3 - The Style of Jesus' Teaching
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 January 2010
Summary
Jesus spoke with a prophetic voice to all people. Understanding his message did not require special education or even a life that had been marked by holiness in a special way. Ordinary people heard Jesus' words as the word of God addressed to them. Jesus did not use a “scholarly” or “technical language” such as we find in philosophical writings of the time or in legal disputes over the meaning of the Law. The references to the Law and other images taken from the Hebrew Scriptures are ones that would have been well known to Jesus' audience. Other images in Jesus' teaching reflected the daily life and experience of people.
Since we do not live in Jesus' world as part of our “everyday life,” we often have to use the findings of archaeology and the study of other writings from the time to understand Jesus' images. Even then we may not be sure whether Jesus is simply reporting what people did or whether he has exaggerated a commonplace situation in order to make a point. The well-known Parable of the Sower (Mk 4:3–8) is a good example of this problem:
A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it had not much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil; and when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.
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- Jesus as Teacher , pp. 38 - 61Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990