On Matthew 5:27 through 5:28

Hello, and welcome back to the Moral Vision of Jesus Christ.  If this is your first time here, you ought to start over from the beginning of this study, which can be found here.  To remind those of you who have been with us since the beginning of this endeavor, our purpose here is to uncover the morality of the historical Jesus as best we can by studying the gospels of Christ verse-by-verse in painstaking detail.  My approach to this study, I hope, could be said to be rooted in grounded dispassionate scientific rationalism.

The impetus for this study is the impending nuclear war, not long off in the future, that will annihilate our species and keep us from enjoying the benefit of intergalactic space travel and the gift of the wonderful expanse of the universe.  The impetus for this study is the end of my bloodline and yours, which is inevitable and imminent as long as the major world powers, lead by the United States of America (a so-called "Christian" nation), continue to maintain and upgrade nuclear arsenals large enough to single-handedly destroy life on Earth over and over again.  The impetus for this study is the same impetus, I believe, as the impetus for Jesus Christ's Galilean Ministry, that is to say, to literally save the world.

This project has been years in the making, and will be many more years in its accomplishment.  This writing is absolutely never-for-profit, and is by default in the "public realm."  Anyone anywhere may use these words however they wish.  

Last week, we finished up our study of Jesus' "Teaching About Anger" in the Gospel According to Matthew.  Today, we will read the first two verses of what is called, in modern times, Jesus' "Teaching About Adultery."  This teaching occurs in the context of Christ's famous "Sermon on the Mount," the most focused and detailed moral teaching Christ offers in any of the gospels.  We will digest these verses by, as has become our habit, looking at some of the ancient Greek from which they were translated.  We will continue by postulating at Jesus' meaning in these verses, and then by expanding our knowledge base on the topic by exploring ancient marital mores both within the Jewish community and in the world at large.

Let us delay no more.  Happy reading.

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Matthew 5:27 through 5:28

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 

28 But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

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Let's start with the Greek, as per usual.

The Greek Words

The first word of interest in our verses today is "moicheuó," which is a verb that literally and simply means "to commit adultery."  Just shortly, we will learn exactly what "adultery" meant to the ancient Greeks, which will help inform our understanding of this word and these verses.

The second word of interest today is "guné" which means "woman."  This word is indeed very old, predating ancient Greek significantly, coming from a Proto-Indo-European word with a similar sound.  This word relates to the English prefix "gyne" as in "gynecologist."  This word is also directly related to the English word "queen."  Another cognate of this word is the Sanskrit "jani."

The third critical word here is "epithumeó" which means "to set one's heart on a thing," "to desire," or "to covet."  The word "covet" ought to call our minds back to the mitzvot of Moses, and the (depending on who is counting) ninth or tenth commandment: "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," which relates directly to Jesus' word's today.

Our fourth and final word of interest today is another very old word.  "Kardia" is the Greek word for "heart," but comes directly out of the ancient Proto-Indo-European "ḱḗr" which meant the same thing.  As with many of the words that we trace back to Proto-Indo-European, this word has a Sanskrit cognate.  Alternative translations for "kardia" include "mind," "stomach," "any hollow vessel," or the "center or inner part."

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Jesus' Meaning

It is next to impossible to miss Christ's meaning here in these verses.  Just as he has already doubled-down, so to speak, on the commandment to not kill by saying it is extremely sinful even to be angry with another human, so too is Jesus doubling-down on the commandment to not commit adultery.  Here, Jesus speaks to the evil inherent in lusting after another sexual partner when one is already married.  He elevates such lust to the level of grave sin.  

The parallel between this doubling-down and the doubling-down he did with the prohibition against killing is exact.  We will see more of this in the future.  This clear pattern will emerge: Jesus Christ believes that the old law is broken.  Jesus Christ believes that the old law, which focuses usually on outward action, often allows room for a person to be rotten on the inside while still technically avoiding sinfulness or unlawfulness.  Jesus wishes to show his followers the way to dig out the rot.  

As we move forward and see Jesus debating with various ancient Jewish elites, we will see him again and again accusing them of attending to the outward trappings of a spiritual life without having their hearts and minds in good moral condition.  The teachings he offers here in the Sermon on the Mount are precursors to those debates.  He will accuse them of presenting a false front.  He will rewrite the law such that one may no longer feel justified in such fakery.

This is one of the very few times that Jesus says anything about sexual morality during his ministry in any of the Gospels.  The verses we are studying today are not multiply attested, so it is hard to say for certain, from a scholarly standpoint, that he even spoke these verses.  If he did say them, however, the meaning of these verses should be very clear.  Jesus wants married folks to focus their hearts and mind and eyes on their chosen partners, and, once married, to avoid considering others in a sexual way.

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Context

Now for a whirlwind tour of ancient marital traditions.  Here we will look at the sexual or marital traditions of the ancient Greeks, the ancient Mesopotamians, and the the ancient Jews in overview in order to better understand how these things would have been understood at Jesus' time.

Mesopotamian Marriage and Adultery

Let's start with some fast facts about ancient Mesopotamian culture as marriage and sexuality pertained to it.  It may not surprise you to learn that, in the various ancient Mesopotamian civilizations, marriage was an arranged affair.  The importance of marriage in Mesopotamia, from Sumeria down to Persia, was not romantic but rather economic.  Whereas in our modern western world marriage is a contract or covenant between the wedded, in ancient Mesopotamia, marriage was usually a contract between the parents or the families of the wedded.  

Let's get a taste for ancient Mesopotamian marriage by checking out what Herodotus* was able to glean about Babylonian marriage as it had existed even before his time.  Herodotus wrote:

Once a year in each village the young women eligible to marry were collected all together in one place; while the men stood around them in a circle. Then a herald called up the young women one by one and offered them for sale. He began with the most beautiful. When she was sold for a high price, he offered for sale the one who ranked next in beauty. All of them were then sold to be wives. The richest of the Babylonians who wished to wed bid against each other for the loveliest young women, while the commoners, who were not concerned about beauty, received the uglier women along with monetary compensation…All who liked might come, even from distant villages, and bid for the women.

Incredible.  Can you imagine this?  All the unmarried girls of marrying age being rounded up into a veritable meat market to be sold to the highest bidder?

I do not wish to over-impose my modern western values onto this scenario, but the girls must have found this uncomfortable.  Especially the "uglier" ones.  My mind struggles to imagine a more cruel way to arrange marriages.

Outside of this Babylonian tradition, Mesopotamian marriages were, as I said, generally arranged by the parents and family of the wedded.  Often, neither bride nor groom would have had a lot of choice in their partner.  According to the "Ancient History Encyclopedia," there is no evidence that ancient Mesopotamian women were ever granted free choice of a marriage partner.  The ancient Sumerian word for "love" actually meant, in the literal sense, to "mark off a section of land," indicating the economic nature of the transaction.  Marriage in ancient Mesopotamia, as you can see, was a deeply impersonal affair when compared to our modern standards.

As in many ancient cultures, a bride was expected to be a virgin on her wedding night when she first had sexual contact with her new husband.  It would have been a great insult to the groom and to the groom's family if she was found to be otherwise, and various repercussions might have been expected.

The marriage itself, aside from unifying families in a socio-economic way, was primarily used to encourage the birth of children.  Recall that, in ancient times, one quarter of infants died before the age of one, and perhaps close to half of all children died before reaching adulthood.  In order for human populations to stay the same or grow, women had to have as many children as possible.  Infant death rates didn't drop significantly anywhere in the world until around the eighteenth century, so, for the whole of human history up until that point, fertility was valued in most cultures above any other natural human trait.  That said, in ancient Mesopotamia, if a wife was found to be infertile, a husband was permitted to take a second wife in order to guarantee the continuation of his family.  Plural marriage would only have been allowed in Mesopotamia in the case of infertility in a first wife.  Interestingly, inability to conceive a child would rarely, if ever, have been attributed to the physiology of the husband, even if he proved unable to father a child with multiple women.

Divorce was uncommon in the ancient Mesopotamian cultures, but it did occur.  People tended to stay wedded even if they were unhappy with one another, again because the institution of marriage was simply not designed for the happiness of the bride or the groom.  An emotionally unhappy marriage that produced many children and adequately unified two families would have been considered more successful than an emotionally happy marriage that did not produce children.  Divorce, in ancient Mesopotamia, could be initiated by a husband or a wife, and was seen as legitimate in the case of infertility in the wife, or abuse and neglect on the part of the husband.

In the case of infidelity on the part of a wife, she might be put to death along with her extramarital lover, although, according to Hammurabi's famous law code, if the husband decided not to have his adulterous wife put to death, then her lover must also have been spared that fate.  The use of capital punishment would have been at the behest of the offended husband, and was not necessarily required by law.  Infidelity to a marriage would have been seen as generally immoral, whether it be on the part of the husband or the wife.  Even the world's very oldest civilization found adultery morally repugnant.

Greek Marriage and Adultery

As in ancient Mesopotamia, marriage in ancient Greece was a matter of public interest.  Because of the massive infant and child mortality rate, it was imperative for women to have as many children as possible as fast as possible in order for populations not to fall into decline.  This need for constant births was compounded by the fact that the Greek city-states went to war every year, sometimes with a foreign enemy, but, more often, with one another.  In Athens, Sparta, and most of the other Greek city-states, military conscription was universal for males.  One who had not served in a military capacity could not have been considered a citizen.  Every citizen (all of whom were male) would have been obligated to risk their lives at war perhaps several times over in their youth.  With the city-states methodically killing one another's young men in bloody combat every year during the war season, the need for births was even more pronounced than it might have generally been in ancient Mesopotamia.

When we consider Greek family dynamics, we must recall the perhaps barbaric way that women were treated in Athens.  Women in Athens, and some of the other city-states, were less than second-class citizens.  An Athenian woman was not generally permitted to do much of anything except tend to the upkeep of the household and rear children.  Athenian women were not allowed into the main common area of their own homes, and only went outside of their own accord if their husband was too poor to afford slaves who would go to the market and the well for him.  Athenian women were expected to cover up with veils and long clothing, and were generally treated with disdain.

Spartan women had it much better.  Their husbands were perpetually away at war or training for war, so the Spartan woman was left in charge of much more than simple household upkeep.  They could move freely about, wear what they wanted, and speak to other people at will.  Spartan women were also not forced into marriage nearly as early as Athenian women, allowing them an extended period of relative freedom at the beginning of their lives.

In Greece, a man would have had more choice in his bride than in Mesopotamia, and marriage could be seen as slightly more personal.  The Greeks wanted to have children in order to continue their bloodlines and their names, and, importantly, so that they would have survivors to make sacrifices to the gods for them after their death.  A childless person, having no one to appeal to the gods on their behalf after their death, might have expected to have a less than ideal afterlife.  For this reason, it was not unheard of for ancient Greeks who couldn't have children to adopt orphaned children.

Plural marriage was frowned upon in Greece, but it was not unheard of for a wealthy married man to have concubines or mistresses.  Given the wife's permission, the offspring of concubines or mistresses could even become full fledged heirs to their father.

Divorce was allowed in ancient Greece, and could have been initiated by the husband or the wife.  The husband could easily divorce his wife by sending her back to her father and repaying the dowry he received at the time of the wedding.  The wife, in order to divorce, would need to plead her case before the archon, or ruler, of the city-state.

In Athens, it was illegal for a citizen to stay with an adulterous wife.  Because of this strict law, sometimes a husband would attempt to keep adultery on the part of his wife a secret, rather than be obligated to disrupt his household.  If a man were to catch his wife in the act of adultery in Athens, it was legal for him to kill the man with whom she laid on the spot.  Various forms of public humiliation as punishment for adulterers are recorded in ancient texts throughout Greece.  While a wife's extra-marital affair would have always been considered adulterous, a husband could have relations with a prostitute or a slave without having been considered an adulterer.

Jewish Marriage and Adultery

Now let's address the specific context of marriage among Jesus' people.

As in ancient Greece, men in ancient Judah and Israel sometimes had a degree of choice in their marriage partner(s), and marriage could be seen as a contract between the groom and the father of the bride.  As a formality, a woman might have been asked to consent to the marriage, but it is not likely that she had true veto power over the arrangement.

According to Genesis 1:28, the God of the Jews instructed his people to "be fertile and multiply," to "fill the earth and subdue it."  Thus one might say that the primary purpose of marriage for the Jews, as in most ancient cultures, was to ensure a steady flow of new babies to keep populations from plateauing or declining.  It must be noted, though, that the ancient Jews had a sense of romantic love, as is exemplified in the "Song of Songs," wherein the author writes of the romantic and sexual joys between two people who can only be considered to be very in love.

The virginity of a woman at the time of marriage was sacrosanct to the ancient Jews.  Deuteronomy Chapter 22 states that if a man finds no evidence of his new wife's virginity on their wedding night, he is to return the wife to the doorstep of her father's house.  There, "the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a shameful crime in Israel by prostituting herself in her father's house."  To be clear, "evidence of virginity," for the ancient Jews, was a bedsheet soaked in the virginal blood of a new bride on her wedding night.  The celebration and display of a bloodied sheet the morning after a wedding is still common in some Muslim communities today.

Plural marriage was allowed for the ancient Jews, and there are over forty important figures in the Old Testament who have multiple wives, including Esau and King Solomon.  Plural marriage seems to have declined during the intertestamental period, but there is still evidence of some plural marriage even up to the time of Jesus.

Divorce was permitted by the ancient mitzvot, but had to be initiated by the husband.  However, if a husband was found to be in violation of his marital obligations, a woman might have her husband convinced by other men, by violent or monetary coercion, to initiate a divorce.  In this way, a woman could get a divorce without being seen as initiating it, through the help of other men in the village.

In ancient Judaism, adultery is strictly defined as intercourse between a married woman and someone other than her husband.  If a married man slept with an unmarried woman, this was not technically considered adulterous.  In contrast to many ancient and modern societies in which an adulterous woman is seen as being more guilty than the man with whom she has committed the act, ancient Jews found both the man and the woman in an adulterous relationship equally guilty.  We see this in Deuteronomy 22:22, as follows:

22 If a man is discovered lying with a woman who is married to another, they both shall die, the man who was lying with the woman as well as the woman.  Thus shall you purge the evil from Israel.

The prescribed punishment for adulterers in ancient Palestine is among the harshest we know of in the ancient world.  By this fact alone, we know that adultery was one of the very worst moral transgressions that an ancient Jew could have committed, and all of the people present at Jesus' Sermon on the Mount would have understood the severity of such a situation.

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Conclusions

As you can see, the sanctity of marriage was paramount in the ancient near east and Greece across many cultures.  To say exactly why all of these ancient cultures valued dedicated, ideally permanent forms of marriage would require a long discussion about human evolution and the prehistoric nature of primate sexuality, as well as a deeper discussion about the economy of ancient life in general.  For our purposes, it simply behooves us to understand that everyone listening to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount would have agreed, at least in theory, to the importance of fidelity in marriage.  It would not have been a surprise that a spiritual teacher would offer his thoughts on adultery and the sanctity of marriage.

The fact that Jesus tells his followers that looking at a married woman with lust is sinful is an indication that, in his time, he had witnessed just such an act on more than one occasion, and that the people doing this did not think themselves to be in the wrong.  When Jesus doubles-down on this portion of the law, he is insisting on a deeper purity for his followers.  He wants his followers to live in the spirit of morality, and not just by the letter of morality.  This will be a recurring theme, as we've mentioned before, in his debates with the Jewish elites of his time.  Jesus, unlike the elites of his time (and ours), believed that morality ought to be internalized, so that right action comes from within, rather than being imposed from without.

As an aside, please note that Jesus says precious little about sexual morality through the course of his ministry.  As we will soon learn, Jesus finds divorce to be immoral.  As we will also come to know, Jesus sees sexuality as something of a distraction from God or from the spiritual life, and, as we have seen today, Jesus finds adultery abhorrent.  Aside from these three concepts, however, Jesus never said anything about sexuality.  He certainly never had word-one to say about homosexuality.  Any Christian who believes that Jesus Christ spoke out against homosexual relations in humans is wrong.  The prohibition against homosexuality found in the Old Testament is one of the many many prohibitions that Jesus chose not to continue when he tore down the old law and replaced it with his new law of love.  If anyone anywhere tells you otherwise, send them to me and I will set them "straight," so-to-speak.**

Today's verses are instructional for me as I prepare to be wedded myself to the love of my life.  Not only will I remain loyal to my wife, but I will make a constant effort to keep my eyes and heart on her.  Jesus style.

Thank you so much for reading.  Please share this writing.  We'll see you next time for our one-year anniversary.

Love.

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* Do I still have to introduce Herodotus?  Hopefully not, because I'm going to stop doing it...

** Since Jesus never talks about this, I wasn't sure where we were going to say this.  Today seemed like the right 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 5:25 through 5:26

Welcome back to our study of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Here, we seek the true ideals and morals of the historical Jesus.  If you are new to this study, you can start from the beginning by clicking here.

I'd like to apologize again for being absent for a week.  Life has been exceedingly busy.  I will try harder.

As regular readers will know, we've been sticking close to the text lately in terms of the scope of our study.  As regular readers will also know, this is because we are currently studying the Sermon on the Mount, the longest, most detailed moral teaching of Jesus we have on record.  Today, we are going to pan out and do something slightly different with our text.  Today, we're going to compare our verses to some verses from the Gospel According to Luke which are nearly identical in both form and content.

Let's get started by checking out today's reading.

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Matthew 5:25 through 5:26

25 Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 

26 Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.

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Jesus, after having taught his followers about anger, advises them to avoid interaction with the judicial system by settling with their opponents outside of court.  He warns that the judicial system will imprison those who don't, and that there will be no leniency in the terms of the sentence.

We could talk all day about what Jesus' teaching about the ancient Palestinian judicial system means in terms of the modern American judicial system, but, instead, we're shelving that discussion.

Today, I want to compare our reading to a reading from the gospel attributed to Luke.  The verses in Luke in question are 12:58-59.  They read as follows:

58 If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate, make an effort to settle the matter on the way; otherwise your opponent will turn you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the constable, and the constable throw you into prison. 

59 I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”

Questions immediately abound:

Might one not say that these are roughly the same verses?

What are the implications of the fact that these verses are so similar?

Did the authors of the Synoptic Gospels write in tandem in order to keep their stories relatively homogenous in form and content?  If not, how can we account for the similarity of form and content between the Synoptic Gospels?

What do we really know about gospel authorship?

What is the implication of the human authorship of the gospels?

Let us address these exciting questions together, one by one.

Question 1: Are these roughly the same verses?

It is clear on the face that these verses are, in content, identical.  Jesus, in both cases, advises his followers to make out-of-court settlements as opposed to being subjected to the judgment of a member of the judiciary.  In each case, he says the reason to avoid the judicial system is that the judicial system will imprison one without leniency of sentencing.

But, just how similar are these verses?  To get a better understanding, we'll look at some of the original Greek of the text.

The word "settle" occurs in both accounts of this saying.  The Matthean version's original Greek phrasing is "eunoeó," which could alternatively mean "be kind" or "make friends with."  The Lucan version, in Greek, was "apallassó," which also meant "release" or "absolve."

The word "judge" in each of these selections comes from the same Greek phrasing, "krités."  "Krités" could also be translated as "magistrate," "umpire," or "ruler."

We get the word "opponent," in both cases, from the Greek "antidikos," which is often translated as "adversary."

The Matthean "guard" comes from the Greek "hupéretés," which originally signified a rower (as on a ship) but was later used in Athens as a title for a specific class of public officer.  The Lucan "constable," however, comes from the Greek "praktór," which could also mean "agent" or "one who does."

"Prison," in each case, came from the Greek "phulaké" which could have also meant "jail," "detention," or "custody."

You won't be surprised, when comparing Matt 5:26 to Luke 12:59, that the original Greek versions of these two verses were virtually identical.  The only differences are the lack of an "amen" in Luke's version, and a different word usage where we see the word "penny."  In Matt, "penny" comes from "kodrantés," meaning "quadron," a low-value coin in use in the Roman Republic.  In Luke, we get "penny" from "leptos," which were small coins used in ancient Greece.

We can see here that the vast majority of the ancient Greek language of these verses was the same, and that the differences between the two texts, linguistically, are very minor.  So, yes, these verses are essentially saying the exact same thing in the exact same way.

Question 2: What are some of the implications of the similarity of these texts?

The similarity of these verses in form and content imply that these verses were either a) written in tandem, b) copied one from the other, or c) copied separately from a common text.  There can be no other logical explanation for this phenomenon.

Some might argue that these verses are similar because d) God divinely inspired the language of the evangelists, essentially writing the gospels himself.  This cannot be true, however, as the gospels tell similar, but not altogether identical tales.  It does not make sense for a divine being to even occasionally contradict itself.

Why would God write a "Sermon on the Mount" in one account and a "Sermon on the Plain" in another?  Why would God write the events of Jesus' life in a different chronological order in all three Synoptics?  Why would Mark's version have no nativity story?  Why would God give us two different "Lord's Prayers" in Matt and Luke and no "Lord's Prayer" in Mark?

The author of Luke even admits at the beginning of his account that many humans have already, by his time, attempted to write the history of Jesus, and that he is merely writing it again after having re-read other versions or having re-listened to other oral accounts.  There is no extant evidence that the Synoptic Gospels were divinely inspired.

Question 3: Did the synoptic evangelists write in tandem, then, or copy from one another?

The Synoptic Gospels mimic one another nearly verbatim in many more verses than the four we are looking at today.  In fact, it is good to remember that the Synoptic Gospels share pages in common.  Forty-one percent of the Gospel According to Luke can be found in both Matt and Mark, forty-six percent of Matthew can be found in both Luke and Mark, and a staggering seventy-six percent of the Gospel According to Mark can be found in both Luke and Matt.

These numbers would indicate to some that these texts might have been written together, by men who knew and consulted one another.  The truth is, though, that the evangelists probably never met one another.  Despite their considerable similarities, there are, as we've noted, obvious differences between these texts that indicate that they were written by three different people working independently.  This leaves us obliged to conclude that the verses we see here today in Matt and Luke were copied by the authors of Matt and Luke one from the other or from some other pre-existing text.*

Question 4: What do we know for sure, then, about Synoptic Gospel authorship?

We should start by saying that we know very little "for certain."  Our knowledge about the authors of the gospels is based on probabilities.  Scholars believe it is probable that Mark was written before the other two.  It is probable that Matt and Luke were written separately, with a copy of Mark and at least one other common text used as primary references in each case.  It is probable that the texts were written in different communities, and for different audiences.

Most importantly, given the many differences between the gospels, we cannot logically say that an omniscient and omnibenevolent being wrote them.  The author of Luke himself admits to the human origin of his gospel.  

The synoptic gospels were written by anonymous human beings.

Question 5: What are the implications of the the gospels being anonymous human records, and not "divinely inspired" holy texts?

The implication here is that these texts may be studied critically, just as we study all historical records.  Knowing that the gospels were not divinely inspired liberates us to ask questions that, at other points in history, one was not allowed to ask.

Just as we study ancient stories about the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda critically, and just as we study stories about the foundation of Rome critically, and just as we study Herodotus critically, we may study the gospels critically.  That is to say that we are allowed to question everything when we read the gospels.  

In fact, I would say that we are obligated by common sense and logic to question everything.

If we are not willing to question the substance of these texts, then I believe the texts will forever be of no substance to us.

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That will have to do it for today, brothers and sister.  Thank you so much for reading.  Remember that, no matter what anyone tells you, you have permission to study the gospels critically.  If you consider yourself a Christian, you have an obligation to do so.  Otherwise, in my estimation, you are living your whole life based on something you don't personally understand, which would be the apex of bad logic.

Please share this reading.

Love.

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*Recall that this theorized "pre-existing text" is known to Bible scholars as "Q" or "quelle."

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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 5:23 through 5:24

Welcome back to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ, a gospel study. If you'd like to start from the beginning in order to properly orient yourself to our cause, click here.

Last time, in our quest for the true morality of the historical Jesus, we read Matt 5:21-22 and saw that Jesus puts the act of killing and the act of anger in the same moral category: gravely sinful. Today, we'll continue on with more of Jesus' "Teaching About Anger" in 5:23-24. Recall that this Teaching About Anger occurs in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, the most important and focused moral teaching of Jesus recorded in any gospel.

As we continue to study these chapters, it is my hope that you will find yourself, as many have, marvelling at the glaring incongruities between the teachings of most Christian churches and the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. Indeed, huge swaths of the Sermon can't be made sense of in the context of American churches without a series of caveats being errantly placed on Christ's tongue. To name a few:

" 'Whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment...' ...except when that anger is justified by self-righteous nationalism." 

" 'Blessed are the meek...' ...unless you're trying to project imperial military might on a global stage." 

" 'Blessed are the merciful...' ...unless you work for the US justice system." 

" 'Blessed are the peacemakers...' ...unless you're fighting a 'war on terror.' "

Please understand that the caveat is always a blasphemy. If the Sermon on the Mount is the revealed word of God, altering it as such is always a blasphemy.  The ubiquity of these blasphemies in modern churches will become more and more clear to you as we continue our simple gospel reading.

Ok, enough of the small-talk.  Let's get started with today's reading.

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Matthew 5:23 through 5:24

23 Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you,  

24 leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

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Today, we'll continue with the standard treatment of these verses.  First, we'll check out some of the Koine Greek from which these verses were translated.  Next, we'll consider the context of these verses, that is, we'll discuss the ritual of sacrificial offering at the Temple of Jerusalem.  Third, we'll postulate as to what real-world action Jesus is here asking his followers to take, or what real-world mind-frame he is asking his followers to adopt.

Language

Pondering the Greek origin of the words we read in the gospel is one of the fastest ways to give an extra dimension to our consideration of the text. The first word of interest here today is "bring."  The original Greek word here was "prospheró," which could alternatively be translated as "donate," "pay," or "pay up."  Most alternative translations for this word seem to indicate some kind of financial transaction; some kind of debt repayment.

Next, consider the phrase "anything against you."  This is translated from the Greek "tis" (alternatively "something" or "someone"), "kata" (alternatively "at" or "on"), and "sou" (alternatively "your.")  Lovers of language will be interested to notice the relation between the Greek "sou," the Latin "tū," the Spanish "tu," the French "vous," the Persian "to," and the English "you," all meaning roughly the same thing.  Note that these words all come from the Proto-Indo-European "túh," which also meant roughly the same "you" all those six thousand years ago.

Moving on.  The word "gift" here was fairly precisely translated from the Greek "dóron."  "Dóron" could also mean a "hand's width."    

The last word of interest here, the one we have translated as "reconciled," comes from the Greek "diallassó."  Alternative translations for this word include "swap," "exchange," or "compromise."

Context

We've already had the opportunity to discuss temple sacrifice on a number of occasions during the last few months.  Today's lesson on morality from Jesus is delivered specifically within the context of ritual sacrifice, though, so we will now take a little time to readdress ritual sacrifice in the first-century Jewish belief system.

Recall that Jews of Jesus' time believed in a spiritual life that was entirely centered around the Temple of Jerusalem.  The inner-sanctum of the Temple, or the "Holy of Holies," was considered to be the literal house of God on Earth, which constantly contained the literal God of the Jews.  The God of the Old Testament was extremely transactional in his dealings with his people, and those transactions were all to occur at the Temple under the supervision of the Temple priests.

According to the covenants of the Torah, a minimum of two lambs were to be sacrificed everyday at the Temple.  We see this in Numbers, chapter 28:

3 You will tell them therefore: This is the oblation which you will offer to the LORD: two unblemished yearling lambs each day as the regular burnt offering, 

4 offering one lamb in the morning and the other during the evening twilight, 

5 each with a grain offering of one tenth of an ephah of bran flour mixed with a fourth of a hin of oil of crushed olives. 

6 This is the regular burnt offering that was made at Mount Sinai for a pleasing aroma, an oblation to the LORD.

The "regular burnt offering" was a matter for the priests to attend to - the common man needed make no contribution to it.  There were myriad other kinds of offerings to be made, though, many of which involved the common man bringing a sacrifice to be given in his name for some favor.  There were two extra lambs to be sacrificed on the sabbath, there were special sacrifices to be done on holidays, and there were specific sacrifices done for personal purposes.

Some of the more personalized sacrifices that occurred were sacrifices for the purification of the unclean, sacrifices of contrition for those who had sinned, or sacrifices of peace and thanksgiving for those who wished to have peace and good communion with their fellows and God.

I cannot stress enough how similar the core of the ancient Jewish religion was to all of its pagan contemporaries and predecessors.  For the Egyptians too had priestly offerings and holiday offerings and personal offerings.  The Greeks had priestly offerings and holiday offerings and personal offerings.  The Romans had priestly offerings, holiday offerings and personal offerings.  The Chaldeans.  The Sumerians.  All of this sacrifice occurred around temple complexes, big and small.  A Greek with no knowledge of Judaism would have still immediately understood what was happening the first time he saw the goings-on at the Temple in Jerusalem.

As exemplified in the above verses, the Torah often makes reference to the pleasure that God derives from smelling the odor of the sacrifice as it is being cooked, be it a baked grain-cake or a grilled lamb.  Even this particular aspect of sacrifice was attested in other societies.  It was well known in ancient Greece, for example, that the Gods primarily feasted on the aroma of the sacrifice as it was being cooked.

The specificity of the Torah in regards to how the God of the Old Testament wanted sacrifices carried out is often unnerving.  Take, for example, the following description of the "reparation offering" as described in Leviticus, chapter 7:

1 This is the ritual for the reparation offering. It is most holy. 

2 At the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered, the reparation offering shall also be slaughtered. Its blood shall be splashed on all the sides of the altar. 

3 All of its fat shall be offered: the fatty tail, the fat that covers the inner organs, and all the fat that adheres to them, 

4 as well as the two kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the lobe of the liver, which is removed with the kidneys. 

5 The priest shall burn these on the altar as an oblation to the LORD. It is a reparation offering. 

6 Every male of the priestly line may eat of it; but it must be eaten in a sacred place. It is most holy.

There are perhaps dozens of descriptions like this in the Torah regarding the proper handling of a slaughtered animal's fat, meat, organs and blood.

Again, I'll reiterate, sacrifice was a truly central aspect of the lives of all first-century Palestinian Jews.  It would have been seen as being of paramount importance.  The Temple was nearly always awash in blood, and during holidays, the blood ran like a river.  Whether you were a poor man of Jerusalem bringing an offering of grain in order to ward off some supposed impurity, a rich man from Bethany bringing lambs to the slaughter in order to thank God for your good fortune, or a pilgrim from Galilee making requisite offerings during your Passover visit to Jerusalem, all able-bodied Jews in first-century Palestine would have had cause to approach the priests at the Temple with an offering at some time.  

Any of these forms of sacrifice could be the context for today's gospel reading.  Jesus knows the paramount importance of sacrifice among his people.  It is the importance and centrality of sacrifice that Jesus wishes to play off of here when he mentions leaving the "gift at the altar."

Finally, let's talk about Jesus' meaning here.

Actionable Teaching

So, within the solemn and ubiquitous context of Temple Sacrifice in the Second Temple, what is Jesus asking of his followers here?

This should be very clear, although I fear that it is often misunderstood.

Jesus is asking his followers to do a revolutionary thing.  He is asking his followers to consider their relationship with their fellow humans as more important than their relationship with God.  In Matthew 5:23-24, Jesus essentially says "none of the solemn action taken by the priests on your behalf at the Temple will avail you anything with God in heaven as long as you are in conflict with one of your brothers or sisters here on earth."*

Wow.

Put yourself in the shoes of a first-century Palestinian Jew.  All your life, you've heard how the daily sacrifices at the Temple keep your people in the good graces of God.  All your life, you've been taught that the only thing keeping another Babylon from destroying the Temple and displacing the Jews again is the ongoing sacrifices performed by the priests in the Temple itself.  All your life, you've been taught that the way to personally stay in the good grace of your creator is to give him something yummy to smell at the citadel of Jerusalem.  

Imagine, then, how it might sound when Jesus utters these words: "the temple sacrifices are meaningless if you have unresolved conflicts with other humans.  The sacrifices of so many people are in fact for naught because of their inability or unwillingness to be reconciled with their enemies.  Again, your relations with God will be fruitless if your relations with your fellow are in disarray"

These verses are deceptively consequential.  They are perfectly indicative of the reordering of the cosmos that Jesus intends to do with his Galilean Ministry.  They warrant deep meditation and multiple readings.

Jesus is saying that ritual, sacrifice, and tradition are not as important as maintaining peaceful relations with one's brothers and sisters.  Jesus is negating the mechanics of the first-century Jewish faith by subordinating the old covenant, that of sacrifice and circumcision, to a new covenant, that of peace and love.

If you are a Jewish person sitting in the crowd during the Sermon on the Mount, you might again be squirming in your seat when Jesus speaks these verses.

Throughout the Sermon, we will see Jesus continuing to upend traditional Jewish and pagan thought with his preference for peace, love, and good human relations.  We will continue to imagine that some of his followers are perpetually squirming in their seats.

The takeaway here, for me, is that I ought to work to reconcile myself with my brothers and sisters wherever need be, as a matter of primary importance.

I will use this reading as an opportunity to see if any beefs need squashed.

Jesus loves squashed beef.

As I am wont to do, I'd like to remind you that this, the most important endeavor of my life, is a never-for-profit endeavour.  Thank you so much for reading.  Please share this writing.

Love.

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* Remember that we consider "brothers," as Jesus uses the term, to mean "any other human."
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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 5:21 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.
 -------------------------
* 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 came prior to this, click here.

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