Jesus and Ancient Jewish Background

[Jesus teaching a crowd]

Jesus’ teaching is sometimes rather obscure, even though he was a good teacher

- this is because we’re ignorant of things his Jewish hearer’s all knew at the time

- he told stories which are memorable, but they are set in ancient Palestine

- he used apposite images, but they’re mainly from agriculture and ancient society

- he interacted with the problems and laws of everyday life – but not our daily life

- he alluded to the OT, but also to traditions in rabbinic texts and Dead Sea scrolls

- then his teaching was memorised in a fixed form very soon afterwards, when they still understood the context in which he spoke, so they rarely added explanations

So, we have to read with the mind of a 1st C Palestinian Jew, or we’ll miss things

- we won’t often misunderstand Jesus – the problem isn’t that great

- but very often we get the wrong emphasis in what Jesus is saying

- and sometimes we’ll miss or ignore some things Jesus said

- and very occasionally we’ll completely misunderstand Jesus’ teaching

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[Prodigal son]

For example, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, what is the main message?

- we are used to the legal custom of writing a will which is carried out at our death

- but that was a Roman custom which didn’t get into Jewish law till the 2nd or 3rd C

- when the Prodigal asked for his inheritance, this was normal Jewish practice

- but he was supposed to use it to run the family business, letting his father retire

- so a son who comes and asks for an early inheritance is doing a good thing

- he is offering to take on responsibilities and let his father take things easy

When we hear the parable we think he is an utter scoundrel from the start

- we miss the shock that the audience had, because they thought he was a perfect son

- he came to his father, voluntarily, and asked to take on his burden in the business

- and THEN the hearers are doubly shocked to hear he went off and squandered it

- so we don’t misunderstand the message, but we miss the emphasis and the shock

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Sometimes, missing the emphasis can mean we miss the whole message

- for example, in the matter of Church Discipline

- Matt.18.15-17: "If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. (16) "But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. (Deut.19.15) (17) "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

- to understand what Jesus is saying here, we have know the similarities with Dead Sea Scrolls teaching about throwing people out of their community for sin.

Damascus Document 9.16-24 says: “If a man sins against the law, and one person alone sees him, he should denounce and reproach him before the Inspector. The Inspector writes it down in case he commits that sin again in the presence of only one person who denounces him to the Inspector. If he does repeat it and is spotted by one person alone, his judgement is complete, and he is excluded from sharing the pure food. However, when there are two separate people who witness different incidents, the man is only excluded if they trustworthy, and they denounced him before the Inspector on the same day they saw him.

- in other words, two witnesses were needed, but this could be a single witness at two different incidents.

Manual of Discipline 6.1 says: “He should reproach him that same day so that he does not incur a sin for his fault. Also, no one should raise a matter before the Congregation unless they have [already] reproved him before witnesses.

[two talking, near a crowd]

The system for the Dead Sea Scroll community at Qumran was this:

If you see someone sin, you should reprove him in front of others who witnessed it.

- if you were the only witness, you take him to an Inspector and denounce him.

- if someone else sees him sin again and tells the Inspector, this makes two witnesses

- then the rest of the community is told about his sin, and he is excluded from them, and especially from their communal meals.

This is almost the same as the system Jesus described to his disciples

1) You need two witnesses to condemn someone

2) They must be confronted before witnesses before telling the whole congregation

3) They are punished by excluding them from table fellowship

But there are differences, and it is these differences which are most important.

- other Jewish groups would use similar methods, but Jesus’ weren’t exactly the same

- the differences make up Jesus’ distinctive teaching; similarities are the status quo

- Jesus’s teaching doesn’t lie in what his disciples already knew, but in differences

- so, to understand Jesus’ teaching, we have to know what his disciples already knew

What are the differences?

1) Jesus doesn’t accept condemnation by two separate single witnesses.

- to emphasis this he quotes the second half of Deut.19.15.

- his listeners all knew the first half of the verse which he didn’t quote: “A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed”

- Qumran got round this by making a note of one sin witnessed by one person and then waiting for a second sin witnessed by a second person, but Jesus rejected this

2) The purpose of Jesus’ procedure is to maximise the opportunities for repentance

- the Dead Sea Scroll community procedure was all concerned with punishment

- they went through these stages to prove he was a sinner so they could exclude him

- Jesus’ repeated emphasis is “if he listens to you, you have won your brother”

- if he doesn’t listen to you, take him before witnesses and see “if he listens to them”

- and finally take him before the church to see “if he listens to them” and repents

- in other words, it is three stages of trying to rescue the brother, not condemn him

By failing to understand Jesus’ emphasis, we have concentrated on church discipline

- it isn’t wrong to use this as a procedure for understanding church discipline

- but we have lost the emphasis that Jesus was trying to re-assert: compassion

- the purpose of the church is not to keep itself pure, but to save sinners.

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There is a related teaching where Dead Sea Scrolls get it right and we get it wrong

- it is a teaching which Jesus and Paul emphasised, but we often neglect or ignore

- at Qumran it was a very serious matter, and Jesus takes it even more seriously

- and yet we don’t notice it because we don’t know what his teaching on this means

- we avoid it in sermons, skip over it when we read it, and try not to think about it

- Here is Jesus’ neglected teaching in words which we all know so well:

Matthew 5:22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca, 'is answerable to the Sanhedrin. And anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

- have you heard or preached any good sermons on this recently?

We can get an idea of what Jesus is talking about from the context

- for the next four verses Jesus is talking about conflict resolution

- he says if you remember you have something against someone, you must deal with it immediately, even if you are in the middle of performing a religious duty

- absolutely nothing is more important than repairing broken or cracked relationships

- and, to make it more urgent, he adds: if you don’t make friends quickly with those you’ve wronged they might take you to law and you’ll end up in prison

At the Dead Sea community of Qumran, conflict resolution was very important

- they were a small community which could be torn apart easily by arguments

- they based their teaching on the verse just before Jesus’ favourite verse

(“you shall love your neighbour as yourself” Lev 19.18).

Lev. 19.17: Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbour so you will not share in his guilt.

- this says that anyone who doesn’t rebuke a sinner is themselves guilty

- the reason is that you aren’t showing love if you don’t point it out to them

- the following verse (“love your neighbour as yourself”) shows the type of love

- this is not one-up-manship which pretends to be tough-love. This is real love

- this is doing what you would have wanted someone else to do for you

[two facing each other in anger]

The Scrolls said: if someone did some wrong, you had to tell them that same day

- this was especially important if it was something wrong against you yourself

- otherwise resentment may smoulder and eventually explode at a small provocation

- if you ignore and simply bear wrongs silently, then one day the last straw will snap your back and your endurance, and you’ll explode with an angry outburst

- you’ll bring up all the small wrongs from the past, which the others has forgotten

- things you should have dealt with long ago when they were minor annoyances

- when the angry explosion happens, the hurt it creates will be very difficult to heal

- so, instead, the Qumran community said you must deal with wrongs that same day

- and if you don’t mention it, you must forget it and never bring it up again

Manual of Discipline 5.24—6.1: says: “Everyone should reproach his fellow in truth, meekness and compassionate love for the man. No-one should speak to his brother in anger or muttering, or with a stiff neck or spiteful intent and he should not detest him in their [hardened] heart. Instead, he should reproach him that same day so that he does not incur a sin for his fault. Also, no one should raise a matter before the Congregation unless they have [already] reproved him before witnesses.
7.8-9: Whoever nurses a grudge against his companion—in blatant disregard of the Yahad statute about reproof on the selfsame day—is to be punished by reduced rations for six months 9 The same applies to the man who on any matter takes vengeance into his own hands. Whoever speaks foolishness: three months. Anyone interrupting his companion while in session:.

Paul agreed with this principle and summarise it in similar words in Eph.4:

- Paul tell us to grow up and honestly deal with conflict on the day it happens

Eph. 4:15, 25-26 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ…(17) you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. (18) ….due to the hardening of their hearts. …. (25) Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. 26 "In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,

(the italics indicate correspondences with the Dead Sea Scrolls passage)

Of course we are British, so we don’t do this kind of thing

- we are a private people, and we don’t like to point out faults in others

- and if someone happens to do us some minor fault, we don’t beep our horns like the Italians or start a vendetta like Cicilians. We have a stiff upper lip

- we don’t offer the other cheek. We simply ignore it, and them. We snub them.

- of course they probably don’t know what they’ve done to be snubbed by us

- and we won’t ever tell them. As we get older we simply have fewer friends.

- the church shouldn’t work like that! So Paul tells Christians to grow up (Eph.4.14)

[two snubbing each other]

Jesus’ teaching is based on this same teaching, though he takes it much further

- at Qumran they said it was very important to rebuke someone before the day ends

- they even said you’d share their guilt if you don’t rebuke them and they sin again

- because your lack of rebuke made them feel it wasn’t serious, and so they repeated it

- Jesus agrees we are guilty for not rebuking sin, but he regards it as VERY serious

- he emphasises this by saying this neglect is a sin which should be punished in hell

- because wrongs become bitterness and seething anger, and they eventually explode

Pent up anger about a series of small wrongs can be a weapon of mass destruction

- imagine someone dropped an unopened can of beans on a campsite bombfire

- would you remain sitting in front of that fire? I’d find a rock to hide behind!

- that’s what anger is like when it isn’t dealt with. It will eventually explode

- and it will be very difficult to heal the personal injuries which result

- that’s why Jesus regarded this as such an extremely dangerous and serious matter

Jesus didn’t condemn anger itself, when it was directed in the right way

- Jesus himself was angry in the Temple, and outside Lazarus tomb

- he wan’t saying there was something specially demonic or evil about the Aramaic word “raca” (‘idiot’) or Greek word moros (‘moron’)

- otherwise a lot of medical doctors are going to hell, because ‘moron’ used to be a technical term for someone with an IQ of less than 50

What Jesus was condemning was presumably the same that Qumran condemned

- but Jesus was even more serious about healing relationships than they were

- he was condemning those who do not deal with conflicts immediately, so that anger explodes later, when it is inappropriate