1983 - james d.g. dunn - jesus and the constraint of law

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DOI: 10.1177/0142064X8300501703

1983 5: 10Journal for the Study of the New TestamentJames D.G. Dunn

Jesus and the Constraint of Law

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JESUSAND THE CONSTRAINT OF LAW

James D.G. Dunn

University of DurhamDURHAM

1. Summary

Harvey begins his chapter on the constraint of law byasking whether Jesus did or did not perform actions which

constituted an offence under the law. The Gospels themselvesindicate two issues which conceivably could have given groundsfor legal action against Jesus - transgressions of the sabbathand of the food laws. On the former, however, it would appearthat Jesus conduct raised the question of legality without

actually being the subject of a clear verdict (the conclusion

already reached by Harveys study of the trial of Jesus in

chapter 2). Only the cornfield incident (Mark 2:23-8) can becounted as strictly illegal, but nothing more seems to havebeen made of it. On the latter, once Marks added note is

disregarded (Mark 7:19), Jesus parable on true cleanlinessis far too general and riddling in character to haveconstituted the basis of a legal charge. In consequence wecan exclude the possibility that Jesus deliberately floutedthe law or left himself open to the charge of having transgressedit.

But if his action did not constitute a breach of the law,what of his teaching? To answer this question Harvey moves onto a brief review of the place and function of the written lawin the society in which Jesus lived. Every male Jew would ofcourse have been educated in the torah and be familiar at

least with the main scriptural laws under which he lived.

Beyond that broad base of knowledge and practice there emergevarious options within which Jesus had to formulate his own

teaching - and then follows a sketch of the various sects or

schools within first century Judaism with which every studentof the New Testament is familiar (particularly Essenes,Sadducees and Pharisees). This attempt to locate Jesus

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within the context of his time is neatly posed in relation tothe question of Mark 10:17, Teacher, what must I do to gaineternal life?, by asking what kinds of answers were availableto a teacher in this situation.

The options of a sectarian response like that of the Qumrancovenanters, or a revolutionary response like that of theZealots are

quicklydismissed. The

only optionleft is a form

of teaching which would enable people to achieve a greaterdegree of religious commitment and satisfaction in the midstof the routine activities of ordinary life (p. 47). No doubtsome, like the scribe of Mark 12:28, believed that love of Godand of ones neighbour is more important than burnt offeringsand sacrifices. But the most influential teachers of the law

were the Pharisees; what was Jesus relation to this movement?

In fact, of the options open to him Jesus came closest tothat represented by the Pharisees: he offered a way of life inwhich religion would seem relevant to every activity; he basedhis teaching on the will of God as revealed in the law; and headdressed much of his teaching to a public far wider than hisimmediate followers. But the differences are striking: unlikethe Pharisees Jesus did not seek to elaborate a more comprehensivecode of conduct; he kept what the religious groups would haveregarded as bad company; and he did not bolster the authorityof his teaching by appealing to other sages and previousteachers. In consequence it is very unlikely that Jesus couldhave been received as a teacher within the Pharisaic tradition.

This issue is so important that Harvey feels the need toexamine more closely the question of Jesus relationship tothe most influential and intellectual movement of his time -

the Pharisees. The initial conclusion is quickly reached that

Jesus repudiated the authority of the oral tradition on whichthe Pharisees set such store (Mark 7:3ff). But what of the lawitself? Since the whole of Jewish life was based on the

assumption of the validity and importance of the law, it is

extremely unlikely that Jesus would even have contemplated anattack on this basic institution. Nor is there any indication

that he sought a detailed revision of the law at any point.The antitheses of Matthew 5 at first glance seem to support theview that Jesus did repeal some individual laws. But it is

unlikely that Matthew himself intended such a meaning to be takenfrom the antitheses: Jesus sets his authority not over the law

itself, but over the law with certain interpretations attachedto it; and all his injunctions can be regarded as an application



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rather than a repeal of the existing law. For Matthew Jesuscame not to destroy but to fulfil, that is, probably, to givedefinitive meaning to the law (Matt. 5:17) - both a claim to

possess the true interpretation and a programme for demonstratingits credibility.

If Jesus was both like the scribes as one who elucidated

the law, and at the same time utterly unlike these other teachersat significant points, are there any other options for locatingJesus? Apocalyptist might appear as one possibility - but themodel of a seer who penned his esoteric insights under a

pseudonym hardly fits Jesus. But with prophet it is adifferent matter: like the prophets he addressed particularcircumstances in history; and the recollection in bSanh.43a

that Jesus was condemned as a sorcerer or deceiver can be

understood as a rebuttal of the claim to be a prophet. In fact

the description of Jesus as prophet is one of the most usefuland suggestive of those which the New Testament offers us. Itis the combination .of teacher and prophet that makes Jesus standout in the context of his times.

It is this prophetic quality of Jesus teaching which helpsus understand some of the most striking of Jesus words -

particularly his call to a potential disciple to ignore his

responsibilityto

providefor a

parentsburial (Matt. 8:22;

Luke 9:60 - wrongly given as 9:66). The abandonment of such afundamental article of social morality and instinctive religioncould only be justified in exceptional cases - in this case,Jesus prophetic proclamation that a critical moment of historyhad now dawned. It is this exceptional situation which

justifies dispensation from the law as in the cornfield incidentof Mark 2. It is this sense of a decisive moment in historywhich marks Jesus out as a prophet and marks him off from the

rabbinic teachers. Whereas they sought to interpret the lawto hear it speak more clearly to the normal circumstances of

life, it is precisely Jesus point that the circumstances arenot normal. Precisely because a decisive stage of history has

arrived, the essence of Gods will cannot (any longer) be

expressed in detailed outward observances.

This understanding of Jesus as a prophet opens the way tothe next stage of Harveys presentation - Jesus proclamationof the coming reign of God.



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2. Critique

What Harvey has attempted to do is fundamentally right bothin aim and strategy. If we are to get back to Jesus and to

understand his mission and message with any confidence we must

aim to set him as clearly and as fully as possible within thecontext of his times. This point has been perceived with

increasing sharpness throughout this century. What has not

usually been seen so clearly is that the historical context of

an early first century Galilean or Palestinian Jew might be a

good deal more limited than the broad perspective now open tous from our increasing knowledge of conditions, movements,trends, etc. in the eastern Mediterranean of that whole period.To set Jesus within the limited horizons of his immediate

context is even more important than setting him within thebroader

religionsgeschichtliche developmentsof the time. So

Harveys attempt to view Jesus within the particular constraintswhich would bear upon him and his immediate contemporaries is tobe heartily applauded. And his informed and skilful use of

original sources greatly increases the value of his attempt.

At the same time however, the success of the strategy is

dependent on the particular tactics used (the ordering of thematerial and its analysis) and even more on our ability (in

terms of the available evidence) to reconstruct the context andconstraints within which Jesus would have operated. Here Harveyis more vulnerable to criticism.

(a) The argument of the chapter (reproduced in the firstsection above) advances in a rather awkward fashion. The chaptertakes its starting point from the very successful analysis ofthe traditions of Jesus trial and condemnation (chapter 2).With the question of the legality of Jesus condemnation thus

raised it was an obvious next step to look at Jesus relation

to the law. But that opening question, Did Jesus break the law?is quickly supplemented and to a large degree supplanted by thefurther question, Into what category would Jesus have been

thought to fit - revolutionary, apocalyptist, teacher, prophet,and so on? The tension between these two questions is never

resolved, and in the end the issue of why Jesus was condemned andof the legal basis for his condemnation is left dangling.

The method pursued is a kind of circling round and round inan effort to gain an ever closer fix on Jesus. But it resultsin a moving through some areas and material more than once anda sequence of partial studies (particularly of the Pharisees and



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the individual controversies in which Jesus was involved) wherethe aspect examined has been determined by the questionformulated and the line of reasoning to that point rather than

by the source material itself. Alternatively, reading the

chapter is in some ways like having to peer through a sequenceof peep-holes which leave the viewer not quite sure how all the

partial aspects fit together into a whole.

One consequence is that the theme of Jesus as prophet isintroduced awkwardly, as a final option for locating Jesuswithin the constraint of law. It could have been introduced

earlier, on the grounds that one of the charges against Jesusremembered in rabbinic literature is that of Jesus as a

sorcerer or false prophet (bSanh. 43a; cf. Deut. 13). Areview of possible grounds for Jesus condemnation would havedrawn this in

earlier,but in terms of the structure of the

overall argument prophet clearly serves as a bridge to thenext chapter, on Jesus and eschatology (Jesus and Time: theConstraint of an Ending). The trouble is that the question ofJesus as a prophet can hardly be adequately tackled without

posing it in relation to the context of eschatology from thefirst. Instead of being a satisfactory solution to the issueof Jesus and the law, Jesus the prophet becomes more like acoda or a linking passage to the next movement. Method has

triumphed at the expense of material.

Now, of course, no format is entirely satisfactory - theevidence must be reviewed in some order, and what one sees asthe obvious way in will to another appear more appropriate forreview at a later stage. Harvey is trying to pursue an old

investigation in a new and intriguing manner, and it was a lineof inquiry which deserved to be pursued, even if its orderingof the material creates problems. And Harvey writes so well and

argues so clearly that he carries off a difficult task with a

high degree of success. But I suspect that in the end the more

helpful, if less intriguing method is to attempt a clearerportrayal of the whole context in a single sweep, the wholelimited context of a Palestinian Jew, that is. To let the lineof inquiry dictate what evidence is drawn in, and when, willalmost certainly result in some key evidence being left till alater stage, evidence which might have shed a different

complexion on the earlier stage of the inquiry. In the caseof Jesus, the law and the Pharisees in particular, it would bemore helpful to have as complete a sketch as possible of thehiqtnrirni rnntPVt - th,, ~~~~11~ nF tha l~w th- ~l~~;nn R>+w~1



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more strictly legal questions and the broader areas of law and

custom, what was socially acceptable and unacceptable in whatcircles. And on the Pharisees the findings of Jacob Neusners

investigations of rabbinic tradition could be brought morefully into play with profitable results. An attempt to locateJesus within that context would have been more aware of the

possible range of options from the first rather than havingthem determined by the authors line of argument. On this

question of options and comparisons Martin Hengels Charismaund Nachfolge (1968, Eng. tr. The Charismatic Leader and his

Followers, T. & T. Clark 1981) must be judged the more helpfulguide.

(b) An attempt to see the context as a whole would havehad to give more attention to the problem of sources- both for

first century Judaism and for Jesus. Harvey is of course fullyaware of the difficulty of using rabbinic sources for areconstruction of pre-70 Pharisaism (let alone for thereconstruction of pre-70 Judaism in toto). And usually heshows a proper circumspection in handling them. But occasionallyhis guard slips - as on p. 51. A sequence of claims about thePharisees is made, all of whose pre-70 status must be in somedoubt - that the Pharisaic tradition of interpretation was tracedback through a succession of teachers to Moses himself (despite

Harveys own n. 64), that every new interpretation would alwaysbe formulated with reference to the work of previous sages, andthat new teaching emerged only from the consensus of aninfluential group of scholars. These cannot be put forward

without qualification as a description of Jesus context andtherefore as an unequivocal yardstick against which to measureJesus teaching style. Harvey himself had rightly noted thata remarkably wide range of belief and practice could becontained within

Pharisaism, particularlyin the

periodbefore

70AD (p. 49); but the concern to offer a clear contrast betweenJesus and the Pharisees has caused him to lower his guard too far.

Similarly it is hard to avoid the feeling that the conclusionon p. 59 is overstated: that Jesus was the first and only Jewishteacher to have combined in a single style of teaching the rolesof legal expert and prophet, with perhaps a touch of the esotericseer thrown in. That sounds a dangerously bold claim. He

returns to it on p. 93 n. 88 (another example of an argumentdeveloped partially here, partially there). There he excludesthe charismatic rabbis, whom Geza Vermes in particular has drawninto fruitful comparison with Jesus, on the grounds that they had



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no interest in legal matters; but I find it odd to characterizeJesus as a legal expert while denying a rabbi any interest in

questions of the laws current application. Likewise Johananben Zakkai is dismissed as exceptional. No doubt Johananstood out from the ruck, and with his known interest in merkabah

mysticism, he seems to have been a richly diverse and indeed

exceptional figure. But he is a sufficient example to make

one hesitant about claims that Jesus was the only teacher ....So too we could mention Hillel, to whom is attributed the

negative form of the golden rule and who was thought to be asmuch a prophet (worthy of the Holy Spirit) as one could be in a

period marked by the absence of the Spirit of prophecy. Or

Akiba, who certainly bears comparison with anyone described as

legal expert and prophet with a touch of esoteric seer thrownin (for all these instances see e.g. R. Meyer in TDNT VI

particularly pp. 823-5). In short, once again it becomes clearthat there has been a striving for a contrast here which cannotbe adequately demonstrated until what Hengel calls the

charismatic-eschatological distinctiveness of Jesus

proclamation has been taken fully into account.

As to sources for reliable information about the historical

Jesus, Harvey is of course fully aware of the caution we mustobserve in reconstructing Jesus teaching, especially on this

question,when so

muchhas to

dependon

Matthew.But

here againthe treatment is too partial. On p. 56 he concludes: ... it is

undoubtedly possible to bring the teaching expressed in theantitheses into line with the general character of Jesus

teaching as it is presented throughout Matthews gospel - that

is, a form of teaching which took for granted the authority and

abiding validity of the written law, and was entirely concernedwith its interpretation and application. That observation is

certainly true, but for it to have greater force we really do

need to bring it into interaction with two others. One is thefact that while Matthew can interpret Jesus teaching in thismanner, at the same time Mark can interpret it differently. WasMark unjustified in interpreting Jesus words about truecleanliness as an abrogation of the law on clean and uncleanfoods (Mark 7:19)? Is it significant that Matthew has redactedthe Markan pericope on divorce so as to make both the questionput to Jesus and Jesus answer fit into the schools debate onthe meaning of Deut. 24:1 (Mark 10:2-9; Matt.

19:3-9)?And if

Matthews presentation of Jesus teaching as entirely concernedwith the laws interpretation and application is in part atleast the result of Matthean redaction, does that suggest that



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Jesus teaching on the law as such was at some points anyway moreradical than Harvey allows? I do not say we can necessarily givea clear-cut answer to such questions, but I do think the questionsought to have been asked. Here there may be no alternative butto engage in tradition-history analysis of key sayings of Jesus.Time consuming it may be, but preferable to a too ready equationof Matthews treatment of Jesus and the law with Jesus own

attitude to the law.

The second issue which Harveys treatment partly highlightsand partly obscures is the question of whether the hostility toJesus was based simply on legal grounds, or was rather theresult of Jesus cutting across the aims of Pharisaism (politicaland social, as well as religious and legal), the result of Jesus

calling in question the rationale and primary thrust of Pharisaic

teaching.Was

there,in other

words,a strand or dimension of

Jesus teaching and life which was subversive of or antitheticalto the dominant emphases of Pharisaism? Harvey recognizes thisfuller dimension elsewhere, but his partial treatment preventshim from integrating it adequately. It is an aspect which fallsbetween the two stools, between the two questions, Why was Jesus

condemned?, and What category would he have filled or opted for?So we are left wondering quite how to tie together the positiveassessment of Jesus attitude to the law with the problem of why

Jesus was rejected and condemned by the chief guardians of thelaw. Again I am not implying that definite solutions can beachieved to all these issues; I am simply saying that an attemptto see Jesus within the constraints of his historical context

must never let the discussion lose sight of the all-embracingcharacter of the law for the Pharisees in particular.

3. Conclusion

I have been asked to confine my remarks to Harveys chapter3, which is rather unfortunate since it is one of the two

weakest chapters of the book. The treatment of Jesus trialand condemnation shows the strength of Harveys approach and howfruitful it can be. His treatment of Jesus and eschatology andof Jesus miracles have sections to which I shall direct mystudents and to which I expect to return with profit. Histreatment of the name Christ is a splendid tour de force and

even if overstated isa

valuable correction to the questionstill too casually asked and too carelessly answered, Was Jesusthe Messiah expected by the Jews? But for all the stimulus ofhis treatment of Jesus and the law Harveys analysis is in the



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end unsatisfactory for two main reasons. In the first place, I

remain convinced that the subject of Jesus and the reign of Godmust precede the subject of Jesus and the law. It was Jesus

proclamation of Gods kingly rule which in content andcharacter most clearly marked him out from his contemporaries.

And the eschatology seems to have been the most pervasive _element in his teaching. If that is so, then Jesus attitudeto the law and the question of how he would have been locatedwithin the current Jewish spectrum can only be illuminated in

the light of his kingdom preaching and living. To inquireafter Jesus and the law first is bound to be frustrating andto result in incomplete findings.

In the second place, I am far from convinced that it is a ,

satisfactory summary of Jesus teaching to say that he tookhis

pointof

departurefrom the law

(p. 93)and that he based

his teaching on the will of God as revealed in the law (p. 51).This seems to underplay far too much the force of Jesus Amenand emphatic I (But I say to you), to which Jeremias in

particular has drawn our attention. Part of the eschatologicalemphasis of Jesus whole ministry is precisely his claim to be

spokesman and bearer of the final and unmediated revelation ofGod. Harvey recognizes this later on and elaborates it quitefully in a contentious final chapter on Jesus as Gods agent -

but once again the order of discussion means that the inadequacyof the earlier statement is left uncorrected.

The chief problem in such an investigation is always howto recognize both the continuities and discontinuities betweenJesus and his context. Harveys order of treatment obscures someof them, but overall he has provided a sharper and clearer

perspective on several major issues, and his book provides amore than ordinarily valuable way in to the historical Jesuswithin the constraints of his time.

1983 - james d.g. dunn - jesus and the constraint of law

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