Some Other Sayings Supported by the Jewish Environment Criterion
Some Other Sayings Supported by the Jewish Environment Criterion
Sayings supported by the criterion of Jewish environment are too many to recount here (without becoming like a commentary), but we can offer a sample. Jesus offered many witty sayings and riddles in the gospel tradition, so frequently that they may be safely considered fairly characteristic of his teaching. Some of these sayings can be understood fully only in Jesus’ original environment or among his Jewish followers familiar with the traditions of Judean sages (i.e., especially for those who lived in greater Judea). If these sayings come from the first generation (before 70 CE), and/or if they come from Jewish Palestine, they come from the time and place where Jesus’ words would be most clearly remembered and understood, and in a period when oral tradition was most likely to get their attribution correct.
In one case, Jesus asks rhetorically how one should re-season salt that has lost its saltiness, a striking image. The image is striking both because salt technically cannot become unsalty,59 and because seasoning that needs to be seasoned is absurdly pointless. That this graphic image would have struck his contemporaries forcefully is clear; a late-first-century Palestinian rabbi reportedly answered the same absurd question with an equally absurd answer (one should salt it with the afterbirth of a mule),60 suggesting that he understood its rhetorical force.
Likewise, Jesus underlines the permanence of Scripture’s authority in a graphic, hyperbolic manner, declaring that not even the smallest letter would pass away (Matt 5:18//Lk 16:17). His recorded language apparently alludes to a more widely known story, probably known to Jesus’ original hearers, but perhaps not to most of Matthew’s and surely not to most of Luke’s audiences. Jesus’ “letter” (NRSV), “smallest letter” (NIV), “jot” (KJV), or (literally) iota (the smallest Greek letter) undoubtedly refers to the Hebrew letter yod,61 which Jewish teachers said would not pass from the law. Some said that when Sarai’s name was changed to Sarah, the yod removed from her name cried out from one generation to another, protesting its removal from Scripture, until finally, when Moses changed Oshea’s name to Joshua, the yod was returned to Scripture. “So you see,” the teachers would say, “not even this smallest letter can pass from the Bible.”62 Likewise, sages declared that when Solomon threatened to uproot a yod from the law, God responded that he would uproot a thousand Solomons rather than a word of his law.63
While not multiply attested, Jesus’ saying that follows this one in Matthew (Matt 5:19) fits only a distinctly eastern, Jewish milieu. Jesus claims that one who keeps and leads others to keep the least commandment will be greatest in the kingdom.64 Jesus again employs hyperbolic rhetoric characteristic of sages: his words do not seem to allow for the possibility of many who would keep or break the least commandment (hence vie for the same status), nor of some who would break some commandments while keeping others. Jewish teachers typically depicted various persons as “greatest,” rather than only a single one; the emphasis was not on numerical precision but on praising worthy people.65 When Jesus speaks of the “least” commandment, he also reflects Jewish legal language. Jewish teachers regularly distinguished “light” and “heavy” commandments, 66 and in fact determined which commandments were the “least” and “greatest.”
Noting that both the “greatest” commandment about honoring parents67 (Ex 20:12; Deut 5:16) and the “least” commandment about the bird’s nest (Deut 22:6-7) bore the same promise, “Do this and you will live,” some later rabbis decided that “live” meant “in the world to come,” and said God would reward equally for any commandment. One who kept the law regulating the bird’s nest merited eternal life, whereas one who broke it merited damnation.68
Jesus here likely employs the rhetoric in a manner analogous to that of his contemporaries. As some ancient Jewish teachers put it, “one should be as careful with regard to a light commandment as you would be with a heavy one, since you do not know the allotment of the reward.”69 Likewise one who keeps a single commandment keeps his life, but one who neglects such a commandment neglects his life.70 The sages were not suggesting that they never broke commandments, 71 but rather felt that one who cast off any commandment or principle of the law was discarding the authority of the law as a whole.72 Likewise, accepting some commandments implied recognizing the validity of them all.73
One could pile up countless other samples of Jesus’ sayings fitting a Palestinian Jewish environment: for example, Jesus’ teaching (limited to Matthew) that lust constitutes adultery (Matt 5:28);74 his demand for integrity rather than oaths (Matt 5:33-37);75 the abuse of oaths in his environment (cf. Matt 5:34-36; 23:16-22);76 the kingdom prayer of Matt 6:9-13 and Lk 11:2-4;77 the warning that it would be “measured” to one as one measured to others (Matt 7:2; Lk 6:38);78 removing the beam from one’s eye before trying to remove the chip from another’s (Matt 7:3-5//Lk 6:41-42);79 the confidence that the heavenly Father would provide for his children no less than an earthly one would (Matt 7:11; Lk 11:13);80 admonishing another privately before public reproof (Matt 18:15-17; cf. Lk 17:3);81 and possibly the allusion to a heavenly “Sanhedrin” or court (Matt 5:22).82
So many other possible examples of Jesus’ teachings making their best sense in a Palestinian Jewish framework could be offered that there is no point merely listing them here.83 Because Matthew amplifies traditional Jewish formulations even in the wording that he adds to Mark and “Q,” we cannot rule out Matthew and other Jewish disciples of Jesus presenting his words in a manner most in keeping with their Jewish context. That is, some elements suggesting a Palestinian Jewish environment in Jesus’ collected sayings could potentially stem from others besides Jesus. Nevertheless, adapting sayings is not the same as creating them, and the preponderance of such sayings in early tradition suggests that they do in fact reflect Jesus’ message and style. And again, the sources most in touch with Palestinian Jewish traditions are also the sources apt to be closest to the historical Jesus.