Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§13.1 For Whom Did Jesus Intend His Message?
his audiences seeing what they see and hearing what they hear (Matt. 13.16-17/
Luke 10.24). 5 The final parable of the Sermon on the Plain/Mount stresses the
importance of hearing and doing Jesus' words (Matt. 7.24, 26/Luke 6.47, 49). 6
This last emphasis is characteristically Jewish, and, incidentally, reflects the
teacher's urging within the context of oral performance and transmission. The
emphasis is implicit in the Hebrew shama' ('hear'), with its overtone of 'attentive
hearing, heedful hearing'. 7 Hence the Shema (Deut. 6.4-5: 'Hear, O Israel. . .'),
which Mark has Jesus citing in full in Mark 12.29-30. And the emphasis was no
doubt characteristic among the devout of Jesus' day. 8 Both Paul (Rom. 2.13) and
James (Jas. 1.22-25) make the same point (hear and do), and it is more likely that
each is reflecting an emphasis in the Jesus tradition than that either influenced
the other or that they independently reiterated a traditional emphasis without
awareness that or concern whether Jesus shared it. 9
What is particularly striking is the way the Evangelists repeat the epigrammatic
exhortation, 'He who has ears (to hear), let him hear'. 10 This is clearly a
teaching device which the Evangelists (and presumably subsequent scribes) have
felt free to include almost at random within the Jesus tradition. 11 The point is,
5. Cited above, §12.5b.
6. See above, chapter 12 n. 215. Luke brings out the same emphasis in his (or his tradition's)
version of the episode of Jesus' rebuffing his mother and brothers (Mark 3.31-35 pars.):
Matt. 12.50
Whoever does the will of mv
Father in heaven, he is mv
brother and sister and mother.
Mark 3.35
He who does the will of God,
he is mv
brother and sister and mother.
Luke 8.21b
My mother and my brothers are
those who hear and do the word
of God.
Similarly Luke 11.28: 'Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it'.
7. BDB, sama' l.i-n. It is generally reckoned that in the Synoptic account of the transfiguration,
the heavenly voice which concludes the most dramatic part of the scene ('This is my
beloved son; hear him', Mark 9.7 pars.) has been framed to bring out an echo of the expectation
of a Moses-like prophet (Deut. 18.15 — 'him you will hear/heed [tisma'un]').
8. In the Torah see particularly Num. 15.39; Deut. 4.1, 5-6, 13-14; 16.12; 30.8, 11-14.
The Qumran covenanters saw themselves as 'the doers of the law' (lQpHab 7.11; 12.4-5;
4QpPs 37(4Q171) 2.15, 22-23). See also, e.g., Philo, Cong. 70; Praem. 79; Josephus, Ant.
20.44; m. 'Abot 1.17; 5.14; and further Str-B 3.84-88.
9. See also above, §8.1e. The Fourth Evangelist also emphasises the link between hearing
and following (John 1.37, 40; 6.45; 10.3-5, 16, 27; cf. 1 John 1.1-5; 2.7, 24; 3.11; 4.6).
10. Mark4.9 pars.; 4.23; 7.16 (some mss.); Matt. 11.15; 13.43; Luke 12.21 (a few mss.);
13.9 (very few mss.); 14.35; 21.4 (a few mss.); GTh 8.2; 21.5; 24.2; 63.2; 65.2; 96.2. The exhortation
was taken up by the seer of Revelation (Rev. 2.7, 11, 17; 3.6, 13, 22; 13.9). The same
concern is elsewhere expressed in equivalent formulations: 'Watch what/how you hear' (Mark
4.24/Luke 8.18); 'Hear me, all of you, and understand' (Mark 7.14/Matt. 15.10); 'I say to you
who hear' (Luke 6.27).
11. 'It is almost pure performancial variation' (Crossan, Fragments 73).
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