Did Jesus make the Old Testament Obsolete?

Dan McClellan Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Things are good. Things are fine.

Dan McClellan Excellent.

Dan Beecher As addressing one of the comments in our YouTube channel- Mm-hmm ... I will ask you, Dan, how are you doing?

Dan McClellan I'm doing well. We've got some normal high school student drama going on at my house, but nothing that we can't handle. We're just trying to get a kid to successfully graduate, which I've always marveled that that has been difficult for other folks and so, but other than this- I mean, you're talking to a guy who didn't manage to graduate, so. You didn't?

Dan Beecher I mean, I eventually got the equivalent of a high school graduation.

Dan McClellan The proverbial GED?

Dan Beecher I did.

Dan McClellan There you go.

Dan Beecher I took that test. That was easy. I think everyone should just do that. It's silly how easy it is.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And then I, yeah. But I dropped out of high school. I'm a dropper-outer. I'm good at it.

Dan McClellan Got it.

Dan Beecher Go with what you know. That's what I've always said.

Dan McClellan Anyway- Fair enough.

Dan Beecher ... that's enough of us blathering, and that, by the way, everybody, is why when Dan asks me how I'm doing, I don't ask him back because we're just- Yeah ... doing pleasantries here. We're not actually trying to get into- ... our real lives.

Dan McClellan This is all part of the podcast magic- Yes ... where we're just performing concern for each other's wellbeing.

Dan Beecher Yeah, we don't really care. Anyway, well, we do care about each other, but that's neither here nor there. What is here and there- No ... is what we're going to be talking about right now, and that is a chapter and verse about the fulfillment of the law as Matthew has Jesus saying.

Dan McClellan So- Hmm ...

Dan Beecher I've heard lots of different things about it, and I think we should dive right in.

Dan McClellan Let's do it.

Dan Beecher Okay. So, the reason, Dan, that I wanted to do this topic is because I've been told by multiple people from different religious backgrounds, all Christian, but different Christian backgrounds, and I've asked a question about why is one law still very much in effect, and why is- Yeah ... another law, why is it okay to eat shellfish now and okay to- ... blah, blah, blah, but obviously we can't stone our wives if they, or whatever, or sell our daughters off into slavery or any of those- Right ... sorts of things.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Just because it feels like that's a hypocrisy, or that's a question that needs answering in a modern Christian context.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And a lot of the time, what I got back was this idea that, well, Jesus fulfilled the old law, the Law of Moses, the whatever, and that means that it doesn't apply anymore.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And then I would ask, "Okay, but why do you care then about things like the Ten Commandments or whatever?" And then they're like, "Oh, but that's still good law." And it just gets very confusing to me. I don't know what's- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan happening.

Dan Beecher So, I'm going to make you talk about it and figure out what Jesus is actually saying in Matthew 5.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and this is just one of multiple different ways that people have tried to rationalize the fact that Christians are really not hip to a lot of the legislation that is in the Hebrew Bible. And I think you're going to bring up the division of the law into different categories and stuff like that.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Because I think you told me that you saw somebody who was trying to explain the fulfill along those lines, that there are some laws that were there to be fulfilled the entire time, which- Yeah.

Dan Beecher And maybe we need to save the idea of the ceremonial laws versus the moral laws- Yeah ... for its own segment.

Dan McClellan I don't know.

Dan Beecher Maybe- Okay ... that should be a thing.

Dan McClellan I thought we had done a segment on that already.

Dan Beecher So maybe we have- Oh, maybe we did.

Dan McClellan Maybe we have.

Dan Beecher I don't know.

Dan McClellan I, phew, gosh. I've got the pleasure of having a parallel social media life- Right ... to the podcast, and after years of doing this, they begin to blend together, but- It all blurs together.

Dan Beecher Yeah. But, I mean, if we retread a little bit of ground, we're only helping you remember it better, right?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Please- Listeners, that's- ...

Dan McClellan don't hold it against us. So we're in Matthew 5- Uh-huh ... which is the grand Sermon on the Mount.

Dan Beecher Ooh, yeah. It's a good one.

Dan McClellan We've just got done with the Beatitudes.

Dan Beecher His sermon in the hole was no good at all.

Dan McClellan But once he got on the mount, it was great.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And we've talked about the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and on and on. And then we get to verse 17. I want to read 17 through 20.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then talk a little bit about what's going on here. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." And then it goes on to have the antitheses, where Jesus says, "You've heard that Moses wrote, 'You shall not do this.' Well, I say unto you," and then he escalates things.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan It's not just you shall not murder You can't even get angry.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan You can't even accuse your brother of being a bad person or something like that. And it's that first verse that a lot of people seem to get snagged on. Mm-hmm. And they don't seem to move past it. But one thing that I've pointed out in a number of videos is that if you're trying to rationalize why Christians don't need to follow the law, you run into a problem with Matthew 5, because it certainly sounds like Jesus is saying, "Yeah, you do need to follow all the law."

Dan Beecher Yeah. I guess a lot of it hinges on this question of what the heck does he mean by, "I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill"? What does that even mean? In terms of a law, I know what it means if it's fulfill a promise or fulfill an order of- Yeah ... french fries or something.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And the Greek word here is pleroo, which, I'm looking in the theological dictionary of the New Testament. No, I'm looking in BDAG, not TDNT. I'm looking in BDAG. "To make full, to fill," probably not that. "To complete a period of time, fill up, complete," probably not that. "To bring to completion that which was already begun, complete, finish." We're getting closer.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And then, "To bring to a designed end, to fulfill. Here, like a prophecy, an obligation, a promise, a law, a request, a purpose." So, in other words, if one of these things suggests this is the circumstance we're trying to arrive at, or this is how things are going to be until this moment, it seems to be that. And what I hear a lot of people say, because Jesus says, "Till heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter," and in the KJV, this is jot and tittle. These are little flourishes on the letters, "Will pass from the law until all is accomplished." And what I hear people say is, "Well, Jesus accomplished everything that was supposed to be accomplished, and so that's the time when everything is fulfilled," or something like that. But we've got two chronological markers here.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Because it doesn't just say until everything is accomplished. It says till heaven and earth pass away. So it sounds like- Yeah.

Dan Beecher That's a different thing ...

Dan McClellan yeah. We've got dual chronological markers here, and I think we really have to assume that these are supposed to be synonymous events. The heaven and earth passing away is supposed to correspond to all being accomplished.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Which suggests an apocalyptic vision. This is about everything wrapping up at some point in the future. It really sounds like Matthew has Jesus saying, "None of this is going away." But some people think, "Well, Jesus did accomplish all, and so all of the requirements are subsumed in Jesus, and they still exist, they're still active, but Jesus holds them all- ... within him. And, 'No, you're not getting away. And oh, this is all I am.'"

Dan Beecher All the laws are bouncing around inside of him and- Yeah ... can't get to us somehow.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So for some arbitrary reason, they still need to exist, but they need to exist entirely consumed by Jesus's righteousness. The notion that this event, the atonement, his sacrifice once and for all, kind of trapped the laws within his being, and they are still in force, but within a limited scope. Or something silly like that. I think that's a rather ridiculous way to think about what's going on here. Because if you do think of it that way, that no jot or tittle has been loosed or passed from the law, we just don't have to obey them anymore. If you want to interpret it like that, that kind of renders meaningless verse 19, where Jesus says, "Whoever breaks one of these will be called the least in the Kingdom of God. And whoever teaches others to break them will be called least in the Kingdom of God." So it seems that what Jesus is saying here is that you have to continue to follow these laws until heaven and earth pass away. And that it's not just this notion that his sacrifice subsumes all of the law and frees us from the expectation of following them. Jesus quite explicitly says, "No, you still have to follow them."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So I don't think that reading makes much sense. And then he goes on to, like we said, escalate things, saying you have to be better followers of the law than the Pharisees.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And this is something interesting.

Dan Beecher We- And presumably the Pharisees were really good at following the law.

Dan McClellan Well, that's the thing. The New Testament, in some parts, tries to make it seem like the Pharisees were the super strict followers of the law. But when you look at some of the other literature from early Judaism, the Pharisees were kind of mocked as kind of relaxed, loose followers- Oh, okay ... or if not interpreters of the law. And which is probably one of the reasons that Jesus is saying, "Pharisees are not good enough. You've got to be better than the Pharisees. Those slouches." "They're not going to make it into the Kingdom of Heaven."

Dan Beecher But at least it's a lower bar to clear. So that's nice. If they're not super... I was thinking that's a super high bar.

Dan McClellan Yeah. We can do that. Oh, the Pharisees.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan We got it.

Dan Beecher Oh, yeah. I can do better than... Look, I'm not great, but I can do better than one of those Pharisees.

Dan McClellan Yeah, as long as you're not talking about the Essenes. I don't want to mess with them Essenes. But the Pharisees, I think we can swing Pharisees.

Dan Beecher I can do it.

Dan McClellan And so, yeah, I don't think that reading makes much sense.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It certainly seems to me to be an attempt to try to harmonize what's going on with Matthew, with what's going on in the other gospels. Particularly Luke, because we have the Sermon on the Plain in Luke. But what Luke has Jesus say is not that, "Not one jot or tittle will fail until heaven and earth pass away." What Luke has Jesus say is, "It would be easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one jot or tittle of the law to fail."

Dan Beecher Interesting.

Dan McClellan And that's a different kind of dimension here. We're not talking about time, we're talking about difficulty.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And that's something that you could argue Jesus is able to do, because as the creator of heaven and earth, ostensibly, or at least the mechanism for the creation of heaven and earth, if that understanding of Jesus' role in creation already obtains within Luke, he has the authority to end heaven and earth. So it alters things a little bit, but if you demand that they all agree, then you really have to squint at Matthew until the edges blur- ... and begin to run together with Luke and the others.

Dan Beecher I do want to understand what Matthew is saying, though. I think you're right that it doesn't make sense to say those laws don't count anymore because somehow Jesus, I don't know what- Yeah ... followed them so perfectly that they're done. I understand the fulfillment of a law if it's a law that says, X, Y, and Z need to happen, and then that is fulfilled. But the fulfillment of a law that's like, "Don't do X, Y, or Z. Don't murder. Don't steal," or whatever. You can't fulfill a negative. Uh-huh. You can just keep not doing it, but it doesn't end.

Dan McClellan And so, I don't know.

Dan Beecher That doesn't make sense. One of the things I wanted to ask about was, "I don't think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets." I saw somewhere- Mm-hmm ... in my reading about this, that the law and the prophets, as a unit, was sort of how they referred to the Hebrew Bible. Is that true, or did they call it the law and the prophets, or something like that?

Dan McClellan So, this gets into a complex discussion of the concept of scripture and the concept of canon. You do have either a two-part or a three-part concept of scripture in this period within Judaism, where it's either the law and the prophets, or the law of the prophets and the Psalms.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan And so, it's probably not indicative of a closed, complete canon, but it does seem to be indicative of a kind of general genre division of the different types of literature that make up the early Jewish scriptures.

Dan Beecher So, in the same way that we would refer to an Old and a New Testament, would it have been a common practice to refer to one sort of subdivision of old scripture as the law and another subdivision as the prophets? Is that what you're saying?

Dan McClellan Something like that, because you would look at the Pentateuch and there are a few different divisions. You have the word Tanakh. That's how many modern Jewish folks refer to their Bible, and it's an acronym for the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim. And so that would be the Torah, which would be the law. The Nevi'im is the prophets. And the Ketuvim are the writings.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so that would be a three-part. And then you have some Christians who come in and say, "No, it's four-part. It's the law, the prophets, the writings, and the histories." Because you have folks who take first and second Samuel, and first and second Kings, and that would be lumped in with the prophets. But for a lot of Christians, they look at that and they're like, "It's different enough, it should have its own category." And so we would say, "No, those are the histories, not part of the prophets." And so, yeah. It's a division of the genre-based division of the Jewish scriptures. And yeah, the idea is that Jesus is addressing what is the relevance of all of the instruction, all the law that has been passed down to us in the Jewish scriptures. Do we still have to follow all of this?

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Because it's not just the Ten Commandments. And they count up like 613 laws. But you can also find all kinds of, you look in the Proverbs and you've got all kinds of wisdom that probably could be leveraged as something authoritative or at least prescriptive. A lot of people do that. Today, talking about why it's good or bad to do this or that because they'll appeal to a Psalm or a proverb or something like that. Not one of the 613 commandments of the Halakha, or at least the commandments that are interpreted within the Halakha or Halakhot, but it's just good advice, and it's in the scriptures, so therefore it should be authoritative. And I think what Matthew has Jesus doing is saying, "No, we're still sticking to all of this." And I think the idea of fulfill is everything is going to be completed, fulfilled, when the heaven and earth pass away. Mm-hmm. And so at that point, there's no more context for the law. There's no more reason for the law, and so the law wraps up, and it's finished. And so I think that's probably what's going on here. It's all done. We've completed our turn in this mortal coil- Right ... and so there's no more reason to have a law. I think that's probably what's going on there. I don't think we can superimpose upon the author of the Gospel of Matthew our own notion of eternity, of heaven, the way we think about it, as strumming harps in the clouds or whatever the reformed folks have turned it into these days.

Dan Beecher I wonder if maybe in light of what you just said, because one of my questions is what question is he trying to answer with this?

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And I wonder if maybe it's being asked of him as a prophet, in a time when it seems like eschatology is sort of heavy on the minds of people. I wonder if it's being asked, are you bringing about-- He talks about himself bringing about the end times, right? Or somebody talks about him doing that.

Dan McClellan Well, yeah. Matthew has a pretty eschatological outlook, or at least there's an eschaton off in the future. However, we're kind of presupposing that this might be historical when we say Jesus might be responding to a question asked of him. I think more than likely what we have is the author aware that there are followers of Jesus out there saying, "Hey, guess what? We don't have to keep all the law anymore." And Matthew's like, "Oh, we'll see about that."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Wait till you get to this part of what I'm writing, and I'm going to have Jesus say this, that, and the other. You can imagine Jesus being like, "And some guy named Dave will borrow something from Matthew and not give it back, and that guy sucks." It's not because somebody asked Jesus about this, it's because the author wants to achieve something with their composition, and so this is the perfect opportunity to slide this into the narrative when he's on- Yeah ... his sermonizing soapbox.

Dan Beecher But I guess it doesn't actually matter to me for the purposes of my question whether this is just the author of Matthew sort of making this up, putting some words into Jesus' mouth to- Mm-hmm ... conveniently serve some sort of theological need that he needs to convey, or if it's actually a historical thing that happened and that Jesus said. To my mind, it doesn't actually matter, because what I'm still trying to get at is, it's like people are starting to think in their minds, "Maybe this is the end. Maybe Jesus represents the cataclysm, the end of everything, and we can just relax on all of the laws." And Jesus is saying, "Nope, sorry. You can't relax on the laws. I'm going to make them even harsher, even more."

Dan McClellan Well, yeah. And at the time that this is being written, the gospel is already being shared among the Gentiles. And so you've got a lot of Gentiles coming in, and they're the ones who were like, "Don't like that circumcision thing. Can I not do that?" And that's what was Paul's big challenge decades before these texts were written. And so I think it's not so much an inner Jewish exegetical thing where Jewish folks were like, "Well, now that we have Jesus, I guess we don't need any of the other stuff." Mm-hmm. It's a social thing. It's because we're now bringing Gentiles in, and to open the door to Gentiles, we have to consider what's required of them. And I think you have people scattered across the entire spectrum of, "Yes, they must keep every last law," all the way to, "No, they don't have to keep any law."

Dan Beecher Well, I was going to bring that up. Because I did remember Paul talking about you don't have to keep the kosher eating laws, and do the Gentiles have to get circumcised? It's probably fine. And what's funny is that in my mind, probably just because of the order that the books are in in the book, I was thinking of Matthew as predating Paul, but obviously not. So is the author of Matthew trying to refute Paul's assertion that it's okay for the Gentiles not to follow some of these laws?

Dan McClellan I think that's a reasonable way to interpret what's going on. Matthew is coming around 80 to 90 CE, somewhere around there. Paul was mostly active in the 50s and early 60s CE. And so the followers of Paul are probably getting pretty large. And I think the Gospel of Matthew is probably pushing back from the other end of the spectrum. Say, "No, it turns out Jesus doesn't want you to not follow these laws. And anybody who teaches you otherwise, pull! Is going to be least in the kingdom of heaven." I think that's a reasonable understanding of the background of this.

Dan Beecher Interesting.

Dan McClellan I'm sure there are New Testament scholars out there who would know a lot better than me where this discussion stands precisely. But I think that's probably a reasonable question to ask, and it makes sense to me. In the other Gospels, they're a little closer to Paul than the Gospel of Matthew is. But Matthew is the place where you find a lot of stuff about making sure you keep the law. So, for instance, when Matthew has Jesus scold the Pharisees saying, "You tithe dill and cumin, and you neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, righteousness, and mercy," he says, "You should make sure you do these without leaving the other undone." In other words, the Matthean Jesus is still saying, "Yes, you still tithe. You still have to do the tithe. So go ahead and tithe your mint and your dill, but just make sure you're being exactly as precise with the other weightier matters of the law." And there's no part of Matthew where Jesus actually endorses the just straight-up rejection of any Mosaic law. There are reinterpretations, but not as a way to say, "We're doing away with this," but, "Oh, you guys have been understanding it wrong. It's actually like this." There's still always going to be an expectation that the person is to meet. It just might not be the way it has been traditionally interpreted. So you find that throughout Matthew.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan You don't find it in the others.

Dan Beecher That's fascinating.

Dan McClellan You don't have references to continuing to tithe dill and cumin and stuff like that in the other Gospels.

Dan Beecher I think that one of the things about this discussion that is something that we circle back to a lot, which is the tension that I described early on with me having conversations with Christians about things that seem to be conflicting in their theology. I think that it's very clear that the Bible itself has plenty of those tensions where it is not clear one book to the next. You have to bend it to come up with a unified biblical theology.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Where probably the more honest look at it, and maybe the more useful but more complicated look at the theology of the Bible, is just that it's not clear. It argues with itself about it.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And it should be seen as a conversation more than anything declarative or final.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I think the reason Matthew writes a gospel, or whoever the author of the Gospel of Matthew was, it's not because Mark got everything right.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's precisely because, wait, what about all this other stuff? And, oh, I disagree about that. And so Matthew is really putting up another, it's a volley. It's kind of a discursive volley. Mark's like, "Ha!" And Matthew goes, "Uh." And they're kind of going back and forth, and suddenly Luke drops onto the court and goes, "Ha ha!" And then John is like, "I got you all beat."

Dan Beecher John's just sitting in the back with a cigarette waiting.

Dan McClellan Yeah. In the shadows. But yeah, I think what happens is you've got all these folks making their case for a way of thinking about Jesus's identity and mission, and the responsibility of those who are going to follow Jesus, and they're different cases. And then when that was all done, all the followers of Jesus were like, "We need to come together, guys. Why can't we all just get along?" And they took the text and went, "Okay, now they're all one collection. Now let's figure out the one thing that they all mean." And they didn't mean one thing. They meant a bunch of different things. And so now we look back at the text, and we impose this unifying framework of inspiration, inerrancy, univocality, historicity, and you have no choice but to just meddle with and do violence to what the authors were trying to get across and what they were trying to accomplish. And I think that's one of the biggest problems with the presupposition of univocality is that it basically says, "I'm in charge of what this is allowed to say." And if James says, "I disagree with Paul," we got to figure out a way to screw with James's text until we can understand it as being in perfect harmony with Paul. And I think that's problematic.

Dan Beecher Yeah. You're just going to do your own brain a big favor if you just relax and go, "Okay, they disagree. So I'm going to figure out what's meaningful to me and make it work in my mind." But the cognitive dissonance is too painful.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So yeah.

Dan McClellan I don't know. Just treat yourself. Just let that weight just vanish.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And there are a lot of things that people are white-knuckling because it's tied up with that conception of scripture. But good golly, you're going to shorten your lifespan if not just the acid reflux that you're going to cause by just bearing down on this understanding of scripture. For all that is good and holy, just let the texts be what they were intended to be.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's so much easier, and also, I think, more interesting.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Because if you get to say, "Wow, what is this author trying to do here?" without saying, "Whatever it is, it has to agree with everything that I'm bringing to the text, and my pastor and my parents and my wife are telling me I'm not allowed to deviate from," it's pretty milquetoast.

Dan Beecher It's pretty bland.

Dan McClellan But if it can be whatever the author wanted it to be, I think it's just so much more fascinating and intellectually honest.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But that's just me and us.

Dan Beecher It's just we. It's just the official position of this podcast.

Dan McClellan The royal we, if you will.

Dan Beecher It is us.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Well, that was fun. I enjoyed that. Listen, if you've enjoyed what you've seen, like, comment, subscribe, do all of those things. It's really important. Just hit the subscribe button. It doesn't hurt. And if you want to be extra special supportive of us, you can join us over on patreon.com/dataoverdogma, where you can become a part of keeping this thing going. We really appreciate our patrons. There's also bonus content every week that you won't get anywhere else. So head over there and become one of our patrons. Thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing the show, and we will talk to you again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.