Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§15.8 Who Did They Think Jesus Was?
would it have been retained throughout the Jesus tradition, and in transliterated
form? 411 That must be one of the most secure conclusions capable of being derived
from a serious engagement with the tradition history of Jesus' teaching. And an obvious
corollary lies close to hand: Jesus used this formula to call attention to what
he was about to say and to give it added weight. 412
(5) The second striking feature of Jesus' teaching style is the 'I say to you
(legö hymin/soi)' formula. This was a feature which attracted Käsemann, and in
effect he launched the new quest on it. But he focused too narrowly on the adversative
form — 'but I say to you (egö de legö)' — and on its use in the antitheses
of Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. He saw there an authority claim which rivalled
that of Moses and even set Jesus over Moses. 413 That was unfortunate,
since it put the motif in service to the older Jesus versus the law debate and laid
too much weight on the antitheses of Matt. 5.21-48. We have already noted that
that line of argument has been pushed too far (§14.4), and the strong likelihood
that the repetition of the motif is the work of the teacher (Matthew?) who laid out
the antitheses of the Sermon (§14.4f). And the absence of egö in most cases 414
rather blunts the description of the feature as 'the emphatic egö'. 415 However, the
motif itself is too firmly rooted within the Jesus tradition to be dismissed entirely,
both in affirmative 416 and adversative 417 form (between which there is often not
much difference).
411. Note that Luke uses the alternative forms: 'Of a truth (ep' aletheias) I say to you'
(Luke 4.25; parallel to amen legö hymin in 4.24); 'Truly (alethös) I say to you' (9.27/[Mark
9.1]; 12.44/[Matt. 24.47]; 21.3/[Mark 12.43]). Since it is unlikely that Luke knew or translated
Aramaic himself, the distinctive Lukan formulation must mean that his (oral) source had been
put into Greek by someone who knew that the 'amen came from the verb 'aman ('confirm, support';
niphal 5: 'reliable, faithful'; hiphil 2: 'trust, believe', BDB) and who therefore translated
rather than transliterated the 'amen.
412. See also Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus 523-24.
413. Käsemann: 'the words egö de legö embody a claim to an authority which rivals and
challenges that of Moses' ('Problem' 37). Similarly Jeremias: 'the one who utters the egö de
legö hymin in the antitheses not only claims to be the legitimate interpreter of the Torah . . . but
also has the unparalleled and revolutionary boldness to set himself up in opposition to the Torah'
(Proclamation 253).
414. Egö appears in the formula only in the antitheses (Matt. 5.22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44);
the only well attested exception is Luke 16.9 (cf. Mark 11.33/Matt. 21.27).
415. Jeremias, Proclamation 250; 'the remarkable accumulation of the emphatic egö in
his sayings' (251)!
416. Mark 2.11/Luke 5.24; Mark 11.24; Matt. 6.25/Luke 12.22; Matt. 11.9/Luke 7.26;
Matt. 23.39/Luke 13.35; Matt. 5.20; 12.31; 16.18; 18.10; 19.24; 21.43; Luke 7.9, 28, 47; 10.12,
24; 11.8, 9, 51; 12.5, 51, 59; 13.24; 14.24; 15.7, 10; 16.9; 17.34; 18.8, 14; 19.26, 40; 22.16, 34,
37 (the overlap with Lukan items in n. 418 indicates how frequently Luke, or his tradition,
omitted 'Amen').
417. Mark 9.13/Matt. 17.12; Mark 13.37; Matt. 5.44/Luke 6.27; Matt. 6.29/Luke
701