Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §14.4
and your mother" (Exod. 20.12; Deut. 5.16), and, "He who speaks evil of father
or mother, let him surely die" (Exod 21.17; Lev. 20.9). nßut you say, "If
someone tells his father or mother, What you would have gained from me is
Qorban (that is gift [to God])", i 2 then you no longer allow him to do anything
for his father or mother, i 3 thus making void the word of God through
your tradition which you hand on'.
The passage seems to indicate that it was possible for a son to avoid all obligations
to parents by fictitiously dedicating to the Temple all the support he owed
them, even if the vow was made out of spite or anger. 119 Such a ruling would presumably
have been based on the law regarding vows (Num. 30.2). 120 Num. 30.3-
15 gives various precedents for circumstances where the command of 30.2 could
be disregarded. And the Mishnah tractate Nedarim ('Vows') shows similar concern
to alleviate the strict principle enunciated in 30.2 (m. Ned. 9.1 bears directly
on the present case). But from Mark 7.9-13 it would appear that at the time the
Jesus tradition took its shape on this point, a harsh ruling 121 was in force for
some at least (Shammaites?) to the effect that a vow made in the circumstances
indicated could not be retracted. 122
Here again, then, Jesus is remembered as pressing behind the detail of debate
on the law of vows and building his own ruling regarding the matter on the
basis of what he evidently regarded as the more fundamental concern — particularly
the Decalogue's commandment that children should honour their parents.
c. Hand-Washing
Mark (or already the earlier tradition) has inserted the Corban issue into a more
extensive discussion on purity halakhah — Mark 7.1-8,14-23. For the first part it
119. Jeremias, Proclamation 210. On the term 'qorban'see Meier, Marginal Jew 3.582-
83 n. 69.
120. 'When a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a
pledge, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth'.
121. Note the language of tradition and formal transmission —paradosis (7.8, 13),
paradidömi (7.8).
122. Note again the debate implied in m. Ned. 9.1. See A. I. Baumgarten, 'Korban and
the Pharisaic Paradosis', JANES 16 (1984) 5-17, cited by Davies and Allison, Matthew 2.524;
M. Bockmuehl, Jewish Law in Gentile Churches: Halakhah and the Beginning of Christian
Public Ethics (Edinburgh: Clark, 2000) 5-6; Meier, Marginal Jew 3.583-84 n. 70. 'Many old
halakhot are based on the understanding that a vow could not be dissolved' (Westerholm, Jesus
77-78). Sanders, Jewish Law 56-57, is dubious (though less confident on the point) that such a
ruling was current among Pharisees of the time, but notes a similar ruling in Philo, Hypothetica
7.5.
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