Over on the post, “After Inerrancy,” Dan Wallace has jumped in to offer some dialogue and push-back on some of my meanderings. He is pressing some good points, so I thought it worth starting a new post to respond to some of those and to invite you all to join the conversation as well.
One of the points at which we seem to disagree is this: What is the heart of the difference between Jesus’ view of scripture and that of the Pharisees? Dan has argued that Jesus has a higher view of scripture because the Pharisees allowed their tradition to supersede the commandments themselves–with apt appeal to Mark 7.
I want to argue instead that the difference between Jesus and the Pharisees with respect to scripture is not quantitative but qualitative. That is to say, it’s not that Jesus had a higher (or lower) view of scripture and the Pharisees had a lower 
(or higher) view. Instead, it’s a question of how do you know how to be faithful to the scriptures that they all alike and equally accepted as the word of God.
Nobody take scripture “straight,” we always are process how to put what we read into practice, and using various extra-biblical guides to help us. For the Pharisees, what it meant to be faithful to scripture was to walk according to the broader body of tradition. For Jesus, what it means to be faithful to scripture is to recognize that he himself is the culmination of the scriptural testimony, and even one who has authority over that word of God.
Dan agreed that there’s a problem with thinking that scripture is ultimate rather than God or Christ being ultimate. But I think, further, that this is the explanation for the disparity between Jesus and the Pharisees. Their disputes are, at their heart, about Jesus and not about who takes scripture more seriously.
The Synoptic Gospels show us this in various ways.
One of the stories Dan cited was the Pharisees’ accusing the disciples of breaking the law for plucking grain on the Sabbath. I don’t think that the explanation that the Pharisees forgot that Sabbath was for man is adequate. The point is not that everyone should have always known that people trump the 4th commandment. The point is only seen when Jesus makes his “therefore”: Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. The point of the pericope is that Jesus has authority to allow his disciples to do what is not lawful.
Jesus cites the story of David which reinforces the point that this is all about Jesus’ authority. How does Jesus defend himself from the charge of doing what’s no lawful? By citing a story when David, too, did something unlawful! The question confronting the Pharisees is whether or not they recognize in Jesus someone whose authority allows him to set aside the Law.
Similarly, in Mark 3 when Jesus goes to heal the man with the withered hand. Jesus curiously asks what’s lawful: to save life or kill, evil or good. At first, it seems that any time you’re doing good, it’s an o.k. thing to do on the Sabbath. But really, what’s the deal with “saving life or killing”? That seems over the top for a withered hand.
But at the end of the story, the Pharisees go out and plot with the Herodians how to kill him. The pericope isn’t over until the Pharisees show that that nothing less than their opposition to Jesus drives them to be Sabbath breakers. Jesus is the point.
Perhaps the quintessential picture of this, though, is the story of the Good Samaritan. In the parable, the Jewish priest who keeps the Law by not contracting corpse impurity is shown to be the law breaker in contrast to the non-Jew who accidentally keeps Torah by showing mercy. At the end, it is Jesus’ instruction that mercy as love of neighbor as what’s more important than doing what the Law says that becomes the basis for obedience.
Returning to Mark 7, yes, Jesus says that they set aside the Law for the sake of their tradition. But as the pericope unfolds, Jesus does something surprising–on his own authority he sets aside the Law! A story that starts by, seemingly, drawing us to the Law as the ultimate measure of loyalty to God ends up giving a choice between the Pharisees’ tradition as that which has authority to set aside the Law versus Jesus as the one who has authority to set aside the Law.
I think there is a consistent picture here.
Dan also asked about Warfield’s inductive approach to inerrancy. I’ll try to cover that in a subsequent post. But for now, how are we to understand Jesus’ view of scripture in relation to his peers’, and how does this affect our own doctrines of scripture?
You sure do know how to make the fundies uncomfortable. But then, so does Jesus
Foolish Sage,
Dan Wallace is far from a “fundy.” A true “fundy” would have responded in a much more violent and hateful manner, most likely questioning the validity of Daniel’s Christianity. If you knew Dan or read any of his writings you would know what I’m talking about. Conservative does not equal fundamentalist. I’m sure Daniel would want us to interact with the argument rather than the person anyways.
I apologize for the ambiguity of my comment, Luke. I in no way intended to label Wallace as a fundy. My comment was intended to be more generic. I do think Kirk’s characterization of Jesus’ take on Scripture would make those with fundamentalist tendencies uncomfortable. In this case, I mean those who flatten takes Scripture to only “high” or “low.”
We had a very similar discussion around our office this week. You hit on a very important distinction that informs how we interpret Scripture in our day. Great post
Just wanted to say great insight!
Roger Olson, Professor of Theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University, also writing about this yesterday:
“Why inerrancy doesn’t matter”
Thanks for the link, Andy.
This post seems to merge with your other recent topic: how to view homosexuality in the church, doesn’t it? Scripture teaches God’s design for man. The universe was created with a certain rhythm of work and rest, and we are to follow this rhythm. Jesus has authority to suspend the law regulating this, and he uses this authority in a particular situation where the welfare of a person is better bettered with work than rest. But he never repeals or marginalizes the law.
Our sexuality is to be a picture of God and his people and it should be expressed in a covenanted heterosexual relationship. Jesus never questions this. He never elevates another form of committed sexual expression to this same level. But he does encounter the woman at the well and Mary Magdalena and draws them into the people of God, the bride, while they remain in relationships that distort the picture of intended sexual expression. Jesus tells the woman at the well that she is not truly married to her sixth husband, but he doesn’t tell her to break it off.
Lots of loose dangling arguments but that is where my head went with this…. Thanks for the very provocative post!
Coincidentally, I preached on that same Pharisees/Sabbath passage in my homiletics class.
I think that both “people trump the 4th commandment” and “Jesus has authority” are the points Jesus is making, and I don’t think you can say one of them trumps the other. In particular, Jesus’ citation of Hosea in Matthew 12, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” in reference to Israel offering meaningless sacrifices, teaches that the Pharisees needed to learn to obey the law of love, not loveless obedience.
Even “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” can be understood as “people trump the 4th commandment” because “son of man” can also mean a human being, thus making it “A human being is the master of the Sabbath, not the other way around.” I do think Jesus is also referring to his authority, but I don’t think the Pharisees necessarily understood it as such.
Hi, Don,
I think your reading depends on a couple of things.
One argument I think is not valid is to say “son of man” can mean human, therefore Jesus means everyone has that authority just because they’re people. While son of man can mean human, that’s not how Jesus uses it in the Synoptics. He uses it as a title, especially when he’s exercising unique authority, anticipating the time when he will come into that authority fully, or explaining how (the cross) he will come into that authority. That s.o.m. can mean something doesn’t mean it does–and it’s not likely to have two different meanings in the same sentence.
Jesus is saying, “I, the Man, have authority,” just like David did.
Matthew does add that bit about mercy, not sacrifice. Matthew has several interesting expansions, and this idea that there’s something in the law itself the Pharisees should have known is one of them. But this is also tied to the other time Matthew’s Jesus quotes the verse to the Pharisees, and is part of a larger set of tensions between them.
But that’s clearly not what’s going on in Mark, where the point is that Jesus and David are each in positions that enable them to usher people into doing what is not lawful.
Hi everyone, as I read the posts re “After Inerrancy”, I keep thinking whether we are in implicit dialogue with those who hold a strong view of inerrancy and those who oppose them. At one level this is important, for it is, for many of us, the context in which do theology. But at another level (as someone from a different culture) I think that it would be helpful to think outside that box and read the Bible as a sacred ancient text. For example, we can be sure that the Pharisees, the disciples and Jesus all had a high view of Scripture (in that it’s from Yahweh and had been passed down to them through a long Jewish tradition). We can also be sure that Jesus’ claim of his authority was validated by God’s raising him from the death. But this authority to re-read (or “re-apply” – not sure what the right word is) the Scripture can only be ascribed to Jesus the Messiah. For those after him (e.g. us), we do not have the same authority. Of course down the generations we continue to wrestle with the Scripture. And I am aware that people like Paul did re-work the Scripture in light of the Christ story. But I think we should continue to have a high view of Scripture. My question is whether in our individualistic Western culture we no longer understand what it means to truly respect the ancient sacred text. In my experience, every time I mention the phrase “authority of the Scripture”, people will put me in the “inerrancy” basket. But for other cultures “authority of the sacred text”, I think, does not need to mean inerrancyas defined in the modern Western era. “Authority” involves the allegiance to the God who has entered into the stories of the people – and hence what this God has spoken through the sacred text has to be respected. (I am a rather unlearned unqualified person in this discussion. But I hope this makes some sense.)
Thank you for that comment. I think your view of authority of scripture does fit a lot better. In fact i am going to use it.
This article keeps getting better.
Sam, thank you for your encouragement. I appreciate it.
Hi, Siufung,
I actually think that it’s because the Bible was sacred ancient text that we, too, are supposed to be reading it in light of Jesus as the one upon whom the whole story devolves. Such re-reading is not about exercising a special, divinely given prerogative, it’s about understanding rightly how the story climaxes. If Jesus is, in fact, the culmination of the story of the God of Israel, then we have no choice but to reinterpret the OT such that its signposts toward the future are understood to be pointing to Christ.
I do agree that this sacredness entails a recognition of God as the one behind it and speaking through it. The re-reading I’m advocating is an exercise of faith, a pragmatic way to confess that the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. is the God who did not spare his own son but delivered him up for us all, the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
Daniel, I think I agree with you – and that’s why I enjoy following your blog!
I enjoy Wallace’s comments too. I want to thank both of you for your insights.
Daniel, I’m enjoying this dialogue and your perspective on things. I think we’re kindred spirits in more ways than some might realize. To me, Christ is everything. I take a strongly christocentric view of the Bible, and I sense that you do, too. I also agree with you that a major difference between the Pharisees and Jesus regarding the OT was that he saw himself as the culmination of what the OT was about; the Pharisees, of course, did not. In fact, I sadly admit that many in my tradition end up with a sort of bibliolatry. As one lady at my church facetiously put it, “We believe in the Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Bible”! I could go on about our similarities, but I need to address the tension points between our two views.
Overall, with all that I can agree with you on, I think you’ve inadvertently argued for my position. It seems in your view that the Pharisees held to just as high a view of scripture as Jesus did. If I grant that, and if we then look at what Jesus says about the OT, then my point still stands: his view of the OT was almost certainly that it is infallible, if not inerrant. My argument was that, on the basis of historical criticism, I could show that Jesus’ view of the OT was very high indeed. And the way I argued this was to show dissimilarity from the Pharisees’ and Sadducees’ view of the text. But if you are arguing that the Pharisees had just as high a view as Jesus, my point is not undermined. Rather, the discussion about whether we can really see what Jesus’ view was *from the criteria of authenticity* is at risk. In this respect, I suspect that I may have greater appreciation for historical criticism than you, though I may have misread you on this point.
But secondly, you argue that Jesus’ view was that “what it means to be faithful to scripture is to recognize that he himself is the culmination of the scriptural testimony, and even one who has authority over that word of God.” Agreed. But does this mitigate my point? It would only do so if his view were lower than what the Pharisees held.
I guess at one point we may differ on Jesus’ view of scripture: Yes, he saw himself as Lord over scripture. Yes, he saw himself as the fulfillment of OT prophecies. Yes, he saw himself as the one to whom the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets pointed. But did he also see himself as one who had “authority to allow his disciples to do what is not lawful”? Although you argued that this was the case, I tried to show that what Jesus spoke against was the Pharisees’ addition of tradition (in this case, inscripturated in the Mishnaic tractate Shabbath) to the law. You said, “The question confronting the Pharisees is whether or not they recognize in Jesus someone whose authority allows him to set aside the Law.” How does this square up with Matt 5.17–20?
The texts you bring up clearly show that there is an ethical hierarchy in the Law. Not all laws are created equal. This is why Jesus mentioned David eating the showbread, why the good Samaritan’s heart was truer to the intent of the Law than the religious leaders’, and why, above all, Jesus declared that loving God and loving one’s neighbor sums up the whole Law. All these passages show that Jesus held to an ethical hierarchy within the Law–and that the Pharisees had lost their way by insisting on the shell without regard for the substance. It is this love ethic that the early Church latched onto.
I think at the core of our disagreement is an issue larger than Jesus’ bibliology. It is twofold: Did Jesus break the Law—not the traditions of men, but the Law? And are Christians under the Law today? My christocentric reading of scripture leads me to answer no to the first and yes to the second question. Precisely because he was faithful to keep the whole Law his death can be propitiatory for us. I read Rom 3.22 as having a subjective genitive—‘the righteousness of God which comes through the *faithfulness* of Jesus Christ.’ I must apologize that I have not yet read your work on Romans, but I have heard it is an excellent study. So, I don’t know what you do with Rom 3.22, but I regard Jesus’ faithfulness to be his faithfulness to his God in submission to what the Law really demanded. That is why he can be our Paschal Lamb, as Paul puts it.
Dan, this has been a very enjoyable exchange. Thanks for keeping it going. There are so many roads that we could go down to chase down all the arguments in this comment. Let’s see where we end up…
First, given the way you’re tackling the question of Jesus’ view of scripture and how that should affect our own, I do think that saying Jesus and the Pharisees have similarly high views of scripture (as opposed to similarly malleable or low views!) is equally good for your argument as what you proposed.
But that point was situated within a larger argument that Jesus was arguing for a higher view of scripture over against what the Pharisees held onto. And what I want to say is that we don’t find Jesus arguing for a higher view/doctrine of scripture, but for a certain hermeneutic that places him at the center. One reason I think that the argument I’m making is significant in this discussion is that I don’t see Jesus arguing for something closer to inerrancy over against something closer to infallibility or the Bible as one voice among many.
It seems important to determine whether or not Jesus is arguing for something analogous to the position we’re advocating. I don’t think this is his argument with the Pharisees.
But if Jesus assumed something, or thought something, does that bind us to it as well, even if he didn’t teach it or argue for it? I hope not. I’m fairly confident that Jesus thought that the world was flat, and if pressed he probably could have illustrated how this is the case from Genesis 1 and a half dozen other places in the OT.
Do I think Jesus broke the law? No, but he did authorize his disciples to do so in the grain-plucking episode and he authorizes us to in Mark 7.
I agree on the subjective genitive, but for Paul the one righteous act that brings about justification is Jesus’ death, not his life of law-keeping. Jesus’ pistis is his faithfulness in death, his so-called “passive” obedience. Yes, Jesus had to be sinless, spotless, etc. so that his death would avail, but Paul is never interested in Jesus as a law-keeper (and, surprisingly, the Gospels really aren’t all that concerned to show Jesus through that grid either).
I don’t see that Paul ever speaks of Jesus’ pistis as “submission to what the Law really demanded;” it is fidelity in his special task of representing humanity before God on the cross.
Given my Christiocentric reading of the Bible, I would never say that Christians are under the Law today. In Paul the Law is one of those powers from which we are freed through union with him in his death and resurrection. I’m not sure what it would mean to say that we are under the Law, or how that claim wouldn’t invalidate the whole letter to Galatia, Romans 6-8, etc.
I think we’re getting somewhat far afield, but as I wrestled with positions similar to yours (I was a bad conservative Presbyterian for a decade or so, and Jesus’ law keeping was very important there!), I got to where I wondered if they didn’t reverse Rom 10:4. Is the Law Christ’s goal? Did he come for the express purpose of doing everything it says and avoiding all it says to avoid? Or is Christ the Law’s goal? Did it come to drive people in some sense forward to the coming one who would be the true life-giver?
I think that Matthew 5:17-20 is a challenging passage on at least three levels: (1) The antitheses do not support the expectation that Jesus is setting himself up as the quintessential law doer. The majority of the antitheses contrast Jesus’ teaching with the Law. So even in Matthew 5 Jesus sets up himself, his teaching authority, as more ultimate to the Law rather than the Law’s servant.
(2) If the formula citations are any hint, Matthew views “fulfillment” very differently than we do. In those prophetic contexts he is not telling us that Jesus fulfills predictive prophecy, but that the prophets somehow give shape to a ministry that actually has a very different substance. Given that Jesus says he came to fulfill law and prophets, I wonder if what Matthew does with the prophets shouldn’t be our clue that we’re in for a surprise when it comes to Jesus “fulfilling” the law. It doesn’t mean “do all the law,” but something more along the lines of “pour new substance to this old container.”
(3) At the end of the sermon, Jesus makes it clear that the whole point is his own authority as teacher. The judgment scenarios at the end are about whether or not someone listens to Jesus’ own teaching (not the Torah!). And the people marvel because he teaches on his own authority, not the authority of someone else (not even Moses).
I’ve wandered far and wide, but I think the overall point is that Jesus is not concerned to set the Law up as the measure, but to set himself up as the measure. This Christocentrism is the source of his debates with the Pharisees and others of his day.
This place of scripture in the NT argument highlights for me that the most significant questions about scripture are more about hermeneutics than they are about inerrancy. Everyone assumed that this was the word of God, divinely inspired, and unbreakable. I agree with all those things without believing in inerrancy.
But what makes a position on scripture a Christian position isn’t how “high” we hold the Bible but whether we read it as part of the story that culminates in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
Daniel, I continue to be very edified by this discussion. I certainly hope that we can get together at SBL in Atlanta! I’d love to meet you face to face.
I love what you said here: “If Jesus is, in fact, the culmination of the story of the God of Israel, then we have no choice but to reinterpret the OT such that its signposts toward the future are understood to be pointing to Christ.” That’s what I would call an Emmaus Road hermeneutic, and it’s right on target.
Now, for our disagreements. To reiterate: I think that the texts you are using support the notion that Jesus held to an ethical hierarchy in the Law code. This is not to say that the Pharisees did not do the same, but it is to say that theirs was decidedly different from Jesus’. And one thing they did that annoyed him was to add tradition on top of the text that obscured the Law’s true intent. The texts you adduced to show that Jesus authorized his disciples to break the Law are probably overinterpreted. (Although I see in such texts something of an already-not yet tension, especially exemplified in Mark 7.19 where I take the present participle to be a result participle—‘with the result that all foods are clean’.) As I pointed out earlier, the plucking of heads of grain on the Sabbath was strictly forbidden in the Mishnah, but not in the Law. The Lord’s use of Isa 29.13 in Mark 7.6-7 shows that he was in line with the prophets, not that he had *yet* superseded the Law. Mark 7.8-9, 13 seems to plainly mean that the Pharisees, in Jesus’ view, made their traditions of greater authority than the Law. There is no hint here that their view was wrong because it was not christocentric.
As for whether Jesus held to some things that are now seen as incorrect (such as a flat earth), I have no problem with that. But it skirts the issue I was raising: it’s what Jesus *says* that gives me the sense that his view of the authority of the OT was at least as high as that of the Pharisees.
You are quite right that the focus of the subjective genitive in Rom 3.22 is that it is Jesus’ death which pointed to his ultimate faithfulness to YHWH. However, as you noted, “Yes, Jesus had to be sinless, spotless, etc. so that his death would avail.” Thus, his exemplary life was necessary for his expiatory death to be effective. But I think you go too far when you say, “Paul is never interested in Jesus as a law-keeper (and, surprisingly, the Gospels really aren’t all that concerned to show Jesus through that grid either).” I think that Paul intimated that Christ’s perfect obedience to the Law is part of how he understood the value of Jesus’ death. 1 Cor 5.7 not only says that Christ is our Passover lamb, but also that because of this we are now without yeast. Our position in Christ is such that God has nothing against us. If yeast is used in Paul’s allusion to the OT in the sense of sin, then it must mean ‘sin against the Law’ in its original contexts. And I agree with you that Rom 10.4 speaks of Christ as the end of the Law and as the goal of the Law. But he such, in part, because he fulfills it.
Further, when Paul speaks about believers fulfilling the love command by the Spirit, he adds, “against such there is no law” (Gal 5.23). I think his point is that what believers do now goes beyond the Law in terms of obedience to God—it does what the Law, powerless as it was, could only point to. I fully agree with you that we are not under the Law today. Yet Paul seems in several places to defend this new Spirit-empowered ethic against charges that he was antinomian. It strikes me that he was sensitive to the charge that his adversaries surely would have brought against him—viz., that he was fuzzy on holiness.
As for the Gospels not being concerned with Jesus as an obedient Jew, I can’t agree. As many have pointed out, Jesus is viewed as the new Moses in both Matthew and John. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus ‘went up a mountain’ (Matt 5.1)—identical wording to Exod 19.3 (LXX) when Moses ascends the mountain to receive the Law from YHWH (the phrase is used but three times in the LXX, all in Exodus about Moses’ ascent). In some respects, the rub in all this is the five “but I say to you” declarations in the SM. You take the position that Jesus is contradicting the Law here; many exegetes would say otherwise—that Jesus is contradicting the *traditions* that are built on the Law, either explicitly or implicitly. But your statement that “The antitheses do not support the expectation that Jesus is setting himself up as the quintessential law doer” seems to skirt the issue. It is precisely this preface that at least tells the hearers that what Jesus is about to say does not contradict the Law one iota. At bottom, my view is that he is greater than Moses, greater than the Law, and yet subject to the Law so that he could succeed where Israel failed (hence, the parallels with Israel/Moses in the early chapters of Matthew). I take a both/and approach where you think that one view nullifies the other (if I’m reading you correctly).
Your second point that Matthew’s fulfillment formulas is interesting; I’ll have to chew on it a while.
Your third point, that the end of the SM sees Jesus as a greater authority than Moses, seems to be a stretch. Matthew explicitly says that he taught with authority—not like the religious teachers of the day (as the Mishnah gives ample testimony to). Moses is not mentioned in the SM, though perhaps significantly he is mentioned four verses after it’s over where Jesus tells the cleansed leper to fulfill the Law by showing himself to the priests. I don’t mean to be uncharitable, but your point about the end of the SM is something that is neither stated nor hinted at (in my view). So, if the evangelist held to it, he didn’t express it here—precisely the argument you rendered against my (alleged) view that Jesus held to some things that we don’t find in the Gospels *and* that, therefore, we should follow that example.
I, too, think that we’re getting far afield from our original discussion. And since the fall semester starts for me tomorrow, I’ll have to bow out of further dialogue (not that this hasn’t been thoroughly enjoyable!). I’ll part with this last word: You affirmed, “Everyone assumed that this was the word of God, divinely inspired, and unbreakable.” Agreed. And you also affirmed that the message of the Bible is not the Bible itself, but Jesus. Again, I heartily agree. And I will add that unless we as Christians see our Christology as infinitely more important than our bibliology (and Christ as infinitely more important than the Bible), we’ve seriously missed the scripture’s thrust. Like the Holy Spirit and John the Baptist, it is preeminently a witness to Jesus Christ.
Dan Wallace
PS Even though I will be unable to continue in this dialogue, I don’t want to imply that my last word is *the* last word. Please go ahead and respond to my comments as you see fit. Just understand that I will be unable to respond further. And keep blogging: for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing the Church a great service by your christocentric hermeneutic, something that we have strayed from for a long time.
I did not want to mess up the discussion between DJK and DBW, so i am not replying in their thread. Neither do i feel as qualified as them. I wanted to say a few things about Matt 5:17-20
But i once read somewhat that the Rabbi’s around Jesus time would debate about what was the best way to interpret and keep the law. This was what the Mishnah was about and also why they had so many other traditions other than just the law. When Jesus comes on the scene he puts himself in the middle of that conversation. So when Jesus says “fulfill” he is really is talking about how best to interpret and follow the law. This is why the people then compare him to the scribes at the end of the SM. But Jesus also goes further and says that our righteousness needs to exceed that of the scribes. Here he is not only putting himself in the conversation but he is making himself the final word on it, so we are to follow it and not just discuss it. This why people say he speak with authority. In short what Jesus is doing here is that he applying the “emmaus road hermenutic” to the law and establishing his own “law/covenant”.
There are other places in the NT which hint that Jesus was part of the Rabbi conversation. eg: when he was asked about the greatest commandment, or about marriage and divorce etc.
Also i think all of this makes sense if we realize that the only timeless truth, (borrowing a greek/enlightenment term) is Jesus himself, not the law or the 10 commandments (as most evangelicals assume).
my 0.02
Sorry for my typos and bad grammar ….. next time i will use a word processor.
But i once read somewhat that the Rabbi’s = I once read somewhere that the Rabbi’s