In seeking to distinguish the radically new & un-

Jewish
in Jesus' preaching,
Christian writers have frequently read his statement
that the sabbath was made for man & not man for the sabbath
both as indicating total opposition to the keeping of the sabbath laws at all &
initiating a religion of love &
not one of casuistry.

In the aforementioned text, however,
we see that the rabbis themselves held views about the sabbath that were closely related to Jesus' own
(more expansive, to be sure) views, certainly not in direct contradiction of them.
The thematic similarities between some of these arguments &
Jesus' arguments in the Gospel are striking!

This parallel gets even stronger when we consider one further argument that we find in Matthew 12 but not in Mark:
"OR HAVE YOU NOT READ IN THE LAW ON THE SABBATH THE PRIESTS IN THE TEMPLE PROFANE THE SABBATH & ARE GUILTLESS? I TELL YOU SOMETHING GREATER THAN THE TEMPLE IS HERE,"
thus providing a parallel to Rabbi Akiva's argument
from the Temple as well.

Jesus may very well have been
in controversy with ancient Pharisees
who had not yet articulated the principle that saving a life supersedes the Sabbath.
As Aharon Shemesh points out, such was the opinion of the Jews of the Dead Sea Community!
Jesus' teaching in this regard, however, is hardly in opposition
to the teaching of the later TANNAIM, who possibly
did learn it from Jesus
but probably did not.

What is distinctive
to the Jesus of the Gospels is, I think,
the further apocalyptic extension of these principles,
namely, the Son of Man statement - the statement that the Son of Man,
the divine Messiah, is now lord of the Sabbath. It is this too that explains the one probable & potentially huge difference
between the saying of the Rabbis & that of the evangelist (or Jesus). The rabbinic interpretations,
and their halakha, tend strongly in the direction of allowing the violation of the Sabbath by a Jew
to save another Jew, while the setting of Jesus' saying & its consequence seem
(but not inescapably so)
to indicate that 'any (!)
human' (or animal, even
'plant'knipoog might be saved
on the Sabbath.

THAT's
my Danny Boy!
The "main Ideas" I've picked up since January '67
came from Danny Boyarin & Uri Davis:
what REALLY counts is our 'Essential
Cooperation' as the only way
to defeat animosity?

I've been lucky enough to meet more 'good' than 'bad' people
in ALL countries I've visited
in the past
...
05 dec 2012 - bewerkt op 05 dec 2012 - meld ongepast verhaal
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