Page 101 - A Dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy

What, then, was the role of a teacher in Jesus’ preaching? As a teacher, Jesus interpreted

and taught the Law that was given by God through Moses. It was the cornerstone upon which

the Jewish nation had been built throughout her history. As a devout Jew, Jesus did not reject the

Law; rather, he observed the ceremonial laws faithfully until his death. 128 In his representative

sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus prevents his audience from jumping to a conclusion:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but

to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a

letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (Matt. 5:17-8). E. P. Sanders describes

him as a “covenantal nomist,” because Jesus accepted the law as the norm. 129

What, then, what was the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of his time?

Concerning this matter, Borg comments that the conflicts between Jesus and the leaders were the

hermeneutical ones. He says, “Thus, again, the question was not whether one should be loyal to

Torah, but a question of hermeneutics, of how the torah was to be interpreted.” 130 In general

Jewish sects interpreted the Torah in terms of the code of holiness in Lev. 11:45. The Essenes

contemporaries of Greeks and Jews. He stood in the continuation of the literary and pedagogical
tradition of his time.

128
Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Time, and Teaching (New York: The
MacMillan Company, 1925), 275.

129 E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia, PN: Fortress Press, 1985), 336-37.
Sanders excellently explains and vindicates Jesus against the charges which was made by
religions leaders toward him and his disciples concerning breaking the Law in the essay, “Jesus
and the First Table of the Jewish Law,” in Jews & Christians Speak of Jesus, ed., Arthur E.
Zannoni (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 55-73. Geza Vermes who wrote The Religion
of Jesus the Jew (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 13, describes Jesus as an observant
Jew.

130
Borg, Conflict, 162.