Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §14.4
heritance law (Luke 12.13). And over all, the Jesus tradition's many echoes of
Scripture, Isaiah and the Psalms in particular, attest the extent to which 'Jesus
lived in the Old Testament'. 174 Matthew can even portray Jesus as claiming to
have come not to abolish but to fulfil the law and as calling for a strict observation
of its commandments (Matt. 5.17-20). There is little doubt that Matthew
here impresses his own priorities on the tradition, but had his presentation been
totally unfounded and at odds with Jesus' elsewhere remembered teaching, 175 it
is unlikely that his attempt to redraw the Jesus tradition so radically on this
point would have been so successful. 176 Here not least we need to remember
that the Jesus tradition consists of what Jesus was heard as teaching, and to recall
that what is heard and remembered depends as much on the hearer as on the
speaker.
Even so, we may conclude that the richer tradition of Jesus in debate with
scribes and Pharisees regarding points of law and disputed issues of halakhah
stands up well to scrutiny. Whether 'sovereign freedom' in regard to the law and
tradition is an appropriate description of Jesus' attitude to the law is less clear.
The description may be better applied to Jesus' teaching and debating technique,
as one confident in the importance of the fundamental concerns which
motivated his own mission. At any rate, the Jesus who is thus remembered as
teaching and debating evidently did not set himself antithetically over against
the law. Rather his teaching in this area can be characterized in terms of pressing
behind the immediate issue to the deeper questions of motive and
right(eousness), refusing to take the easy way out in testing cases of applying
the most immediately obvious ruling, and digging deep into the law to discern
the divine rationale (justice) in its particular miswot. 171 To do the will of God
12.41-44 par. (cited above, §8.4c). Contrast Meier's conclusion that 'Jesus clearly accepted the
Jerusalem temple as part of the present order of things' (Marginal Jew 3.500, his emphasis).
174. Jeremias, Proclamation 205-206, with full documentation; see also R. T. France,
Jesus and the Old Testament (London: Tyndale, 1972); Vermes, Religion 50-70; Theissen and
Merz, Historical Jesus 357-58; contrast Becker: 'Jesus makes no use of the authority of the Torah
when he speaks' (Jesus 254-55; also 278-79, 281).
175. Matt. 5.18, after all, is drawn from tradition common to Luke 16.17 (Q?).
176. On the issue of how much in Matt. 5.17-20 may be referred back to Jesus see especially
Banks, Jesus and the Law 204-26; Davies and Allison, Matthew 1.482-503. By 'fulfil'
Matthew may have meant 'complete', that is, 'reveal the true meaning of the law and demonstrate
it in action', as documented in what follows (see further Guelich, Sermon on the Mount
139-41).
177. Cf. Banks, Jesus and the Law (though his consistent christological focus reflects
more the emphasis of the developed interest of the Evangelists themselves); Westerholm, Jesus
130; Becker, Jesus 229-30; Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus 381, 394-95 ('at its centre it
[Jesus' ethical preaching] is oriented on the Torah; however, it is oriented on a Torah read in the
prophetic spirit'); Bockmuehl, Jewish Law 6, 14.
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