Jewish law is the focus of many passages in the Gospels. According to one set, especially prominent in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), Jesus admonished his followers to observe the law unwaveringly (Matthew 5:17–48). According to another set, he did not adhere strictly to the law himself and even transgressed current opinions about some aspects of it, especially the Sabbath (e.g., Mark 3:1–5). It is conceivable that both were true, that he was extremely strict about marriage and divorce (Matthew 5:31–32; Mark 10:2–12) but less stringent about the Sabbath. The study of Jesus and the law is, like any other study of law, highly technical. In general, the legal disputes in the Gospels fall within the parameters of those of 1st-century Judaism. Some opposed minor healing on the Sabbath (such as Jesus is depicted as performing), but others permitted it. Similarly, the Sadducees regarded the Pharisees’ observance of the Sabbath as too lax. There also were many disagreements in 1st-century Judaism about purity. While some Jews washed their hands before eating (Mark 7:5), others did not; however, this conflict was not nearly as serious as that between the Shammaites and the Hillelites (the two main parties within Pharisaism) over menstrual purity. It is noteworthy that Jesus did not oppose the purity laws. On the contrary, according to Mark 1:40–44, he accepted the Mosaic laws on the purification of lepers (Leviticus 14).

In one statement in the Gospels, however, Jesus apparently opposed Jewish law as universally understood. Jews agreed not to eat carnivores, rodents, insects, and weasels, as well as pork and shellfish (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14), and the last two prohibitions set them apart from other people. According to Mark 7:19, Jesus “declared all foods clean.” If he did so, Jesus directly opposed the law of God as given to Moses. This seems to be only Mark’s inference, however, and is not in the parallel passage in Matthew 15. More importantly, Peter seems to have first learned of this after Jesus’ death, by means of a heavenly revelation (Acts 10:9–16). Perhaps Jesus did not, then, directly oppose any aspect of the sacred law.

He probably did, however, have legal disputes in which he defended himself by quoting scriptural precedent, which implies that he did not set himself against the law (Mark 2:23–28). His willingness to make his own decisions regarding the law was probably viewed with suspicion. Ordinarily, legal debates were between competing camps or schools, and individuals who decided how to observe laws were deemed troublemakers. That is, Jesus was autonomous; he interpreted the law according to his own rules and decided how to defend himself when criticized. He was by no means the only person in ancient Judaism who struck out on his own, acting in accord with his own perception of God’s will, and so he was not uniquely troubling in this respect, but such behavior might nevertheless be suspicious.

Ethics

Along with his teachings on the kingdom and the law, Jesus advocated ethical purity. He demanded complete devotion to God, putting it ahead of devotion to self and even to family (Mark 3:31–35; Matthew 10:35–37), and taught that people should give up everything in order to obtain what was most precious (Matthew 13:44–46). According to Matthew 5:21–26 and 5:27–30, Jesus also held that observance of the law should be not only external but internal: hatred and lust, as well as murder and adultery, are wrong. The Jesus of Matthew in particular is a moral perfectionist (5:17–48). This fits quite well with the proclamation of the eschatological kingdom of God because Jesus believed, as fellow moral perfectionist Paul did, that divine intervention was near at hand, and therefore people had to be “blameless” for only a short time (1 Thessalonians 5:23). The difficulty with perfectionism in a continuing society is evident in later traditions regarding divorce. Paul quoted Jesus’ prohibition of it but then proceeded to make an exception—that if a Christian was married to an unbeliever, and the unbeliever wished a divorce, the Christian should agree to it—which he explicitly said was his own opinion, not the Lord’s (1 Corinthians 7:10–16). Similarly, Matthew depicts the disciples as responding to Jesus’ prohibition by proposing that if divorce is impossible it is better to avoid marriage (Matthew 19:10). The impossibility of being perfect during a full lifetime leads some modern interpreters to propose that Jesus intended these admonitions to be only an ideal, not a requirement. It is more likely, however, that Jesus the eschatological prophet regarded perfection as quite possible during the short period before the arrival of the Son of Man.

Crowds and autonomy

Jesus’ reputation as healer had one very important historical consequence: he attracted crowds, as the early chapters of Mark (e.g., 1:28, 45; 2:2) reveal. By doing so Jesus could spread his message to more people, but he also ran the risk of attracting those whose interest in him was purely selfish and who came hoping for cures only. Moreover, crowds were politically dangerous. One of the reasons Herod Antipas executed John the Baptist was because he drew such large crowds that Antipas feared an uprising (Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews 18.116–119).

Although Jesus’ message was not necessarily socially dangerous, the revolutionary implications of its promise of future reversal of status may have made some a little uneasy, and Jesus’ promise to sinners might have been irritating to the scrupulous. Still, without crowds these aspects of his message would not have mattered very much. He did not strike at the heart of the Jewish religion as such: he did not deny the election of Abraham and the requirement of circumcision; nor did he denounce Moses and the law. Nevertheless, during his Galilean ministry some people regarded him with hostility and suspicion, partly because of the crowds and partly because of his autonomy. It was impossible to know what someone who was autonomous might do next, and this could be dangerous, especially if he had a following.