Jesus and the law revisited

Abstract

This article revisited the issue of Jesus’ attitude towards the Torah on the basis of a critical discussion of the most recent extensive treatment of the theme by Meier in his A marginal Jew: Rethinking the historical Jesus: Volume four: Law and love (2009). It engaged Meier’s contribution in the light of contemporary research, concluding that, whilst Meier provided an erudite analysis, his thesis that Jesus’ teaching on divorce and oaths revoked Mosaic law did not convince, for it did not adequately consider the extent to which the contemporary interpretation of the Torah could encompass such radicalisation.

Keywords

• Historical Jesus
• law
• divorce
• oaths
• Sabbath
• love command