Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

36. Cf. the study by Ulrich Kellermann, Messias und Gesetz. Grundlinien einer alttestamentlichen Heilserwartung. Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Einführung, BibS(N) 61 (Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1971). The clearest tie between Messiah and Torah is established in PsSol 17, and there the Messiah calls for the strictest observance of the Torah; cf. esp. PsSol 17:27, 32. The two passages in Midrash cited in Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munich: Beck, 1922–61), 4/1, 2 for a “new Torah” and a “Torah of the Messiah” are late and are completely downplayed by Billerbeck himself.

37. Cf. the reference to this possibility in Martin Hengel, “Jesus und die Tora,” TBei 9 (1978): 152–72, at 164, as well as in Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 365–67.

38. See the prohibitions of mixing things in Lev 19:19 and Deut 22:5, 9–11.

39. Frank Crüsemann, The Torah, 366.

Chapter 13

1. I do so because here I want to set aside the question of how Jesus and the evangelists evaluate the position of John the Baptizer in salvation history. For a reconstruction of the logion in the Sayings Source, see especially Helmut Merklein, Die Gottesherrschaft als Handlungsprinzip. Untersuchung zur Ethik Jesu, FB 34, 3rd ed. (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1984), 80–96. For a more recent probing of the vocabulary, cf. Gerd Häfner, “Gewalt gegen die Basileia? Zum Problem der Auslegung des ‘Stürmerspruches’ Mt 11,12,” ZNW 83 (1992): 21–51.

2. Translator’s note: This is, in fact, the wording given in Editorial Board of the International Q Project, The Sayings Gospel Q in English Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), online at http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~kloppen/iqpqet.htm.

3. Cf. Mark 8:35; Matt 16:25; Luke 9:24, and for the Sayings Source’s version Matt 10:39 // Luke 17:33. See also John 12:25.

4. Cf. Homer, Iliad V, 529-32, and other examples in Michael Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium, HNT 5 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 348.

5. For details see Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munich: Beck, 1922–61), 2:37–46.

6. Literally, “Go (away) behind me!” Many interpreters seek (because of Mark 1:17, 20 and the immediately following “become my followers,” lit., “go behind me,” in Mark 8:34) to read these words to mean that Jesus calls Peter back to discipleship: “Go behind me [again]!” But the immediate appellation of Peter as “Satan” speaks against this. Such a word in no way fits with the motif of discipleship. The Greek preposition opis has a very broad spectrum of meanings, as we can see from the reading hypage opisō mou in Matt 4:10. That is a variant, it is true, but that Satan can be so addressed in a considerable number of textual witnesses reveals the breadth of meanings this preposition can have.

7. So, for example, The Living Bible, but also the NAB.—Tr.

8. Cf. Lev 22:24, which forbids the castration of sacrificial animals, and Deut 23:2–3 on the exclusion of castrati from Israel’s worship.

9. b. Yebam. 63b, a saying of Rabbi Eliezer.

10. b. Yebam. 63a. Cf. Gen 5:2.

11. For what follows, cf. esp. Josef Blinzler, “Eisin eunouchoi: zur Auslegung von Matt 19:12,” ZNW 48 (1957): 254–70.

Chapter 14

1. For the frequent occurrence of two–part sayings in the words of Jesus cf. Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 380–96.

2. When Luke writes “earth” here he means the world. Jesus might originally have meant the “land (of Israel).”

3. Cf. Matt 6:19–20; 24:43; Luke 12:39.

4. Cf. Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munich: Beck, 1922–61), 1:971–72.

5. This could be quite accurate on the level of the intention of Matthew’s gospel. Cf. Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8–20, trans. James E. Crouch, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 278–79.

6. This is the position defended by Tim Schramm and Kathrin Löwenstein, Unmoralische Helden. Anstössige Gleichnisse Jesu (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 42-49.

7. Thus Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, trans. Samuel H. Hooke, 6th ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1962), 201.