|
by
Doug Ward |
Jesus taught that the precepts of the Torah are encapsulated in the
two "great commandments" of love for God and love for neighbor (Mt
22:36-39). "On these two great commandments," he said, "depend all
the Law and the Prophets" (v. 40). His apostles faithfully communicated
the same message in their own inspired writings (Ro 13:9-10; Gal 5:14; Jas 2:8;
1 Jn 4:20-21).
This
summary of God's commandments was among the least controversial of Jesus' teachings.
One scribe who heard it heartily agreed (Mk 12:28-34). Luke mentions a Torah
expert who endorsed it (Lk 10:25-28), an indication that it was a familiar
formulation. For example, the great commandments are also juxtaposed in the
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, a Jewish work of the Second Temple period
(T. Issachar 5:2; 7:6; T. Dan 5:3).
Although
pairing the love commandments was not unique to Jesus, his emphasis upon them
was distinctive. We see such an emphasis in the parable that he told the Torah
expert in Luke 10:30-37, the parable of the good Samaritan. This parable makes
a statement about the relative importance of the commandment to "love your
neighbor as yourself" (Lev 19:18).
|
Dueling
Commandments |
In the parable a man who had been assaulted and robbed was lying
half dead by the side of the road between Jerusalem and Jericho (v. 30). A
priest walking down the road saw the man and had a decision to make. If he
checked on the victim and the man turned out to be dead, he would have violated
the commandment of Lev 21:1-4, which forbids priests from having contact with
the corpse of any person who is not a close relative. The priest decided not to
risk breaking this commandment and gave the man a wide berth (v. 31).
Later
a Levite came down the road and saw the man. For the Levite there presumably
was less at stake in coming in contact with a dead body. If he checked on the
man and the man turned out to be dead, the Levite would contract a temporary
ritual impurity and would not be allowed to serve at the Temple for a seven-day
period (Nu 19:11-13). Still, the Levite decided to avoid the possibility of
corpse defilement. He walked by the man on the other side of the road (v. 32).
Finally,
a third traveler came along, a Samaritan, who made sure to check on the man.
When he found that the man was still alive, he transported him to an inn and
provided for his care. The Torah expert agreed with Jesus that it was the
Samaritan who had made the best choice by treating the assault victim as his neighbor
(vv. 33-37).
Jesus
carefully constructed the parable to create a hypothetical situation in which
two commandments are in conflict. Situations of this type were frequently
discussed by Jewish sages of his day and afterwards. When faced with such a
dilemma, one has to decide which commandment takes precedence. Appealing to
mercy and compassion, the parable makes a persuasive case that the love
commandment of Lev 19:18 should carry more weight than the stipulation for
priests in Lev 21:1-4.
To
make his point, Jesus could have had the third person in his parable be any lay
person who was obedient to the Torah. Having a Samaritan play this role added
an additional twist to the story. Samaritans, who did not recognize the
authority of the Jerusalem Temple, were deemed to have an inferior
understanding of the Torah. But in the parable, it was the Samaritan whose
obedience surpassed that of the priest and the Levite.
However,
the parable should not be taken as a condemnation of priests and Levites or a rejection
of the rules in Leviticus about ritual impurity. In fact, following the
Samaritan's example by saving the lives of people in danger would tend to
decrease the amount of ritual impurity in the world.1
Rather, Jesus was making a point about the overriding importance of the love
commandments.
|
Burying
the Dead |
We do not know what the majority of first-century priests and
Levites would have done in the situation described in the parable. One
additional consideration that could have influenced their thinking was the
obligation to give every deceased person a prompt burial, based on Dt 21:23.
This obligation was taken very seriously, as illustrated by the book of Tobit,
in which the title character is diligent to bury abandoned corpses (Tob 1:17-19; 2:3-9; 12:12-13). A priest or Levite who
deemed Dt 21:23 to outweigh Lev 21:1-4 would have checked on the man beside the
road.
We
do know about a relevant decision made by later rabbis. The Mishnah, the written
compilation of Jewish oral law dating from around 200 AD,
proposes another hypothetical situation in Nazir 7:1. In this scenario, a
priest and a Nazirite come upon a dead body. (Nazirites, during the time of
their vows, were also forbidden to go near a corpse-Nu 6:6.) The rabbis agreed
that one of the two should bury the body, and they discussed the question of
which one should do it. For them, the obligation to bury the dead clearly took
precedence.
It
is worthwhile to compare Nazir 7:1 and Luke 10. The rabbis in the Mishnah ruled
that burying the dead had more urgency than the instructions for priests and
Nazirites. In Jesus' parable, the implication is that the love commandments
have the highest priority of all.2 In his
life and death, Jesus demonstrated the kind of love he was advocating. Our
calling now is to “go and do likewise” (Lk 10:37).
1See the discussion by
Matthew Thiessen in Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels' Portrayal of
Ritual Impurity Within First-Century Judaism, Baker Academic, 2020, pp.
113-119.
2New
Testament scholar Richard Bauckham believes that Jesus was unique in the
emphasis he placed on the love commandments. See "The Scrupulous Priest
and Good Samaritan: Jesus' Parabolic Interpretation of the Law of Moses," New
Testament Studies 44 (1998), 475-489.
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