Endnote 18 – The Jewishness of Jesus

See, for example, the so-called antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21–48). Each antithesis first quotes from the law, as enunciated in the Hebrew Bible (except the last one, which is not in the Hebrew Bible) and then gives Jesus’ extension or comment on the law. The structure is the same in each antithesis: “You have learnt how it was said. But I say this to you.” In some antitheses, Jesus extends a biblical precept in order to get at the root disposition. Thus Jesus forbids anger and lust in order to avoid murder and adultery. But his antithesis on divorce seems to repeal or reject the biblical law: Deuteronomy 24:1 not only permits divorce, but reflects a procedure by which a man may accomplish the divorce. In the antithesis on divorce, however, Jesus modifies this law to limit the grounds for divorce to adultery or some marital irregularity (Matthew 5:31–32). The antithesis regarding oaths goes beyond the biblical prohibition against swearing falsely as enunciated in Leviticus 19:12, Numbers 30:2 and Deuteronomy 23:21. Jesus prohibits all swearing. The antithesis on the lex talionis (an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth) and nonretaliation in effect abrogates the biblical law of retaliation: “If anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well” (Matthew 5:39).