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Original Research

Jesus and the law revisited Author: William R.G. Loader1,2 Affiliations: 1 Department of Theology, Murdoch University, Australia 2 Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Note: Prof. Dr William R.G. Loader is participating as research associate in the project ‘Biblical Theology and Hermeneutics’, directed by Prof. Dr Andries G. van Aarde, honorary professor in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Correspondence to: William Loader email: w.loader@murdoch.edu.au Postal address: 52 The Circle, Warwick WA 6024, Australia Dates: Received: 04 Apr. 2010 Accepted: 15 May 2010 Published: 07 June 2011

How to cite this article: Loader, W.R.G, 2011, ‘Jesus and the law revisited’, HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies 67(1), Art. #824, 6 pages. DOI: 10.4102/hts.v67i1.824

This article revisited the issue of Jesus’ attitude towards the Torah on the basis of a critical discussion of the most recent extensive treatment of the theme by Meier in his A marginal Jew: Rethinking the historical Jesus: Volume four: Law and love (2009). It engaged Meier’s contribution in the light of contemporary research, concluding that, whilst Meier provided an erudite analysis, his thesis that Jesus’ teaching on divorce and oaths revoked Mosaic law did not convince, for it did not adequately consider the extent to which the contemporary interpretation of the Torah could encompass such radicalisation.

Andries van Aarde has established a deserved reputation across a wide range of scholarly endeavours, from the intricacies of New Testament exegesis to the broader issues of hermeneutics and public theology. This article takes as its starting point one of his areas of special interest, the historical Jesus. His Fatherless in Galilee: Jesus as child of God is a provocative and creative thesis that both attempts an explanation of the historical Jesus on the basis of his being brought up fatherless and reviews much of the research previously done on the historical Jesus. In his thesis, he engaged, amongst others, Meier’s A marginal Jew: Rethinking the historical Jesus: Volume one: The roots of the problem and the person, which appeared in 1991, the first of his multi-volume series on the historical Jesus. This article seeks to honour Van Aarde by addressing Meier’s latest volume, published in 2009, which addressed Jesus’ attitude towards the Law: A marginal Jew: Rethinking the historical Jesus: Volume four: Law and love. ‘Every other book or article on the historical Jesus and the Law has been to a great degree wrong’. So stated Meier’s (2009:2) bold claim in his introduction. Meier was more inclined towards the position of Sanders (Sanders 1990:1–6, 90–96) than to that of the second quest, which saw Jesus rejecting the Law in some form, held by, for example, Conzelmann (1973:52–54, 59–67) and Käsemann (1964:38–39) and, to a lesser degree, Bornkamm (1960:96–100), Jeremias (1971:204–208) and Schweizer (1971:30–34). He argued, however, for a differentiated approach that explained how Jesus could both affirm the Law ‘and yet in individual cases or legal areas (e.g. divorce and oaths) teach and enjoin what is contrary to the Law’ (Meier 2009:3). He emphasised the complexity of the Jewish material, not least that now available from Cave 4 at Qumran, which had not been accessible to those scholars confident of Jesus’ rejection of the Torah but also much else that belonged to the period, including the so-called pseudepigrapha and Philo and Josephus and enjoined appropriate caution in the use of later materials, such as rabbinic sources (Meier 2009:4). The introduction is replete with a careful discussion differentiating the historical Jesus research from the faith-based reconstructions of theology and edification and with a restatement of the criteria employed for historical reconstruction. Similarly, the first chapter prepared for what followed; it identified the range of meaning of the Law and Torah, including illustrations of where rulings came to be cited as part of the Law, which, in reality, were specific applications or extrapolations of incidental references, such as on Sabbath warfare (Jos A.J. 14.63; cf. 12.276–277; 1 Mc 2:27–41;) and divorce (Mt 5:31–32; Jos A.J. 4.253; cf. Dt 24:1–4) (Meier 1991:33–37). One could have included here some instances of people advocating the Torah whilst, at the same time, propounding applications that contradicted its details in part, such as we find in the Temple Scroll (noted briefly on p. 127). With differences between what Jesus or any other Jew propounded and what the Torah required, we are left with assessing what such differences meant. Were they attempts to assert or reflect the assertions of individual claims to authority? Were they in any sense anti-Law or Law-critical or did the authors see themselves as seeking to ensure more thorough adherence to the Law’s demands?

Meier (1991:79–80) first tackled divorce, noting its widespread practice as a male prerogative and the sparse allusions to it in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 24:1–4 assumed purity law: the twice-divorced woman became taboo or defiled for the first husband. On the basis of the textual tradition of Malachi 2:16, which favoured permissiveness and the treatment in Philo and Josephus, Meier argued that the permissive assumption persisted that men could divorce on many grounds

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DOI: 10.4102/hts.v67i1.824