Conflicts about the Sabbath
Conflicts about the Sabbath
Under later rabbinic rules, which may or may not reflect earlier Pharisaic ideals, Sabbath violation was in theory worthy of death.66 Nevertheless, under the same rules it would have been impossible in practice to have found someone sufficiently guilty of Sabbath violation to warrant execution.67 The Essenes observed the Sabbath more strictly than others,68 probably sharing the view of the document Jubilees that death was appropriate for even minor infractions such as intercourse with one’s wife69 or fasting70 on the Sabbath.71 Nevertheless, in practice they commuted the biblical death sentence for its violation.72
Jesus’ conflicts in the Synoptics with his contemporaries concerning the Sabbath were relatively minor by the standards of Sabbath controversies of the period.73 Even in later rabbinic sources, divergent opinions flourished,74 including in probably first-century houses-debates.75 Some other groups did apparently come to blows,76 and individual representatives of some groups might wish Jesus’ death in contradiction to their own group’s ethical teachings;77 Josephus attests that some aristocrats went so far as seeking to kill a fellow aristocratic rival for influence (in this instance, himself).78 Jesus’ conflicts with Pharisees concerning the Sabbath are (as we have noted) multiply attested in the tradition and are likely historically.79
Some scholars challenge the settings of some of the Gospel sabbath conflict narratives. One would not usually expect to find Pharisees in a Galilean wheat-field on the Sabbath;80 this was hardly their usual habitat81 and makes sense only if they were looking for grounds to accuse the disciples.82 But as we have noted, the case against allowing any Galilean Pharisees in the Gospels argues only from silence in very limited sources; and we cannot rule out the possibility of Judean visitors or other factors. It is not even impossible that these Pharisees were traveling with Jesus or seeking to test him, although this is not the most obvious interpretation. Apart from the narrative’s unusual setting, however, the rest of its portrayal of these Pharisees’ reasoning makes sense without much explanation.83
If Jesus’ disciples picked heads of grain on a sabbath so they could eat, it is plausible that controversy would arise. The law explicitly forbade work on the Sabbath (e.g., Ex 31:13-14; 35:2; Ezek 20:20), and some of the pious might construe gleaning as work, as a form of “reaping.”84 But Jesus and his disciples could also make a contrary case from the law and Jewish tradition. Scripture did not explicitly prohibit their specific action,85 and Jewish tradition celebrated the Sabbath with joyous feasting.86 Such a principle might even invite Jesus’ disciples to glean provided that the urgency of their mission had detained them from preparing food the previous day.87
Like any good Jewish teacher, Jesus responds to his detractors from Scripture. Although his critics may have insisted on beginning with an explicit legal text,88 Jesus appeals instead to inspired narrative to show how God expected the legal statements to be qualified in practice, “a precedent for allowing hunger to override the law.”89 The Pharisees could have objected that the David story addressed forbidden food rather than the Sabbath,90 but Jesus extrapolates from principle.91
Why would some Pharisees have objected to Jesus healing on the sabbath in other Gospel accounts? Some teachers considered applying medicine to be work justifiable on the Sabbath only if a person’s life was in danger.92 But the teachers themselves found ways to circumvent some of their regulations,93 and many teachers probably permitted medicine if it had been prepared before the Sabbath94 or if the act was medically urgent.95 This act, however, was not medically urgent.96 But Jesus acted as a man of prayer, not a pharmacist, and in Mk 3:5, Jesus does not even lay hands on the man, which some might have considered work. Instead, he simply orders the man to stretch forth his hand, an act that was not considered work by anyone’s standard; God alone performs “work” in this scene.97
Even the strict majority Pharisaic school in this period, the Shammaites, would have violated their own standards of ethics to have punished Jesus harshly (at most a later rabbinic judge would have fined him or ordered a beating, which one rabbi occasionally — but rarely — levied against another). Although they prohibited prayer for the sick on the Sabbath, they never sought to kill the minority school at the time, Hillelite Pharisees, for permitting prayer on the Sabbath.98 Why then might Mark infer that they wished to kill Jesus (Mk 3:6)?
We can say certainly that Pharisaic ethics would have prohibited killing Jesus for such arguments. We cannot rule out the possibility that, humans being what we are, some wished him harm; but we also should note that, whatever their inferences about Pharisees’ anger, the Gospels never accuse the Pharisees of carrying out such wishes (by contrast, cf. their attempt even to warn Jesus in Lk 13:31). The passion narrative blames Jesus’ execution primarily on the largely Sadducean Jerusalem elite who, once they decided Jesus was a threat, acted efficiently and within days. There is thus a difference in kind between the sorts of conflicts that Jesus had with Pharisees and those he had with Jerusalem’s rulers. This difference does not offer us license, however, to deny any conflict.