Conclusion: the Torah, the basic text for Israel’s identity, develops a counter-proposal after the catastrophe of the kingship and the state. The people of God are certainly described in this counter-proposal as a society but not as a state. Israel is to be a “holy people,” that is, separated for God and elected on behalf of the other peoples (Exod 19:6)—and for that very reason it cannot live like the other nations. It should never forget that it was led out of Egypt and may never return to Egypt. Egypt was a closed system: the complete amalgamation of state, culture, cosmos, religion, rule, and salvation. The unity of all these spheres was visible in the person of the Pharaoh, the god-king. Israel is led out of this “total state”: at Sinai it receives a new, alternative order for its society: hence the major space devoted to the laws within its basic text. Those laws lack any mention of a state. Where it does appear it is relativized to such an extent that it is unrecognizable.
The law collections in the Torah show that Israel is meant to be a people of sisters and brothers. If there is a king in it at all, he can only be a brother among siblings. He is no longer the dominant figure; at the center of Israel, instead, stands God’s instruction given at Sinai. Even the land, the territorial basis for any state, is in some sense relativized: it is indeed promised—and how emphatically is it promised!—but within the Torah it is not taken into Israel’s possession. Israel’s basic text leaves the people of God on the boundary; it keeps them standing on the border of the land that has been promised and dedicated to them. The Jordan has not yet been crossed.
Is that all accidental, or is it not instead a theology of genius that opens the gates to a people of God that will live in the midst of the other nations and, as a people God has taken as his own, can show how a community can look if God alone is its lord? And is it an accident that Jesus, in the midst of his disciples and an Israel to be gathered anew, adopts and tries to put into practice these fundamental social outlines in the Torah? His “it will not be so among you” corresponds exactly to the prophetic rejection of the words “we want to be like other nations” (cf. 1 Sam 8:5, 20). Apparently Jesus was profoundly aware of what Israel’s basic text intends. It was his own unique power of discovery that enabled him to read the Torah in that way, in the midst of a Zealot movement that was assembling, having learned nothing from Israel’s history. The Zealots desired to make the reign of God identical with the state and as a result they thrust Israel into the most profound possible misery. In the year 70 Jerusalem, including the temple, was destroyed by the Romans.
Jesus and Nonviolence
With all that has been said, the theme of Jesus’ nonviolence has already come clearly into view; consequently, the samplings can proceed more quickly.
There is a great deal of violence in the Old Testament; we find shocking scenes of destructive exercise of power there, and we often get the impression that the image of God and violence are inextricably connected. To take only a single example from among the many we could possibly choose, we find Psalm 58 saying of the wicked:
O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!
Let them vanish like water that runs away;
like grass let them be trodden down and wither.
Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime;
like the untimely birth that never sees the sun. (Ps 58:7-9)
That is certainly a harsh text. Still, it was not a very enlightened move when, not long ago, the lectors in a city parish in Germany refused, after reading the Old Testament text at Mass, to utter the concluding formula, “The word of the living God.” They gave as their reason the “horrible, violent texts” in the Old Testament, which could not have anything to do with God. Apparently it was not clear to these lectors that the Bible is always and without exception “the word of God in human words.” In this, Jewish and Christian theology differ fundamentally from the untenable construction of Islam, which understands the Qu’ran to be a text directly dictated by God. Apparently it had never occurred to the lectors how liberating it can be if we are permitted, for once, to express all our wrath and misery in words. The Old Testament dares to do it in many places, and very often, in the context of the passage, the lament and wrath are corrected and overcome.19
We should also note that, in the text just quoted, the petitioners themselves by no means resort to violence. They appeal to God and leave their cause to God. What God then does is another matter. It seems that the Old Testament knows more about human beings than a watered-down humanism can decree. Many texts of the Bible, by calling violence what it is, function precisely to reveal the violence in society that is normally covered up, and to disclose its reality as merciless injustice.
Finally: one of the magnificent features of the Old Testament is that its readers continually encounter texts in which violence is shattered. The prophets have the vision of an Israel that, by its example, teaches the nations how people can live together in peace and without violence. The most important and meaty text of this vision is in Isaiah 2 and Micah 4. I am quoting here from the wording in Micah:
In days to come the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, and many nations shall come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction [Torah], and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk, each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever. (Mic 4:1-5)
It is absolutely necessary to notice that this prophetic poem projects a vision of the end time, but at the same time it emphasizes that the realization of the vision is already beginning now, today. The challenge at the end is crucial: “all the peoples walk, each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever.”
The corresponding passage in Isaiah reads, “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!” (Isa 2:5). So Israel is to walk already, today, the way of the Torah, the way of peace, the way that corresponds to the name of the Lord. Then, one day, the miracle will happen: the river will run backward, the nations will learn peace from Israel and will beat their swords into plowshares. That too is in the Old Testament!
But even with that we have not said everything by far: in Deutero-Isaiah the Old Testament goes a step further. Can one live in peace and show others what peace is like “if it doesn’t please one’s wicked neighbors”? That is the fundamental problem of world peace. And precisely here Israel gave an answer (comparable to Socrates’ principle that “suffering injustice is better than doing injustice”) that overthrows everything: it is better to be a victim than a violent victor.20
This is the insight that true peace can only come from the victims, never from the victors. But this peace cannot be accomplished by human beings; it comes from God’s initiative. This new insight on the part of Israel, which was, like Micah 4:1-5, gained from the exile, was compressed by Isaiah into the so-called fourth Servant Song. The servant is Israel itself. “Against this servant of God, according to the servant songs, the nations have conspired together. They beat and torture, even kill him. But like those who cry out in Lamentations, he takes refuge in his God. He accepts the violence that falls upon him, does not strike back, and does not avoid it. And God receives him. Suddenly, in the fourth song, we hear a confession from the other kings and nations of the world.21 They acknowledge what God has done with this outcast.”2
2 And ultimately, as a result of this knowledge that overturns everything, they confess: “we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities” (Isa 53:4-5). To these prominent texts from the books of the prophets we could add others, for example Psalm 22 or Zechariah 9:9-10. All these texts show that the theme of nonviolence appears already in the Old Testament. Jesus did not invent it. He found it in his Bible; he could find it all in his Sacred Scriptures.
But things are somewhat more complicated than that. Could he find all of it? Yes. But he could also find many other things, for the Old Testament continually struggles with the theme of “violence and nonviolence.” This is evident from the later history of its influence, when these key texts of nonviolence often play no part at all. There was fighting in the time of the Maccabeans and the Hasmoneans. The statements about the servant of God seemed not to exist at all. That was certainly true of the Zealots in the time of Jesus. They saw themselves as God’s warriors, permitted in the name of God to use violence—brutal force, by which to establish the reign of God.
And that is not only bad intention; it is connected with the Old Testament itself, which approaches the theme of “nonviolence” like an orchestral piece with many voices. It is not easy always to hear the principal voice in the polyphony it plays, among the accompanying voices, counter-melodies, and dissonances. It is deeply moving to see the unbelievable sensitivity with which Jesus listened to the fourth Servant Song among all the many voices and used it to interpret the true rule of God and his own life. He used no violence at all. He took the sword from Peter’s hand (Matt 26:52). He preferred being a victim to using violence. And by that very fact he initiated in the world an unexpected and ongoing influence. It still goes on, and no one can say where it may yet lead.
Jesus’ Ability to Distinguish
What we see here in the case of nonviolence can be expanded to cover our overall theme: Jesus did not simply reproduce and repeat the Old Testament. He certainly did not insert completely new content into it. Instead, from the immense material in his Bible, from this experience of centuries, from this heaped-up mass of wisdom and history he discerned and drew out the scarlet thread of God’s will—with a sensitivity and ability to distinguish that we can only marvel at.
Jesus’ genius—and Jesus was a genius, if we can use such banal language of him—consisted precisely in that he brought together at its center everything Israel had already discovered, and he did so both critically and creatively. In fact, everything had long since been said in Israel, but often without the necessary weight. Or it was submerged in mountains of things said, so that it could scarcely be recognized. Sometimes it even happened that the opposite was said, leaving matters unclear. Jesus, by weighing the many voices with a critical ability to differentiate, allowed the new thing to arise out of what had already been known and hoped for.
The Our Father is itself an eloquent example of this. With each of its petitions it is bound up in Israel’s great theology made up of Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah, and the Torah—and yet it is his very own, something that, on the basis of the proclamation of the reign of God, draws Israel’s traditions together and joins them anew for today.
Or we could take the Sermon on the Mount and its rules for interpreting the Torah as another example. There is not a single statement there that does not have an Old Testament background. Nothing of the Torah is “abolished” or eliminated, “not one letter, not one stroke of a letter” (Matt 5:17-19), and yet Jesus brings everything into a new light once again: the light of his freedom and reason, his radicality and reverence for God.
First Testament or Old Testament?
This chapter began with some statements about the concept of the “Old Testament.” As I said there, Jesus did not know an “Old Testament” but only the Sacred Scriptures: the Torah, the prophets, and the “writings.” Is it permitted for Christians to speak of a “New Testament” and in the same breath degrade Jesus’ Bible to the status of an “Old” Testament?
Probably everyone senses how easy it is to misunderstand this nomenclature and how dangerous it is to do so. It appears, in fact, that there must be a testament composed at some point that has been replaced by a new testament. In our legal dealings that is how it goes: a new testament (or “will”) normally invalidates one that is older, written earlier.
As a consequence, the recently deceased German Old Testament scholar Erich Zenger adopted an idea from the United States and spoke no longer of an “Old Testament” but rather of the “First Testament.” 23 In doing so he could even appeal to Hebrews 8:7, 13; 9:1, 15, 18. But that does not solve the problem. Since the word “testament” today calls to mind “last will and testament,” even this choice of words gives many people the impression that the “First Testament” has been invalidated by a second one produced later. At the same time, “old” and “new” are terms of relationship that raise the question: to what extent is the “new” one new and the “old” one old? Besides, “old” need not necessarily be associated with “aged” or “outdated.” “Old” can also be understood in the sense of “honorable” and “precious.” In any case, in the ancient Near East and in antiquity “old” had positive connotations for the most part. So the problem remains, and we cannot escape the dilemma through simple renaming.
There is probably also little sense in simply tossing away respected concepts that go back to the Bible itself (cf. 2 Cor 3:14). We must keep the concepts but repeatedly clarify them anew. After all we have seen, it is obvious that “Old Testament” cannot mean something that needs improvement, or is outdated, or should be disposed of. No, the Old Testament is the basis of Christian faith, just as it was the basis for Jesus’ activity, and the New Testament is nothing but the final level of interpretation, the last thorough clarification of the Bible.
Those who want to approach that clarification cannot avoid once again taking the path on which Israel was led. They believe with Abraham. They dare the Exodus from the old society. They travel with Israel through the wilderness. They stand before the fire at Sinai and receive the commandment. They must decide whether to malign the promised land or believe God’s promise. They must praise, thank, petition, cry out to, and sometimes almost despair of Israel’s God in the Psalms. They must accompany Israel once again on the whole of its long journey if they are in any way to arrive at the clarification that opens up and explains everything, to understand it and be able to live it.
This last, fully valid, clear interpretation took place not only in words, not only through theology, not only by means of new formulae that, we might say, set the Old Testament to rights. This clarification took place through the person of Jesus himself, his existence, his life, and his death. The words of the letter to the Hebrews are definitive and unsurpassable in this regard: “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb 1:1-2).
Chapter 12
Jesus and the Torah
Around the year 165, the philosopher and theologian Justin was executed in Rome, by the Roman state, because of his Christian faith.1 He came from Neapolis (today’s Nablus) in Samaria, became a Christian, and was then a renowned theologian of the second century. In addition to a long Apology, a petition in personal law to the imperial chancery,2 we also have the record, written in dialogue form, of his argument with Judaism, the Dialogue with the Jew Trypho. There Justin writes:
For the law promulgated on Horeb is now old, and belongs to yourselves [the Jews] alone; but
this
is for all universally. Now, law placed against law has abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final law—namely, Christ—has been given to us, and the covenant is trustworthy, after which there shall be no law, no commandment, no ordinance.
3
This text summarizes well what Just
in also says in other parts of the Dialogue: the Torah has lost its legal authority. In juridical terms it is abrogated. Nothing in it remains valid except what corresponds to the natural law of reason, for example, its moral demands. Also valid are its constant, often mysteriously hidden, references to Christ. But as law, the Torah has no further significance because “a new lawgiver” has come: Jesus Christ. He has given a “new,” an “eternal law.” But he is not only a “lawgiver”; he himself is in person this new and eternal law.4
There is no question that in this theology we can already see what in time to come would be formulated more and more radically, more and more effectively, and more and more ominously: the “disowning” of Israel in salvation history. In every respect, in this view, Israel has been replaced by the church.
But it is also unquestionable that Justin tried in his own way to take the New Testament seriously. Does not Jesus appear in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount as the new Moses and thus the new lawgiver who proclaims his new Torah to the disciples and the people gathered around them? That is how it seems. After all, does the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount not say “you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times… But I say to you…” (Matt 5:21-22, 33-34)? And does Paul not speak of the “law of Christ” in Galatians 6:2? And does Jesus not tell the disciples in the Gospel of John “I give you a new commandment” (John 13:34)? In any case, talk of the “new law of Christ” seems to have been just as common in the church of the subsequent years as the idea of the “new people of God,” which was so perilously subject to misunderstanding.5
Therefore this chapter addresses one of the most important questions about Jesus’ life: what was his attitude to the Torah? Did he come as a new lawgiver? Did he drain the Torah of its legal authority? Did he see himself as master of the Torah, or even as the one who would overthrow it? Or did he hold up the Torah precisely because he did not come to abolish it but to fulfill it? That, at any rate, is what it says in Matthew 5:17. A great deal depends on Jesus’ relationship to the Torah, ultimately the relationship between the church and Israel. This chapter, therefore, is one of the most important in this book. I will proceed as I did in chapter 11 by attempting to clarify this difficult set of questions through a number of samplings.
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