Jesus' Attitude to the Old Testament: An Exposition of Mark 7:1-23

Abstract

Did Jesus accept Old Testament as unquestioned authority for himself and others, or was he a critic of Old Testament teaching ? This question must be of genuine interest to Christian people until some considerable agreement is reached concerning its answer. If Jesus did not question precepts of Old Testament, but, instead, approved them without qualification as a standard of authority, many Christians will continue to feel that his example is authoritative for Christians now. If, on contrary, Great Teacher was a critic of scriptures of his age and accepted or rejected their teachings according to whether those teachings were or were not in accord with another standard to which he adhered, then we shall have not only precedent of his example in study of Old Testament, but also a fruitful suggestion as to its meaning and value. What, then, was Jesus' attitude to Old Testament ? For an answer to this question perhaps no better material can be found than that which is offered by first twenty-three verses of seventh chapter of Mark. The narrative has often been understood to mean that Jesus repudiated tradition of Jewish elders as it had been developed through scribal interpretation, and, by his approval of a quotation from Isaiah and of Fifth Commandment, gave whole Old Testament authoritative sanction as the word of God. Recently Mr. J. H. A. Hart, in The Jewish Quarterly Review (July, 1907), has put forth a learned argument to show that Jesus not only criticized Decalogue and declared Fifth Commandment not binding if Korban vow had been taken as a supreme dedication of one's life to God, but also approved scribal dialectics which supported this position. Is either of these views correct, or must they both give place to a third which evidence seems better to support ?