Possibly the best-known teaching of Jesus is the Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Many people would consider this the very core of Jesus’ teaching, the one line that sums up his entire message about how people ought to behave and live their lives. And so it probably seems strange that there are scholars who doubt that he actually said it.
Do they have good grounds for thinking so?
In a later post I’ll consider a couple of the best arguments against thinking Jesus said it and then (spoiler alert!). I’ll explain why, in the end, I don’t find the arguments convincing. I think Jesus probably did say it, and even if he didn’t actually say it, I think it brilliantly encapsulates his message.
In this post I’ll set up the discussion by explaining the first appearance of the words in any of our sources, i.e., the Gospel of Matthew.
Before getting to the Gospel of Matthew, I should acknowledge that some of you might be thinking: of *course* Jesus didn’t say these precise words: they are ENGLISH! Yup, fair enough. And it’s even more complicated, since the English words are translations from the GREEK New Testament. And Jesus didn’t speak Greek. He spoke Aramaic. So the Greek words we’re translating into English are themselves Greek translations of words in Aramaic, if they were ever spoken (by Jesus or anyone else) in Aramaic. And something is always lost in translation.
To make things yet more complicated, the common way of stating the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do to you) is not actually a literal translation of what the Greek words of the New Testament say: in the Gospels, when Jesus gives the Golden Rule, the clauses are given in reverse (or rather translators give the clauses in reverse). He *begins* by talking about “the things that you wish people to do for you” and *ends* by saying “do them” or “do likewise.” English translators simply don’t think that way of saying it is as catchy.
Yet more complicated (this is the last complication I’ll mention) the (only) two places in the Gospels that quote the words (in Greek) word them differently; when you see the differences you might think they are rather slight – and fair enough! – but if you want to know what Jesus actually said, it helps to know which words he is said to have used.
The saying is quoted in Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount,” the three-chapter sermon found in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. This is almost certainly the most famous sermon of Jesus in the entire New Testament, filled with famous ethical teachings and presenting the Beatitudes, the Antitheses (“You have heard it said … But I say to you…”), the Lord’s Prayer, numerous famous images and instructions, including, yup, the golden saying of Matthew 7:12: “And so, those things you want people to do for you, do likewise for them.” It is worth noting that Matthew then adds a highly significant statement that explains the supreme importance of the “Rule”: “For this is the Law and the Prophets.”
Nothing could be more important for Jesus as he is portrayed in the Gospel of Matthew than fulfilling the law and the prophets, as I’ll try to explain.
I start by pointing out that the Sermon on the Mount is found only in Matthew (i.e., the other Gospels don’t have it, though Luke, especially, has a number of his sayings, delivered by Jesus on various occasions) and Matthew gives it as the first of five major sermons that Jesus gives in this Gospel. Does the fact that this sermon comes *first*, in the Gospel, as the first extended public teaching of Jesus of any kind, say something about its significance?
The first four chapters of Matthew narrate Jesus’ birth, baptism, temptation, and calling of the disciples. Prior to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus (in Matthew) says only seven words (in Greek) to the public (he does talk directly with John the Baptist before being baptized; with the Devil during his three temptations; and to the disciples when he calls them – that is, these are private conversations). After his temptation he begins his public proclamation with the key words that summarize his entire mission, as Matthew himself indicates by saying that “At that time Jesus began to preach and say…” So this was the beginning of his preaching to the public. And what he says (for his entire public ministry) is summarized: “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is almost here” (literally, something like, “has come near,” often translated “is at hand”; Matt. 4:17).
What matters for Jesus in Matthew, as well as the other two “Synoptic” Gospels, Mark and Luke, is that God’s kingdom is about to arrive, and people need to prepare for it by repenting of their misdeeds and disobedience and return to God. How does one do that? How should people change their ways? How should they behave? What does God want of them?
That’s what the Sermon on the Mount tells them. As I indicated, many close readers of the Gospel have been struck by the fact that this is the first of *five* major collections of Jesus’ instructions in Matthew (the others are his instructions to his disciples in ch. 10; his parables of the Kingdom in ch. 13; his additional teachings about the Kingdom and the church in ch. 18; and the “woes” directed against the scribes and Pharisees and the apocalyptic description of the coming destruction of all things in chs. 23-25). Why does Matthew have five of these extended discourses?
The number five should resonate with Bible readers. The first extended set of instructions for how people are to obey God and live together are in the Hebrew Bible, the Law of Moses. Which is found in the Pentateuch, which literally means “the five scrolls.” These are the five books of the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Striking. Moses has five books; Jesus has five sermons.
Is that an accident? It certainly might be. But it is worth while thinking for a second about how Matthew in particular wants to portray Jesus. He does so by telling stories – some of them found only in his Gospel – that show clearly that he sees Jesus as the new Moses who is closely connected with the original Moses, the one who led the people of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt. That is, in the Old Testament, Moses was the one who was used by God to bring salvation.
That, of course, is the point of Jesus in Matthew. We learn that at the very beginning, when Joseph learns that Mary has become pregnant by the Holy Spirit, and is instructed to name the child “Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21) The Greek name Iesus (comes into English as Jesus) is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name Joshua (comes into English as, well, Joshua) which literally means “Yahweh is salvation.” So of course he is named Jesus. Through him, God will bring salvation, as he did through Moses.
Matthew then tells a sequence of stories meant to show the close ties between Jesus and Moses. Jesus is born in a nation under foreign control (Rome instead of Egypt); the ruler of the land learns of his existence and considers him dangerous (Herod instead of Pharaoh); the ruler tries to destroy him (sending the troops to kill all young boys in Bethlehem instead of ordering the murder of all the boys in Egypt); but Jesus escapes because Joseph and Mary take him away, precisely to Egypt; after the death of the ruler Jesus leaves Egypt, as Moses did at the Exodus (and Matthew makes the allusion clear by quoting Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt have I called my son” – originally referring to the children of Israel, now referring to Jesus); he passes through the water to begin a new life (the waters of baptism instead of the waters of the Sea of Reeds/Red Sea); he is tempted in the wilderness for forty days (as the children of Israel were tempted in the wilderness for forty years); he then begins to instruct his followers by going up on a mountain and delivering God’s law (the sermon given on the Mount instead of the Law given on Mount Sinai).
Clearly Matthew is portraying Jesus as the new Moses (many of these early accounts are found only in his Gospel). Jesus is the one who gives the new law, in order to fulfill the new covenant. This will not be a contradictory law, but a new understanding of the law, a correct interpretation of the law, a fuller exposition of the law, a true – the ultimately true – explanation of what God really wants as embodied in the law, all in the Sermon on the Mount.
When Jesus then gives the Golden Rule, near the end of the Sermon, he emphatically states, it *is* the law and the prophets: the teaching of the entire Bible. This simple saying is the encapsulation of God’s entire law and the proclamation of all his prophets. Whoa.
Luke also has the Golden Rule. But it’s worded a bit differently, as we’ll see. But did Jesus say it at all? That’s what we’ll be considering in a later post.
Dr. Ehrman, off the topic, but is there a book where scholars have compiled what they believe to be Jesus’s actual teachings, saying and events before they were changed? Maybe something sort of like a Gospel but closer to what really might have taken place and been said? Thank You.
Lots of scholars have written books like that. Mine is called Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium.
I reside in a thriving indigenous area, Yucatan MX. Long ago I was told that the Maya have a saying, variously: I am another you / or, You are another me — (implication: treat others as you wish to be treated). It should be noted that I have no facility with Yucateca Maya, and the person who shared this with me is not present. The local indigenous are known to have a largely gentle spirit, which, perhaps, emanates from this outlook. ~eric. MeridaGOround dot com
Thank you very much for sharing that with us, Merida!
Bart, to your knowledge did the Golden Rule originate from this gospel? I was under the impression that it far preceded Christianity.
It is attested much earlier, in various forms. I’ll be talking about that in a post in a couple of weeks.
Thank you for this great post.
The Jewish version of the ” Golden rule” is the” Silver rule”,downgraded from the ” golden”one. The silver rule, attributed to Hillel, uses negative terms “what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.That is the whole Torah”.It׳s amazing how difficult this rule is to follow to this very day,and how much sorrow and mayhem would be avoided if it were followed,before any other rule.״Don’t do”sounds a bit like the Hypocratic ” first do no harm”.It’s a precise rule.We all know what we resent.On the other hand,assuming we know exactly what others want ,is dangerous.Couldn’t we be imposing?Damaging?Over time,I have imagined that”do unto others as *they*would have it done unto*them*,forcing real knowledge of the other,would be more precise than measuring others by our own desires.
Could it be that the apostles amplified what Jesus said?
The name Yeshua ( pronounced Yishua) ישוע is not Joshua/ Yehoshua יהשוע . The letter ה, “God’s letter”,is found in Joshua but not in Yeshua.Both names relate to salvation,but whilst Joshua יהושע does mean״God (Yeho) saves”,Yeshua,accent on u,has no precise meaning. “Salvation”,the closest we could find,would be ending with ה,accenting the a.
יהושע
ישוע
ישועה
Different names, different meanings.
Very interesting. I’ll be talking about Hillel and the Golden Rule (mentioning it at least) in a later post. As to Yeshua: are you referring to Hebrew or Aramaic?
Thanks! I never knew that Y’eshua( Yeshua) is/was different in Hebrew or Aramaic, and now you made me wonder!
The inquiry would include the other Jewish Jesus names in other sources. Eg, there are various ישוע in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, all spelled the same as Jesus.
In particular, ישוע בן יוצדק, Y’shua ( Jeshua) Son of Yotzadak, together with Zrubavel Ben- Shealtiel זרובבל בן שאלתיאל, who was the Head of the Diaspora returning from Babylonia. We studied those as young kids in school, memorized their names, long and weird as they sounded to us!.
Another aspect of the Sermon and the Golden Rule is whether we go by the double set of 1. Love your God. 2. Love your Neighbor as the greatest commandments ( Math 22, Mark 12, Luke 10),from Deut and Levit, but don’t include the Golden Rule, or does the Sermon rule, Math 7, take precedence? Love your Neighbor and Do Unto Others are not the same.Love your Neighbor would take care of your neighbor’s essential needs (food, clothing,lodging, quite focused and common-sense, whilst the Golden Rule is….. vast, and would deal with any aspect of one’s existence, I think.
My sense is that for Jesus, Love your neighbor *as yourself* is comparable to (synonmyous with?) Do to others as you’d have htem do to you. “You” are the criterion by which to judge whether you are behaving the way you should toward others.
This may be mischief on my part, but here you are giving away the hitherto unconfirmed information that you think Jesus did convey the Golden Rule as Matthew cites it. 😊
Do you think that there is any connection between Jesus’ golden rule and Hillel the Elder’s? Both the description of Jesus’ tracing in Matthew and the description of Hillel’s in the Talmud describe the ethics of reciprocity as being a summary of the Torah. Hillel and Jesus would have been approx contemporaries, with Hillel being a couple generations older. The principle difference of course was that Jesus taught the Golden Rule in the affirmative and Hillel in the negative.
The Talmud, being compiled 5 centuries later, is not an ideal source for determining the historicity of Hillel the Elder’s teaching of reciprocity ethics. But he as a figure is well attested in the Mishnah, which would have been late 2nd century. And we know the Pharisees and later sages has formal academies for maintained oral teachings on legal and theological matters. I’m guessing that even if the stories are not historical, that there underlying teachings may be more likely to be authentic.
So do we think Jesus may have been influenced by Beit Hillel? Obviously Jesus conflicted often with Pharisee’s so he ultimately ended up not identifying with that tradition, but could we see a direct influence?
Yup! I’ll be talking abuot that i na later post. And yes, the Talmud is very problematic historically; most NT scholars do not appeal to it in reference to the “background” of the NT any more. I doubt if Jesus even knew who Hillel was.
I might add that it’s a blessing that Jesus was not named Joshua- there are cases when the names are interchangeable, but not many-, however more ” religious” Joshua is in Hebrew. In my view, Joshua never existed.There’s a reason the Rabbis never liked the book of Joshua very much. It is viewed as a” poor man’s Moses”, a made up attempt to replicate some of Moses’ deeds to keep Moses’ spark alive. It is a sanguinary book,an attempt to galvanize the Israelites, who, as we now know, did not conquer Israel by force. Not even Jericho.
Yeshua (or Y’shua) is a derived name, a name in its own right, meaning no more than ,e.g,names derived from Mary or Maria (we could say these two are the same name)such as Marion, Mari, and many others.
Y’shua was very popular in ancient Israel and is mentioned quite a few times in the HB (lots of priests).The diminutive of this name is Yeshu,ישו, like the diminutive of Isaak is Itzik-both diminutives are terms of endearment.
The fact is, though, that we don’t call Jesus Joshua. His parents could have named him Joshua, but they chose Yeshua.There were seemingly no Hebrew names strictly translated as Salvation.
I’m not familiar with Jews in Israel being given the Hebrew names when there were Armaic equivalents in the period, but I’ve never really looked into it.
Great stuff Bart. I’m very much looking forward to the rest of your posts on this topic. Can I ask a couple of questions :
1. What is your favourite Canonical gospel, and why ?
2.. What is your favourite non Canonical gospel, and why ?
Thank you.
1. Mark. It is brilliant and subtle, completely underrated by people who read quickly but recognized as a gem by those who dig deep; 2. Probably Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Fascinating and funny (though probably not meant to be)
Thank you Bart. I appreciate your reply.
I know you’re not a big fan of social media, but I stumbled across two things which may or may not be of interest to you. One is a “review” of your book Jesus Before The Gospels from YouTube (pretty favorable), and the other is a twitter link to an essay by a PhD student in Hebrew Bible, surveying “the Historical-Critical Scholarship on Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13.” The essay was published in the journal “Currents In Biblical Research.” If you’re interested but not subscribed to the journal, I am having a PDF copy of the essay emailed to me shortly, and I can forward to you if you like.
Hopefully I’m not being too presumptuous. Just thought I’d give you a heads up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzT7_mhbILE
https://twitter.com/CbrJournal/status/1584218627880153089
I like all four gospels! The Gospel of Thomas is very strange indeed!
I’m looking forward to the rest of this thread.
I usually think of the Golden Rule and Great Commandments as the heart of Christianity —or at least nothing else is closer to the heart.
However, I’ve come to equally value John’s “love one another as I have loved you.” Unlike the other two, it explicitly makes God’s love for us the starting point.
However, John’s formula doesn’t include any clear reference to love of self. Nor does it refer explicitly to love of God.
Are you aware of any other phrase or formula, whether from the Bible or elsewhere in Christianity, that covers all these bases?
“God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them” might be the formula I’m looking for?
Yes, that’s good too.
Nothing quite like those two.
I think some scholars doubt because it sounds too much like what other non Christian religious leaders have said so they want to make Jesus special and original.
Is there any archeological evidence that the Jews were slaves in Egypt?
No.
Interesting!
Depends what ” Jews” means.” Jews” would have been anachronistic. Judah was just one of the tribes.The other tribes still existed,in Canaan. At the root of the various ( small, relatively) migrations from Egypt were:
1. The Shasu of YHV(H), from two different places, recorded in Egyptian inscriptions.
2. The Levites, perhaps originating partly from Midian (as Moses,a Levite,was) ,who brought YHVH with them. As they had no land, the Levites, still an important tribe (eg. infamous massacres of the Golden Calf and Sch’chem) were given the priesthood and role of Israel’sTorah teachers. As Richard E. Friedman writes,” you didn’t mess with the Levites”. Many Levite descendants are with us today, whose common DNA stems from one single millenarian ancestor ( Aaron?)for 2/3 of them.
” Shema Israel” shows how the syncretism of YHVH (God from Edom, Se’ir) and EL ( Canaanite father of the gods and the original God of Israel, as in the name Israel itself (meaning, EL Rules/leads/etc) worked.
YHVH,pronounced
YAHU( A)(H) came from Egypt, as attested in the Song of Miriam/ Song of the
Sea, which together with the Song of Deborah, are the oldest texts in the HB. Their chronology is shown by the early form of Hebrew/Canaanite., Ex.15).
I think the term “Jew” starts being used in the Persian period when Judea was a province, and it meant “person from Judea,” and then, with the diaspora, “person who keeps the customs and religion of the perople from Judea” (which would have included the areas inhabited by descendants of both Judah and Benjamin). (That’s why the Jew Paul could claim to be the tribe of Benjamin)disabledupes{949d2f3458ff015ec60e7c89fe25327a}disabledupes
Thanks Gisele and Bart for clarifying things for me! I think I meant the Hebrew people.
(there’s a broken disabledupes at the end)
“I think the term “Jew” starts being used in the Persian period when Judea was a province, and it meant “person from Judea,”
Are there any sources from the Neo-Babylonian period for what a person from Yehud* was called?
*i.e. the territory ruled by Gedaliah and then ?? after he was assassinated; AFAIK about the same *area* as Achaemenid Yehud Medinata, but the relevant Biblical narratives, again AFAIK, all derive from the Exilic community.
I’m not sure.
I’m not sure.
this is a great article! what a contrast! when it comes to biblical studies it seems like theology is inevitable, is that a fair assessment? I wanna use this as a point of reference for study!
I’m not sure what you mean about theology being inevitable? Do you mean that it’s hard to study the Bible without drawing implications about the authors’ views of God? That’s certainly true I would say.
yes thank you!
the second Man is the Lord from heaven. [1 Co 15:27b] what is your scholarly opinion, is this christ pre-existent or resurrection exaltation here? I need to dig into your articles labeled Paul’s letters!
It appears to be referring to Christ as a heavnly being who came to earth.
I’ve always like the story about Hillel. Someone says he’ll convert to Judaism if Hillel can recite the whole law while standing on one foot. So Hillel gives what’s often called the negative version of the Golden Rule, and says the rest is commentary—but also adds go and study it.
I’d always thought the overall point to be that the detailed law was strictly secondary and relatively unimportant. However, I read something recently to the effect that the final phrase-go and study it-was a point that was almost equally important to what came before it. Though I don’t remember why.
Is there a scholarly interpretation or consensus about what Hillel meant, especially by the last part?
I think so: he means that the entire point of the Law is to treat others well. (Sorry to be slow replying to your comment: it somehow got lost in the shuffle!)
I once read a beautiful story about a young man who was losing his faith and a good pastor.
The pastor cited John 14:6.
The young man asked him “But what if Jesus NEVER SAID THAT?”.
Ah, I read about that too….
Thank you for this summary of Matthew. It seems that much of the author’s events are non-historical. Is the thought that the author used both historical and non-historical events and wove them into a story that made Jesus into the second Moses?
If so, were the non-historical events made up by the author so that he could create his story?
Yes, that’s right. Though it’s not clear how much of the non-historical material he udnersttood not to be historical. My sense is that he thought all of it happened, and in my view he almost certainly had *heard* all these stories, not make them up.
Sometimes it seems funny, we worry so much over figuring out the possible gospel autographs… when there were decades of oral transmission and story telling before Mark.
It’s because we *have* the manuscripts but *don’t* have access to the oral traditions. It’s very hard to analyze what we don’t have. It can be done, but it’s very difficult and fraught.
This discussion about the so-called Golden Rule seems to be missing any consideration of the nature of the emotional or mental state of the person. My take is that it confuses the traits of sympathy and empathy. I take the former to involve the notion that all people are alike — that those things I like or don’t like for myself are the same as what others like or don’t like. In other words, if I would want an evangelical Xian to push hard on me to repent and be saved, then I can go ahead as an evangelical Xian to impose my belief on others.
Empathy, though, requires truly understanding where the other person is in life and adapts what works for me to what works for THEM. It inherently requires truly getting to understand the other. It takes humility to appreciate that we probably will never truly understand, so we must take car not to project our own feelings on them.
(And don’t get me started on the philosophical concept of the Universality of Human Experience.)
Sadly, empathy is hard even for those who strive to practice it, and the “Golden Rule” falls far short.