A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus; Vol. 4: Law and Love

by John P. Meier

Yale University Press, New Haven, 2009. 735 pp. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-300-14096-5.

ALTHOUGH THE PRESENT VOLUME stands on its own as a treatment of its stated topic—Jesus and the Law—the book constitutes vol. 4 of John Meier’s magisterial evaluation of the historical Jesus. Quite helpfully, Meier provides an introductory “roadmap” through the volume as well as a summary discussion of his methods. The main contents of this hefty tome include six chapters, numerated 31 to 36 (in thoroughgoing sequence from the previous volumes). The first of these (ch. 31) grapples with the complicated challenge of defining “the Law,” as the term is used in the Gospels and as the concept was understood by ancient Jews. The subsequent chapters focus on distinct aspects of Jesus’ legal teaching: divorce (ch. 32), oaths (ch. 33), Sabbath (ch. 34), purity (ch. 35), and, finally, love (ch. 36). As readers of Meier’s earlier volumes will have come to expect, each chapter is followed by hundreds of endnotes. The numbered chapters are followed by a conclusion, and appended with helpful maps, charts, and nearly fifty pages of indices (author, subject, and ancient sources). Anyone looking for a sound and comprehensive scholarly survey of Jesus and the Law need look no farther.
Now and then throughout the tome, Meier addresses his “patient reader.” Indeed, despite the clear prose and helpful summaries, readers of this volume should be warned that they will face some challenges, beyond the length and weight of the volume. Bibliographic data is buried in extensive endnotes, with dozens or more items presented together in lengthy paragraphs, in chronological (not alphabetic) order. Other endnotes are discursive—essays in and of themselves ready to be discovered and studied by those who flip back to them. In short: the endnotes are encyclopedic, but not reader-friendly. Even so, Meier’s latest volume is fascinating and important, and this reviewer urges readers to err on the side of patience, and give Law and Love the time and effort these topics deserve.

The main thesis—and a common refrain throughout the book—is that “the historical Jesus is the halakic Jesus” (p. 1; cf., e.g., pp. 8, 297, 528, and 648): Jesus was informed of, concerned with, and indeed something of an authority on, Jewish law. Yet Jesus was not someone who simply followed Jewish law of his day as taught and understood by other authorities, without question or qualification. To be sure, Meier’s chapters on Sabbath (ch. 33) and purity laws (ch. 34) assert that the historical Jesus kept “kosher” and refrained from business on Shabbat. Therefore, the more provocative Gospels’ statements regarding these topics and questioning the value of these laws are either ahistorical (purity) or less controversial (Sabbath) than other writers believe. However, the historical, halakic Jesus as Meier understands him articulated novel—and indeed, controversial—teachings regarding divorce (ch. 31) and oaths (ch. 32), in both cases prohibiting what was previously permitted. When it comes to love (ch. 36), what is distinctive about Jesus’ teaching is his elevation of the biblical love commands within the halakic hierarchy. Jesus does not reject law in favor of love. Jesus, rather, legislates love, authoritatively prioritizing certain biblical commandments (Lev 19:18 and Deut 6:5) above other commandments in the Torah (Mark 12:28–34).

Meier’s halakic Jesus is, therefore, a rather complicated enigma. Those who have tried to simplify Jesus’ legal teaching by focusing on a single slogan or a common denominator will inevi-tably fall short. The distinguishing characteristic here is neither liberalism or conservatism. Law is not replaced by love, and morality is not elevated over ritual. Nor is it sufficient to say, without qualification, that Jesus was law-observant. The distinctive characteristic of Jesus’ halaka, as understood from those traditions that survive Meier’s heavy sifting, is that they represent Jesus’ own approach—neither Sadducean, nor Pharisaic; neither biblical nor rabbinic. Meier’s halakic Jesus is not a systematic one: his legal positions emerge, rather, ad hoc, colored by his charisma, and shaped in response to specific challenges. And this is the enigma of Meier’s volume: like many historical Jesus “questers,” he prioritizes discontinuity over coherence, yet unlike many others, he ends up with a halakic Jesus whose general positions are mostly commensurate (i.e., “continuous”) with ancient Judaism while at times inconsistent (i.e., not “coherent”) among themselves. This somewhat dissatisfying conclusion is persuasive nevertheless, primarily because Meier’s general argumentation is thoroughly compelling. There can be little doubt now that the historical Jesus operated within Jewish law, not against it. But debates about the specifics of Jesus’ historical legal teachings—including divorce, oaths, purity, and love—are sure to continue.

To take one example—in order to illustrate the difficulties—Meier accepts the historicity of Jesus’ prohibition of divorce, giving the Gospels’ traditions high marks for their multiple attestation, as well as for their striking discontinuity with early Judaism and the later church. But can a halakic Jesus prohibit divorce when the Torah itself—in Deut 24:1—explicitly permits it? Yes, because Jewish halaka develops in ways that cannot be predicted based on any single passage from the Torah. So, as Meier correctly asserts, Jesus here articulates a new and otherwise unattested halaka, even while he maintains fidelity to the Torah. Although the plain sense of Deuteronomy is rejected (Matt 5:31), the plain sense of Genesis is elevated: “the two shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:24, quoted in Mark 10:8). So Jesus’ teaching on divorce does not reject the Law. Rather, “Genesis trumps Deuteronomy” (p. 123). My quibble with Meier’s treatment of divorce is minor, but not insignificant: Meier remains emphatic that, in this case, Jesus startlingly prohibits what the law explicitly permits. I am less startled than Meier. Josephus repeatedly reports on the celibacy of the Essenes (e.g., War II.121). Although we don’t know how the Essenes would have formulated their halaka, it would seem to me that their position is more radical than Jesus’, not less: their practice trumps not only Deuteronomy’s prohibition of divorce but also Genesis’s command “to be fruitful and multiply”(1:28). Yet the celibate Essenes are placed by Josephus within the realm of accepted Jewish thought and practice, scholarly efforts to marginalize them notwithstanding. Jesus’ prohibition of divorce, therefore, fits safely within a broad realm of ancient Jewish halakic dispute on marriage and divorce, being somewhat less “discontinuous” than Meier asserts.

For readers of Interpretation, perhaps the greatest challenge raised by Meier will be his provocative assertion that “relevance is the enemy of history” (p. 75). It is natural that readers and preachers will want to know how to make the Jesus of history relevant to the modern day. Meier is not against drawing lessons from the past, but he is concerned enough with the dangers to be cautious: “Are we,” he asks “drawing our lessons from a past that really existed or one that we prefer to make up?” Some recent conjurings of the historical Jesus—especially those that pit a liberal, love-oriented Jesus against corrupt priests, conservative Sadducees, hierarchical Pharisees, or the like—seem more in line with contemporary political correctness than they do with ancient Judaism’s beliefs and laws (p. 648). What Meier asks of his readers is to separate these endeavors as much as possible. If we are interested in the historical Jesus, we must engage that quest prepared to absorb results that may not be simple or easily preachable. Not surprisingly, good portions of this book are neither. And yet, although I am no homilist, I can imagine many a fine sermon that begins and ends with some of the enigmas that are front and center in Meier’s volume. Perhaps above all is his conclusion that the historical Jesus taught that love of God and humanity were not better than the Law, but the best two commandments to be found within the Law. What’s next? I think Meier might agree that we could follow the advice attributed to Hillel in a very rough and rather late rabbinic parallel to the Gospel tradition (b. Shabbat 31a): “Go and learn” (pp. 555–56). There is plenty to be gained from the scholarly quest for the historical Jesus, and John Meier’s Law and Love is a masterful guide.

Jonathan Klawans
Boston University
Boston, Massachusetts

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