Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS
514.4
The conclusion that follows is threefold. (1) Jesus was recalled as speaking
on the subject of purity and as insisting that purity of heart is more important than
ritual purity. 143 Here again when confronted with an issue of the law, Jesus is
remembered as focusing on a deeper, more important issue, quite in the spirit of
the older calls to circumcise the heart (not just the flesh): 144 that which defiles a
person most grievously comes from the heart. 145 (2) Jesus' teaching was heard differently.
Some heard Jesus as not content to debate issues of ritual purity solely at
the level of ritual but pressing home the concerns behind such law and halakhoth
to the more fundamental level of purity of motive and intention. 146 Others heard
Jesus, when the teaching was rehearsed within wider circles of discipleship, as
validating or commending a more radical conclusion, to the effect that Israel's
purity law no longer applied to the followers of Jesus. (3) Either way, it is again
evident that Jesus had no interest in making ritual purity a test case of covenant
143. Note also the sixth beatitude, 'Blessed are the pure in heart' (Matt. 5.8), and the Q
saying, Matt. 23.25/Luke U39/GTh 89:
Matt. 23.25
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, for you cleanse the
outside of the cup and of the plate,
but inside you are full of extortion
and rapacity.
Luke 11.39
Now you Pharisees
cleanse the
outside of the cup and of the dish,
but inside you are full of extortion
and wickedness.
GTh89
Jesus said, 'Why do you wash the
outside of the cup? Do you not
understand that he who made the
inside is also he who made the
outside?'
Despite the variations a common point is maintained: a contrast between inside and outside, between
inward (im)purity and outward purity, which indicates the latter to be of lesser importance.
The Jesus Seminar think the Thomas version reflects most closely something Jesus said
(Funk, Five Gospels 89). See also Westerholm, Jesus 89-90. On the question of historical context
reflected, see the debate between J. Neusner, '"First Cleanse the Inside'", NTS 22 (1976)
486-95; and H. Maccoby, 'The Washing of Cups', JSNT 14 (1982) 3-15; moderated by Davies
and Allison, Matthew 3.296-98. Note also P.Oxy. 840 (text in Aland, Synopsis 393-94; Elliott,
Apocryphal New Testament 33-34); Kazen finds in it 'the memory of Jesus as displaying a controversial
attitude to purity, which was motivated by giving more weight to inner purity than to
outer purification' (Jesus 256-60).
144. Deut. 10.16; Jer. 4.4; 9.25-26; Ezek. 44.9; lQpHab 11.13; 1QS 5.5.
145. Chilton maintains that 'purity was Jesus' fundamental commitment, the lens
through which he viewed the world' (Rabbi Jesus 90). But astonishingly, he argues that for Jesus
purity (not impurity) came from within ('the innate purity of Israelites' — 92; 'Israelites
were already pure and did not need to be cleansed by elaborate ritual observances' — 140),
even quoting Mark 7.15 in support (87), and that that purity activated became the agent of the
kingdom (136); similarly 'A Generative Exegesis of Mark 7:1-23', in Chilton and Evans, Jesus
in Context 297-319 (here 305-306). Similarly Temple: 'bathing does not make one pure, but
celebrates the fact of purity' (123-25, 142). Hence the subsequent attempt to 'cleanse' the Temple
by celebrating that purity in right sacrifice (see below § 17.3c).
146. Cf. Klawans, Impurity 146-50: 'Jesus nowhere defends ritual purity as a symbol of
moral purity' (149).
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