Clergy and Educators

ICJS Scripture Forum, 2001-2002
Session #2

Scripture Forum
Session #2
Chizuk Amuno Congregation
December 14, 2001

Texts for study: contrasting models for understanding the dynamics of sin and repentance

Matthew 5:21-26
John 8:2-11

Matthew 5:21-26:

• The statement concerning "offering your gift at the altar" sounds like a reference to the sin offering.
• If vv. 21-22 are intended as a "fence around Torah," they sound more like a Christian fence than a rabbinic one, because what is described
  is more behavioral than legalistic.
• The question was asked if embarrassing someone in public is like being a shedder of blood, and a comparison was made to the Jimmy Carter con-troversy, which was described as "a tempest in
  a teapot" as far as Jews were concerned.
• Putting the point in terms closer to the way Judaism would express it: There is a mark and one pushes beyond the mark (but how that is done in this text is "not so Jewish").



• The text was also described as sounding "way Christian" because it makes an equation between anger/insulting someone and murder. In Judaism feeling something is not the same as acting, although the thought can lead to the action. The thrust of the Jewish tradition says that the action is what is important, not the thought, although habitual feelings create character even if they are not acted upon.
• A response to this objection was that anger is
  an act because it creates something bad in the community. Being angry has the potential of ripping the fabric of the community. In that sense, so it was claimed, thoughts are actions.
• The question was asked: How impossible a commandment is it to not be angry?
• Jewish objection to the argument about anger: Anger is an involuntary feeling. Rebuttal: One can have control over one's feelings and not give in to the anger, so the question then becomes what one does with the anger. One is liable to judgment if anger becomes an action that breaks relationship within the community.
• Question: When does the feeling become an act? According to the Catholic tradition, there is first the intention, second the decision, and then the action. Guilt attaches in the decision, not in the thinking or feeling.



• Jews may tend to read this text (and others like it?) as less metaphorical than it is meant to be because of the Jewish tendency to read texts halakhically. But reading the text as metaphor becomes problematic where the text says "you will be liable to the council." At this point the text was identified as being "beyond metaphor," being in fact hyperbole.
• If the text is metaphor, it is difficult from the Jewish standpoint to see it as scripture.



• There is a possible danger in the text insofar as it sets an unreachable standard that can cause frustration when it is found to be unattainable.



• In Presbyterian terms this text involves a "dispositional ethic": a disposition toward something becomes a habit. Dispositions are embodied feelings, embodied in the emotions.
  The heart, dispositions, intentionality all count. Disposition is a habituated feeling, and if there is
  a habituated power in one's life, one does have
  to do something about it.
• There was a suggestion made that there is an inward move being advocated in this text: Ethical conduct requires introspection.
• A further suggestion was made that the text went beyond that notion to the idea of building into one's habits a kind of holiness. This chapter in Matthew's Gospel ends with the command: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Thus this text is about the holiness of the self.
• Relations with others need to be in order if one is to be well with God.



• Some remarks from a complex argument regarding the covenant of marriage:
• The "Christian reading" of marriage: The covenant is sacred and inviolate.
• In Judaism, taking a second wife without annulling the first marriage is halakhically permitted because polygamy was part of the Jewish tradition and was never outlawed. In such a situation, the husband still has obligations to the first wife that do not include sexual exclusiveness.

John 8:2-11:

• This is a free-floating text in the tradition. It is not in the canon in any other place, but it did appear in Luke earlier in the tradition.
• This text describes a way of building a fence around the text that requires stoning for adultery in order to keep that text from being applied.
• In a Jewish reading, this story has a background that is in keeping with halakhah; it is accurate in a rabbinic setting. Jesus is intimidating the witnesses in a capital case, including the accuser, who is required to cast the first stone. Once the witnesses are gone, the legal requirements for executing the woman have not been met. What is interesting in this text from the Jewish point of view is that the people come to Jesus as judge.
• A typical Christian reading of this text has Jesus calling the witnesses to self-assessment.
• In terms of forgiveness (which is not specifically stated in the text), is there a power for forgiveness in the words that Jesus utters? Is Jesus the only one who can do this?



• The pieces that stand out:
• The guilty man is missing from the story (both the man and the woman are liable). But this is not an issue because it's a biblical story and it focuses on the woman.
• This text can be true to halakhah, but a rabbinic court wouldn't act this way.
• Why are they coming to Jesus rather than going to the Sanhedrin? Response: The Sanhedrin is irrelevant because at the time this story was written, after 70 C.E., there was no Sanhedrin.
• The absence of the Sanhedrin leads to the question of who the legal authority is. From the Jewish standpoint, the legal authority after 70 is Yohanan ben Zakkai. But if you are part of the Christian community, to whom do you appeal as the religious authority?


• The point was made that a kind of "saying what you did is fine" is not the issue in this text.
• Is this text a response to Jesus' interpretation of remarriage as adultery? Is this woman simply divorced and remarried? If that is the case, then this text would be an instance of Jesus' repenting of his own interpretation.
• This text is used in the tradition as a text about forgiveness, which makes it an embarrassing text because Jesus forgives so easily.

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