Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

But the most crucial statement is in Deuteronomy 17:20: the king is not to “exalt himself above other members of the community [lit.: his brothers].” That is, the king is an Israelite like all the rest, a brother within a whole people of brothers and sisters. This is particularly emphasized in Deuteronomy, the last book of the Torah. At least during the festivals at the central sanctuary all class differences are eliminated. The ideals of the original people of the twelve tribes then reappear:

Rejoice before the LORD your God—you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, the Levites resident in your towns, as well as the strangers, the orphans, and the widows who are among you—at the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and diligently observe these statutes. (Deut 16:11-12)

However, the deuteronomic project corresponds to the Torah as a whole: the primary figure is not the king as such, nor is it David, who does not directly appear in the Torah. The major figure in the Torah is clearly Moses. But Moses is anything but a king. He is presented as Israel’s great prophet, and that in turn corresponds to the fact that the focus of the whole Torah is the rescue of the people from Egypt, that is, their rescue from a theocracy.

Conclusion: the Torah, the basic text for Israel’s identity, develops a counter-proposal after the catastrophe of the kingship and the state. The people of God are certainly described in this counter-proposal as a society but not as a state. Israel is to be a “holy people,” that is, separated for God and elected on behalf of the other peoples (Exod 19:6)—and for that very reason it cannot live like the other nations. It should never forget that it was led out of Egypt and may never return to Egypt. Egypt was a closed system: the complete amalgamation of state, culture, cosmos, religion, rule, and salvation. The unity of all these spheres was visible in the person of the Pharaoh, the god-king. Israel is led out of this “total state”: at Sinai it receives a new, alternative order for its society: hence the major space devoted to the laws within its basic text. Those laws lack any mention of a state. Where it does appear it is relativized to such an extent that it is unrecognizable.

The law collections in the Torah show that Israel is meant to be a people of sisters and brothers. If there is a king in it at all, he can only be a brother among siblings. He is no longer the dominant figure; at the center of Israel, instead, stands God’s instruction given at Sinai. Even the land, the territorial basis for any state, is in some sense relativized: it is indeed promised—and how emphatically is it promised!—but within the Torah it is not taken into Israel’s possession. Israel’s basic text leaves the people of God on the boundary; it keeps them standing on the border of the land that has been promised and dedicated to them. The Jordan has not yet been crossed.

Is that all accidental, or is it not instead a theology of genius that opens the gates to a people of God that will live in the midst of the other nations and, as a people God has taken as his own, can show how a community can look if God alone is its lord? And is it an accident that Jesus, in the midst of his disciples and an Israel to be gathered anew, adopts and tries to put into practice these fundamental social outlines in the Torah? His “it will not be so among you” corresponds exactly to the prophetic rejection of the words “we want to be like other nations” (cf. 1 Sam 8:5, 20). Apparently Jesus was profoundly aware of what Israel’s basic text intends. It was his own unique power of discovery that enabled him to read the Torah in that way, in the midst of a Zealot movement that was assembling, having learned nothing from Israel’s history. The Zealots desired to make the reign of God identical with the state and as a result they thrust Israel into the most profound possible misery. In the year 70 Jerusalem, including the temple, was destroyed by the Romans.

Jesus and Nonviolence

With all that has been said, the theme of Jesus’ nonviolence has already come clearly into view; consequently, the samplings can proceed more quickly.

There is a great deal of violence in the Old Testament; we find shocking scenes of destructive exercise of power there, and we often get the impression that the image of God and violence are inextricably connected. To take only a single example from among the many we could possibly choose, we find Psalm 58 saying of the wicked:

O God, break the teeth in their mouths;

    tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!

Let them vanish like water that runs away;

    like grass let them be trodden down and wither.

Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime;

    like the untimely birth that never sees the sun. (Ps 58:7-9)