Welcome back to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ, the longest Gospel study you will ever read. If this is your first time, check this out from the beginning by clicking here.
My apologies about my absence last week. I was offered some weekend hours at work and could not turn them down.
Recall that, last we met, we decided to discount the historicity of Jesus' "Teaching About the Law" as it occurs in Matthew, because it is totally incongruous with much of Jesus' later actions and teaching.
Recall, also, that we are still right near the beginning of Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount," a sermon that stretches three whole chapters and sums up, perhaps better than any other extant text, the morality of Jesus Christ.
Next time, we will move on to Jesus' "Teaching About Anger." Today, we have one verse left of the "Teaching About the Law," which we will use as a springboard into a discussion about the "scribes" we hear about over and over again in the Synoptic Gospels.
Let's get started.
Let's get started.
Matthew 5:20
20 I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
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To review, Jesus has just told his followers "do not worry, I have not come to undermine the Law of Moses. I have come to uphold the Law of Moses in the strictest possible sense. Anyone who breaks the Law of Moses will not experience heaven." Today, we see Jesus really driving the point home by saying "if you are not better than the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not experience heaven."
Today's verse should probably be discarded along with its three brethren, but not because it is incongruous with Jesus' philosophy. Since we don't see the preceding three verses as historical, this verse simply has no context here between the Similes of Salt and Light and the Teaching About Anger. However, the crux of today's verse is reiterated again and again by Jesus, and could easily fit into any number of spots within the Gospel narrative. It is totally in synchronicity with the greater body of Joshua's teachings.
Today's reading is interesting because, to the average first-century Jew living in Palestine, it would have appeared as though these "scribes and Pharisees" were the most righteous, pious, Law conscious people around. The average Jew at the time would have likely seen a scribe or a Pharisee as more righteous than even the Sadducean priests, since the priests had all capitulated to foreign rule repeatedly. At first glance, then, it would seem that Jesus is here telling his followers to go to extremes in their pursuit of righteousness. His followers must be "better than the best" in their righteousness.*
We've met the Pharisees before in our studies; they were an elite class or sect of Judaism who existed in relatively small numbers around Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. Josephus describes the Pharisees thus, in Antiquities of the Jews, Book 17:
"For there was a certain sect of men that were Jews, who valued themselves highly upon the exact skill they had in the law of their fathers, and made men believe they were highly favored by God (...) These are those that are called the sect of the Pharisees, who were in a capacity of greatly opposing kings. A cunning sect they were, and soon elevated to a pitch of open fighting and doing mischief. Accordingly, when all the people of the Jews gave assurance of their goodwill to Caesar, and to the king's government, these very men did not swear, being above six thousand(...)"
So, perhaps not many more than six thousand Pharisees existed at the time of Caesar Augustus. The word "Pharisee" comes from the Aramaic "prīšayyā," meaning "separated ones," and we can see in Josephus' account an example of their being "separate" in their refusal to welcome the rule of Rome along with the average Jew at the time.
The Pharisees are mentioned in the same breath as a group called the "scribes" no fewer than a dozen times in the Gospel According to Matthew alone, and many more times in the subsequent two Gospels. Indeed, "the scribes and Pharisees" becomes a very familiar refrain by the end of Luke. Jesus speaks of the two groups frequently, and almost as if they are equivalent. Today we will draw the distinction between them in order to understand who exactly Jesus is talking about here when he says "scribes."
By the simplest, broadest definition, a scribe was a person whose job it was to make manuscript copies. In the ancient world, there was, of course, no printing-press. Without the convenience of the printing-press, records, economic data, religious texts, and works of fiction all had to be produced and copied painstakingly by hand. The vast majority of people in the ancient world were illiterate, so it was an elite few who found themselves responsible for the bulk of the transcription that occurred at the time. "Scribe" is thus more a job description than a sect. Scribes existed in most ancient cultures around the world.
Our old friend Herodotus, the "father of history," writing in the fifth-century BC, describes scribes he met or was informed about during his studies and travels. These included a scribe in Sais, Egypt who was the only person Herodotus could find who claimed to have record of the origin of the Nile River, and another scribe who worked as a record keeper for king Xerxes during the Persian War.
Our old friend Herodotus, the "father of history," writing in the fifth-century BC, describes scribes he met or was informed about during his studies and travels. These included a scribe in Sais, Egypt who was the only person Herodotus could find who claimed to have record of the origin of the Nile River, and another scribe who worked as a record keeper for king Xerxes during the Persian War.
In the specific context of ancient Judaism, a scribe was perhaps one of the most important people in any given town. In fact, often times there would only be one scribe in a given town. An ancient Jewish scribe would have occasionally found himself transcribing written material or taking dictation, but, more often, an ancient Jewish scribe would have served as a kind of a lawyer, litigator, or expert in the Law for the people within his town.
People relied on a scribe to read and interpret the ancient scriptures - especially the Law of Moses - because, again, most people were illiterate and couldn't read the scripture themselves. People living in Jerusalem might have been able to go to the priests in The Temple for such services, but the priests only lived in Jerusalem, leaving people in other towns wanting. And, even if they attained some level of literacy, most Jewish people were not wealthy enough to own their own copies of the ancient scripture, because the production of such texts came at a great premium in those days. Scribes had exclusive access to copies of scripture and other literature that others could never have dreamed of having.
As we've recently seen, there are six-hundred-some commandments within that scripture for the Jews to obey. When there was some dispute or question over what was just and what was unjust according to the Torah, people would go to a scribe and pay him a fee for his specific interpretation of the Law. As such, scribes were closely associated with the Law, and were known for their deep knowledge of the minutiae of said Law.
The scribes and the Pharisees were similar in that all scribes and all Pharisees took the Law very very seriously, and in that both parties spent much of their days attempting to make themselves perfect within the confines of the six-hundred and thirteen mitzvot. We get the feeling from the Gospel that both the scribes and the Pharisees pined for piety in a very public form, as if to let everyone around them know that they had superior righteousness in the eyes of God. We get the sense that the scribes and Pharisees are leveraging themselves into better socio-economic positions by the exploitation of the law. We also get the sense that the scribes and Pharisees were very judgemental of the common Jew. (As we will soon see, Jesus sees the judgement or other humans as sinful.)
The skills of a scribe would have been rare, and his services would not have been cheap. I believe, and will continue to argue, that Jesus' major problem with the scribes is that they enriched themselves by their work disproportionately to the average first-century Jew.
"...Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of Heaven." Today, Jesus points out the first-century groups that were most invested in interpreting and living the Law**, and tells his followers: "you have to do better than these guys."
We will revisit the scribes again and again throughout our studies as we see Jesus continually besting them in public debate or condemning them for various behaviors or ideas. Whether we consider this verse historical or not, at least now we will know who we are talking about every time Jesus says "woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees."
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As I mentioned, next time we will embark on our study of Jesus' "Teaching About Anger." Some of the most important data we have available to us about Jesus Christ's true conception of morality is contained within the upcoming verses, and I am truly excited to share them with you.
In preparation for the next verses, if you care to, join me in considering the acidic effect that anger of all kinds has on our lives, whether at work, at home, or a leisure. Try to identify patterns of anger in your day-to-day life, if there are any, and then try to modulate or disrupt those patterns to whatever extent you can. This will put us in a good headspace for what is to come.
Thank you so much for reading, today. It means the world to me. Please share this writing.
Love.
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As I mentioned, next time we will embark on our study of Jesus' "Teaching About Anger." Some of the most important data we have available to us about Jesus Christ's true conception of morality is contained within the upcoming verses, and I am truly excited to share them with you.
In preparation for the next verses, if you care to, join me in considering the acidic effect that anger of all kinds has on our lives, whether at work, at home, or a leisure. Try to identify patterns of anger in your day-to-day life, if there are any, and then try to modulate or disrupt those patterns to whatever extent you can. This will put us in a good headspace for what is to come.
Thank you so much for reading, today. It means the world to me. Please share this writing.
Love.
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* The original Greek for this word "righteousness" is "dikaiosuné" which means, alternatively, "justice" or "fulfillment of the Law."
** Excepting, perhaps, the Essenes...
** Excepting, perhaps, the Essenes...
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