I'd always found Jesus' comment to be a bit of a non-sequitur: "So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers; because it was they who killed them and you build their tombs."
Burying the dead was a mitzvah, an act of true kindness (unrepayable), that even the high priest was obligated to do if nobody else was around.
But thinking of the lawyers as professional theologians made it click. Their ancestors didn't care for the prophets' messages, so they killed them. The lawyers made sure to carefully reinterpret the messages to make them harmless--bottle them up. Burying the dead is not the same as building a big tomb to hide them behind. We've seen tombs and mausoleums impressive enough to make us forget who it was supposed to remind us of.
The last woe ties in with this interpretation: "you have taken away the key of knowledge." Obscuring the spirit of the law with details, or an "explanation" of why it doesn't mean what it says seems like a good way to do that. And Jesus called out an example of that elsewhere: something dedicated to God (corban), even if the actual gift was delayed and you still enjoyed beneficial use of it, could not be used to take care of your parents, despite the explicit command.
Of course a more usual take also works to explain the last woe: "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" = key of knowledge, and piling up a heap of human rules can obscure the "fear of the Lord."
Applications... It's no trouble at all to find theologians adept at justifying the unjustifiable. Are there hard passages I gloss over? Or at least don't think too much about? Um, yes. I'm guessing that those need more listening, even if my applications don't change.
Don't forget royal Egyptian coffins.
ReplyDelete"Non sequitur", not "non sequitor". The latter means, "Let it not follow."
ReplyDeleteThe Egyptian coffins often had the stylized, or if you prefer "aspirational," images of the dead to remind you. However, the pyramids make me think "pyramid," not "Pharaoh Tutmes 3 1/2 was a great king."
ReplyDeleteThe Pharisees stock-in-trade was focusing on Torah and commentary, even to the exclusion of the Prophets. The prophets had already started the Jews down the road of spirit superseding law and the Pharisees wanted little to do with it. Jesus reminds them that the later books are also scripture.
ReplyDeleteIt seemed a little different to me--when talking to the Sadducees Jesus cites Torah, but to the Pharisees he cites prophets and psalms as though he expects them to be persuaded by the citations. Paul cites psalms and Isaiah and Zechariah etc as well as the Torah, so at least some of the Pharisees were trained in the prophets as well.
ReplyDelete