Jesus, the author of the Sermon

Church tradition maintains that the Sermon was delivered by Jesus of Nazareth, a first-century Israeli Hebrew from the tribe of Judah, toward the outset of his ministry in Galilee. However, not everyone has agreed with that position.The analysis on this site goes further and takes account of , and provides supports the traditional position.

Twentieth century scholars, prompted by theories concerning the origin of the Gospel of Matthew, and concerned to establish the Gospel’s historical veracity, began to apply analystical techniques to the text. They were struck by parallel passages in Luke’s Gospel where similar sayings occured in different contexts, so they decomposed the Sermon into a series of sayings, then sought to analyse the genre and authenticity of each. The earliest studies of this type suggested that the Sermon had very little to do with the historical Jesus, prompting the idea that its content was a product of the early church. However, recently refinement of such critical analysis of the Sermon on the Mount has restored confidence that the majority of the sayings originated with Jesus, even if the aggregation of them was the Gospel’s author’s work. The analysis on this site carries this trend further and, by taking account of the supposed cultural setting, finds considerable support for the traditional position that both text and structure originated with Jesus, revealing it to be both a finely crafted and a politically nuanced speech.

So what was this Jesus like?. He was many things to his peers, though how you saw him depended upon where you stood. Amongst the people of first century Palestine he was variously looked upon as:

• a Galilean troublemaker (to the temple authorities);
• an extraordinary teacher (to those who heard the Sermon on the Mount);
• the king of the Jews (to Pontius Pilate);
• a carpenter’s son (to the folk of his home town);
• an exceptionally wise man (to some who sought his counsel);
• a fugitive prophet (to those encountering him outside Judea);
• a man with God’s authority (to many who witnessed his miracles);
• a despised rebel (to the Pharisees);
• the Son of God (to his disciples and the demons he opposed);
• a miracle worker (to those healed by him).

Jesus’ agenda was taken directly from the precedents established in the Hebrew Bible and he did little that was not rooted in his understanding of them. So the understanding of the scriptures, as revealed to his disciples on the Emmaus road according to Luke 24:25-27, provide a key to seeing him properly (for an in-depth analysis of this perspective see the Emmaus view).

Jesus taught in a style that was typical of a Rabbi, the clerical teachers in his culture. When teaching formally a rabbi would take as his theme a passage of scripture, then expounded its meaning and applied it; In the case of the Sermonthis was the ten commandments. However, many lessons would be taught by commenting on life situations. A question directed at a Rabbi would often evoke a question in response, one designed to challenge their questioner’s thinking and help them understand the answer for themselves.

. . . now lets take a look athow the Sermon survived the early years