Tax-collectors represent a striking example of a larger category of people welcomed in Jesus’ ministry. Although the negative use of the dissimilarity criterion has been discredited, the positive version can remain useful, especially when supplemented by multiple attestation (which does support Jesus’ eating with tax gatherers and other sinners). On a positive use of the criterion of dissimilarity, most scholars concur that Jesus sometimes ate with those whom others considered sinful.170 Certainly the later church would not have invented a practice it found difficult to carry out itself (cf. already Gal 2:12-13). Nor would the church have invented the “glutton-and-drunkard” charge (Matt 11:19//Lk 7:34), which we treated in our chapter on John the Baptist, and which coheres with Mark’s portrayal of Jesus eating with sinners (Mk 2:16-17).171
That most of Jesus’ religious contemporaries did not share Jesus’ practice is not difficult to understand. Table fellowship established something of a covenant relationship;172 eating with sinners thus would appear to connote acceptance of them. By contrast, a pious person normally preferred to eat with scholars.173
Scholars debate what the Gospels mean by “sinners.” Some have taken “sinners” here to mean the am haaretz, common people whom the Pharisees despised for their lack of adherence to Pharisaic food laws.174 Others have responded that the Pharisees did not despise the common people as sinners.175 Pharisees seem to have been often annoyed by these people who did not share their concern for and understanding of the laws;176 most people certainly failed to tithe on their foods according to Pharisaic standards.177 Yet if the am haaretz comprised the vast majority of Palestinian Jews in the first century,178 the Pharisees could hardly have viewed them as fully excluded from the covenant.179
The label “sinners” usually specifies blatant violators of the law,180 and that seems the most natural way to take it here. The Gospels do not explain the general title “sinners,” and Mark’s and Luke’s probably largely Gentile audiences would not naturally associate “sinner” (Mk 2:17) with am haaretz.181 The Gospels thus presumably interpret the term more generally,182 and their authors were likely in a better position to know the particular meaning of the term than we are. If we take the approach that Jesus referred to more blatant “sinners,” we can understand Pharisaic concerns with Jesus’ choice of dining companions all the better. Pharisees were concerned about with whom they ate, and if they were careful about meals merely with am haaretz,183 one can be certain they would suspect a teacher who ate with blatant “sinners.”
Pure table-fellowship was a primary defining characteristic of the Pharisaic movement.184 Scripture was already clear that one should not have fellowship with sinners (Ps 1:1; 119:63; Prov 13:20; 14:7; 28:7), though the point in each instance was to warn against being influenced by sinners. Jewish tradition developed this warning against improper association with the wicked.185 Jesus’ behavior thus thoroughly violated his contemporaries’ understanding of holiness.186 Yet had the Pharisees valued his objective more than his method they should not have been annoyed. In Jesus’ case the influence was going one way — from Jesus to the sinners (Mk 2:15, 17; Lk 15:1; cf. Ps 25:8).187
Although later Jewish tradition remarks that it would be difficult for a tax-gatherer to repent,188 it allowed that God can forgive this sin like any other189 and emphasized God’s love toward the repentant;190 Jewish tradition already warned not to reproach one who had turned from sin (Sir 8:5). In actually seeking out tax gatherers and sinners, however, Jesus goes beyond the traditions of his contemporaries. Even John, who called for Israel to repent, allowed people to come to him in the wilderness. Jesus goes even to the most obviously sinful and seeks their repentance. This behavior was so shocking that it left an indelible mark in the traditions about him, traditions that may have been less than comfortable even to some of his later followers (cf. Acts 11:3; Barn. 4.2; 10.10; 11.7).
