by sunny23 40 Replies latest watchtower bible
Did Jesus ever break the Sabbath law?Yes
Actually, no he didn't.
---Not to be a fly in the punch bowl, but the idea that Jesus broke the Sabbath is a fundamentalist Christian misunderstanding of the Law
Maybe it's a non-issue if you're talking to a JW though.
So when Jesus illustrated pulling a sheep out of a pit on the Sabbath day is that not considered work? Honestly a sheep wouldn't die if it fell in a pit on Sabbath afternoon and you pulled it out the next morning. And as I said above, pulling a sheep out of a deep pit would be hard work for a fasting 5'7" 130lb middle eastern man. Is "helping" or "saving" a person or animal or any humanitarian action not considered "work" at all ever? So it's ok for doctors and veterinarians to "work" on Sabbath day if the Sabbath law was still instituted because what those two professionals do are not considered work?
"Whosoever does ANY work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to DEATH."
Define work please.
Also when Jesus said, "Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath."
Could it not also be interpreted as "Therfore it is lawful to do good work on the Sabbath?"
Perhaps the initial instituted law should have said,"whosoever does any non humanitarian work on the Sabbath day shall be put to DEATH?"
TD, that's a thought-provoking argument, but you didn't address the account of Jesus' disciples plucking heads of grain while walking on the Sabbath in Luke 6. Jesus' answer to the Pharisees' objection is to point out that David and his men ate the showbread meant only for the priests. Jesus then declares himself "lord of the Sabbath", possibly on the grounds of being the Messiah ("anointed") like King David. He doesn't say that it's okay to collect food on the Sabbath; he basically declares himself, and by extension his followers, exempt from the Law.
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Jesus said the law was for the people not the people for the law, meaning the law was a guide to help people not to make people a slave to it. He then said at matt 12:7 we desire mercy not sacrifice..No one in the bible ever was required to sacrifice themselves to god other than jesus..
If president Obama made a Law that said you would be put to DEATH by lethal injection if you were to perform ANY type of work on Sunday without defining the parameters of "work" then I would become a slave to that law too unless I didn't value my life.
So after Jesus it was then perceived as: "well you can do easy good hearted tasks like plucking wheat, eating it, or helping sick people or trapped animals but ANYTHING else including making tents or building temples and we will have to throw rocks at you until you die , got it!?"
TD, that's a thought-provoking argument, but you didn't address the account of Jesus' disciples plucking heads of grain while walking on the Sabbath in Luke 6.
There's two different starting assumption under which this question could be answered, but I don't know you well enough to be sure which would carry the most weight. In no particular order:
1. The Bible is inerrant - In JW theology, Jesus keeps the Law perfectly and this is in fact, the proof that he's a perfect man, whose sacrifice is the equivalent of what Adam lost. (I can give references, but I'm sure you're aware of them too.)
Even in general Christian/Pauline theology, Jesus can't be a liar or a hypocrite and still be who he is supposed to be. Jesus said some pretty specific things like, "I have kept my Father's commandments." (John 15:10) and, "Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:19) and, "Do not think I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I came, not to destroy, but to fulfill." (Matthew 5:17) These are problematic if he actually broke the Law.
But there's a big, big difference between breaking the Law and pointing out an exemption from the Law and Christians who want to insist on the former are blowing a hole in their own theology with a shotgun by not thinking things through. This is especially true for JW's, whose entire Ransom doctrine depends on the idea that Jesus kept the Law perfectly.
2. The Bible is not inerrant - Without getting into the argument of whether Jesus actually was a Pharisee himself (Jewish scholars today generally believe that he was.) it is still very clear that the Pharisees regard Jesus as one of their own. It was forbidden for a Pharisee to dine with anyone outside of their order, (cf. Berakot 43b) yet Jeus is repeatedly extended (And accepts) dinner invitations from Pharisees (Luke 7:36; 11:37; 14:1) and it was the Pharisees (Who allegedly wanted him dead) who warned Jesus of Herod's intent to kill him. (Luke 13:31; cf. Acts 5:34)
Even when Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees, the criticism comes across as that of one Pharisee to another. Ritual hand-washing as well as Jesus choice of associates would not have been issues otherwise. In this context, the personal rancor most noticable in the Matthean account was likely not there originally and represents later attempts to play down the Jewishness of Jesus. This is how Jewish scholars respond:
"It seems that the Evangelists had little idea about the details of Jewish laws, and only by careful analysis can we establish what lay behind their words. We must note that in all cases in legal debates about Sabbath in the Synoptics, the question of dispute revolves around scribal laws and whether or not the questioning Pharisees know these laws as well as they think they do. The debate about eating in the fields is of this order too. When people pluck out grain, if they then push out the kernel of wheat which is an unusual or rare circumstance (normally wheat is harvested in large amounts with an instrument) they do not violate biblical Sabbath rules." (Basser, Herbert W. Studies In Exegesis: Christian Critiques of Jewish Law and Rabbinic Responses 70-300 C.E. Brill 2000 pp. 26-27)
So when Jesus illustrated pulling a sheep out of a pit on the Sabbath day is that not considered work?
I explained the distinction in the link I provided above. It comes down to a basic and fundamental difference between how Christians view the Law and how Jewish people view the Law. Christians view the Law as a burden and keeping the Law as a constant reminder of imperfection. Practicing Jews view the Law as a priceless gift from a kind Father and keeping the Law as something that will make you happier, healthier and live longer. The idea that you will die or suffer harm from keeping the Law is actually pretty alien in Judiasim.
In keeping with the idea that the Law was a burden, Christians have a strong tendency to take each individual requirement of the Law and view it idependently of the others as an absolute that stands on its own. And that just doesn't work. Laws function together as a body, not independently of each other.
To view the Sabbath as an absolute defies common sense. Just the act of getting up out of bed in the morning is, "Work" if we really want to be technical. Yes, pulling an animal out of a pit is work, but when life is question, the Sabbath becomes either hutra (abrogated) or dechuya. (suspended) I was raised on a farm and I would say that when an animal falls into a pit, its life is in jeopardy. They will struggle until they are either too seriously injured or too exhausted to struggle anymore.
If president Obama made a Law that said you would be put to DEATH by lethal injection if you were to perform ANY type of work on Sunday without defining the parameters of "work" then I would become a slave to that law too unless I didn't value my life.
Well the Executive branch of our government doesn't actually make laws, but even if such a law existed, I've already explained (In the link above) that U.S. law also functions as a body and individual laws are not interpreted in a vaccum like that.
So after Jesus it was then perceived as: "well you can do easy good hearted tasks like plucking wheat, eating it, or helping sick people or trapped animals but ANYTHING else including making tents or building temples and we will have to throw rocks at you until you die , got it!?"
Jesus' approach to the Law was not a new innovation. There were competing factions of Phariseeism at the time: The hardline Bet Shammai and the liberal Bet Hillel. The former died out and became lost in history around the time Jerusalem was destroyed while the latter eventually grew into normative Judaism as we know it today. I've quoted some Jewish commentary on the subject of Sabbath healing below:
"To look at the Gospel accounts of Jesus' healing on the Sabbath in the light of Jewish teachings may help us to understand the behavior and attitudes to which these Christian accounts testify. They also show us the antiquity of laws which otherwise might be mistaken for late rabbinic innovations. In all cases, it is likely that Jesus' healing in itself constitutes nothing that many scribes or Pharisees, if not all, would have found as breaking Torah law." (Basser, Herbert W. Studies In Exegesis: Christian Critiques of Jewish Law and Rabbinic Responses 70-300 C.E. Brill 2000 pp. 17-18)
"The Pharisees never included healing in their list of activities forbidden on the Sabbath; and Jesus’ methods of healing did not involve any of the activities that were forbidden. It is unlikely that they would have disapproved, even mildly, of Jesus’ Sabbath-healing. Moreover, the picture of bloodthirsty, murderous Pharisees given in the Gospels contradicts everything known about them from Josephus, from their own writings, and from the Judaism, still living today, which they created..." (Maccoby, Hyam Revolution in Judea: Jesus and the Jewish Resistance Taplinger Publishing Co. 1980 pp. 11-12)
"It is an amazing fact that, when we consult the Pharisee law books to find out what the Pharisees actually taught about healing on the sabbath, we find that they did not forbid it, and they even used the very same arguments that Jesus used to show that it was permitted. Moreover, Jesus' celebrated saying, 'The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath,' which has been hailed so many times as an epoch-making new insight proclaimed by Jesus, is found almost word for word in a Pharisee source, where it is used to support the Pharisee doctrine that the saving of life has precedence over the law of the sabbath. So it seems that whoever it was that Jesus was arguing against when he defended his sabbath healing, it cannot have been the Pharisees." (Maccoby, Hyam The Mythmaker Paul and the Invention of Christianity Barnes & Noble Publishing 1998 pp. 33-34)
"A common misperception is that healing was permitted on the Sabbath only in the most extreme circumstances only when life was in danger. When this supposition is applied to these controversies, one inevitably concludes that the issue was Jesus' humanitarianism versus the inflexibility on the part of the Pharisees to bend the Law in the face of human need or suffering. But according to Mishnah, the rubic on Sabbath healing is "whenever there is doubt whether life is in danger, this overrides the Sabbath" (Yoma 8:6) The discussion shows how very lenient was the interpretation of "doubt" including ravenous hunger, a sore throat, or a pregnant woman's craving for food." (Salmon, Marilyn J. Preaching Without Contempt: Overcoming Unintended Anti-Judaism Fortress Press 2006 p. 90)
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Is it safe to say that keeping to the ten commandments was more important than a law on blood?..Yes
Actually, an informed J W would not agree with that statement.
Although I cannot think of a recorded execution for blood violation, the potential existed (Lev. 7 26-27). They believe that the ten Commandments are no more binding on Christians than the rest of the Jewish Laws, only the principles about worship and neighbourliness
Thanks, TD, that's some interesting material. I view the Bible in a secular light, so I'm not objecting to anything on this account, but I do think you've made a critical error in saying that JWs believe that Jesus followed the Law perfectly. The counter-balance for Adam's sin was that Jesus, the second perfect man, did not sin. That's the JW doctrine, if not a general Christian doctrine. Keeping the Law could not atone for Adam's sin because Adam did not violate the Law (there being no Law at the time to violate).
I've seen the suggestion before that Jesus was a Pharisee, and it's a fascinating idea. I need to do some more reading on that. To me, it doesn't jive with the fact that he was a carpenter, who would have been "unlettered and ordinary" in his education. I've never seen it stated before that it was permitted to harvest grain on the Sabbath the way the disciples did, but I'm a bit skeptical because Jesus replies with the example of David and the showbread, not by saying, "I know the Law better than you do, and this is okay." It seems that the implication in the quote from Studies in Exegesis is that something was lost in translation when writing the gospels, and that the original notion of rabbinical debates between fellow Pharisees has been lost.
