Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§14.4 The Character of Discipleship
14.4. Hungering for What Is Right
The high evaluation accorded to the Torah in Jewish tradition has always been one
of the distinguishing marks of Judaism (§9.5d) and one of the fundamental points
of differentiation with Christianity. The attitude of Jesus to the law of Israel has
therefore been one of the key issues for questers, not least with the question in
view whether subsequent Christian rejection of the law can be traced back to Jesus
himself, or can at least find validation in what he taught and in the way he conducted
himself during his mission. The answers given have varied in accordance
with the degree to which scholars were willing to locate Jesus within Judaism.
We have already recalled the sharp and wounding statements of Renan and
Ritschl on the subject (§5.5). In the wake of the failed Liberal quest Bultmann
provided an important new lead by insisting that Jesus must be viewed within Judaism:
'Jesus asserted the authority of the Law'. 89 The chief differentiating feature
of Jesus' teaching was that he set one passage against another, rather than assuming
that all passages are equally binding and that apparent contradictions are
to be reconciled; he distinguished between essential and non-essential. 90 'The divergence
of Jesus from Judaism is in thinking out the idea of obedience radically
to the end, not in setting it aside'. 91 It was in fact Bultmann's later characterisation
of 'a sovereign attitude assumed by Jesus toward the Old Testament' 92
which became the springboard for his disciples and successors. As already noted,
Käsemann was able to build a case for a new quest by identifying 'the distinctive
element in the mission of Jesus' as the amazing authority which Jesus claimed
for himself over against Moses and the Torah. 93 And Hengel takes the same position
in asserting Jesus' 'sovereign liberty over against the letter of scripture, indeed
over against the Mosaic Torah in general'. 94 Not untypical was Jeremias's
89. Jesus and the Word 64. 'Jesus actually lived as a Jewish rabbi' (58); 'Jesus agreed always
with the scribes of his time in accepting without question the authority of the (Old Testament)
Law' (61). 'The idea that Jesus had attacked the authority of the Law was wholly unknown
to the Christian community' (63). It was against Bultmann's identification of Jesus as a
rabbi that Hengel protested in Charismatic Leader 42.
90. Jesus and the Word 74-75.
91. Jesus and the Word 84. The point is then developed in more characteristic existentialist
terms (84-98).
92. Theology 16.
93. Käsemann, 'Problem' 37-45, particularly 40; similarly Bornkamm, Jesus 58-60. Influenced
by Käsemann, I also spoke of Jesus' 'sovereign freedom . . . with respect to sabbath
and ceremonial law' in my earlier Jesus and the Spirit 43. Witherington speaks of Jesus' freedom
'not only to operate with a selective hermeneutic but also to add and subtract from Scripture'
(Christology 65, 69).
94. Hengel, Charismatic Leader 47; 'Jesus stood outside any discoverable uniform
teaching tradition of Judaism'; 'the fundamental point of distinction over against Phari-
563