uncommon Messianic claims, which are usually

adduced to explain the separation of Jesus' followers,

do not seem to have had much divisive effect by them

selves. We find all sorts of Messianic predictions side

by side in the Old Testament, the pseudepigrapha, the

Essene and Rabbinic literatures, so the writers who

invented or copied these predictions do not seem to have

been troubled by their obvious incongruity.8

Moreover, the expectation that Jesus' differences with

the sects of his day should have centered in legal

questions is supported by tradition. All the Gospels

contain accounts of Jesus' legal disputes with various

parties and authorities (most often with the Pharisees,

the scribes and the high priests) and in the Synoptic Gospels, where we can speak with some confidence

about sources or groups of sources, it is clear that all

the major ones — Mark,9 the non-Markan material

common to Matthew and Luke,10 the material peculiar

to Matthew,11 and that peculiar to Luke12 — all of

these contain reports of such legal disputes. Finally,

even John — although he writes at a time when Jesus'

followers have come to think of themselves no longer as

one of the sects, but as a new religion, in opposition to

all 'the Jews',13 and although his conception of Jesus'

work as saviour is one in which the Mosaic Law no

longer has an important place11־ — even John contains

elements of tradition which reflect legal disputes raised

by Jesus' teaching or practice,13 and which report that

these disputes were among the causes of the plots

against Jesus' life.10 In this last point John is supported

by the Synoptics, which report that Jesus' legal oppon

ents initiated plots against his life and that the charge of

blasphemy was what decided the Jewish authorities to

turn him over to the Romans.17 Moreover, in addition

to all this material about Jesus, the Lucan account of

the early Christian communities most often represents

1. See M. Smith, 'The Dead Sea Sect in Relation to Ancient

Judaism, New Testament Studies 7 (1961), p. 347 ff.

2. C. D. 1:lff.; v.17—vi:11.

3. I Macc. 1: 41-11:28; II Mace. v-vm:7.

4. 1 Macc. 11:42-48; vn:12ff.

5. War II viii:14; Antiquities XVIII 1:3-4.

6. Josephus, Antiquities XIII x :5-6.

7. Mark 1:4 etc. (This interpretation will be defended in the

author's forthcoming book on the new Gospel fragment

attributed to Mark.)

8. M. Smith, 'What is Implied by the Variety of Messianic

Figures ?', Journal of Biblical Literature 78 (1959), p. 66ff.

This is not to deny that Jesus' Messianic claim was the

theoretical basis of his legal innovations. But the legal

innovations, not the Messianic claim per se, appear to have

been the causes of the disputes. Even in Mk. x1v:61ff. and

parallels the charge is a legal one — blasphemy — and seems

to be based on the claim to be the Son of God, not merely the

Messiah. This shows what the Christian community, about

the year 70, imagined to have been the issue in the interro

gation.

9. Mk. 11:1-111:6; vn:l-23; xt:15ff., 27ff., etc.

10. Mt. xt :19 parallel Lk. vii:34; Mt. xxm:25ff. parallel Lk.

x1:39ff., etc.

11. Mt. v:20; v1:2ff.; xii:2, 5f., 1 If.; xxm:7-10,16-22, etc.

12. Lk. vn:39; xm:10ff.; x1v:l£f.; xv:2ff.; xtx:7ff.

13. Cf., in any New Testament concordance, the use of

.Ioudaios in John with its use in the Synopticsי

14. Jn. 1:17; v1:32ff.,48ff., etc.

15. Jn. v:16ff.; vii:19-25; (v11:53-vm:ll); 1x:l-41.

16. Jn. locc.citt. and x :33; xix :7.

17. Mk. 111:6; x!:18; x1v:61ff. and parallels, on which see

above, n. 8.

zti

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.187 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:54:25 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 3: VOLUME I / כרך א || יחסו של ישו אל המצוות / JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAW

242 MORTON SMITH

the persecution of the Christians by other Jewish groups

as resulting from disputes about the Jewish Law.18

No doubt it would be possible to maintain that all

these apparently independent lines of tradition had been

independently falsified in the same fashion and with similar material. But this would be a position difficult to

defend. It seems easier and more likely to suppose that

so much agreement is an indication of at least some

truth, and that at least some of Jesus' teaching and

practice resulted in legal disputes which set him sharply

against his contemporaries, contributed to the hostility

which led to his death, and continued after his death as one cause of the persecution of his followers.

If we adopt this supposition, however, then a corollary

follows. We should expect that Jesus' legal teaching and

practice, which played so important a role in his life and

in that of the early Christian communities, would

consequently be among the elements preserved most

clearly and tenaciously by Christian tradition.

But as a matter of fact the traditions about Jesus' legal

teaching are not merely obscure, they are openly con

tradictory, and this not merely from one Gospel to

another, but even within the same Gospel. This is most

regrettable, because there is no other Palestinian legal

teacher from the period before 70 about whose halakha

we have such early and extensive information. Neverthe

less, in Matthew, for instance, we find Jesus saying at one

moment, 'The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses'

seat: all things, therefore, which they tell you, you should

do and observe'19 — a direct command to his followers

to keep not only the entire Mosaic Law, but also the

oral law as taught by the Pharisees. And again we find

him saying, 'That which goes into the mouth does not

make a man impure'20 — a ruling which wipes out at

one stroke almost the entire body of laws, both oral

and written, concerning the purity of food.21 And this

contradiction is by no means isolated; the Gospels

contain many similar pairs of sayings, one supposing the

Mosaic Law still in force and its observance necessary

for salvation, the other invalidating some legal require

ment or promising salvation on other grounds without

any concern for legal observance.22

It is customary to deal with such contradictions by

eliminating one of the members. In the case quoted, for

instance, one can say either that the first ruling is a

Matthaean attempt to reconcile Jesus with the rising

power of Pharisaism in the years after 70, or that the

second is an invention of gentile Christians anxious to

have Jesus' authority for Paul's practice. But such

plausible guesses, when they have to be used again and

again and again, lose their plausibility. It becomes

apparent that both the nomistic and the antinomian

elements in the Gospels are so extensive that no attempt

to eliminate either can be convincing. And anyhow,

such elimination misses the main difficulty, which is, not to account for either one of the rulings, but to

account for the fact that we have both of them. More

over, we have both of them in the same book, and this

book was written within about fifty years of Jesus'

death. We must therefore ask: How could such contra

dictory accounts of so important an aspect of Jesus'

teaching have both grown up and been reconciled

within so short a time? (For reconciled they must have

been to be included in Matthew. The final editor of

Matthew was not careless.)

Moreover, if we move from Matthew back to Paul,

thirty years earlier, within only twenty years of Jesus'

death, we still find ourselves facing, under different

forms, the same problem. For large sections of Paul's

letters are devoted to a great dispute about the validity

of the Mosaic Law, and other, almost equally large

sections are devoted to rulings and exhortations which

constitute in effect, if not in name, Christian halakha.

Yet Paul rarely appeals to the details of Jesus' legal

teaching, and never, or almost never, to its general or

peculiar character. How can these facts be accounted

for if Jesus' legal teaching was so distinctive and

important as we have seen reason to think it ? Moreover,

18. Actsv1:13f.; xvm:13ff.; xx1:28f.; xxu1:29; xxv:8,18f.

19. Mt. xxm :2f.

20. Mt.xv:ll.

21. Note the difference from the similar saying of R.

Yohanan ben Zakkai (Pesikta, ed. Buber, 40a and

parallels), 'Neither does a dead body render unclean nor

does the water of purification purify, but (the purity law) is a

royal (sc. divine) decree'. Yohanan is merely denying that

there is any basis in physical changes for the purity laws. They

are simply God's decrees that men in certain relationships to

certain things shall be in the legal conditions called 'impure'

or 'pure'. These divine decrees are of course to be obeyed.

Jesus' statement also denies that there is any physical basis

for the purity laws, but pays no attention to the fact that they

are divine decrees. Jesus goes on to define 'purity' as a moral

condition, and the implication is that the laws about physical

objects need not be obeyed. (This implication was correctly

understood by the reader who added Mk. vn: 19c, katharizon

panta ta bromata, a gloss which should be translated, 'Thus —

i.e. by this argument — proving that all foods are pure'.)

Between Yohanan and Jesus there is only one step, but it is a

step of the edge of a wall.

22. Mosaic Law in force: Mk. 1: 44; vii: 9ff.; x: 6fF., 19; Mt.

v:17ff.; xviii:16; xxn:37ff.; Lk. v: 14; x:27f.; xvi:29;

xvii:14; xvm:20. Legal requirements invalidated: Mk. 11:19,

23ff.; vii:14f.; x:llf.; Mt. v:38f.; Lk. vi:37; x:8; xvi:18.

Salvation regardless of legal observance. Mk. 11:5f.; vm :35ff.;

ix:37; x:27ff.; Mt. vn:7fL; x:32f., 40; xi:12, 27; xx1:31f.;

xx11:10; Lk. vn:47; x:16; x1:5ff.; xv:llif.; xvi:16;

xvm :9-14.

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.187 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:54:25 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 4: VOLUME I / כרך א || יחסו של ישו אל המצוות / JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAW

JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAW 243

how can the great dispute as to the validity of the

Mosaic Law have developed so soon among the followers

of a man famous, not to say infamous, for his legal

teachings?

Before clutching at the customary catchwords — 'the

gentile Church' and 'the Hellenists' and 'the Hebrews'

and so on — it might be helpful to approach the

problem from the other end and to ask: What sort of

legal teaching can have been, both so clear and important

as to separate Jesus from the other teachers of his time,

lead to plots against his life, distinguish his followers as a sect and remain a major cause of their persecution,

and yet of such a sort that his followers within twenty

years should be involved in great legal disputes (in which they rarely appealed to his teaching) and within

fifty years should have developed flatly contradictory

reports about his teaching and have preserved them both

in a single book? When the question is presented in this fashion, that

is to say, in its proper connection with the history of

the early Christian communities, one sees immediately

that a number of the traditional solutions are inade

quate.

For instance, the notion that Jesus declared invalid

the ritual commandments, but called for a more severe

interpretation of the moral ones, must be rejected not

only because of the particular verses that indicate the

continued validity of ritual laws, nor yet because of the

unlikelihood of a distinction at this time between ritual and moral laws, but more especially because it is

inadequate to explain the rise of the so called 'Judaizing' party in the Jerusalem church and its partial triumph

even in the diaspora (a triumph evident from the

position of the Judaizing Gospel according to Matthew).

Had abolition of the ritual law been a conspicuous

element of the legal teaching of Jesus, had it led to his

persecution and to the continued persecution of the

early Church, then the rise of the Judaizing party would

have been sheer apostacy and Paul would have branded

it as such.

On the other hand, it is equally unsatisfactory to

whittle away, by pilpul, the reports of Jesus' legal

conflicts with his contemporaries, until nothing is left

save a few differences of opinion as to more severe or

more liberal interpretations of individual laws. This not

only contradicts the plain sense of all the Gospels, but

also fails to take account of two of the most important

phenomena of early Christianity — the persecutions and

Paul. We must remember that Paul's early connection

with and dependence on Jerusalem is attested not only י

by Acts but also, and unwillingly, by Paul himself.23

Since Paul first appears in Christian history as a per secutor,24 probably of the church in Jerusalem,25 one

hesitates to suppose he was totally ignorant of Christian

teachings. He evidently found in them something which

persuaded him — a Pharisee, and reportedly a pupil of

Gamaliel the first 26 — that it was his duty to persecute

the Christians, even 'breaking into houses and haling

off men and women... to prison'.22 And Paul as a

persecutor was not unique. After he was converted to

Christianity he himself was subjected to similar treat ment. Towards the end of his career he told the Corinth

ians that he had five times been sentenced by Jewish authorities to receive thirty-nine lashes, had three times

been beaten with rods and once been stoned.28 This

sort of reaction by Jewish courts is inexplicable from the

supposition that Jesus' teaching differed from that of the

other 'rabbis' of his time only by such details as a somewhat lax interpretation of the Sabbath laws, or a

more severe interpretation of the laws on divorce.

So we come back to the antithesis already stated: The

legal teaching of Jesus must have been distinctive and

important, yet of such a sort that his followers could

promptly develop contrary interpretations of it and

preserve both of them. One is always tempted to explain

apparent contradictions either by a change of position or

by carelessness. But careless teaching would scarcely

satisfy the requirements of importance and distinctive

ness, and there is no clear indication that any major

change in Jesus' position took place. The supposition of

development is made difficult by the fact that Jesus

seems to have taught only for a short time, a very few

years at most. Also, if his teaching had developed, we

should expect that the great dispute about it, which

came so soon after his death, would have produced

some references to the development by those defending

the later, as opposed to the earlier, rulings. So the

supposition of development is not satisfactory. Some

other line of approach must be sought.

We have a number of sayings in which Jesus dis

tinguishes between the legal obligations of different

classes of persons.29 To discuss these in detail would

require a dissertation, not an article, but, in sum, they

make it possible to distinguish three groups. There are

Galatians 1:15-11:10.

I Corinthians xv :9; Philippians 111:6.

Acts viii: 3 etc.

Phil. m:5f.; Romans xi:1; II Cor. xi:22; Actsxxn:3;

xx111:6; xxvi :5.

Acts viii :3.

28. II Cor. x1:24f.

29. Such distinction is normal in Jewish law: The gentiles

are not under the Law; women and children are not

obligated to observe certain commandments; the obliga

tions of priests differ from those of ordinary Israelites, and

so on.

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.187 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:54:25 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 5: VOLUME I / כרך א || יחסו של ישו אל המצוות / JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LAW

244 MORTON SMITH

the ordinary Jews, for whom the Mosaic Law is still

binding. For them Jesus — who was evidently consulted

as a legal authority 30—interpreted the Law as did the

other teachers of his time, advocating stricter inter

pretations in some instances, laxer in others. Then there

are those who would be 'perfect, who must leave

everything to follow Jesus.31 These are still subject to

the Mosaic Law (as Jesus interpreted it), but on the

one hand are also subject to additional requirements of

radical self-denial while, on the other hand, since they

make up the cortege of the Messiah, they are exempt

from certain everyday legal obligations, such as that

of fasting.32 Finally, among this last group there are,

or may be, a few whom Jesus has already admitted to

the Kingdom of God. These, who have been reborn of

water and of the spirit, are greater than the Baptist, who

was only born of a woman,33 and are exempt from the

Law, for the Law and the prophets ran until the Baptist,

but from there on the Kingdom of God can be taken by

violence.34 This is the mystery of the Kingdom, that

Kingdom which was already among Jesus' hearers, or in

their power, without their knowing it, and whose

initiates were free as the winds.35

This theory cannot be discussed adequately in a

brief article. Here all that can be done is to point out

that it would satisfy the requirements of the tradition.

The libertine core of the teaching would explain the

persecutions and Paul; the legalist exterior would

explain the development of Judaizing Christianity. The conflict between Paul and the Judaizers could be seen

as that between an esoteric and an exoteric interpretation

of Christianity, and the difference between Paul's letters

and the Synoptics would be understandable as that

between esoteric and exoteric documents. Practical,

everyday considerations forced the Church gradually to

abandon the libertine side of Jesus' teaching, but the

abandonment, as usual, resulted in a compromise. The

Church arrogated, in theory, for all its members, what

Paul claimed for his holy initiates, but it kept for

practical purposes the moral requirements of the Mosaic

Law. Thus a new, unified community was created,

separated from the other forms of Judaism not by the

claim of complete freedom for a chosen few, but by the

practical abolition of part of the Law for everybody.

This new community was not concerned about his

torical criticism or philosophic consistency. As religious communities do, it held to any elements of its tradition

which it found useful. Consequently we have in the

contradictory sayings of the Gospels evidence of an

earlier stage of Christianity, when it had not yet become

in theory a congregation of Pauline saints, nor, in

practice, a community of gentiles, but was — or, at

least, wished to be — both a school of halakha for all

Israel and a mystery by which a chosen few might

escape from the realm of the Law into the freedom of the

Kingdom of God.

30. Mk. x:2 17;xn:14f., 18ff., 28 and parallels; Lk. x:25; xii :13f.

31. Mt. xix.'llf., 21; cf. v:48 (this explains the impractical

teachings of the Sermon on the Mount); Lk. xii:33; Xiv :33 etc. Compare the traditions concerning Pharisaic

groups whose members undertook observances more rigorous than the Law required. 32. Mk. 11:19, cf. 26, and parallels. Here again, similar

exemptions for members of bridal parties, mourners, and so on, appear in rabbinic law and presumably were taken

by both the Pharisees and Jesus from their common back

ground.

33. Mt. x!:ll;Lk. vn:28; Jn. m:3ff.

34. Mt. xi:12; Lk. xvi:16.

35. Mk. iv: 11 and parallels: Lk. xv11:21; Jn. m:8; Lk. vi:5D.

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.187 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:54:25 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions