Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§14.4 The Character of Discipleship
h. Filial Duty
The one passage where Sanders is willing to recognize that Jesus 'superseded
the requirements of piety and the Torah' is Jesus' command to the would-be disciple,
'Leave the dead to bury their own dead' (Matt. 8.21-22/Luke 9.59-60). 167
'Disobedience of the requirement to care for one's dead parents is actually disobedience
to God'. 168 But if an idiomatic usage is involved, then Sanders here is
overreacting as much as those he criticizes in other instances. 169 Even so, we
can properly speak of Jesus grasping the opportunity of some situation, whose
particularities were not deemed important enough to retain in the tradition, to
emphasize the absolute priority of God's work. We now may look askance at
such uncompromising commitment, but it should be recognized and honoured
for what it was.
All this is wholly consistent with the observations already made in §9.9c
regarding what might be called Jesus' own Torah piety. He is also recalled as
observing the law on leprosy 170 and as directing the rich young man who enquired
regarding eternal life to the second table of the ten commandments
(Mark 10.19 pars.). 171 The tradition reviewed above and elsewhere depicts him
as basing his own teaching foursquare on the Torah. 172 Matthew records a saying
in which Jesus assumes continued participation in the Temple sacrifices
(Matt. 5.23-24). 173 Another passage has him being consulted on an issue of in-
167. Sanders, Jesus 252-55: 'the most revealing passage in the synoptics for penetrating
to Jesus' view of the law', where he pays tribute to and follows Hengel's treatment (252).
168. Jesus 253; 'a blatant offense against Torah and Halacha' (Becker, Jesus 285); 'a direct
affront... to the dominant created orders of classical antiquity. .. . Burial was the moment
par excellence to demonstrate expected and applauded filial loyalty. To ignore it, as Jesus proposed,
could only reveal great indecency. Jesus was being simply shameless' (Vaage, Galilean
Upstarts 90, 93). See also §13.2d.
169. Was the father already dead? Bailey cites the mediaeval commentator Ibn al-Salibi
(ca. 1050, written in Syriac): '"Let me go and bury" means: let me go and serve my father
while he is alive and after he dies I will bury him and come' (Through Peasant Eyes 26); see
again above, §13.2d. Bockmuehl protests against Hengel and Sanders that 'the notion of a special
religious duty transcending even basic family obligations is one that would have been culturally
familiar to Jesus' audience' and suggests less plausibly a possible Nazirite setting for the
saying [Jewish Law 23-48); but if Bailey is right the resolution is to be found more in terms of
idiom than of halakhah.
170. Mark 1.44 pars.; Luke 17.14; Lev. 13.4-9.
171. Though it should also be remembered that one of the key points of the story is that
keeping all these commandments 'from my youth' proved insufficient; the young man fell short
in regard to a more demanding principle (Goppelt, Theology 1.98). Cf. also Rom. 13.8-10.
172. Mark 7.10; 10.6-7; 12.26; 12.29-31 (see below, §14.5).
173. Pace Goppelt: The saying 'did not presuppose that Jesus' disciples continued to offer
gifts in the temple; it had purely metaphorical quality' (Theology 1.96). Note also Mark
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