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Did Jesus follow the Oral Law?

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As we explained earlier (see #3), traditional Jews believe that when God gave Moses the written Torah on Mount Sinai, He also gave him an oral Torah, consisting of explanations to the written commandments. This unwritten Torah was then allegedly passed on in a virtually unbroken chain right up to the time of Yeshua, after which time it gradually began to be put in written form.

In reality, the idea of an unbroken Oral Law going back to Moses is a religious myth. However, there is no question that various traditions did develop among the Jewish people in the Old Testament period. And in the centuries immediately preceding the New Testament period, the Pharisees began to develop a body of tradition that ultimately became the foundation of traditional Judaism. It is these Pharisaic traditions that are specifically mentioned in the gospels, referred to as “the traditions of the elders” (see Matthew 15:2; Mark 7:3). Did Jesus adhere to these traditions?

On the one hand, it is clear that, at times, He differed with some of the traditions, to the point of saying to the Pharisees, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men. . . . You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!” (Mark 7:8–9). It is against this backdrop that many of the conflicts between Jesus and the religious leaders can be explained (see Mark 2:23–3:6; John 5:1–18; 9:1–41), and He reserved some of His most scathing comments for hypocritical religious leaders, pointing specifically to some of their traditions (see Matthew 23:1–4, 16–22).

On the other hand, Jesus accepted, affirmed or practiced some of these traditions (see Mark 6:41; 8:6; 14:22–23, 26, all of which reflect traditional Jewish practices of the day; see also Matthew 23:23–24, where Jesus says that the Pharisees should have continued their scrupulous practice of tithing as long as they first emphasized “justice, mercy and faithfulness”). The synagogue itself was a traditional institution—it is not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures—and there are numerous accounts in the gospels of Yeshua attending synagogue services.

Putting this evidence together, we can see that Jesus was a Jew of His time, living within many of the traditions that existed, actively embracing some of the traditions that He was at home with while strongly rejecting those traditions that violated the spirit and intent of God’s Word and God’s heart.[156]

So what about Matthew 23:2–3? There Yeshua tells the crowds and His disciples that, because “the teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat,” the people are to obey the teachers of the law and “do everything they tell you.” However, their example was not to be followed, which Jesus makes clear in the very next verse: “But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them” (verses 3–4). Does this mean that the Lord was instructing His followers to submit to the Pharisaic traditions? Or, more radically, does this mean that followers of Jesus today should submit to the rulings of traditional Jewish rabbis?

Based on the fact that Jesus rebuked some of these very leaders for replacing divine truth with their man-made traditions (see again Mark 7:8–9), and based on the different system that He set in motion—founded on different spiritual principles (see Matthew 12:1–14, which follows Matthew 11:28–30; see also #46)—it is inconceivable that He mandated that all of His followers should submit unconditionally to the teachings of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. Elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus warned His disciples about the “yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” namely, “the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6, 12), and throughout Matthew 23, Yeshua has nothing but searing rebuke for the hypocrisy of some of these leaders. He was hardly ordering His followers to submit to everything they taught! Not only so, but it is clear that the disciples in the book of Acts did not feel the need to submit to all the rulings of the religious leadership, stating clearly that, when push came to shove, “We must obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29).

What, then, was Yeshua saying in Matthew 23:2–3? There are several plausible explanations:

1. He was using biting sarcasm or irony. According to this view, which is espoused by Professor D. A. Carson, the Lord was saying, “Yes, you have the name and the prestige and you call out to God—but it is all a show! So, everyone, be sure to listen to everything these men say—right!—but do not follow their example.” Based on this interpretation, which would be in harmony with the larger critique of the Pharisees in the gospels as well as the rest of this chapter, Jesus was not stating that His disciples should submit to their teaching, using biting, prophetic sarcasm to make His point.
2. The Lord was making a temporary concession. According to this view, Jesus was saying, “For now, these men sit in the seat of authority, so you have to submit to their rulings. But soon enough they will be displaced.” Support for this is found in Matthew 21, which culminates with a parable that concludes, “I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit” (verse 43). Significantly, verse 45 states, “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them.” Their authority over the people was soon to be displaced, given instead to the new generation of leaders being raised up by Yeshua, a picture in harmony with the situation in Acts. Matthew 22 reinforces the Lord’s critique of the religious leaders, and it is these chapters, Matthew 21–22, that lead directly into chapter 23.
3. Jesus was saying that the religious leaders should be followed to the extent they adhered to the teachings of Moses. This is the view of Professor Donald Hagner, who argued that what Yeshua meant was that His disciples (and the Jewish people in general, by extension) should submit to the teaching of the Pharisees insofar as they accurately represent Moses. This is certainly logical, since it would be unthinkable for anyone to be granted carte blanche religious and civil authority in whatever they said.
4. Jesus was making reference to the precedent set in Exodus 18:13–18, where Moses appointed leaders to adjudicate disputes between the people. According to this view, Yeshua is simply saying, “To the extent that the Pharisees and scribes function as judges in the society, submit to whatever they say [cf. Deuteronomy 17:8–13]—but by no means follow their example or submit to their broader teaching.”[157]
5. There was an original Hebrew text, different from our current Greek Matthew, which preserved a different reading of the text. Although there is scholarly dispute about the existence of an original Hebrew Matthew (see #40), and although no ancient manuscript of this Hebrew text has ever been discovered, some scholars believe that a medieval copy of Matthew in Hebrew preserves some of the original wording. In Matthew 23:2–3, there is a variant in the Hebrew text, and contemporary Karaite teacher Nehemiah Gordon has argued that this reflects Yeshua’s original words: As translated by Gordon, the Hebrew text states: “The Pharisees and sages sit upon the seat of Moses. Therefore all that he [meaning, Moses] says to you, diligently do, but according to their reforms [takkanot] and their precedents [ma‘asim, literally, “deeds”] do not do, because they talk but they do not do.”[158] In other words, to the extent the religious leaders tell you to follow Moses, do that, but don’t listen to the rest of what they have to say, and don’t follow their example.[159] This is similar to some of the other views presented, but it is based on a different textual reading.

While there is more scholarly support for some of these positions than others, each of them effectively refutes the very erroneous notion that, for all time, Jesus was commanding His Jewish followers to submit to Pharisaic-Orthodox-traditional Judaism. To the contrary, it was His halakha (i.e., legal principles and rulings) that was to be followed (see also #46), and with the dawning of the new covenant through Yeshua’s death and resurrection (see Jeremiah 31:31–34; Luke 22:14–21; Hebrews 8:1–13), we have been given a new heart and a new spirit (see Ezekiel 36:26–27) by which we now live in the newness of the Spirit (see Romans 7:1–6; 8:1–4).[160]