Here we encounter what
many consider the heart of Jesus’ ethical teaching, including the command to
love one’s enemies and the well-known Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would
have them do to you” (Luke 6:31).
Interestingly, both of these teachings, which we often think of as distinctive
of Jesus, have parallels in the Greco-Roman and Jewish traditions. The most
striking and interesting parallel comes from a Jewish Rabbi named Hillel, a
near contemporary of Jesus.
In a Jewish text
called the Babylonian Talmud, one finds this account: “Once there was a gentile
who came before Shammai [a famous Rabbi], and said to him: ‘Convert me on the
condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.’ Shammai
pushed him aside with the measuring stick he was holding. The same fellow came
before Hillel, and Hillel converted him, saying: ‘That which is despicable to
you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is
commentary, go and learn it’” (Shabbat 31a).
An earlier generation
of scholars, who sought to contrast Jesus with the Judaism of his day, argued
that the positive command of Jesus (“do to others”) was superior to the
negative command of Hillel (“do not do to your fellow”). However, most today
are struck by the continuity of Jesus with his Jewish context and see each
version of the Golden Rule as variations on the same theme. Indeed, both Jesus
and Hillel’s teachings on this matter are rooted in Leviticus 19:18: “you shall
love your neighbor as yourself.”
Elsewhere in this
section of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain we see further engagement with Leviticus
19. Luke 6:36, where Jesus commands his followers to “be merciful, just as your
Father is merciful,” echoes Leviticus 19:2, where the command is phrased in
this way: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord
your God am holy.” It is noteworthy that Matthew’s version of this saying urges
believers to “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect”
(Matthew 5:48). This raises interesting questions concerning Jesus’
interpretation of what it means to be holy. Does it mean to be merciful
as Luke has it, or does it mean to be perfect, as Matthew puts it?
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