On Matthew 5:21 through 5:22

Hello, brother or sister.  Welcome back to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ.  This is an in-depth Gospel study.  If you'd like to read it from the beginning, you can click this link.

Last time we met, we finished off Jesus' "Teaching About the Law," which we largely dismissed as contrary to the greater body of Jesus' ministry, and thus of little value to us in our search for the moral code of the historical, true Jesus.  We even ventured to guess that the "Teaching About the Law," as it appears in the Gospel According to Matthew in the latest revision of the New American Bible, may not be historical at all. 

Today, we will begin the next subset of verses, the "Teaching About Anger."  The "Teaching About Anger" contains phrasings that, unlike those in the previous teaching, can only be seen as congruent with the greater body of the teaching of Jesus' Galilean ministry.  It contains phrasings that, if they are historical, count among the most important recorded sayings of Jesus' in terms of understanding his true moral philosophy.

As a brief aside, in regard to the christening of these sets of verses, I should mention that the titles were added by various translators and transcribers long after the Gospel was first written, and were not present in the original Greek writings.  The headings of these verse subsets vary some from Bible to Bible, but are mostly ubiquitous.  Just keep in mind that, in the original scripture, there was no line break between the "Teaching About the Law" and the "Teaching About Anger" to let the reader know that the subject was changing.  The verses just kept coming.

That said, let's let the verses keep coming.

Enjoy.

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Matthew 5:21 through 5:22

21 “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’ 

22 But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.

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Today's verses constitute the first of the Six Antitheses.  The Six Antitheses of Jesus are a short, very structured series of sayings or teachings that appear back-to-back here in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.  We describe the Antitheses as "structured" because they all follow a common pattern: in each Antithesis, Jesus will mention a particular portion of the old Law of Moses ("you have heard that it was said...") and then immediately he will contradict the Law and augment it with his own words ("...but I say to you...").

There is much of interest to mention and consider here with these verses, and with these Antitheses.  The first thing I would point out is how Jesus' "Teaching About the Law" from last week relates to the twenty-eight verses that follow it.  Recall that Jesus has just told his followers that "not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law."  In unequivocal terms, he said that the Law will remain unchanged.  Then, in the subsequent teaching, Jesus seems to change the Law, contradicting everything he just said.  This fact is part of what I consider the evidence that Jesus' "Teaching About the Law" didn't occur the way it is recorded in Matthew, if it occurred at all. 

Let's imagine this, though: we're on the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee.  The sun shines down and the air is hot and still.  Jesus has ascended a short way up the side of what was once known as the Mount of Eremos.  He is giving a definitive sermon explaining his doctrine.  Slightly below Jesus, where everyone can see, we sit amongst a throng of his new followers, anxious to hear what he will say next.  It is a certainty that we are, and everyone in the crowd around us is, Jewish.  It is a certainty that everyone in the crowd believes in the Law of the Torah.

In a law-obsessed culture such as that of first-century Palestine, it would have been quite a bold thing for anyone, even a High Priest or an official of the court, to have said anything about changing the Law.  The Law, of course, was up for interpretation within certain confines, but no man would have been permitted to alter the Law itself.  We can imagine, then, that as their teacher begins his talk about changing the Law, some of Jesus' followers are uncomfortably shuffling their feet or shifting in their seats.

We can imagine murmuring under the hot desert sun: "did he say that he is changing the Law?"

"Can he say that?"

"Who does this guy think he is?"

Shock.

We know that Galilee was, at that time, a hotbed of alternative thought, and so we can imagine that some in the crowd are not murmuring and spitting but nodding in agreement with Jesus, or offering the kinds of verbal support a crowd often offers a speaker.  "Hear, hear!"

So what exactly is Jesus saying in this First Antithesis?  To find out, first we'll look at these verses from the linguistic side and define a couple of terms.  After that, we'll paraphrase these verses and consider the logical implication of the First Antithesis.  Then, we'll tease four take-away facts out from all of this.

First, let's get some Greek going.

The word "kill" here is from the Greek "phoneuó," which can alternatively be translated as "slay, murder, dispatch or slaughter."

The word "judgment" comes from the original Greek "krisis," meaning, alternatively, "decision, trial, tribunal, or accusation."*  It is interesting to know that the English word "crisis" comes from the ancient Greek "krisis" by way of Latin.

The word we have translated in English here as "is angry with" comes from the Greek "orgizomenos" meaning, alternatively, "is infuriated with," or "is enraged with."

The word "brother" comes from the Greek "adelphos," meaning simply "brother," but deriving from a Proto-Indo-European term meaning "of the same womb." (We will argue later that when Jesus uses terms like "brother" he is referring to any other human, not just to one's literal siblings, and not just to one's religious kinfolk.)

"Raqa" is likely an ancient Aramaic term meaning "empty headed."  It appears only once in the entirety of the New American Bible.  Scholars argue over just how offensive this slight would have been.

The "Sanhedrin" were a system of courts that existed in first-century Palestine to administer and maintain the Law.  Usually, in the Gospel, "Sanhedrin" refers to the large, main court in Jerusalem.  Many towns in the area had their own smaller Sanhedrin court, but the larger Sanhedrin in Jerusalem held dominion over the others, and served as a kind of Supreme Court.  As we've mentioned elsewhere, the totality of the Law of Jesus will nullify any court of men, so when Jesus talks about the Sanhedrin, we sometimes have to search for alternative interpretations.

Finally, the term "Gehenna" refers to a place called the Hinnom Valley on the southern border of Jerusalem.  Some scholars think that the Hinnom Valley served at times as a kind of trash incineration site, and also as a place to burn the bodies of those who had been denied a proper burial, both lending to the "fiery" description.  The land of the Hinnom Valley was considered cursed because, as we see in 2 Chronicles, it is there that Ahaz, King of Judah, sacrificed his sons to Moloch, a Canaanite God.**  As it appears in the lexicon of Jesus Christ, "Gehenna" refers to "a real bad time," but, I would challenge, not necessarily "hell."

Ok, enough of the Greek and Aramaic.  Now let's do some processing.

To paraphrase our first verse here, Jesus is saying: "you know what God told Moses: 'do not kill.  Any Jew who kills another human will be judged harshly by the Court of Law.' "  The commandment to which Jesus refers here appears both in Exodus 20:13 and in Deuteronomy 5:17, and is known to all Christians and all Jews.

Continuing our paraphrasing, Jesus says: "What God told Moses didn't go far enough, though!  I say that even if you are simply angry with another human, you will be held to account by the judgment of God.  I say that if you call someone "empty headed," you will be held to account by the judgment of God.  I say that if you call someone a "fool," that you should be exiled by God to the place where they burn the trash and the bodies of the unholy."

"Wow!"  I can almost guarantee that's what his followers were thinking.

We see here that the immorality of killing is a far gone conclusion for Jesus.  He says that not only is killing immoral, but that the first step on the road towards murder, that being anger, is, in and of itself, immoral.  He says that merely verbally attacking another human is immoral, and worthy of some punishment or judgment.

If one believes that Christ's words were divine revelation, then, in Matthew 5:21 and 5:22, the Law has officially been changed.  If one believes that Christ's words constitute divine revelation, then the Jews and all followers of Christ are now obligated to rid their hearts and minds of anger.

"Wow!"

Imagine the implications of this commandment; this new Law of Christ.  Jesus is asking his followers to reform themselves from the inside.  He is asking them not only to refrain from an outward action, but to refrain from an inward disposition.  He is telling his followers that it is not right for them to become indignant at the actions or beliefs of other human beings.  This commandment of Jesus is a tall order, indeed.

In fact, from one vantage point, Jesus appears here to command the impossible from his followers.  After all, who among us can say that we never become angry with another person?  Indeed, there is a strong argument to be made that anger is subconscious, at times, and not always under the control of the person experiencing it.

Is Jesus asking the impossible from his followers here?  One would think not.  So, assuming that some human anger is subconscious, and that no human is fully capable of being completely rid of anger, and that Jesus understands this fact, then, at the end of the day, what can we take away for certain from these verses?

We can, for certain, take away the following four things:

1 - Jesus does intend, after all, to change the Law of Moses.

2 - Jesus agrees with the Law of Moses in regards to the sinfulness of killing another human.

3 - Jesus deems killing so sinful that he would judge even the first mental step toward killing, that being anger, as sinful.

4 - Jesus deems slander or verbal insults as sinful.

That's your takeaway, and we'll leave it at that.  We will definitely be revisiting these verses as we read the rest of the Gospel.  We have not said everything that could be said in their regard.

Next time, the "Teaching About Anger" will continue, and we will learn how important it is to Jesus that we be reconciled fully with our brethren when we've offended them.  Until then, thank you so much for reading.

Please share this writing.

Love.
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* As we slowly illuminate Jesus' worldview, we will realize that Jesus refers to a kind of cosmic or Godly "judgment" here, and not to an earthly judgment by a human authority.  We can say this for certain because, again and again as we shall see, Jesus warns his followers not to judge one another, not to commit violence or coercion against one another, and not to resist the evil in others.  It follows logically that, in a society where no single human is allowed to judge another human, commit violence or coercion against another human, or even resist the evil that might exist in another human, there would be no single human capable of sitting on a court bench in judgment of other humans.  No human court can exist, so Jesus must be referring to some higher "judgment."

** Recall that King Ahaz appeared in the list of genealogy at the beginning of Matthew, and that scholars place his reign in the eighth-century BC.

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To read what's next, click here.

To read what came prior to this, click here.

For the index of Christ's words, click here.

On Matthew 5:20

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.

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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.

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."

---

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...  

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To read what's next, click here.

To read what came prior to this, click here.

For the index of Christ's words, click here.

On Matthew 5:19

Welcome back to the most exhaustive Gospel study you will ever read.  This will be an endeavor of many years, as we work our way straight through the entirety of the Gospels of Jesus Christ, line by line.  We are only five chapters in, and already our study approaches 100,000 words.  (There are a daunting 88 chapters in the sum of the Gospels.)

If you want to start over from the beginning, click here.

Last week, we began to explore Jesus' "Teaching about the Law."  Near the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which we are still in the middle of, Jesus is offering his thoughts on the application of Jewish religious law by his followers.  We made special note that Jesus is not referring to any State apparatus here when he describes the "law and the prophets," but, rather, to the ancient Hebrew scriptures and traditions.

We continue to stick close to the reading this week, as we consider what Jesus means by "commandments," and first hear Jesus speak of the coming "kingdom of heaven."

Happy reading.  Here it is.

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Matthew 5:19

19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 

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There's a lot present here, so we will take this verse alone.  Today, we will explore what is meant by the phrase "kingdom of heaven."  Then, we will look at the word "commandments," and try to understand just what Jesus is talking about when he refers to them.

Anyone familiar with the Gospel of Matthew is familiar with the phrase "the kingdom of heaven."  If you'll recall, chapter 3 of the Gospel According to Matthew began with John the Baptist proclaiming the coming of the "kingdom of heaven."  We glossed over the verbiage at the time, but today we will gloss no more.

Understanding what Jesus means by "kingdom of heaven" is critical because, as you will see, he talks about this kingdom all the time in Matthew.  First, let's do the most rudimentary due diligence here by looking at some of the original Greek from this verse.  The word "kingdom" is being translated from the Greek "basileia," meaning "reign, kingship, royalty, or regality."  The Jews had, off and on, been ruled by a series of kings throughout their history, and many Jews of Jesus' time awaited a messianic, conquering king that would unite the people Israel, instituting a time of great glory in the promised land - a new Jewish kingdom.  To ancient Jews, a "kingdom" was a familiar, earthly thing.  

The other word of interest here, "heaven," as we learned last week, is from the Greek "ouranos," meaning "the vaulted sky," or the region inhabited by the many gods.  "Kingdom of heaven," then, might be translated or understood as the heavenly rule of an earthly kingdom - a Jewish State instituted by God himself on Earth.

One of the most interesting things about this phrasing is that we do not find it anywhere else in the Bible outside of the Gospel According to Matthew.  In the whole of the ancient Jewish scriptures, we find zero reference to the "kingdom of heaven."  In the rest of the New Testament after Matthew, we find zero reference to the "kingdom of heaven."  

Please note, however, that Mark and Luke do use the similar phrase "kingdom of God" seemingly in the place of Matthew's thirty-some references to the "kingdom of heaven."

Scholars have differing views when it comes to explaining Matthew's use of the "kingdom of heaven" phrasing in place of the more frequently attested "kingdom of God" phrasing.  Some have postulated that the author of Matthew used the alternative wording in order to avoid offending sensible Jews, who preferred not to utter the name or title of God.  By this view, "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" are equivalent.  This argument stands on shaky ground, however, because the Gospel According to Matthew actually contains the phrase "kingdom of God" a handful of times as well, meaning the the author would have been sensitive to Jewish taste only by degrees.  

Other scholars believe that the author of Matthew meant something different by the two phrases.

A common view among Bible scholars is that the "kingdom of heaven" represents the eschatology of Jesus.  In this view, "kingdom of heaven" meant the "end times" or a time of great transformation driven by some divine intervention; the coming of a new age.

We will encounter this phrasing over and over again, and will eventually develop our own opinion about what Jesus meant by the "kingdom of heaven," if he ever said the words at all.  For now, just know that we at the Moral Vision believe, like some others have, that Jesus' "kingdom of heaven" was something far more personal and profound than a harbinger of the end of the world.

Let's move on to these so-called "commandments."

Most westerners today will be immediately familiar with the "Ten Commandments," the ten laws that God was said to have inscribed onto stone tablets for Moses to bring down Mount Sinai to his people.  These Ten Commandments would probably be the first thing that a modern Christian or Jew would think of when reading today's verse.  

As a refresher for the lapsed or uninitiated, the Ten Commandments appear in the Book of Exodus, chapter 20, as follows:

1 Then God spoke all these words: 

2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 

3 You shall not have other gods beside me. 

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; 

5 you shall not bow down before them or serve them. For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their ancestors’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; 

6 but showing love down to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

7 You shall not invoke the name of the LORD, your God, in vain. For the LORD will not leave unpunished anyone who invokes his name in vain. 

8 Remember the sabbath day—keep it holy. 

9 Six days you may labor and do all your work, 

10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God. You shall not do any work, either you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your work animal, or the resident alien within your gates. 

11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD has blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. 

12 Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land the LORD your God is giving you. 

13 You shall not kill. 

14 You shall not commit adultery. 

15 You shall not steal. 

16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 

17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.*

Many, if not most, Christians today know these commandments by heart.

What many modern Christians might not know is that, in the whole of the Jewish Law, there are many many more commandments than these ten.  In fact, it is commonly understood in the Jewish community that the Torah lays out six-hundred and thirteen separate commandments for the diligent Jew to follow.  

That's right.  You can read it again.  Six-hundred and thirteen.  That is a lot of commandments.  These many commandments are commonly known as the "mitzvot," the plural of the Hebrew "mitzvah," which means "commandment."

The list of six-hundred and thirteen commandments is manicured differently depending on whose version of the list we are using.  One of the more commonly accepted lists is that of Maimonides, a very well known twelfth-century Jewish philosopher about whom we will talk at length one day.  For a full list of these commandments per Maimonides, you can click here.

Some of the six-hundred and thirteen commandments are as follows:

128. If a man's brother dies without leaving an heir, he must marry his brother's widow.  From Deuteronomy 25:5.

132. If a man rapes a virgin who is not married, and is caught doing it, he must pay the girl's father fifty silver shekels, and he must marry her, because he has violated her.  From Deuteronomy 22:29.**

185. Don't eat maggots.  From Leviticus 11:44.

194. Don't eat the sinew of the thigh.  From Genesis 32:33 

348. Salt must be applied to all offerings of grain.  From Leviticus 2:13

373. Two lambs must be sacrificed at the Temple of Jerusalem each day, so that God can enjoy the pleasing aroma of the barbecue.  From Numbers, 28:3.

504. If you buy a Hebrew slave, you can only enslave him for six years.  From Exodus, 21:2.*** 

The mitzvot cover all manner of subject.  They describe how Jewish court systems should work.  They explain exactly how, where, and when to offer which kind of sacrifices.  They explain how to treat converts to the Jewish faith, and they explain exactly who one can or cannot have sexual relations with in excruciatingly awkward detail.

Last time we met, Jesus said that not the tiniest part of the tiniest letter of the Jewish law would be undermined by his ministry.  He assured his followers that the law would stand permanent in its totality.  Today, he drives this point home by saying that one who breaks "the least of these commandments" will be "least in the kingdom of heaven."

As the nature and character of Jesus Christ begin to reveal themselves more fully, we will see that, as we mentioned briefly in our last segment, there is an incongruity between the law of the Old Testament and the philosophy and moral prescription of Jesus.  For instance, we will find that Jesus has little care for the sacrifices that are being offered morning and night at the Temple.  We will find that Jesus has little care for dietary aspects of the law.  We will find that Jesus does not condone divorce, where the Jewish law does, and we will find that Jesus is completely against violence of any sort, where the Jewish law condones and prescribes violence in many instances.

So we are left reeling by this question: what could Jesus possibly have meant when he said that he had not come to abolish any portion of the law, but rather to uphold it one-hundred percent?

We here at The Moral Vision are of the opinion that Jesus' "Teaching about the Law" is likely an invention of the author of Matthew, and not a genuine teaching of Jesus Christ.  The invention of these verses was to ease the fretting mind of the vigilant Jews whom the early Jesus Movement aimed to convert.  These verses reassure the first-century Jew: "no, Jesus isn't taking the Jewishness out of Judaism.  You don't have to abandon all that you've known."

That's right.  Ultimately, we are forced to discard this saying and these verses as inauthentic, because of their glaring incongruity with the emerging morality of Jesus Christ.  These verses are good PR on the part of the author of the Gospel According to Matthew, but cannot be considered as critical data regarding the morality of Jesus.

And, just think: if the "Teaching about the Law" were authentic, then it would mean that all Christians are guilty of grievous sin whenever they deviate even a little bit from Jewish Orthodox law.  Suddenly, no one can eat BLT's anymore.  A grim vision.

Next time, we will wrap up Jesus' "Teaching about the Law."  For now, just be asking yourself: "if Jesus didn't believe exclusively in the existing Jewish moral traditions, then what did he believe, and what should his followers believe, about the moral fabric of the universe?"

Thank you so much for reading.  Please share this writing.

Love

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* Yes, just like the founding fathers of America, the God of the Hebrew Bible was a-okay with slavery.  Eventually, we will address this in detail.  For now, just be asking yourself: "how can a perfect God, who loves all of humanity equally, be okay with one human enslaving another against his will?"

** Yes, according to Moses, the God of the Hebrew Bible wants victims of rape to be forced to marry their aggressor, and for the victim's father to be paid as if he was some kind of ancient pimp.  Eventually, we will address this in detail.  For now, just be asking yourself: "how can a perfect God, who loves all humanity equally, force a victim of rape to marry her aggressor?"

*** I ain't makin' this up...

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To read what's next, click here.

To read what came prior to this, click here.

For the index of Christ's words, click here.

On Matthew 5:17 through Matthew 5:18

Hello. Welcome back. If this is your first time here, you might want to utilize the Introduction, which can be found here.

I apologize for my recent absence.  Life has been very busy of late.  Rest assured that this never-for-profit writing will not cease until it is completed.

Today, we're sticking close to the text again.  The "Sermon on the Mount," which we are in the middle of, constitutes some of the most important data we have in regard to Jesus' morality and his prescriptions to his followers, so there's no reason to take any side-trips at the moment.

Last time, we finished up our quick work on the Similes of Salt and Light.  This week, we get into Jesus' "Teaching About the Law."  Let's proceed.

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Matthew 5:17 through Matthew 5:18

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 

18 Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.

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The verses we are addressing today are among the most pertinent that Jesus is ever purported to have spoken.  These verses get right to the heart of what Jesus thought about the universe, if he actually said them.

Today, we'll discuss some of the original Greek of these verses.  Then, we'll talk about what Jesus means by "the law or the prophets."  Next, we'll discuss Jesus' overall meaning in these verses.  Last, we'll talk about the relation of the word "law" here to the concept of a State, ancient or modern.

Matt 5:17-18 have a few interesting terms in them.  Understanding those particular terms will enhance our overall comprehension of the verses.  First, we have the word "iota," which we see translated as "smallest letter."  The word iota, in Greek, represents the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet.  Since the letter iota is represented by such a tiny marking, iota also came to mean "something very small."  "Iota" is sometimes translated as "jot."  Jesus is using this word to emphasize the importance of the totality of the "law."

The next word of interest is "keraia," which literally means "little horn," and which we have translated as "smallest part of a letter."  The Greek phrasing refers to the little horn-like endings of pen strokes in ancient alphabets.  "Keraia" is frequently translated as "tittle."  In using this word, Jesus goes from referring to a literal letter to a literal portion of a letter, further emphasizing his emphasis.

Another word of interest here is "amen," which Jesus utters here for the first time.  "Amen" comes from the Greek "amēn," which actually comes from the Hebrew "'āmēn," which means "truth" or "certainty."  "Amen," of course, came to be used as a standard ending for Christian prayers, and a form of it is also used in the tradition of Islam.  When we see Jesus use this term, which he will often, we can understand that he is stressing a point as being particularly certain.

The last Greek word of great interest here is "ouranos," which we have translated as "heaven."  To the Greeks, "ouranos" meant "the vaulted sky," "the home of the gods above the vaulted sky," "the universe in general," or anything shaped like the sky, i.e. a vaulted ceiling or a tent.  This is a Greek term that originated to describe a Greek universe, in which many pagan Gods existed.  Due to ambiguities within the multiplicity of first-century Jewish belief systems, it is difficult to say exactly what Jesus means here by the term "ouranos."

Now, let's identify the exact meaning of Jesus' phrasing "law or the prophets."  When Jesus talks about the "law" he is referring to the "Law of Moses," or the first five books of the Old Testament.  When he mentions the "prophets," he is referring to the books of the prophets who had spoken on behalf of God since the time of Moses.  Essentially, the "law and the prophets" were the intellectual basis for all of what made Judaism Jewish.  The "law and the prophets" are equivalent with the Tanakh.

As we've discussed before, however, the books of the Tanakh may not have been set in stone by Jesus' time.  Some texts that we recognize today as part of the Jewish canon may not have been recognized as such back then, and it is certain that there were texts in wide circulation then, i.e. the Book of Enoch, that were eventually excluded from the canon.  Because of our imperfect knowledge about what books Jesus might have considered canonical, we must allow room for ambiguity in this phrasing.  We do not known exactly to which prophets he might have been referring.  We can be certain, though, that Jesus meant at least to include the Pentateuch, of the five books of Moses, in this phrasing.

So, what is Jesus' ultimate meaning in Matt 5:17-18?  Let's consider the verses in context.

By Jesus' phrasing, we can imagine that there were some in the crowd who nervously thought that he had come to abolish the law and the prophets.  There were those in the crowd who suspected that Jesus was going to tell them "you don't have to be Jewish anymore.  You don't have to mind the sabbath anymore.  You don't have to circumcise your sons anymore."  The root of this apprehensive thought came from the Law of Moses itself, in the book of Deuteronomy, which teaches the Jewish people to be on guard for false prophets.

So, was Jesus there to get rid of the things that made Jewishness truly Jewish?

He speaks in very strong terms here.  He says that "until heaven and earth pass away" (read: forever), not a single letter of the law, or even the tiniest part of a letter of the law, will cease to be 100% true and relevant.  "No," he would not "take the Jewishness out of Judaism," he says.

According to Matthew 5:17-18, the entirety of Jewish law remains in play for all of Jesus' followers forever.

What is interesting to note here is the fact that Jesus will actually go on, later in the Gospels, to augment portions of the law and to negate others, as if he had never said what he says here.  Thus Matt 5:17-18 are one side of a built-in incongruity of the Gospels.

Before we wrap this up, I'd like to discuss the relation of Jesus' use of the word "law" and his opinion of Statism.

Eventually, I will make a compelling argument that Jesus Christ was a pure anarchist who would have abhorred the State in all the forms it has taken since his death in the first century.  It is a near certainty that this argument will be countered by references to today's verses.  I'd like to pre-empt this counter-point here.

Jesus Christ, in Matthew 5:17-18, is referring exclusively to Mosaic Law, which is a religious law that the Jews had had with them for centuries, regardless of the status of their statehood.  The "State," as it existed for Jesus Christ, was the Roman Empire, an oppressive force whose ideals were generally anti-Christian.

Jesus, in referring to "law," was not referring to Rome, or the judiciary of Rome, or even to an Israeli State or judiciary.  Jesus was certainly not referring to any modern form of "law" or State apparatus.  When (and if) Jesus said he came to fulfill the "law," he meant he had come to fulfill a religious law-code, not the coercive law-code of any State.

Jesus did not fulfill or bolster any State apparatus ever.

And with that, we will leave it.  Next time, the "Teaching About the Law" continues, as the Sermon on the Mount continues.  Until then, and always, thank you so much for reading.

Love.

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To read what's next, click here.

To read what came prior to this, click here.

For the index of Christ's words, click here.

On Matthew 5:15 through Matthew 5:16

Welcome back, brother or sister, to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ.  This will be the most exhaustive, intensive, comprehensive gospel study you've ever read by the time we are finished here.  We're on pace to complete this study in... well... quite a number of years.  So sit back and relax and let the data wash over you.

If you desire to start from the beginning, you can find the introductory posting to this writing here.

For the last two weeks, you'll recall, we've been learning about the Similes of Salt and Light.  These "similes" represent the first data that Jesus relays to his followers in the form of a metaphor.  Jesus, as a philosopher, seemed to have been quite prone to metaphor and parable.  This will become more and more apparent to us as we move forward.

Like we've done for the last couple of weeks, we are going to forgo any superfluous research here so that we can stay focused directly on our gospel text.  If nothing else, this is for my personal benefit.  The Similes of Salt and Light have been, in the past, challenging for me to understand clearly, so I want to make sure that we've really thought these through.

Let me not ramble on any more.  We'll get started.  

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Matthew 5:15 through Matthew 5:16

15 Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. 

16 Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

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Recall that Jesus is currently relaying the first parts of what is known as his "Sermon on the Mount."  He is standing, we believe, by himself, on an elevated spot overlooking a "great crowd."  The crowd has come to him because he is proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, and because he appears to have some kind of ability to cure or ease some of the frailties or illnesses in the people.

The crowd he speaks to is described as large, and all of the crowd are described collectively as disciples.  Since Jesus speaks here to a large, anonymous crowd, authoritatively doling out moral data to them, we can assume that these data are for the general public.  That is to say that the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount are for the common follower of Christ, not for a select group of elite followers such as the Twelve Apostles.

I will repeat that: the Sermon on the Mount is not for the elite or seasoned follower of Christ.  It is for the common Christian.  It is for every Christian.

Last time, Jesus told the crowd before him that they were the "light of the world."  Today, he continues with the "light" metaphor.  In 5:15, he states the obvious: people don't light a candle and then put it under an obscuring cover.  If you light a lamp and put it under a basket, the flame will not light the room, and will possibly burn out rapidly for lack of air - a pointless exercise.  To the contrary, he says, a lamp, once lit, is placed on a lampstand, where it can "give light to all in the house."

In 5:16, Jesus tells his followers that, just like a lamp on a lampstand, their light must shine before others, so that "they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father."

There is a deceptively large amount to cover here.  First, we'll talk about the linguistics of the word "light" as it occurs in these verses.  Then, we'll discuss the way Jesus' use of the word "light" here compares to his use of the word "light" in the Gospel According to John.  Finally, we'll talk about the word "must," which Jesus speaks here for the first time, and which marks out critical moral data or instruction.

Linguistics

The word "light" appears three times here: 

- "...they light a lamp," 

- "...it gives light to all," and 

- "...your light must shine."  

Reading these verses in their original Greek, one would find not three repetitions of the same term, but three distinct terms.  For our understanding, we will take a look at each of these Greek terms.

The first word in question, the one from "...they light a lamp," is "kaió." "Kaió" is a verb meaning "to burn." The first instance of the word "light" here, then, represents only the very natural and common act of setting fire to something that was previously unlit.

The second word we have, from "...it gives light to all," is "lampó."  "Lampó" is the Greek verb equivalent to the English "to shine," "to glow," or even "to sparkle."  It is, fairly obviously, a deep root to the modern English word "lamp."

The third version of "light" we want to look at is the one represented in 5:16.  The use of "light" in 5:16 comes from the Greek "phós."  "Phós" represents radiant light, illuminating energy, and can even be related to the term "beacon."

Three distinct Greek terms, "kaió," "lampó," and "phós" get funnelled into one English word: "light."

Knowing the Greek roots of these words doesn't necessarily augment our understanding of these verses, but it does demonstrate how one-dimensional the English translation of the ancient Greek can sometimes be.  This highlights the importance, for us, of going all the way back to the original Greek as often as possible.  It goes without saying that when multiple terms get crushed into one term through the process of translation, we lose some of the subtlety and nuance of the original text.

It should go without saying, too, that subtlety and nuance are manna to you and I.

Light of the World: Matthew's Version, or John's?

Now I'd like to call attention to a verse from the Gospel According to John.  In John ch. 8, we read the following:

12 Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Did you do a double take?  You should have.  Let's revisit what Jesus said in Matthew 5:14.  Speaking to a huge crowd of anonymous followers, in Matthew 5:14, Jesus said the following:

14 "You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden." 

In Matthew, Jesus elevates and bolsters his followers, who are constituted by a crowd of unwashed, anonymous, middle-eastern humans.  He tells them explicitly that they are the "light of the world." In John, Jesus never says such a thing. In John, for some reason, Jesus has totally changed his mind on this "light of the world" issue. In John, Jesus says that he is the light of the world.

(The Greek word translated as "light" in the Johannine* verse here is, again, "phós," meaning "radiant light" or "illuminating energy.")

The phrasing from Matthew seems to contradict the phrasing from John.  How can Jesus' followers be "the light of the world" if Jesus himself is "the light of the world?"  What can we understand about Jesus' teachings from this apparent conceptual contradiction?

It seems to me that the Jesus we've seen so far in Matthew is both selfless and humble.  He humbly accepted the baptism of another human, John the Baptist.  He selflessly counsels and heals the multitudes.  He idealizes humble human characteristics in his Beatitudes, and he tells his humble followers that they are both wonderful and consequential.

Smash-cut to Jesus in the Gospel of John, who, as we will eventually see, is totally stripped of his humble airs.  The Jesus in John states that he is wonderful and consequential, and that his followers better believe that he is God, "or else."

Whenever we compare the gospels to one another, it is imperative to look at their relative dating.  The Gospel of John was the last one to be written, and would have been composed between sixty and eighty years after the death of Jesus.  The Gospel of Matthew was composed as early as forty years after Jesus' death.  Empirically speaking, then, the Gospel of Matthew carries more weight for us in the realm of the "historical Jesus," because there was literally less time for Christ's message to become diluted prior to its composition.  For this reason we will generally assume that, between two contradictory gospel excerpts, the oldest one is the more accurate.

That said, what we see happening here before our very eyes, between Matt ch. 5 and John ch. 8, is the deliberate alteration of the moral teaching of Jesus Christ over time by human writers.

I'll repeat that: since Matthew 5:14-16 contradicts John 8:12, and since John was written upwards of decades after Matthew was written, we know that someone changed or added to the words of Jesus as they had been passed along from the earliest sources.  We know that the Jesus appearing in John is qualitatively different from the Jesus appearing in Matthew, and we know that those differences were engineered by humans.

That's quite a bombshell for us.  I'd like you to keep this concept near and dear throughout the duration of our study.

The gospels do not always agree in their portrayal of the morality of Jesus, and it is a Christian's responsibility to parse through these differences with a skeptical eye, if they are to be as close as possible to The Man.

Pay Attention to the "Musts"

To conclude, today, I want to call attention to another particular word.  That word is "must."

First, a bit of background.

In an earlier version of my life, afflicted by unmanageable addiction, I availed myself of the Twelve-Step programs for relief.  The Twelve-Step programs are, like the Abrahamic religions, very literature-driven.  There are various books, workbooks, and inspirational compilation texts available in the major Twelve-Step programs, and the intimate study of those texts is critical to the sobriety and longevity of many of the Twelve-Steps' adherents.

I was guided through some of the Twelve-Step literature for a time by a strong man who always told me to pay special attention to the "musts" in said literature.

"I want you to go through the book and highlight every instance of the word "must" that you find," he told me.  "You always have to pay attention to the 'musts.'"

What he meant was that the literature at hand offered a lot of ideas and a lot of advice, but that a small percentage of those ideas or that advice was qualified by the word "must."  My sponsor meant merely to point out that when someone goes to the trouble to say or write the word "must," it is because they want to convey the absolute criticality of a thing.  If the text said that we "must" do something, then it wasn't a "suggestion," it was an absolutely critical requisite to success in sobriety.

I believe that my sponsor's wisdom about the word "must" carries over to our study of the gospel.

Jesus says: "your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father."

Not "might shine."  Not "could shine."  Not "should shine."

"Must shine."

Unless we find a contradiction to this statement in the older Gospel of Mark (which we won't), we will be taking this statement, henceforth, as an unequivocal command.  A follower of Jesus must be an illuminating light to the world through their good actions.

Isolation and inaction, then, are true enemies of the good of Jesus.  The practising follower of Christ will be justified by the light they spread on earth by their works, not by some quiet, personal profession of faith in impossibilities they never witnessed.**

A follower of Christ must shine.

Shine on.

Love.
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* Johannine means "relating to, or of, John the Evangelist."

** The Gospel of John will proceed to contradict all of this, too.  Again, we will chalk that up to human error or deliberate human meddling, and err on the side of The Synoptics.

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To read what's next, click here.

To read what came prior to this, click here.

For the index of Christ's words, click here.

On Matthew 5:14

Hello, and welcome back to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ, your guide through the Gospels of Jesus Christ.  If this is your first time, you can check out the Introduction here.

Last time, if you'll recall, we read and digested Matthew 5:13, in which Jesus told his new followers that they were the "salt of the earth."  Remember that Matt 5:13 began a set of verses collectively known as the "Similes of Salt and Light."  Today, just like last time, we're going to dispense with any superfluous topics and focus directly on our gospel reading.  We have some interesting ground to cover, so let's get started.

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Matthew 5:14

14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.

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The metaphors are really flying now.  Last time, they were the "salt of the earth."  Today, they are called the "light of the world," and they are compared to a city set on a mountain.  None of this makes immediate sense, and none of it can be simply glazed over.  The use of metaphor insists that we pause and process.

Today, we'll highlight some linguistic differences between 5:14 and 5:13.  We'll work to ascertain Jesus' general meaning in 5:14 by digesting the language and looking at the traditional interpretation.  Then, we'll look around ancient Galilee to see if any cities were built on mountains in the time of Jesus, since a local "city on a mountain" might help to explain Jesus' choice of metaphor.  Finally, we'll look for attestation of these words in other gospels.

Linguistics

In Matthew 5:13, when Jesus calls his followers the salt of the earth, the word used for "earth" is "gês," a Greek word meaning "land," "earth," or "soil."  In 5:14, Jesus switches terminology from "salt of the earth" to "light of the world."  The Greek word used for "world" here is "kósmos," meaning "order," "mode," or "humankind."

In English, "earth" and "world" can be seen as synonymous, so it is interesting that the evangelist records Jesus as having used non-synonymous Greek terms here.  Let's postulate as to why the terms differ.

Jesus' use of the term "gês" in the salt metaphor makes sense because it refers to the literal earth beneath our feet.  Salt is a mineral found in the soil of earth, and "gês" refers to that soil.  When Jesus proceeds to discuss the "light of the world," he uses the term "kósmos," which detaches us from the physical earth and causes us to look for a broader vision.  His followers aren't the light of the soil.  His followers are the light of order.  His followers, he says, are the "light of humankind."  

Between 5:13 and 5:14, Jesus moves from a concrete, physical term to an abstract conceptual term.  Jesus is, perhaps deliberately, broadening the visionary aperture for his followers here.  It is possible that, by moving from "gês" to "kósmos," he means to tell his followers "don't go thinking that my teaching only applies here in your physical life, when in reality it applies broadly to the whole world, and across all time."

Interpretation

So, what is Jesus' specific meaning in this verse, as he moves a step toward the abstract?  By "light of the world," Jesus clearly means that his followers are to "enlighten humankind."  This is the standard traditional interpretation, with which I agree.  Another way of putting this is that Jesus wants his followers to be teachers of his school of thought. The teaching is not to be hoarded, but given away.

The next portion of the verse, "a city on a mountain cannot be hidden," will make more sense when we arrive at the last verse of these similes, but, based on what we've read so far, we can guess that Jesus is again referring to the relative placement of his true followers among humankind.  His followers, he says, are to be seen very clearly, even from a distance, and are not to hide themselves from the world.  His teachings are for all.

"You will give the world light that it needs.  You cannot hide your light from the world," he seems to say.  This is the traditional interpretation, with which I agree.

In 5:13, as Jesus compared his followers to precious salt, we noted that salt cannot become not-salty.  This seemed to indicate an irreversible status for the true follower of Christ.  Once salty, always salty.  Once a follower of Christ's teachings, always a follower of Christ's teachings.  This kind of irreversible status seems to be reflected again in today's reading, where Jesus says the city on a mountain cannot be hidden.  The visibility of the city is irreversible.  

The salt needed not do anything outside of its nature in order to remain salty, and the city on the mountain need not do anything outside of its nature in order to remain permanently visible.

The salt and the city make no effort, but are important and conspicuous by their very nature.  By these verses, Jesus means that his followers will need to make no effort in being the light of the world.  They will be the light of the world by their very nature - a beautifully empowering concept.

Cities on Mountains?

Moving on, I wanted to note that a city being built on a mountain was not a rare thing in the ancient world.  A mountain, or, more generally, any land that stood elevated above the land which encompassed it, was far more defensible in combat than level ground or low-ground.  Human military commanders have understood the tactical value of high-ground since prehistory.  That said, it is no surprise that many cities all over the ancient world were founded on hills, mountains, or elevated plateaus.

If we look specifically at the Galilee in the time of Jesus, the best example of a "city on a mountain" is that of Safed, which was known in Christ's time as Sepph.  Safed is the highest city in Israel, and is visible from a huge portion of Galilee.  If Jesus' Sermon on the Mount did indeed occur outside of Capernaum, on the north side of the Sea of Galilee, it is completely possible that Jesus and his followers could have seen Safed, sixteen miles to the north, during the Sermon.  Some scholars have wondered whether Jesus didn't actually gesture toward Safed while he said this.  "You will be as visible as a city on a mountain," he might have said, pointing north to the highest land on the horizon.

Whether or not Jesus indicated Safed to his followers or was thinking about Safed during the Sermon does not change our interpretation, but it is interesting to consider nonetheless.

Multiple Attestation

Lets cover one last thing here.  We need to discuss the multiple attestation of this verse.  First, I'll remind you what we mean by "multiple attestation."

In gospel scholarship, and especially in the context of the quest for the historical Jesus, there are specific criteria we use to determine historicity.  These criteria include the "Criterion of Dissimilarity," the "Criterion of Embarrassment," and the "Criterion of Multiple Attestation."  Admitting that the gospels arrive to us through the veil of history anonymous, and through copies of translations of copies, we do not immediately trust anything in the gospels as being true in and of itself.  Instead, we utilize the aforementioned criteria and others like them to suss out what might be true historical data and what might be conjecture or story-telling on the part of any given evangelist.

The "Criterion of Multiple Attestation," sometimes called the "Criterion of Independent Attestation," says, simply, that the likelihood of an event or saying in a gospel being historical increases proportionately with the number of times that said event or saying is recorded in other independent sources.

The word "independent" is key here.  When we look for "multiple attestation," we have to remember that Matthew and Luke share more than half of their material in common.  A huge percentage of the material in common between Matt and Luke comes directly from Mark.  The remaining material Matt and Luke share in common must have come from some other common source.  Whatever that source was, it is now lost to history.  Scholars call this lost source "Q," which stands for the German word "quelle," meaning "source."

That said, we cannot say that material common to Matt, Mark, and/or Luke has been "multiply attested," because Matt, Mark, and Luke are not independent from one another.  Material found common between Matt and Luke always came from either Q or Mark.  However, if some material is found in common between Matt, Mark, or Luke and, say, the Gospel of John, said material can be called "multiply attested," because John was written independently of the other three.

I say all of this to help demonstrate why it is important that today's verse is indeed attested in another gospel.  Given what you've just read, you might be surprised that the other gospel in question is not the Gospel of John.  No, this verse is actually multiply attested in the famed Gospel of Thomas.

We've discussed the Gospel of Thomas very little thus far.  I promise that, during the next few years, we will discuss it in depth again and again.  In short, the Gospel of Thomas is a "sayings gospel"* about the life of Jesus which was lost in antiquity and only recently rediscovered in the brilliant "Nag Hammadi" cache.

Verse 32 of the Gospel of Thomas reads as follows:

32 Jesus said, "A city being built on a high mountain and fortified cannot fall, nor can it be hidden."

Some scholars believe that the Gospel of Thomas was written very early. Some scholars will even argue that the Gospel of Thomas is the oldest extant gospel. There are strong arguments to be made that Thomas was written completely independently of Matt, Mark, Luke, and John. If it is true that the author of Thomas did not have access to any of the other known works, then it stands a good chance that Jesus' use of the "city on a mountain" metaphor is historical.

Like... the historical Joshua actually said it.

This kind of measured probability is the closest we can get to standing among the crowd of Jesus' first-century disciples.  It is heartwarming to be so close to the Man, and I can't hide my smile as I consider it.

We will be increasingly on the lookout for the various Criteria of Historicity, and will eventually find cause to work a "Criteria of Historicity" section into each entry of our "sayings of Jesus" index.**  For now, just know that we here at The Moral Vision take nothing for granted.  We assume that any given bit of any gospel might be contrived, and we base our understanding of the historical Jesus solely on data that meet some Criterion of Historicity.

Whew.  That seemed like a heady mouthful.  I hope I didn't lose you to the jargon.

Next time, we'll continue with "The Similes of Salt and Light," as Jesus continues to expound upon his moral vision.  Until then, remember: Christ wanted his followers to be the "light of the world."  If you count yourself among his followers, perhaps you ought to enlighten someone this week.

Thank you for reading.  Please share this writing.

Love.

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* A "sayings gospel" is a gospel that does not follow a narrative arch, but, rather, simply relates a list of things that Jesus was thought to have said.

** I know I've fallen far behind on the index work.  I promise to remedy that as soon as I have the time.

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To read what's next, click here.

To read what came prior to this, click here.

For the index of Christ's words, click here.

On Matthew 5:13

Hello, and welcome back to The Moral Vision.  The Introduction to this writing can be found here, for the uninitiated.

Last we met, we were wrapping up a broad-aperture study of paganism as context for the life of Jesus Christ.  Today, we're going to start immediately with our gospel reading.  The next few verses require more digestion than many of the ones that have preceded them, so we're going to take them very slowly and with special focus.

Let's get started, shall we?

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Matthew 5:13

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

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Matthew 5:13 through Matthew 5:16 are known collectively as "The Similes of Salt and Light."  Whereas the preceding Beatitudes were relatively easy to interpret and extract moral data from, these similes are marginally more cryptic.  Here in 5:13, we read the Simile of Salt, which is entirely encapsulated within one verse.

Jesus tells his disciples, who are still listening to him by the Mount of Beatitudes, that they are the "salt of the earth."  He then poses an odd question regarding the value of salt which has lost its flavor.  "If salt goes bad, what can you fix it with?" he asks.  He immediately answers himself by saying "you can't fix salt that's gone bad.  If it goes bad, it's only worth throwing on the ground and walking on."*

Traditional interpretations of this verse are somewhat dependent on the immediately subsequent verses.  As you will see over the next few weeks, the Similes of Salt and Light are most easily interpreted as instruction regarding the relative place of the disciples in the world at large.

If the Similes of Salt and Light are the answer, then the question would have been something like "Jesus: should your teachings and our adherence to them be secret, or public?"  In 5:13, Jesus responds to the hypothetical question by saying "you who follow my teaching are the most valuable commodity around!  The whole world needs to hear you!  But if you stop following my teachings, you'll return to a state of near valuelessness."

According to traditional interpretation, with which I agree, Jesus is telling his followers that they are necessary and welcome in the world as long as they are living by his teaching.

Interesting to note here is that Jesus seems to describe something that cannot actually happen.  Salt requires nothing to flavor it, and it cannot be washed of its saltiness.  It tastes salty even in its purest form.  If salt didn't taste like salt, it would no longer be salt.  Some scholars believe that Jesus understood salt as such, and meant to tell his followers that, just as salt cannot be washed of saltiness, his followers would not be able to be washed of their spiritual gifts.

We should note, too, that here in Matt 5:13 Jesus is coining a phrase that still has meaning in today's modern world.  The use of the phrase "salt of the earth" to describe character attributes of humans originates with Jesus' words in the Gospel of Matthew.  Today, "salt of the earth" is defined by Merriam-Webster as "a very good and honest person or group of people."  Next time you hear someone use the phrase, you can let them know that they're using a Jesus Christ original.

So, "why is salt the chosen metaphor?" you might ask.  The answer is fairly obvious when one takes a look at the value of salt in the ancient world, which we will do now.

In the ancient world, salt was an absolute necessity for many people.  The primary tool of food preservation in ancient times was salt.  For those cultures that depended on being able to stockpile meat for consumption at a later date (read: most ancient cultures), salt was as important as the nourishing meat itself.  Butchered meat would commonly be dehydrated with salt, which eliminated the potential growth of microbes that cause food spoilage.  Once properly dried by the salt, meat could be stored for consumption months later.

Salt was also highly valued in the ancient world for its flavoring properties.  Before we had access to monosodium glutamate, Frank's Red Hot, and genetically modified super-peppers, humanity wanted badly for ways to make food more palatable.  Salt filled that void.  Whether for curing meat or for flavoring it, salt would have been a staple in any kitchen "worth its salt."

Speaking of things being "worth their salt," we can further highlight the importance of salt in the ancient world by tracing the term "worth one's salt" back to its origins.  In ancient times, Roman legionaries would often be paid a special stipend, along with their regular pay, which was explicitly for the purchase of salt.  Remember: salt was critical for the preservation of meat, and the preservation of meat was critical for ancient travel.  And just what were the legionaries constantly doing?  That's right.  Travelling.  The salt stipend was known as the "salarium," from which we get the English word "salary."  To be "worth one's salt," then, means to be worth one's wages, or to be an effective worker.**

Another common and important use for salt in ancient times, and one Jesus surely would have been keenly aware of, was its use in religious practice.  Most of the pagan world appears to have utilized salt in various rituals, especially during sacrifice.  Salt was so valuable that, in some cases, the mineral itself could be offered up to the gods as a sacrifice.

During his travels in Egypt in the fifth century BC, Herodotus of Halicarnassus noted the following ritual use of salt during the celebration of the Feast of Lamps in the city of Sais:

At Sais, when the assembly takes place for the sacrifices, there is one night on which the inhabitants all burn a multitude of lights in the open air round their houses. They use lamps in the shape of flat saucers filled with a mixture of oil and salt, on the top of which the wick floats. These burn the whole night, and give to the festival the name of the Feast of Lamps.

The addition of salt to the lamp oil likely made the flame brighter.  Other sources tell us that salt would be caked onto lamp wicks in the ancient world, also to increase brightness.

We would be remiss if we didn't look at the utility of salt specifically in ancient Judaism.  In Leviticus Chapter 2, we learn about Moses' laws on "grain offerings."  Chapter 2 says that, in addition to meat, a Jew could offer grain as sacrifice.  The text then proceeds to describe exactly how grain might be offered.  It says that the person offering the grain is to spread oil and frankincense on it before giving it to the priests at the Temple.  The priests are to then burn a handful of the grain on the altar; the burnt handful is God's portion.  The rest of the offering becomes the property of the priests.***

Chapter 2 of Leviticus goes on to say the following:

13 You shall season all your grain offerings with salt.  Do not let the salt of the covenant with your God be lacking from your grain offering.  On every offering you shall offer salt.

Even today, in many Jewish homes, the bread shared during the Shabbat dinner will be sprinkled with salt, or dipped in salt, before it is consumed.  This tradition comes directly from Leviticus Chapter 2.

For the ancient Jews, salt was also necessary for the preparation of a blood sacrifice.  Our old friend Josephus tells us about this in his Antiquities of the Jews, Book 3.  He says:

226 Suppose a private man offer a burnt offering, he must slay either a bull, a lamb, or a kid of the goats, and the two latter of the first year, though of bulls he is permitted to sacrifice those of a greater age; but all burnt offerings are to be of males.  When they are killed, the priests sprinkle the blood around the altar; (227) they then cleanse the bodies, and divide them into parts, and salt them with salt, and lay them upon the altar... 

Whether the offering was of grain or flesh, it is clear that salt was an important component in any Jewish ritual sacrifice.

To reiterate our original point, it is clear that salt had nearly unlimited value in the whole of the ancient world, and that Jesus thought of his followers as valuable in a similar way.  Jesus called his followers the "salt of the earth" rather than the "frankincense of the earth," or the "cedar wood of the earth," or anything else, because salt was more universally important than almost any other commonly traded commodity of the time.  Jesus chose salt as his metaphor because it was universally valuable, and specifically valuable to the Jews, who constituted all of Jesus' early followers.

There is some ambiguity built into this verse.  Ultimately, its meaning is subjective and will continue to be interpreted subjectively.  What we can say for sure is this: in Matthew 5:13, Jesus tells his followers that they are of great importance.  "The salt of the earth."

That's enough of this saltiness.  Next time, we'll have more similes to unpack.  Until then, please share this writing.  Thank you for reading.

Love.
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* If the part about being "trampled underfoot" confuses you, think about the modern use of salt on slick surfaces to increase foot traction.  Ancients used salt in the exact same way, on occasion.

** The phrase "worth one's salt" is not actually recorded anywhere until the around the 19th century AD.

*** Seems kinda like a scam....

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