Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§8.5 The Tradition
It is, of course, a fair question as to whether in the earliest form Jesus was
remembered as celebrating a Passover meal 243 or instituting a ritual to be repeated.
On the latter issue, the A version does not in fact say so; and the call for
or assumption of repetition is a distinctive feature both of B and of the elaboration
in 1 Cor. 11.25b-26. 244 Moreover the evidence of redaction is apparent elsewhere.
245 Nevertheless the characteristics of oral tradition remain clear: a concern
to maintain the key elements of the words used by Jesus as carefully as
necessary, with a flexibility (including elaboration) which in this case no doubt
reflects the developing liturgical practices of different churches.
d. Sermon on the Mount/Plain
A curious feature of the Sermon on the Mount tradition is the variableness in the
closeness between the Matthean and Lukan versions. In what we might call (for
the sake of convenience) the third quarter of Matthew's Sermon, the degree of
closeness is such that the passages qualify as good evidence for the existence of a
Q document. 246 But in the other three-quarters the verbal parallel is much less
close, so much so as to leave a considerable question as to whether there is evidence
of any literary dependence. 247 If, alternatively, we look at the Sermon on
the Plain (Q/Luke 6.20b-23, 27-49) and other Q parallels, the equally striking
fact emerges that the closeness of the parallels with Matthew is quite modest,
again leaving open the question of literary dependence. 248 In most cases much
243. See below § 17.1c.
244. These considerations (including the focus more on the cup than on the wine) ease
the problem of conceiving how a Jew could require his disciples to drink blood (e.g., Theissen
and Merz, Historical Jesus 421-23; Funk, Acts of Jesus 139). In any case, it needs to be remembered
that an act of prophetic symbolism (see below §15.6c at n. 231) was in view from the
first: they ate bread (not flesh); they drank wine (not blood); see now J. Klawans, 'Interpreting
the Last Supper: Sacrifice, Spiritualization, and Anti-Sacrifice', NTS 48 (2002) 1-17.
245. Particularly Matthew's addition of the phrase 'for the forgiveness of sins' (Matt.
26.28), the very phrase he seems deliberately to have omitted in 3.2 (cf. Mark 1.4/Luke 3.3).
See further below § 11.3b.
246. Matt. 6.22-23/Luke 11.34-36; Matt. 6.24/Luke 16.13; Matt. 6.25-34/Luke 12.22-
32; Matt. 7.1-2/Luke 6.37a, 38b; Matt. 7.3-5/Luke 6.41-42; Matt. 7.7-1 I/Luke 11.9-13; Matt.
7.12/Luke6.31.
247. Despite which, most discussions simply assume redactional use of Q; see, e.g.,
Fitzmyer, Luke, Davies and Allison, Matthew, and Kloppenborg, Q Parallels, ad loc. Streeter
recognized the likelihood of 'oral tradition in more than one form', but argues that differences
have to be explained by Matthew's 'conflation' of Q and M — that is, by literary editing (Four
Gospels 251-53).
248. Bergemann, Q auf dem Prüfstand, concludes that Luke 6.20b-49 was not part of
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