The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount

550 Pages·1966·20.226 MB·English

by  W. D. Davies

THE SETTING OF THE
SERMON ON THE
MOUNT
BY
w.
D. DAVIES
M.A.,D.D.
Edward Rohinson Professor of Bihlical neology,
Unum Theological Seminary
Adjunct Professor of Religion, Columhia UniYerJ'icy
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1966
PUBLISHED DY
THE SYNDICS OF THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bentley House, 100 Eus[on Road, London, N. \V. I
American Branch: p Easl ~7m Srreet, New York, N.Y. loon
West African Office: P.M.B. SISI, Ihadan, Nigeria
©
CAMBRIDGE U:-IIVERSITY PRESS
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First puJ.rU"tJ 196J
RtprinttJ 1966
Printtl in GrUlt' Brita;" at tAt U"jVt!rsjry Printi"lJ Haw". CtimlJ,iJs~
: (Braalc. Crutt:lJty. Urri"cuity Pr;"ur)
CONTENTS
Preface
Ahhreviation.s
I Introductory
II The Setting in Matthew
I Pentateuchal motifs 14
l. New Exodus and New Moses 25
(a) The treatment of Mark and Q 26
(h) Material peculiar to Matthev.r 61
(c) Miracles 86
3 Mosaic categories transcended 93
(a) The Christian life 94
(6) Terminology 99
III The Setting in Jewish Messianic Expectation 109
[ The Old Testament 121
2 The Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha and Dead Sea Scrolls 139
3 TIle Rabbinical sources 156
TV The Setting in the Contemporary Judaism 191
1 .Gnosticism 192
l. The Dead Sea Sect 208
3 JanuUa 256
v
CONTENTS
V The Setting in the Early Church page )16
I Anti-Paulinism 316
:L Paul and Tradition 341
3 Q and Crisis; Catechesis; the Pastorals 366
4 M and Gemara 387
~ The Epistle of James and the Johannine Sources 401
VI The Setting in the :Ministry of Jesus 415
I TransmissIon of his words 415
:L The Teacher 418
3 The Eschatological Preacher 419
4 The Rabbi 4'-2
5 The demand of Jesus in its setting 425
VII Conclusion 436
APPENDICES
I Mekilta on Exod. xiv. 13-15 441
II Mekilta on Exod. xv. 1-2 442
III The Character of Matt. i and ii 443
IV I5a. xli. '- and the Pre-existent Messiah 445
V • ( Cesara la T ora en 1a Edad Mes5ianica?' 446
VI The Role of Torah in the \Iessianic Age 447
VII Galilean and Judaean Judaism
45°
VIII The Doxology in Matt. vi. I) 451
IX The Use of the Tenn io-ropl1CJOI in Gal. i. 18 453
X Rabbis and their Pupils
455
XI 'Wisdom' Sayings ofJesus 457
XII The Influence of Catechisms on the Gospels 460
",,',
CONTENTS
xm
The Textual Problem ofMarkx.·u
. XIV Echoes of Synoptic Words in John
XV Refie~ons on a Scandinavian Approach to • the Gospel
Tradition"
Bibliography
Indices
I Index of<2Eotations SO~
A The Old Testament SOS
B The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old
Tes~m~t s~
C The NewTestam~t SIO
D The Targums 5'06
E Th~ Dead Sea Scrolls 5'06
F Rabbinical Sources 5'07
II Index of References to Classical and Hellenistic Authors and
Extra-Canonical Christian Writuigs 5).1
III Index of Authors 533
IV Index ofS uhjects 540
vii
To
DAVID DAUBE
and
JOHN SELDON WHALE
PREFACE
TIlis volume grew out of the Syr D. Owen Evans's Lectures which I was
honoured to communicate to the University ofWales,atAberystwyth, in
1957, and it is indissolubly linked with the memory of my friend, the late
Vice-Chancellor, R. M. Davies, and with the courtesy of Acting-Principal
Morton. I am grateful to the University authorilies for their patience in
waiting for the publication of the lectures in their presen,t form. Different
parts of the work were also delivered. as the Duncan Lectures, at the
Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia; as
the Chancellor's Lectures, Q9een's University, Kingston, Ontario; as the
Annual Lectures, Louisville Presbyterian Seminary, Kentucky; and at
Munster and Cambridge Universities ..
Part of a wider attempt to understand the i~teraction of Christianity
and Judaism in the first century, the work is limited to an examination of
influences, within and without the Church, which led to the concentrated
presentation of moral teaching known as the Sermon on the Mount. It
is not directly concerned with the content of that teaching, nor its signi
ficance for Christian doctrine or ethical theory, but only with the circum
stances of its emergence and formulation. That such a historical theme
can have theological significance I have ventured. to suggest, without
elaboration, in the conclusion.
Owing to the exigencies of printing, much m3terial has been assigned
to appendices. The reader is asked not to treat this as secondary but as
integral to the argument. This applies eSpecially to Apper.dix xv, which
deals with recent Scandinavian studies. I thank Proressors Van Unnik
and Bo Reicke, who edited the Freundesgahe for Dr Cullmalln in which
the material presented there fiCS[ appeared, for permiSSIon to reprint it.'
I particularly regret that Dr, Birger Gerhardsson's significant volume,
Memory and Manuscript, appeared. too late for detailed use in the body
una
of this work, as did also the important works Oherlieierung Auslegung
J.
im Mauhiius-Evangelium, by G. Bornkamm, G. Barth, and H. Held
([960) and Das ~ahre Israel, by W. Trilling ([959).
It is a pleasure to e."<press my gratitude: to the Research Council
of Princeton University for making it possible for me to enjoy and
profit from consultations with Professors E. Stauffer, G. Friedrich and
ix
PREFACE
H. J. Schoeps at the University of Erlangen before this study had taken
shape; and to the John Simon Memorial Guggenheim Foundation, New
York City, for honouring me with a fellowship, in the summer of 1959,
which enabled me to enlarge my understanding of the theme in talks with
Professors C. H. Dodd and David Daube in England and Professors
Joachim Jeremias and K. H. Rengstorf in Gennany. My colleagues at
Princeton University and Union Seminary have provided much'stimulus.
Professor James Muilenburg especially shared with me his deep know
ledge and insight in Old Testament matters, and, on the Rabbinic side,
I have been highly privileged in the ready helpfulness of President Louis
Finkelstein, Professor Saul Lieberman and Rabbi Neil Gillman of the
Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Professor S. W. Baron of
Columbia University. This privilege has to be experienced to be appre
ciated and has reinforced my awareness of the need for stiD greater
co-operation between Jewish and Gentile students in an area where much,
not only in the background of primitive Christianity, but in its very
structure, can only be adequately revealed by Jewish scholarship.
If, despite my concern to pay due attention to the role of L9w in
primitive Christianity, it should prove that I have succeeded in avoiding
tendentiousness and in maintaining, to some degree, a proper balance
between Gospel and Law, this will be largely due to Dr Reinhold
Niebuhr. His profound awareness of the ambiguity of all human conduct
has continually reasserted for me the primacy of Grace. And yet at no
time have I been more confirmed in the concern of this volume than when
listening, during the last four years, to moving sermons in which he has
wrestled v.ith the relation between Gospel and Law and compelled the
conclusion that Law cannot only be the instrument of Justice, but the
expression of Grace. To this last I have also been recalled by Dr Abraham
Heschel. Unfortunately his work on the Haggadah (Torah min ha
shamaim, Soncino Press, London, 1962), appeared too late {or my use.
It should, however, be noted that his high estimate of the theological
significance of Haggadah, which contrasts with the view mentioned on
p. 185 herein, adds force to the material presented i~ the third chapter
and should now be taken into consideration in the assessment of it.
To Dr M. S. Enslin, editor of the Journal of BiUical Literature, and
to Dr Moshe Greenberg, editor of the monograph series of the Society of
Biblical Literature and Exegesis, I am thankful for permission to use, in
the third chapter, material from a previous study, published by the
Society as Number VII in the series mentioned, entitled Torah in the
x
PREF:A.CE
Musi"anic Age anJlor.tAeAgeIOCome(PhiIade1phia, 1952.). I was much
instructed by reviews ofthis·.by.Dr Morton Smith and Father D. Bar
th~lemy and, especially, by a prolonged and enriching critique of it by
Professor Dlez Macho of Barcelona, from which I was able to profit by
the translation of a former student'l the Reverend Dr Jo~ Miguez, now
President of the Union Theological Seminary of Buenos Aires. (See
pp. 446 f.)
I was helped in the reading of proofs especially by my former pupils
Professor Arthur Bellinzoni, J r, of Wells College, Aurora, New York,
who checked the biblical references and prepared the, biblical indexes,
and Professor Robin Scroggs, of Dartmouth College, who helped with
these and prepared the index of subjects. Bodl made valuable criticisms
and suggestions. The bibliography was prepared by the Reverend Howard
Newton, and other indices by Me Donald Williams, graduate students
at Union Seminary. To all these I tender my most grateful acknowledge
mentS, as also to Mrs Newton Todd who typed most of the manuscript.
On the bibliographical side I found the librarians and their staffs at
Union, the Jewish Theological Seminary and Pusey House, Oxford, of
the greatest possible help. The skill of the readers and printers of the
Cambridge University Press it would be an impertinence to praise: suffice
that it evoked my keenest, and sometimes amazed, admiration. And,
finally, what the volume owes to my wife must remain unexpressed.
W.D.D.
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY,
NEW YORK
3 February 1963
xi