Loading...On my podcast this past week (Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman) someone asked me if I thought any of the Gospels of the NT were influenced by Paul. It’s an interesting question that I should post on (my view: Mark, maybe; Luke, unexpectedly and oddly not; John, I doubt it; Matthew?)
Ah, Matthew. As it turns out, I think Matthew shows a rather obvious and ironic connection with Paul. Did he know Paul’s writings? I have no idea. Did he know about Paul? Same, no idea. Did he oppose a major feature of Paul’s gospel message? Sure looks like it!! (I’m trying to say that he could be opposed to Paul’s views without necessarily knowing Paul’s writings; the views may have been more widely spread than just by Paul. In fact, they almost certainly were.
Here’s how I’ve discussed the matter once when I was reflecting at greater length in the issue:
Paul certainly had opponents in his lifetime: “Judaizers,” as scholars call them — that is, Christian teachers who maintained that followers of Jesus had to follow the Jewish Law: Men were to be circumcised to join the people of God; men and women were, evidently, to adopt a Jewish lifestyle. Presumably that meant keeping kosher, observing the Sabbath, and so on. Anyone who didn’t do this was not really a member of the people of God, since to be one of God’s people meant following the law that God had given.
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians in particular he shows that he was thoroughly incensed at this interpretation of the faith and insisted with extraordinary vehemence that it was completely wrong. The gentile followers of Jesus were not, *absolutely* not, supposed to become Jewish. Anyone who thought so rendered the death of Jesus worthless. It was only that death, and the resurrection, that made a person right with God. Nothing else. Certainly not following the Torah.
I really don’t see how Paul and the author of the Gospel of Matthew could have gotten along.
Some background: Matthew’s Gospel was
Get access to Dr. Ehrman's library of 4,000+ articles plus five new articles per week about the New Testament and early Christianity. It costs as little as $2.99/mth and every cent goes to charity!
Unlock 4,000+ Articles Like This!
That’s funny, I also had the impression that Mark was the more Paul-influenced gospel. Almost like HE, and not the author of Luke, was the Luke of legend (i.e., the companion of Paul).
Mark certainly has more theological views that are like Paul’s than Luke. I don’t think that means he was his companion necessarily or even that he knew his writings. Presumably lots of people had similar views.
Is it Matthew’s view then that one’s keeping the Commandments and the death of Jesus are both necessary for salvation/eternal life?
I”m not sure how exactly he worked it out. But possibly he meant that someone needs to believe in the death of jesus for salvation and anyone who believes in the death of Jesus for salvation needs to follow the law strictly. And possibly, tho not necessarily, he also thinks that anyone who does not keep the law strictly is not a follower of Jesus and therefore is not a true believer in Jesus.
Interesting point Bart; but what about Galatians 5:3?
“if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law.”
I read Paul here as stating that any of the followers of Christ who are circumcised – as Paul, Peter (and most likely the author of Matthew) were – must obey the *entire* Law; as Jews ‘by nature’, this is both an obligation and a blessing for them. For those not Jews ‘by nature’ it is a curse; ‘sinful Gentiles’ cannot become unsinful Jews just by being cut.
If Jesus had come to supercede or destroy the Law, then it could not be that that Law was stilll operative, in its entirety, to bind those of the circumcision 25 years later.
But, for Paul, the Law stands still as the cultivated olive tree onto which the wild olive branches of the Gentiles can now, through Christ, be grafted; Romans 11:24. The difference is in *how* they are to be grafted – not through circumcision but through faith in Jesus.
I don’t think he is referring to Jews who are circumcised (Peter, etc). He himself was circumcised but is quite explicit that hwen he was a with gentiles he lived as a gentile, not as a Jew — that is, that he did not follow the dictates of the law. In Gal. 5:3 he is referring to gentile converts to become followers of Jesus. If THEY think circumcision is necessary for their commitment to Christ, then necessarily they think that every law of Torah (not just circumcision) has to be followed. And if they think that, then they don’t understand that salvation comes from Christ apart from the law. It’s an argument about gentiles converting to Judaism, not about Jews born Jewish.
Thanks Bart; though I’m afraid I cannot agree Galatians 5:3 allows of an exception for circumcised ‘Jews born Jewish’ ; I read it as “every man being circumcised is obliged to obey the whole law”. I cannot see this as referring only to the Galatian’s subjective expectations, if I understand you aright? But even were that not the case; to me it still follows that for those persons on whom the Law is binding, it binds in its entirety. Matthew, on this, fully agrees with Paul.
I am interested to know where you find statements from Paul that he does not “follow the dictates of the law”. Are you taking this from 1 Corinthians 9:21, “.. to those without the law as without the law”? Though to do that you must disregard Paul’s qualifying parenthesis; “though not myself being without the law of God”.
A better reading, to me, is that Paul’s actions were always such as to be acceptable both to Jews and to Gentiles; specifically, as Paul states both here and in Romans 14:2, as the ‘one who is weak’ he himself avoids meat, and eats only vegetables.
But doesn’t Jesus play fast and loose with the commandment to keep the sabbath in Matthew? What other laws could he have interpreted differently than the “traditional” versions?
Disagreeing on how a law was to be interpreted is not the same as disagreeing on whether a law has to be obeyed. And throughout Judaism there were lots and lots of Jews who believed that there were times when a law had to be broken in order to obey another greater law (if a person was going to die on a Sabbath if you didn’t “work” to save her, you should do the work even though it’s against the law). But also, most laws could be interpreted in a wide range of ways by people who saw themselves as keeping, not breaking, them. That’s why rabbis had so many arguments over what laws meant. (The Talmud is all about different undersgandings of how to follow law)
The Jewish position on the matter of law was clearly a “thorn” in Paul’s side. He took it very personally. You can catch in Paul’s writing that, despite his denial of personal “glory” attached to his ministry, he considered ‘who he was’ to be very dependent on ‘what he preached’, and so, to criticize discipleship without adherence to the law was to criticize Paul.
Everyone wants acceptance, especially when the primary goal one has is to gain support. In Acts, we infer that Paul started out with what we might call a standard evangelistic message, from the Jewish perspective, that was better received by non-Jews, so that he eventually shifted his focus audience to Gentiles. In coming to depend on Gentile acceptance, could one of Paul’s motivations, even on the sub-conscious level, have been to advocate for his devotees? In formulaic terms:
Paul’s preaching yielded a Gentile constituency.
Paul’s success (self worth) depended on his constituency.
Paul’s defense of his constituency in his Theology kept most gentile followers from falling away from his teaching over hard to follow impositions on their cultural norms.
That’s just a possibility to me. Not sure if there’s anything to it.
Reading Matthew 5:19, I noticed that the word “least” is used:
ὃς ἐὰν οὖν λύσῃ μίαν τῶν ἐντολῶν τούτων τῶν ἐλαχίστων
καὶ διδάξῃ οὕτως τοὺς ἀνθρώπους,
ἐλάχιστος κληθήσεται ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν οὐρανῶν·
Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands
and teaches others accordingly
will be called least in the kingdom of heaven…
Paul uses the same word for “least” in 1 Cor 15:9 to describe his claim to be an apostle.
Ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι
ὁ ἐλάχιστος τῶν ἀποστόλων
For I am
the least of the apostles…
Why is this happening?
I”ve often wondered about that passage in Matthew; he appears to thinkit is still possible to acquire the kingdom without being perfectly obedient to the law; possibly that applies to people who are by and large avid keepers of the law but are a bit loose in their understandings of what that entails, instead of strict literalists?
“did more work & was least of the apostles’
Either St paul wasn’t considered an apostle or lacked weight as he didn’t live & walk with jesus .
https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/15-9.htm 9For I am the least of the apostles and am unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not in vain. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.…
Berean Standard Bible
20For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
…3“Truly I tell you,” He said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5And whoever welcomes a little child like this in My name welcomes Me.…
Berean Standard Bible · Download
Couldn’t similar arguments be employed by those who hold that Mt. 28:16-20 was not originally a part of Matthew’s Gospel? If Matthew insists that Jesus’ followers must adhere scrupulously to the law, why would Jesus commission the apostles to go to the Gentiles, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”? These last few verses sound like something adherents of Paul would want the “gospel” to say. Which raises a different question? How familiar were Paul’s later disciples with the Gospels? Do the apocryphal letters betray any familiarity with the Gospels or opposition to them?
I imagine Matthew was writing to a Christian community that would have still had gentiles. Matthew wasn’t advocating for Christianity just for ethnic Jews. Matthew believed that whether you were a Jew or Gentile, you still needed to adhere to the Law if you were going to be a follower of his movement.
The contradiction between Matthew and Paul leave me so aghast at how anyone can say they know for certain what God wants anyone to believe, especially based on the Bible. My Mother has insisted for years that the reason the early Church (think Roman Catholic) didn’t want the Bible translated into local languages is because they knew that the study of the Bible could lead to insanity at worst, confusion at best. Well, honestly, no wonder, one book or author rarely agrees with another. Yet, I still think there’s beautiful wisdom in the Bible. I just tire of how some people believe only THEIR interpretation is correct. I honestly don’t know how you deal with it as I assume you hear it constantly.
Yeah, it’s bothersome. But for me these days, not nearly as bothersome as political discourse….
“…Paul’s views, who insists that *his* readers not think that they must follow the law. ”
Do you think Paul created this view himself or inherited from others who taught him?
He seems to argue that this is the “revelation” he had when he came to realize that Christ was the messiah; he claims he got it straight from Christ Whether he had heard it from someone else before that is an interesitng but probably unanswerable question.
Both Paul and Matthew agree that Jesus’s death is “a ransom for many” and that It is through his death that he “will save his people from their sins”. But Paul also says that *faith* in Jesus is critically important. Do you think Matthew would agree? As I see it, in the passages quoted above Matthew says nothing about faith. In the older sacrifice of, say, a goat, the death of the goat was important, but no one would say that you should have faith in the goat. Or would they?
It’s a great questoin, and I’ve often wondered it myself. I just don’t know what Matthew would say. He doesn’t talk about faith as the important component in salvation, though Jesus’ death and resurrection definitely are.
Dr. Ehrman,
I am curious to why you don’t include the Deuterocanonical books when you speak of the number of books in the Bible? You always say we have 66 books not 73. Just curious to why when for most of Christian history these were part of Bible and to this day the largest group of Christians still consider them scripture.
Thanks
Mainly because the 66 are universally recognized with only minor exceptions and there are debates about the others (i.e., I’m discussing “canonical” not including deutero-canonical, which are called that for the very reason they aren’t on the same standing as the others) . In my textbook on the Bible I cover the Deuterocanonicals as well though.
Hi Dr. Ehrman.
I have two questions that are kind of related. [1] Given Acts 15, can we asume Luke’s community was made up of gentiles who still held to some laws from Judaism? [2] Is there a way of knowing if Paul was in the minority among Christians regarding his views of gentiles needing to ignore the law?
1. I think probably so; 2. I wish I knew. It may have been that when he started out he was in the minority of one, but over time his views gained much wider appeal, sot that at the end of his life…. Who knows?
“until heaven and earth pass away”? I had never thought of this until it was mentioned here, but is this a prediction that heaven will eventually pass away? Or is it just a metaphor for “never”?
The word for “heaven” is the same as “sky.” It’s a way of saying “the entire created order”
Why was your episode on Antisemitism in the gospel of John taken off of the misquoting Jesus podcast? Is there any way for me to view it?
There was some technical foul-up that I was told about but I didn’t really quite get it. The episode itself will be back on eventually; I think maybe they put the wrong Gospel of John episode on (with the wrong description) We’ve recorded a bunch in advance since I’m out of the country for most of the next few months and can’t record every week….
Why would an educated Greek-speaking non-Israelite advocate keeping the Law? Could it have anything to do with trying to be “grandfathered in” to Roman culture as an extension of Judaism?
One big debate is whether he was Jewish. Many, many Jews outside of Israel were strictly law-observant. IN this scenario, he would have been a convert who maintained his Jewish ways. Or think Paul’s opponents in Galatia who insisted on law observance, though themselves gentile. Kind-a like today: Jews for Jesus are mainly gentiles!
Jews for Jesus are mainly gentiles. That is so ironic!
In Matthew 15:4-5 Jesus claims the pharisees contradict the law when he uses the phrase “you however say”.
“God says honor your father and mother … you however say they shall not honor the father and mother with what is gifted to God.”
The same phrase is used by Jesus to contradict the law himself in each of the antitheses. Eg Matthew 5:38-39 “You have heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth … I however say do not resist evil.”
Matthew’s Jesus says he has come to fulfill the law and the prophets. In whatever sense he is “fulfilling the prophets”, this must be the sense in which he is “fulfilling the law”.
Matthew’s Jesus says “Nothing entering the mouth defiles a man but what comes out of the mouth defiles him.”
Paul says “I am fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself”.
Don’t Matthew and Paul have the same understanding of Jesus’s views on the dietary laws?
It’s striking that Matthew takes that line over from Mark but does NOT include the next line in Mark, that by saying this “Jesus declared all foods clean.” It’s often argued that this shows that he still retained kosher food regulations in some way.
I’m not sure exactdly how that would work. But if he really had Paul’s view of the matter, it’s hard to see why he’d leave off that line of Mark. disabledupes{075f426a10abbb5582688a8c6c18b030}disabledupes
Mark’s version speaks more generally of “nothing entering a man from outside can defile him”.
Matthew makes it specifically about dietary laws by saying “nothing entering the mouth can defile a man”.
So this negates the claim Matthew is editing Mark to retain dietary regulations.
Taken in isolation aren’t these two passages far better understood historically as Mark editing Matthew to say nothing in general can defile from the outside and explicitly stating that all foods are clean?
So the Gospel of Matthew was written, it’s maintained, after the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem … 10-15 years after. Therefore, those aspects of the Law that involve Temple sacrifice/worship could no longer be practiced. Does Matthew’s Gospel betray any acknowledgement of this? Isn’t it odd for him to have Jesus say, “until heaven and earth pass away not one iota or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all is fulfilled”?
Interesting issue. Perhaps Christians in the city of Rome in 66CE, knowing that Gessius Florus just plundered the Jerusalem temple and erected a statue of Nero there, interpreted that event as a fulfilment of Daniel’s prophecy about the abomination of desolation in the temple. That would hugely magnify their apocalypticism that the end was at hand and the arrival of God’s kingdom on Earth was, at most, a few years away. That excitement might be responsible for causing Mark’s gospel to be written, say in 67CE, as evidenced in Mark 13:14 “let the reader understand”. If the excitement was great enough then many copies of Mark’s gospel could have been circulated within a highly energized Christian community and maybe that caused another author to compose the gospel of Matthew, say, in 69CE as evidenced in Matthew 24:15 “whoever reads let him understand”. That implies that Matthew was written before the destruction of the temple in 70CE and Luke, written much later, since Luke 21:20 changes the desolation to all of Jerusalem with no mention of Daniel’s prophecy (because Luke knows the apocalypse didn’t happen after the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple).
If the gospels of Mark and Matthew were meant to be understood as I posted on May 9, then that would also explain why Luke moves the end times to the indefinite future in Luke 21:24, “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”, while in Mark and Matthew the end times are imminent. Luke, having a copy of Mark and Q, would realize that Mark is wrong about the end times and that explains Luke’s changes to Mark.
Jews living outside the promised land didn’t have to follow tithing laws either. The law still existed, one would think some pragmatism in following the law was to be expected.
I find this contrast between Paul and Matthew really fascinating! I’ve always wondered if Christianity could not be seen as perhaps the ultimate case of cultural appropriation in all of human history. In the earliest Gospels, Jesus seems to see his purpose as preparing His people (i.e. fellow Jews) for soon-to-arrive apocalyptic era. Within that time frame (“before this generation passes away”), His interest could not have been in saving the world. Who, therefore, made that claim? It seems pretty gradual. The earliest followers of Christ made sense of His crucifixion by forwarding the idea that it was to bring redemption. Paul, picked up on this idea an ran with it to the Gentile world, but his philosophy of side-stepping conversion to Judaism’s rules was not welcomed by all of the apostles, as I understand it. Who, then, are we to believe – the apostles, who spent 3 years with Jesus, or Paul, who claimed to have met Jesus on a spiritual plain? And so I wonder whether those early “evolved” Jews were not closer to what Jesus actually had in mind.
“For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away not one iota or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all is fulfilled”
Professor, what do you think the chances are a Galilean apocalyptic preacher would say “not one iota”?
I suppose he would have said YOD, like iota in greek, the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
Bart: “God gave a law. You should follow it. Scrupulously. Even more scrupulously than the righteous scribes and Pharisees. If you don’t, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
That’s a tall order. And in my judgment it seems very much opposed to Paul’s views, who insists that *his* readers not think that they must follow the law. Pretty big difference. In fact, Paul says anyone is cursed who disagrees with his view of the matter (Gal. 1: 6-9). Surely Matthew disagreed.”
Of course Paul was writing to gentiles. Whereas I think Matthew’s audience included at least a significant component of Jewish Christians. Do you disagree?
I really don’t know. I’ve debated in myself whther Matthew’s audience were mainly of Jewish or Gentile extraction. I think it can be argued both ways. (Why, eg., when Jesus in Matthew describes the laws to be obeyed strictly, it is never laws of ritual, sacrifice, festivals, kosher, sabbath, etc. Were these laws not relevant to the community, as opposed to what we would call “ethical” laws?)
Israel is being bombarded as I write.Why do I bring this up?The Israeli Prime Minister just spoke to the nation.Once again,as many times before,he used the HB expression “whoever attack us,*his blood is on his head*”.This reminds me of Matthew’s infamous perversion of this common expression.
The point is that only someone extremely well versed in Hebrew Scripture could have used this expression,albeit in a horrifically distorted fashion.
Perhaps Mathew,like Paul,was a Christian Jew.Thus Mathew’s attachment to the observance of Torah.
The next conclusion is that Mathew could not have known Paul’s writings.If he did,how to explain Mathew contradicting Paul so drastically using Jesus’ own words?
Is there another translation except “fulfil”, which is attached to prophecy?
Prophecy was an obsession of Gospel writers,even as Israel’s greats-Moses,David- didn’t need prophecy to base their existence and mission on.
The word is important,I think,because that’s how Jesus himself explains his mission.Scripture didn’t need to be “fulfilled”,but could always be reinterpreted,as the Rabbis constantly did.
This makes the “antitheses” so original and poignant.It also means perhaps that Jesus expected enough time would pass before the end to give his followers and converts to change the world by realising his ethical /moral vision.
Fulfill meant two different but related things to Matthew. In some instances a prophecy is “fulfilled” because something was predicted about the Messiah and Jesus did it (Isa. 7:14, born of a virgin; Mic. 5:2, born in Bethlehem) (neither prophecy is actually a messianic prediction, but Matthew took it that way); in other instances something happened in Scripture that Jesus “full-filled” — meaning he filled an earlier event *full* of meaning. And so, Hos. 11:1 — “out of Egypt I have called my Son.” The exodus was a foreshadowing of the salvation Jesus brought, as the embodiment of the people of God (the Son of God representing the Son of God).
Most important: keep safe!
Thanks!Have fun in Darwin-land! Bring back an evolved turtle.😎
My question is how to distinguish what Jesus might truly have said,less nihilistically than The Jesus Seminar,from what Matthew reported.
Mathew massively interpreted the HB,made up stuff and subjectively interpreted the Jesus/Christian data.
When Jesus allegedly said “I came …. to fulfil”,(or accomplish,or complete,or any other possible translation from the Greek word?)it means the world as far as being able to hear Jesus’ authentic voice echoing through the ages.
Matthew was cherry picking and was a dedicated apologist.He didn’t really know what Aramaic word Jesus used to describe his mission(or did he?
If Matthew was 18 when Jesus died,45-50 years later,he could still have written his Gospel,10 years after Mark.
I’ll check the Syriac Peshitta in Aramaic.I suspect the word will be “complete”.
Can we get a description different than “fulfil”,which Jesus could never have said,as the prophetic obsession came from the Gospel writers, not from Jesus,and neither the imaginings of the Children of Israel or The Binding of Isaac and many others were “pre-figuration”of Jesus?
If Jesus didn’t come to “fulfill”,did he come to interpret?complete?preach true devotion to Torah?
Or,as per Paul,”just”to save the condemned-now in a much enhanced role than in Judaism- and to resurrect?
Figuring out what Jesus really said is a massively complicated affair; not sure if you’re read my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet, but I lay out the criteria most scholars follow there. I don’t think Jesus talked about himself fulfilling the law; that’s a later interpretatoin of his signfiicance.
I think Paul’s views were a reinterpretation based on his vision.
Bart: “(Why, eg., when Jesus in Matthew describes the laws to be obeyed strictly, it is never laws of ritual, sacrifice, festivals, kosher, sabbath, etc. Were these laws not relevant to the community, as opposed to what we would call “ethical” laws?)”
Much of this would be irrelevant after the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem when ‘Matthew’ was writing. With respect to kashrut, note how Matthew weakens Mark 7. Some of the rest can be explained as deriving from the specific Halakhah of Jesus which can be integrated into more liberal Jewish teaching.
I only think some of Matthew’s community was made up of more traditional Jewish ‘Christians’, and I think Matthew was trying to bring them along to accept the larger gentile mission (contrast Mt 10,5-6.22 with 28,19). Surely, you agree now, right?
Ha! Nope. I don’t see any strong reasons for thinking so. Some passages destinctive to Matthew are pretty clear that gentiles don’t need to convert to Judaism (8:8-10); sheep and goats — and I should think the Great Commission is indicating the world Matthew is moving in (“all the nations/gentiles”). But I”m happy to be convinced! (“Not during sabbath” and “making all foods clean” are probalby the best indications of a Jewish audience? But I’m not even sure Matthew himself was Jewish)
Bart: “But I’m not even sure Matthew himself was Jewish)”
Nor am I, but I do imagine some in Matthew’s community may have been Jewish or at least influenced by some Jewish ‘Christians’.
It appears that this passage is an expanded version of Luke 16:17, which furthermore drops the “until all is fulfilled” qualifier, so it may not reflect so much Matthew’s views, but that of the Q author, or perhaps Jesus himself. Although “Matthew” often plays fast and loose with historical facts (e.g. the two donkeys debacle), he may have been more loth to do so when there was an established oral/written tradition, and may have simply interpreted it more figuratively, the way many Christians do today. Clearly Jesus, being a Palestinian Jew preaching to his fellow Jews, was highly unlikely to break as cleanly from the Law as Paul did.
Christine Hayes at Yale, her book, “Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities”, argues that Paul believed that in the kingdom to come, gentiles would be 4th class citizens after Kohens, Levites, and Jews, but they still needed to recognize the God of Israel for the kingdom to come. He believes that gentiles shouldn’t follow the Torah because they’re ontologically inferior to God’s chosen people, so they’re almost “not worthy to follow God’s Torah”, but he still needs them to stand in line and profess their faith in order for the kingdom to come, so he’s essentially selling them a lemon by telling them that the Law is no good. How credible do you think this argument is?
I haven’t read the book, but having read Paul roughly 50,000 times I think it’s highly implausible. (You’d note, e.g., that Paul never talks about citizens of the kingdoms and never mentions priests and levites, for starters).
I once had a pastor who explained the differences between Paul’s teaching on keeping the laws and Matthew’s by pointing out that until his death on the cross, Jesus — like all Jews — was still living in the age of the law. Which I always found bothersome on many levels. (Based on the fundamentalist view of God and scripture, which this preacher held to.) Why would the Son of God spend the last few years of his life proclaiming a message that would soon be obsolete? Why would God include this teaching — already having been voided for decades — in his “inspired book?” Why ignore Jesus’s other teachings that clearly anticipate a soon-to-come new cosmic order in assuming he was still teaching about living in the present order?
Such is the cognitive dissonance of trying to make the Bible into a cohesive inerrant narrative.
Yes, and if Jesus was right that keeping the law would bring salvatoin, why would he have to die?
Yes, and if Jesus was right that keeping the law would bring salvatoin, why would he have to die?