Heaven and Earth Pass Away

How to cite this article:
Joshua N. Tilton and David N. Bivin, “Heaven and Earth Pass Away,” The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction (Jerusalem Perspective, 2023) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/26517/].

Matt. 5:17-18; 24:35; Mark 13:31;
Luke 16:17; 21:33^[1] 

Updated: 18 January 2026

לֹא תִּהְיוּ סְבוּרִים שֶׁבָּאתִי לְבַטֵּל אֶת הַתּוֹרָה לֹא בָּאתִי לְבַטְּלָהּ אֶלָּא לְקַיְּמָהּ אָמֵן אֲנִי אֹמֵר לָכֶם נוֹחַ לַשָּׁמַיִם וְלָאָרֶץ לַעֲבֹר מִלְּיוֹד אֶחָד אוֹ לְקוֹץ אֶחָד מִן הַתּוֹרָה לִיבָּטֵל

“My purpose is to ensure that every word of the Torah is interpreted correctly so that it can properly be obeyed according to its true intention. My purpose is not to weaken the Torah with interpretations that rob it of its vitality or power, as some others have done before me.

“Indeed, I can assure you that the whole universe will sooner perish than that a single yod—or even a qotz!—belonging to the Torah will be deleted on account of my faulty interpretation.^[2] 

Reconstruction

To view the reconstructed text of Heaven and Earth Pass Away click on the link below:

Story Placement

Many scholars regard the sayings in Matt. 5:17-18 as originally independent of one another.^[3] Either these sayings floated about as isolated sayings in the sea of oral tradition or the author of Matthew formulated the saying in Matt. 5:17 as an introduction to Matt. 5:18,^[4] which he inherited from tradition. In any case, many scholars deny that either of these sayings belonged to the preexisting homily the author of Matthew expanded into the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:1-7:29).^[5] In support of these arguments scholars note 1) that the saying in Matt. 5:17 is unique to Matthew (and therefore may have been composed by its author), 2) that Luke’s parallel to Matt. 5:18 (Luke 16:17) does not occur in the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17-49), which is Luke’s parallel to the Sermon on the Mount (and therefore the sayings in Matt. 5:17-18 did not belong to the pre-synoptic homily upon which these sermons are based),^[6] and 3) that the author of Matthew’s technique of supplementing teaching units with additional sayings from other locations in his sources in order to construct the five major discourses that punctuate his Gospel is well known (and therefore the author of Matthew probably imported Matt. 5:18—and also Matt. 5:17, if he did not compose it—into the Sermon on the Mount). Indeed, many scholars doubt that either saying can be traced back to Jesus. Instead they regard these sayings as stemming from controversies within the early Church and/or between Jews and early Christians.^[7] 

One of the reasons so many scholars have resisted attributing the sayings in Matt. 5:17-18 to Jesus is the strong affirmation of the Torah these sayings express. The antinomian portrait of Jesus, so long cherished among Christian scholars and Christian laypersons alike, prejudiced many earlier scholars against the authenticity of these verses^[8] because they could not reconcile the “ultra-conservatism” of these verses with their Law-free image of Jesus.^[9] Happily, the view that Jesus was opposed to the Torah and Judaism is no longer accepted among scholars, and a new openness to the authenticity of Matt. 5:17-18 has slowly begun to emerge.^[10] We have five reasons for supposing that the sayings in Matt. 5:17-18 were not only spoken by Jesus but that the author of Matthew has preserved them in their proper context as part of a homily on the correct approach to the Torah.^[11] First, the positive view of the Torah expressed in these sayings is in no way inconsistent with Jesus’ affirmation of the Torah elsewhere in the Synoptic Gospels.^[12] Second, both Matt. 5:17 and Matt. 5:18 ∥ Luke 16:17 not only revert easily to Hebrew, but they make better sense in Hebrew than they do in Greek, which points to an early origin of these sayings in the Jesus tradition rather than to Matthean composition. Third, when the Hebrew background of these sayings is taken into consideration, a new coherence between them becomes apparent. The two sayings appear to be playing on different senses of the verb בִּטֵּל (biṭēl, “abolish,” “suspend,” “misapply,” “strike from a text”), which argues in favor of their original unity. Fourth, Luke’s version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away belongs to a “string of pearls” consisting of memorable sayings that have been extracted from their original literary contexts by the First Reconstructor or his predecessors.^[13] Since Luke’s placement of Heaven and Earth Pass Away is patently secondary, Luke’s placement cannot be raised as an argument against the originality of Matthew’s placement of Heaven and Earth Pass Away.^[14] Finally, Matthew’s inclusion of Heaven and Earth Pass Away together with Jesus’ interpretation of several Torah commandments in the Sermon on the Mount appears authentic, since in those interpretations Jesus pursues precisely the method he lays out in Matt. 5:17-18 by giving interpretations that undergird the Torah rather than undermine it, and by following each command to the letter, not just to its plainest or narrowest application.^[15] Given the verbal, thematic and logical unity of the sayings in Matt. 5:17-18 with Jesus’ approach to the Torah taken in the Sermon on the Mount, we have included the Double Tradition (DT) version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away in a discourse we have entitled the “Torah and the Kingdom of Heaven” complex.

A second version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away (Matt. 24:35 ∥ Mark 13:31 ∥ Luke 21:33) occurs in the Triple Tradition (TT), where it is embedded in the eschatological discourse.^[16] As we discuss more fully in the introduction to the “Destruction and Redemption” complex, the common core of the synoptic eschatological discourse was constructed by the First Reconstructor, who built the eschatological discourse around an original prophecy of the Temple’s destruction and Jerusalem’s eventual redemption. The First Reconstructor pulled in additional sayings, often reworking them in the process, to fill out and update Jesus’ prophecy, and thereby created a number of sayings doublets. Since the TT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away embedded in the eschatological discourse is a doublet of the more original looking DT version, both its form and its location are likely to be secondary.^[17] 

.

.

Click here to view the Map of the Conjectured Hebrew Life of Yeshua.

.

.

Conjectured Stages of Transmission

As we noted in the Story Placement discussion above, some scholars regard Matt. 5:17 as an outright Matthean composition. However, this judgment is unlikely to be correct. First, there are signs the author of Matthew inserted an alien phrase (“or the Prophets”) into a preexisting saying that referred exclusively to “the Law” (see below, Comment to L4). Second, it is likely that this Matthean insertion was motivated by a misunderstanding of the verb πληροῦν (plēroun) in the sense of “fulfill a prophecy,” whereas in the pre-synoptic version the sense was probably “fulfill an obligation.” Third, even the meaning “fulfill an obligation” appears to miss the mark of what Jesus really intended to communicate. When Matt. 5:17 is reverted to Hebrew the original intention becomes clearer. Jesus did not mean that he came to fulfill the Torah’s promises or to fulfill its obligations, but that he intended to establish the Torah on a firm footing by giving it a correct interpretation. In Hebrew the verb קִיֵּם can have all three connotations (“fulfill a prophecy,” “fulfill a task,” “firmly establish”), while the Greek verb πληροῦν properly conveys only the first two senses.^[18] If Matt. 5:17 is based on a Hebrew saying that was imperfectly translated into Greek, and if this imperfect translation misled the author of Matthew into making certain changes to the saying so that it would make more sense to him, then clearly the saying, in its original form, was not a Matthean creation. The probability is that the author of Matthew adapted the saying in Matt. 5:17 from his non-Markan source, the Anthology (Anth.).

Scholars have often noted the similarity of the following statement made by the apostle Paul to the saying in Matt. 5:17:^[19] 

νόμον οὖν καταργοῦμεν διὰ τῆς πίστεως; μὴ γένοιτο· ἀλλὰ νόμον ἱστάνομεν

Do we nullify the Law through faith? By no means! Rather, we uphold the Law. (Rom. 3:31)

Rarely, however, do scholars suggest that the two sayings may be related. Nevertheless, we think the apostle to the Gentiles was better versed in the teachings of Jesus than most scholars have assumed, and there is no reason why Paul could not have alluded to the saying the author of Matthew preserved in Matt. 5:17. If he did, then the apostle probably knew Jesus’ saying in its original Hebrew form, which not only explains why Paul did not use the same verbs as Matthew, but why Paul’s verbs correspond more closely to those in our Hebrew reconstruction than the verbs that appear in Matt. 5:17.^[20] In other words, Paul’s ad hoc translation of Jesus’ saying was in certain respects more accurate (or at least more literal) than the version of Jesus’ saying that appeared in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Life of Yeshua.

Whereas Paul may have possessed accurate knowledge of the original form of Jesus’ saying, the same cannot be said of a version of Matt. 5:17 that occurs in the Talmud. This version of Jesus’ saying occurs in an amusing tale of how a certain prominent sage conspired with his sister to trick a corrupt Christian judge into showing his true colors. The story is told entirely in Aramaic:

אימא שלום דביתהו דרבי אליעזר אחתיה דרבן גמליאל הואי הוה ההוא פילוסופא בשבבותיה דהוה שקיל שמא דלא מקבל שוחדא בעו לאחוכי ביה אעיילא ליה שרגא דדהבא ואזול לקמיה אמרה ליה בעינא דניפלגי לי בנכסי דבי נשי אמר להו פלוגו א″ל כתיב לן במקום ברא ברתא לא תירות א″ל מן יומא דגליתון מארעכון איתנטלית אורייתא דמשה ואיתיהיבת <ספרא אחריתי> {עוון גליון} וכתיב ביה ברא וברתא כחדא ירתון למחר הדר עייל ליה איהו חמרא לובא אמר להו שפילית לסיפיה <דספרא> {דעוון גליון} וכתב ביה אנא לא למיפחת מן אורייתא דמשה אתיתי <ולא> {אלא} לאוספי על אורייתא דמשה אתיתי וכתיב ביה במקום ברא ברתא לא תירות אמרה ליה נהור נהוריך כשרגא א″ל רבן גמליאל אתא חמרא ובטש לשרגא

Imma Shalom, R. Eliezer’s wife, was R. Gamaliel’s sister.^[21] Now, a certain philosopher lived in his vicinity, and he bore a reputation that he did not accept bribes. They wished to expose him, so she brought him a golden lamp, went before him, [and] said to him, ‘I desire that a share be given me in my [deceased] father’s estate.’ ‘Divide,’ ordered he. Said he [R. Gamaliel] to him, ‘It is decreed for us, Where there is a son, a daughter does not inherit.’ [He replied], ‘Since the day that you were exiled from your land the Law of Moses has been superseded and another book given, wherein it is written, ‘A son and a daughter inherit equally.’ The next day, he [R. Gamaliel] brought him a Lybian ass. Said he to them, ‘Look at the end of the book, wherein it is written, I came not to destroy the Law of Moses nor [or, ‘but’—DNB and JNT] to add to the Law of Moses [אנא לא למיפחת מן אורייתא דמשה אתיתי <ולא> {אלא} לאוספי על אורייתא דמשה אתיתי], and it is written therein [i.e, in the Law of Moses—DNB and JNT], A daughter does not inherit where there is a son.’ Said she to him, ‘Let thy light shine forth like a lamp.’ Said R. Gamaliel to him, ‘An ass came and knocked the lamp over!’ (b. Shab. 116a-b; Soncino)

Jeremias believed the Talmud’s version of Jesus’ saying preserved its original sense,^[22] but his arguments are unconvincing.^[23] More credible is Flusser’s suggestion that the Talmud reflects a Jewish-Christian adaptation of the saying preserved in Matt. 5:17.^[24] 

While there is no synoptic parallel to the saying preserved in Matt. 5:17, there is a parallel to Matt. 5:18 in Luke 16:17. Scholars are divided regarding whether the authors of Matthew and Luke depended on the same source (usually identified as Q) for their DT versions of this saying (majority view)^[25] or whether they relied on two different sources (minority view).^[26] The reason for this difference of opinion is the similarity between Matt. 5:18 and Luke 16:17 in terms of content but the surprising lack of agreement between these two verses in terms of vocabulary and structure.^[27] Our view, based on Lindsey’s hypothesis, mediates between these two opinions by supposing that the authors of Luke and Matthew relied on distinct but intimately related sources. Matthew 5:18 ultimately derives from the Anthology (Anth.), whereas Luke 16:17 derives from the First Reconstruction (FR), the source of all Luke’s “string of pearls” sayings.

Lindsey believed that high verbal disparity in DT pericopae was caused by the dependence of the authors of Luke and Matthew on separate but parallel sources (Matthew: Anth.; Luke: FR). He therefore categorized DT pericopae into two types, Type 1 (high verbal agreement) and Type 2 (low verbal agreement), assuming that for Type 1 pericopae both the author of Luke and the author of Matthew relied upon Anth., but that for Type 2 pericopae the author of Luke relied upon FR where the author of Matthew relied upon Anth. Thus Lindsey attributed the verbal disparity of Type 2 DT pericopae to the First Reconstructor’s redactional activity.

While we agree that high verbal identity in DT pericopae is a fairly reliable indicator that both the authors of Luke and Matthew relied on Anth., we believe Lindsey did not sufficiently take into account the extent of the author of Matthew’s redactional activity as a contributing factor to the verbal disparity in Type 2 DT pericopae.^[28] We cannot automatically assume that the author of Luke copied Type 2 DT pericopae from FR, and even when FR is identified as the source of a Type 2 DT pericope, we cannot assume that the verbal disparity was solely or even mainly caused by the First Reconstructor. As we believe was the case in Heaven and Earth Pass Away, Luke’s FR version of a DT pericopae may preserve Anth.’s wording more faithfully than Matthew’s parallel, despite Matthew’s reliance on Anth. This could take place if the author of Matthew edited Anth.’s version of a pericope more extensively than the First Reconstructor had done.

One of the reasons the author of Matthew edited certain pericopae was to make them sound more alike. This happened when two (or more) versions of a saying appeared in Matthew’s sources (Anth. and Mark) and the author of Matthew chose to include all of them, resulting in Matthean doublets (and occasionally Matthean triplets). Apparently, the author of Matthew wished to emphasize the verbal similarities of these doublets, and to do so he often took wording from one version of a saying and incorporated it into the doublet, a phenomenon we call Matthean cross-pollination.

As we have noted in the Story Placement discussion above, in addition to the DT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away (which the author of Matthew copied from Anth.), there is also a TT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away embedded in the eschatological discourse (which the author of Matthew copied from Mark). It is our view that the author of Matthew heavily redacted the DT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away he took from Anth. in order to make it more closely resemble the TT version he took from Mark.^[29] 

The degree of Matthean cross-pollination in Matthew’s DT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away (Matt. 5:18) becomes apparent when we compare it with Mark 13:30-31, the source of Matthew’s TT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away, and Luke 16:17, Luke’s DT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away:

Mark 13:30-31	Matt. 5:18	Luke 16:17
ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη μέχρις οὗ ταῦτα πάντα γένηται. ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ παρελεύσονται οἱ δὲ λόγοι μου οὐ μὴ παρελεύσονται	ἀμὴν γὰρ λέγω ὑμῖν ἕως ἂν παρέλθῃ ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μία κερέα οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται	εὐκοπώτερον δέ ἐστιν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν παρελθεῖν ἢ τοῦ νόμου μίαν κεραίαν πεσεῖν
Amen! I say to you that this generation will not pass away until all these things happen. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.‎	For amen I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, one iota or one serif will not pass away from the law until all things happen.‎	It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one serif of the law to fall.‎

In the table above, blue lettering marks vocabulary that Matt. 5:18 shares exclusively with Luke 16:17, while pink lettering marks vocabulary that Matt. 5:18 shares only with Mark 13:30-31. Purple lettering marks vocabulary common to all three versions. Colored lettering applies not only to identical wording but also to synonyms (e.g., μέχρις οὗ [Mark 13:30] ≈ ἕως ἄν [Matt. 5:18]).

Clearly it was the vocabulary marked in purple that inspired the author of Matthew to initiate the cross-pollination. What is remarkable is how little vocabulary in Matt. 5:18 is unique (marked in black). Only four words—γάρ (gar, “for”), ἰῶτα ἕν (iōta hen, “one iota”) and ἀπό (apo, “from”)—have no equivalents in Luke 16:17 and/or Mark 13:30-31. In theory, this unique wording could either stem from Anth. or represent Matthean contributions to the saying, but since the author of Matthew’s intention was clearly to highlight the verbal similarities between these two sayings, contributing unique wording would have undermined his purpose. Unless there is compelling reason to conclude otherwise,^[30] it is the pink wording in Matt. 5:18 that we must regard with the most suspicion. It is not impossible that some of the pink wording would have been purple if the First Reconstructor (or the author of Luke) had not eliminated it from the DT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away in Luke 16:17,^[31] but the default presumption is that the author of Matthew imported the pink wording from Mark 13:30-31.^[32] 

We think it is probable that the author of Matthew heightened the verbal similarities between his DT and TT versions of Heaven and Earth Pass Away in order to communicate his unique understanding of the function of the Law. In the eschatological discourse Jesus claimed that “this generation” will not pass away “until everything happens.” The “everything” to which this saying refers is everything Jesus had predicted in the eschatological discourse up to and including the Son of Man’s coming, a topic of particular concern for the author of Matthew, so much so that he had a technical term for it (“the parousia”) not found in the other Synoptic Gospels. By adding the phrase “until everything happens” to Jesus’ declaration that until heaven and earth pass away no part of the Law would disappear, the author of Matthew expressed his view that a major function of the Law (and the Prophets) was to spell out beforehand the Messiah’s agenda down to the last tee.^[33] This prophetic function of the Law (and the Prophets) included predicting the Son of Man’s coming at the final judgment. Thus the author of Matthew’s redactional activity in Matt. 5:17 (his insertion of “or the Prophets”) and especially his cross-pollination in Matt. 5:18 were aimed at transforming a statement in which Jesus articulated his hermeneutical approach to the Torah into a pronouncement about the eschatological function of Scripture (see below, Comment to L17). In any case, the extensive influence of the TT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away upon Matthew’s DT version in Matt. 5:18 suggests that Luke 16:17, despite having FR as its source, might be closer to Anth.’s wording than what is found in Matt. 5:18.

As we have already mentioned in the Story Placement discussion above, the TT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away ultimately stems from FR. The First Reconstructor adapted Jesus’ saying about the durability of the Torah into an affirmation regarding the validity of the predictions recorded in the eschatological discourse. This discourse the First Reconstructor had constructed out of a preexisting prophecy found in Anth. supplemented by additional Anth. sayings of Jesus which the First Reconstructor found in other contexts. That both Luke’s DT and TT versions of Heaven and Earth Pass Away stemmed from FR may hint that his DT “string of pearls” version (Luke 16:17) already existed in its “string of pearls” form prior to its incorporation into FR.^[34] This would explain why the First Reconstructor felt free to adapt the “string of pearls” version to suit his needs for the eschatological discourse.^[35] Be that as it may, we do not believe the TT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away represents an authentic saying of Jesus. The exalted status of Jesus’ teachings in this saying is more likely to reflect the view of early believers than of Jesus,^[36] who was ever directing attention away from himself and toward the Kingdom of Heaven.

Crucial Issues

1. What is meant by “abolish” and “fulfill”?
2. By declaring “I have not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill,” was Jesus defending himself against accusations that he was anti-Torah or anti-Judaism?
3. Is the statement “I have not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill” a Christological declaration?
4. Does Matt. 5:17 use “the Law and the Prophets” as shorthand for “the whole Old Testament”?
5. What is the significance of “jot” and “tittle”?

Comment

To Nullify or To Uphold

L1-4 μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον ἢ τοὺς προφήτας (Matt. 5:17). The opening declaration of Matt. 5:17, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets,” could be deleted with almost no loss of meaning so long as the object (τὸν νόμον [ton nomon, “the law”]) were reinserted after L5 (“or the Prophets” is likely a Matthean addition; see below, Comment to L4). Also, the phrase μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι (mē nomisēte hoti, “do not think that”) is unique to Matthew’s Gospel (Matt. 5:17; 10:34), the second occurrence being found in a DT pericope without Luke’s agreement (cf. Luke 12:51).^[37] Moreover, a wordplay in Matt. 5:17 might be suspected between νομίζειν (nomizein, “to think”) and νόμος (nomos, “law”),^[38] which, if intentional, might suggest Greek editing or Greek composition. Finally, we have identified other instances where the author of Matthew expanded the opening sentence of a pericope in order to supply greater detail for his readers (see Woes on Three Villages, Comment to L1-4). For any or all these reasons the opening declaration in L1-4 might be deemed to be redactional.^[39] 

On the other hand, the phrase μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι (“do not think that”) occurs only twice in Matthew’s Gospel, so it cannot be considered especially Matthean. Moreover, since we suppose Anth. to have been the source upon which the author of Matthew relied for both Matt. 5:17 and Matt. 10:34, the two places in Matthew where μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι occurs, we must not hastily exclude the possibility that the author of Matthew copied μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι from Anth. Indeed, both Matt. 10:34 and its parallel in Luke 12:51 include something in the opening phrase about “thinking,” so “thinking” of some kind must have occurred in the Anth. pericope behind Matt. 10:34. Moreover, when we compare Matt. 10:34 to the parallel in Luke 12:51 the overall impression is that Matthew’s version is more Hebraic than Luke’s and therefore more likely to reflect Anth.’s wording:

Luke 12:51	Matt. 10:34
δοκεῖτε ὅτι εἰρήνην παρεγενόμην δοῦναι ἐν τῇ γῇ; οὐχί, λέγω ὑμῖν, ἀλλ’ ἢ διαμερισμόν	Μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν οὐκ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν.
Do you think that I came to give peace in the earth? No, I say to you, but rather division.	Do not think that I came to cast peace on the earth. I have not come to cast peace but a sword.

In the table above light blue lettering marks verbal similarity, while dark blue represents verbal identity.

It thus becomes all the more likely that μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι in Matt. 5:17 is not the product of Matthean redaction but a phrase the author of Matthew copied from Anth.

Not only is Matt. 10:34 more Hebraic than Luke 12:51, the structure of Matt. 10:34 is similar to the structure of Matt. 5:17:

Matt. 10:34	Matt. 5:17
Μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον	μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον
Do not think that I came	Do not think that I came
βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν	καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον ἢ τοὺς προφήτας
to cast peace on the earth.	to destroy the Law or the Prophets.
οὐκ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην	οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι
I did not come to cast peace	I did not come to destroy
ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν	ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι
but a sword.	but to fulfill.

Both Matt. 5:17 and Matt. 10:34 have the pattern Do not think that I came to do X; I did not come to do X but Y.^[40] Since Matt. 10:34 is more Hebraic than Luke 12:51, it is likely that Matthew’s source for this saying was Anth. and that it was from Anth. that the author of Matthew inherited both the phrase μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι and the structure Do not think that I came to do X; I did not come to do X but Y.^[41] And if the author of Matthew inherited μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι and the structure Do not think that I came to do X; I did not come to do X but Y from Anth. in Matt. 10:34, it is likely that the same is true of Matt. 5:17.

Moreover, as we mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, the phrase “or the Prophets” appears to be a Matthean addition tacked on to the warning “Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law.” Evidence of Matthean redaction is itself evidence that the author of Matthew reworked a statement he found in his source.^[42] 

So for all these reasons we have accepted Matthew’s wording in L1-3 for GR. Matthew’s wording in L4 is a separate case and will be discussed below in Comment to L4.

L1 לֹא תִּהְיוּ סְבוּרִים (HR). Having already discussed our reasons for accepting Matthew’s μὴ νομίσητε for GR in the previous comment, we proceed to our discussion of HR without further ado.

The verb νομίζειν (nomizein, “to think,” “to suppose”) occurs several times in LXX, but never in a context with an extant Hebrew undertext,^[43] so LXX cannot serve as a guide for our reconstruction. Sometimes the use of a non-Septuagintal verb in the Synoptic Gospels is a clue that the verb is the product of redaction. At other times the use of a non-Septuagintal verb may be a hint that we ought to seek for HR a verb proper to Mishnaic rather than Biblical Hebrew. The latter appears to be the case here. In the Hebrew Scriptures the phrase אַל תַּחְשְׁבוּ (’al taḥsh^evū, “do not think”) is rare^[44] and in early rabbinic sources non-existent. On the other hand, exhortations not to think something do occur in rabbinic sources, for instance:

מפני מה אני נותן לכם כדי שלא תהיו סבורין לומר אין ספק בידו ליתן לנו בשר

Why am I giving [meat] to you? So that you will not think [לֹא תִּהְיוּ סְבוּרִין] to say, “Maybe he is unable to give us meat!” (Mechilta de-Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai to Exod. 16:12 [ed. Melamed, 241])

מעשה בפולמוס שביהודה שרץ דיקריון אחד אחר בן ישראל בסוס להרגו ולא הגיעו עד שלא הגיעו יצא נחש ונשך לו על עקבו אמר לו לא תהיו סבורים לומר מפני שאנו גבורים נמסרו בידינו אם לא כי צורם מכרם

An anecdote concerning the war in Judea:^[45] A detachment of the cavalry chased a certain Israelite on horseback to kill him, but it had not yet reached him. Before it could reach him a snake came out and bit him on the heel. He said to the detachment, “Do not think [לֹא תִּהְיוּ סְבוּרִים] to say, ‘Because we are mighty they are delivered into our hands.’ For unless their Rock had sold them [Deut. 32:30] ….” (Sifre Deut. §322 [ed. Finkelstein, 372])

Many scholars have inferred from the warning “Do not think that I have come to demolish the Law” that Jesus had already given his contemporaries the impression that he was opposed to the Torah and the Jewish religion^[46] or that Jesus knew his sermon would soon give his audience that impression.^[47] However, it is difficult to see how Jesus’ contemporaries could have perceived the stringent approach to the commandments voiced in the Sermon on the Mount as an assault on the Torah. By warning against harboring anger Jesus did not invalidate the Torah’s prohibition against murder (Matt. 5:21-22), rather he set a “hedge” about the Torah in a manner analogous to that which the rabbinic sages recommended (m. Avot 1:1). By the same token, it is hardly credible that Jesus’ warning against covetous looks (Matt. 5:28) could have been viewed by his contemporaries as polemicizing against the Torah’s prohibition against adultery. Likewise, Jesus’ audience would have perceived that in his exhortation not to take oaths (Matt. 5:34-37) Jesus echoed Qohelet’s advice not to make vows (Eccl. 5:4). What Jesus argued against was not the Torah itself but a minimizing approach to the Torah that limited the text to what it said instead of gleaning the maximum from what the text implied. Jesus’ approach was to study the text not only for its legal implications but also for its moral instruction regarding how to relate to God and to one’s fellow human beings.

If Jesus did not give the impression, either through his conduct or his teaching, of being opposed to the Torah, what was the purpose of his warning not to think that he had come to destroy the Law? Flusser suggested that the purpose of Matt. 5:17 was not to articulate Jesus’ attitude to the Torah per se but to announce that his intention was to interpret the Torah correctly—and not inadequately, as some of his predecessors had done!—in the homily that followed.^[48] Flusser’s suggestion arose from his conviction that behind the verb καταλύειν (katalūein, “to demolish”) in Matt. 5:17 stood the Hebrew verb בִּטֵּל (biṭēl),^[49] which can mean “cancel,” “suspend,” “abolish,” “annul” or “strike out [from a text].” In halachic discussions the accusation “You have abolished ___” means that someone’s halachic decision has the unintended consequence of nullifying a Scriptural commandment. An example of this use of בִּטֵּל occurs in the following passage:

מן הבקר להוציא את הנעבד והלא דין הוא ומה אם אתנן ומחיר שצפוייהן מותרין פסולין מעל גבי המזבח נעבד שצפויו איסורין אינו דין שיפסל מעל גבי המזבח, או חילוף ומה אתנן ומחיר שהן אסורין על גבי מזבח צפוייהן מותרין נעבד שהוא מותר אינו דין שיהו צפוייו מותרים אתה ביטלת לא תחמד כסף וזהב עליהם ואני אקיימנו לא תחמוד כסף וזהב עליהם ולקחת לך בדבר שאין בו רוח חיים, אבל בדבר שיש בו רוח חיים הואיל והוא מותר יהו צפוייו מותרין תלמוד לומר מן הבקר להוציא את הנעבד

[When a person among you offers an offering to the LORD from the domesticated animals] from the cattle [Lev. 1:2]—[‘from the cattle’ is stated] to exclude [a domesticated animal] that was used for idolatry. But could not one reason, if the hire of a prostitute and the price of a dog [cf. Deut. 23:19], whose overlayings are permitted [for ordinary use], are disqualified from the altar, should not that which is used for idolatry, whose overlayings are forbidden [for ordinary use],^[50] [automatically be assumed to] be disqualified from the altar? [Why, then, is ‘from the cattle stated’?] Or conversely: If in the case of the hire of a prostitute and the price of a dog, which are disqualified for the altar, their overlayings are permitted [for ordinary use], then in the case of [a domesticated animal] used for idolatry, which is permitted [for ordinary use], should not its overlayings also be permitted [for ordinary use]? [No! because by that reasoning] you have nullified [אתה ביטלת] [the command] Do not covet the silver or the gold that is on them [i.e., idols] [Deut. 7:25]. [Not so!] I will establish them [אקיימנו] [i.e., Lev. 1:2 and Deut. 7:25]. Do not covet the silver or the gold that is on them [Deut. 7:25], this applies only to things that are not alive. But for living things used for idolatry, if they were permitted [for offerings] would not their overlayings also be permitted? Therefore it was necessary for the Torah to say from the cattle in order to exclude animals used for idolatry [for in that way it would be clear that both the cattle themselves and their overlayings are forbidden]. (Sifra, Nedavah perek 2 [ed. Weiss, 4d])

The intricacies of the above-cited passage need not detain us here. For our purposes, what is instructive is that the accusation of having nullified a commandment does not imply that the interpreter has set out with the intention of abolishing the Torah or doing away with Judaism. The accusation is really just a way of saying, “That can’t be right! If we followed your conclusions to their logical ends, such and such a commandment would have been pointless,” the assumption being that the Torah never made superfluous statements. Every word of the Torah, being divinely inspired, was believed to possess some essential information that could not have been gleaned from any other statement in the Torah. Any interpretation that did not succeed in allowing for every word in the Pentateuch to “fulfill” its unique function was regarded as “nullifying” that Scripture. Thus the accusation “You have nullified ___” was simply part of the give and take of halachic midrash, in which the good faith efforts of the interlocutors to arrive at the correct interpretation of Scripture was assumed. The countering in the above passage of “you have nullified” with “I will establish” is also instructive. The verb קִיֵּם (qiyēm), rendered here as “establish,” can also, in other contexts, mean “fulfill.”

L2 ὅτι ἦλθον καταλῦσαι (GR). On accepting Matthew’s wording in L2 for GR, see above, Comment to L1-4.

שֶׁבָּאתִי לְבַטֵּל (HR). On reconstructing ὅτι (hoti, “that”) with -שֶׁ (she-, “that”), see Lost Sheep and Lost Coin, Comment to L31.

On reconstructing ἔρχεσθαι (erchesthai, “to come”) with בָּא (bā’, “come”), see Demands of Discipleship, Comment to L8.

In LXX the verb καταλύειν (katalūein) usually occurs in the sense of “to lodge” or “to take up one’s quarters”; καταλύειν in the sense of “demolish” or “destroy” is rare, and it never occurs as the translation of בִּטֵּל (biṭēl, “remove,” “abolish,” “nullify”).^[51] This fact is hardly surprising, however, since the Hebrew root [no_word_wrap]ב-ט-ל[/no_word_wrap] is attested only once in the Hebrew Scriptures (Eccl. 12:3), where it occurs in the qal stem.^[52] In Mishnaic Hebrew בִּטֵּל is common.

We have already had occasion in Comment to L1 to discuss the use of בִּטֵּל in the context of halachic midrash, where it means that a particular interpretation has the unintended effect of rendering a particular scriptural text superfluous. To illustrate the verb’s range of meaning, we cite the following passages in which בִּטֵּל appears:

מַעֲשֶׂה בְרַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵ′ שֶׁנָּשָׂא וְקָרָא בְלַיְלָה שֶׁנָּשָׂא אָמְרוּ לוֹ לֹא לִימדְתָּנוּ שֶׁחָתָן פָּטוּר מִקִּרְיַת שְׁמַע בְּלַיְלָה הָרִאשׁוֹן אָמַ′ לָהֶן אֵינִי שׁוֹמֵעַ לָכֶם לְבַטֵּל מִמֶּנִּי מַלְכוּת שָׁמַיִם שָׁעָה אַחַת

An anecdote concerning Rabban Gamliel, who married and yet recited [the Shema—DNB and JNT] on his wedding night. They said to him, “Did you not teach us that a groom is exempt from reciting the Shema on the first night?” He said to them, “I will not listen to you to remove [לְבַטֵּל] from me the Kingdom of Heaven for a single hour!” (m. Ber. 2:5)

In the story about Rabban Gamliel’s wedding night the sense of בִּטֵּל is closer to “remove” or “suspend” than “nullify,” in that the effect is temporary.

יוֹחָנָן כֹּהָן גָּדוֹל הֶעֱבִיר הוֹדָיַית הַמַּעֲשֵׂר אַף הוּא בִיטֵּל אֶת הַמְעוֹרְרִים וְאֶת הַנּוֹקְפִים עַד יָמָיו הָיָה הַפַּטִּיש מַכֶּה בִירוּשַ׳ וּבְיָמָּיו אֵין אָדָם צָרִיךְ לִשְׁאוֹל עַל הַדְּמַיִי

Yohanan the high priest did away with the confession of the tithes, also he abolished [בִיטֵּל] the awakeners and the stunners. Until his days the hammer used to strike in Jerusalem, and in his days no one had to ask about doubtfully tithed produce. (m. Sot. 9:10)

In this example בִּטֵּל is used to refer to putting an end to a long-established custom.

מעונה אלהי קדם, שלשה ספרים נמצאו בעזרה אחד של מעונים ואחד של היא היא ואחד נקרא ספר זעטוטים באחד כתיב מעון אלהי קדם ובשנים כתיב מעונה אלהי קדם, בטלו חכמים את האחד וקיימו השנים, באחד כתיב תשעה היא ובשנים כתיב אחד עשרה היא בטלו חכמים את האחד וקיימו את השנים באחד כתיב וישלח את זעטוטי בני ישראל, ואל זעטוטי בני ישראל, ובשנים כתיב וישלח את נערי בני ישראל ואל אצילי בני ישראל בטלו חכמים את האחד וקיימו את השנים.

Your dwelling place is the eternal God [Deut. 33:27]. Three [Torah] scrolls were found in the court [of the Temple]: One of “Maonim,” and one of “Hi’ Hi’,” and one called “the Scroll of Za‘atutim.” In one was written מעון אלהי קדם [mā‘ōn ’^elohē qedem], but in two was written מעונה אלהי קדם [m^e‘ōnāh ’^elohē qedem; Deut. 33:27]. The sages cancelled [בִּטְּלוּ] the one and upheld [וְקִיְּימוּ] the two. In one it was written היא nine times, but in two it was written היא eleven times. The sages cancelled [בִּטְּלוּ] the one and upheld [וְקִיְּימוּ] the two. In one was written וישלח את זעטוטי בני ישראל [vayishlaḥ ’et za‘^aṭūṭē b^enē yisrā’ēl] and ואל זעטוטי בני ישראל [v^e’ēl za‘^aṭūṭē b^enē yisrā’ēl], but in two was written וישלח את נערי בני ישראל [vayishlaḥ ’et na‘^arē b^enē yisrā’ēl; Exod. 24:5] and ואל אצילי בני ישראל [v^e’ēl ’^atzilē b^enē yisrā’ēl; Exod. 24:11]. The sages cancelled [בִּטְּלוּ] the one and upheld [וְקִיְּימוּ] the two. (Sifre Deut. §356 [ed. Finkelstein, 423]; cf. y. Taan. 4:2 [20b])^[53] 

In this passage בִּטֵּל is once again paired with קִיֵּם (qiyēm), as it was in the halachic midrash quoted above in Comment to L1. Here, however, בִּטֵּל does not mean “render superfluous” but refers to striking out a particular reading from a text. The use of בִּטֵּל in the context of textual criticism is highly informative for our investigation of Heaven and Earth Pass Away because it demonstrates how the two parts of Heaven and Earth Pass Away (Matt. 5:17 and Matt. 5:18 ∥ Luke 16:17) could originally have belonged to the same context. The speaker, presumably Jesus, played on two uses of בִּטֵּל: its use in the context of halachic midrash in Matt. 5:17 and its use in the context of textual criticism in Matt. 5:18 ∥ Luke 16:17. In other words, via his approach to the Torah in the Sermon on the Mount, no word in the Scriptures would lose its unique significance, nor would any letters or graphic symbols lose their rightful places in the text.

The widespread assumption that in Matt. 5:17 Jesus denies he intends to “abolish” or “repeal” the Torah was undoubtedly facilitated by the use of καταλύειν in Hellenistic Jewish sources in reference to the abolition or subversion of Jewish religious norms, customs and institutions, usually by Gentile rulers (cf., e.g., 2 Macc. 2:22; 4:11; 4 Macc. 4:20; 5:33; 17:9; Philo, Flacc. §52; Legat. §201; Jos., J.W. 1:34; Ant. 13:296, 408; 15:281).^[54] As we have seen, בִּטֵּל could be used in the sense of “abolish” or “put a stop to,” but that was probably not the meaning Jesus intended. It was the Greek translator of the Hebrew Life of Yeshua who found it difficult to express Jesus’ intention in Greek. To him καταλύειν seemed a close enough approximation to בִּטֵּל to capture Jesus’ meaning, never imagining that his translation would be so misunderstood by later Gentile interpreters of the saying preserved in Matt. 5:17.

L3 τὸν νόμον (GR). On accepting Matthew’s wording in L3 for GR, see above, Comment to L1-4. There is practically unanimous agreement among scholars that ὁ νόμος (ho nomos, “the law”) mentioned in Matt. 5:17 refers to the Torah.^[55] 

אֶת הַתּוֹרָה (HR). On reconstructing νόμος with תּוֹרָה, see The Kingdom of Heaven Is Increasing, Comment to L11.

L4 ἢ τοὺς προφήτας (Matt. 5:17). We are not alone in suspecting that “or the prophets” in L4 is a Matthean addition to an earlier version of Jesus’ saying.^[56] There are several good reasons for this suspicion. First, the collocation of “law” with “prophets” is particularly Matthean.^[57] Second, reference to “the prophets” is conspicuously absent in Matt. 5:18 ∥ Luke 16:17.^[58] This absence creates an imbalance, which is easier to explain by supposing that ἢ τοὺς προφήτας (ē tous profētas, “or the prophets”) in L4 is a Matthean addition than by supposing that the authors of Matthew and Luke independently agreed to delete a reference to the prophets in Matt. 5:18 ∥ Luke 16:17.^[59] Third, in the exposition of Scripture that follows in the Sermon on the Mount, verses from the Torah are quoted, but no verses from the Prophets are cited.^[60] Fourth, the usual reference is to “the Law and the Prophets,” while in Matt. 5:17 the reference is to “the Law or the Prophets,”^[61] which gives the reference to the prophets the appearance of an afterthought. Finally, “abolish the Law” makes sense, while “abolish the Prophets” sounds distinctly odd.^[62] The common opinion is that prophecy had already ceased long ago, so Jesus would not have needed to deny that he had come to put an end to prophecy, and it can hardly be supposed that Jesus felt it necessary to deny that he had come to invalidate the prophecies of redemption the people of Israel longed to see fulfilled.

But if Matthew’s reference to the Prophets is redactional, the question remains, “Why did the author of Matthew add it?” We suspect that the author of Matthew was misled by the verb πληροῦν (plēroun, “to fulfill”) in L6. The author of Matthew understood πληροῦν in its more familiar sense of “fulfill a prophecy,” whereas the Greek translator of the Hebrew Life of Yeshua had probably intended πληροῦν in the sense of “fulfill a commandment” (see below, Comment to L6). This misunderstanding of πληροῦν combined with the author of Matthew’s intense interest in proving how Jesus fulfilled prophecy^[63] caused the author of Matthew to insert “or the Prophets” in L4.^[64] The author of Matthew’s misunderstanding of πληροῦν in Jesus’ saying may also have contributed to his cross-pollination activity in Matt. 5:18, especially with regard to his addition of the phrase ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται in L17.^[65] In any case, ἢ τοὺς προφήτας is probably not intended to refer to prophets individually, but refers to a literary corpus known to the author of Matthew as “the Prophets.”^[66] Whether this corpus was identical with the Nevi’im of the TaNaKh (Torah, Nevi’im [Prophets], Ketuvim [Writings]) cannot be assumed (e.g., did the author of Matthew include 1-4 Kingdoms among the Prophets?), but the overlap must have been considerable.^[67] 

L5 οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι (GR). As we discussed in Comment to L1-4, the author of Matthew probably inherited the pattern μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον + infinitive phrase followed by οὐκ ἦλθον + infinitive phrase + ἀλλά + alternative from Anth. We have therefore adopted Matthew’s οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι (ouk ēlthon katalūsai, “I have not come to destroy”) for GR without modification.

לֹא בָּאתִי לְבַטְּלָהּ (HR). On reconstructing ἔρχεσθαι (erchesthai, “to come”) with בָּא (bā’, “come”) and on reconstructing καταλύειν (katalūein, “to demolish”) with בִּטֵּל (biṭēl, “remove,” “abolish,” “nullify”), see above, Comment to L2.

To the verb בִּטֵּל we have added the third person feminine pronominal suffix, despite the lack of an equivalent (viz., αὐτόν [avton, “it”] if “the Law” was the original antecedent, or αὐτούς [avtous, “them”] if “the Law and the Prophets” were the original antecedent) in the Greek text. Elsewhere we have observed that Greek translators sometimes omitted possessive pronouns equivalent to Hebrew pronominal suffixes attached to nouns.^[68] Here we note that this tendency to occasionally omit pronouns is also evident with regard to pronominal suffixes attached to infinitives.^[69] Thus, the absence of a Greek accusative pronoun in L5 does not rule out attaching a pronominal suffix to לְבַטֵּל (l^evaṭēl, “to nullify”). Moreover, the forms לְבַטְּלָהּ (l^evaṭ^elāh, “to nullify it”) and לְקַיְּימָהּ (l^eqay^emāh, “to fulfill it”) occur in an early rabbinic tradition (m. Avot 4:9 [ed. Blackman, 4:519]) with the Torah as the antecedent of the pronominal suffix, so the inclusion of the pronominal suffixes would probably have sounded natural to first-century Hebrew speakers.

L6 ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι (GR). Noting that “to abolish” fits well with “the Law” but not “the Prophets,” while “fulfill the Prophets” agrees with Matthean usage whereas “fulfill the Law” does not, Meier suggested that, like “or the Prophets” in L4, πληροῦν (plēroun, “to fulfill”) in L6 is secondary.^[70] Instead of πληροῦν in L6, Meier conjectured that Matthew’s source read ποιεῖν (poiein, “to do”).^[71] We, on the other hand, believe the supposition that πληροῦν occurred in Matthew’s source (Anth.) has such explanatory power that it must be regarded as coming from a pre-Matthean source. First, the very fact that “fulfill the Law” does not agree with Matthean usage should caution us that for this usage the author of Matthew relied on a source. As Meier himself admitted, πληροῦν + νόμος is not un-Greek and is attested elsewhere in the New Testament (cf., e.g., Rom. 13:8, 10; Gal. 5:14). When combined with νόμος (nomos, “law”) πληροῦν has the sense of “fulfill a command, an obligation or a duty.” The author of Matthew, however, typically used πληροῦν in the sense of “fulfill a promise, a prediction or a prophecy.” Supposing the author of Matthew encountered πληροῦν in his source for Jesus’ saying in Matt. 5:17 (L6) explains what prompted the author of Matthew to insert “or the Prophets” in L4: he (mis)interpreted πληροῦν in the sense of “fulfill a prophecy,” and so added a reference to the Prophets.^[72] If ποιεῖν (“to do”) rather than πληροῦν had occurred in Matthew’s source, it is harder to see what prompted him to add the reference to the Prophets in L4. Our solution is thus simpler than Meier’s suggestion, which posits a greater degree of Matthean redaction.

Moreover, the pairing of καταλύειν with πληροῦν makes sense of Matt. 5:17 in a way that the pairing of καταλύειν with ποιεῖν cannot. The verbs καταλύειν (“to abolish”) and πληροῦν (“to fulfill”) are reasonable equivalents of בִּטֵּל (“nullify,” “put an end to”) and קִיֵּם (“establish,” “uphold,” “ratify”) (see below), which form a pair that is familiar from rabbinic sources. On the other hand, the pairing of καταλύειν (“to abolish”) with ποιεῖν (“to do”) is neither familiar in Greek nor does it represent a familiar pairing of Hebrew verbs.^[73] Since πληροῦν makes sense in Matt. 5:17—although not in the way the author of Matthew interpreted it!—and since πληροῦν is likely a Hebraism reflecting קִיֵּם, we have adopted Matthew’s wording in L6 for GR.

אֶלָּא לְקַיְּמָהּ (HR). On reconstructing ἀλλά (alla, “but,” “rather”) with אֶלָּא (’elā’, “rather”), see Call of Levi, Comment to L61.

Several scholars have maintained that πληροῦν in Matt. 5:17 cannot possibly reflect קִיֵּם (qiyēm, “establish,” “uphold,” “fulfill”) in an underlying Hebrew source^[74] because in LXX πληροῦν is the equivalent of the root [no_word_wrap]מ-ל-א[/no_word_wrap] but never the equivalent of [no_word_wrap]ק-ו-מ[/no_word_wrap].^[75] However, this argument is fallacious for at least two reasons.^[76] First, there is no reason why a Greek translator of Jesus’ Hebrew sayings must have translated verbs in precisely the same manner as the LXX translators. Second, this simplistic argument overlooks the fact that the Hebrew spoken in the time of Jesus was not identical to the Hebrew of the Scriptures. The use of קִיֵּם with regard to the fulfillment of commandments and the fulfillment of prophecies is not attested in the Hebrew Scriptures but only in later rabbinic sources.^[77] Since the LXX translators never had the opportunity to translate קִיֵּם as πληροῦν, it is useless to cite LXX as precedent.

It is indeed true that מִלֵּא (milē’, “to fill”) could be used in the sense of “fulfill a promise or prophecy.” We encounter a few instances of this usage in the Hebrew Scriptures, for example:

וַיְגָרֶשׁ שְׁלֹמֹה אֶת אֶבְיָתָר מִהְיוֹת כֹּהֵן לַיי לְמַלֵּא אֶת דְּבַר יי אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר עַל בֵּית עֵלִי בְּשִׁלֹה

And Solomon deposed Abiathar from being the LORD’s priest, to fulfill [לְמַלֵּא; LXX: πληρωθῆναι] the word of the LORD which he spoke against the house of Eli in Shiloh. (1 Kgs. 2:27)

וַיֶּגֶל הַשְּׁאֵרִית מִן־הַחֶרֶב אֶל בָּבֶל וַיִּהְיוּ לוֹ וּלְבָנָיו לַעֲבָדִים עַד מְלֹךְ מַלְכוּת פָּרָס: לְמַלֹּאות דְּבַר יי בְּפִי יִרְמְיָהוּ

And he exiled those who were left over from the sword to Babylon, and they became his and his descendants’ slaves until the rise of the Persian Empire to fulfill [לְמַלֹּאות; LXX: τοῦ πληρωθῆναι] the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah…. (2 Chr. 36:20-21)^[78] 

Nevertheless, in Mishnaic Hebrew this use of מִלֵּא in the sense of “fulfill a promise or prophecy” became obsolete. In Mishnaic Hebrew various forms of [no_word_wrap]ק-ו-מ[/no_word_wrap] took its place, as we see in the following examples:

פעם אחת היו עולים לירושלם הגיעו לצופים קרעו בגדיהם הגיעו להר הבית וראו שועל יוצא מבית קדש הקדשים התחילו הם בוכים ורבי עקיבה מצחק אמרו לו עקיבה לעולם אתה מתמיה שאנו בוכים ואתה מצחק אמר להם ואתם למה בכיתם אמרו לו לא נבכה על מקום שכתוב בו והזר הקרב יומת הרי שועל יוצא מתוכו עלינו נתקיים על זה היה דוה לבנו על הר ציון ששמם שועלים הלכו בו אמר להם אף אני לכך צחקתי הרי הוא אומר ואעידה לי עדים נאמנים את אוריה הכהן ואת זכריהו בן יברכיהו וכי מה ענין אוריה אצל זכריה מה אמר אוריה ציון שדה תחרש וירושלם עיים תהיה והר הבית לבמות יער מה אמר זכריה כה אמר ה′ צבאות עוד ישבו זקנים וזקנות וגו′ ורחבות העיר וגו′ אמר המקום הרי לי שני עדים האלו אם קיימים דברי אוריה קיימים דברי זכריה ואם בטלו דברי אוריה בטלים דברי זכריה שמחתי שנתקיימו דברי אוריה לסוף שדברי זכריה עתידים לבוא, בלשון הזה אמרו לו עקיבה נחמתנו

Once they [i.e., Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Eleazar ben Azarya and Rabbi Akiva—DNB and JNT] were going up to Jerusalem. They arrived at Mount Scopus and tore their clothes. They arrived at the Temple Mount and saw a fox coming out of [the ruins of] the Holy of Holies. They began crying, but Rabbi Akiva laughed. They said to him, “Akiva, you always astonish us, for we are crying but you are laughing!” He said to them, “And you, why do you cry?” They said to him, “Should we not cry over the place concerning which it is written, And the stranger who approaches must be put to death [Num. 1:51], and behold, a fox comes out of it. Upon us has been fulfilled [נִתְקַיֵּים] Because of this our heart has become sick…because of Mount Zion, that it is desolate, foxes trample it [Lam. 5:17-18].” He said to them, “I, too, for this reason have laughed. Behold! It says, And I will cause faithful witnesses to testify for me, Uriah the priest and Zechariah ben Yeverechiah [Isa. 8:2]. And what is the connection between Uriah and Zechariah? What did Uriah say? Zion will be a plowed field, and Jerusalem heaps of rubble, and the Temple Mount a forested ridge [Jer. 26:18; cf. Mic. 3:12]. And what did Zechariah say? Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Once more shall dwell old men and old women’, etc. [Zech. 8:4], ‘and the streets of the city’, etc. [Zech. 8:5]. Said the Omnipresent one, ‘Behold! I have these two witnesses. If the words of Uriah are fulfilled [קַיָּימִים], the words of Zechariah will be fulfilled [קַיָּימִים]. And if the words of Uriah are null [בָּטְלוּ], the words of Zechariah are null [בְּטֵלִים].’ I rejoiced because since the words of Uriah were fulfilled [נִתְקַיְּימוּ] in the end, the words of Zechariah will be in the future.” With this speech they said to him, “Akiva, you have comforted us.” (Sifre Deut. §43 [ed. Finkelstein, 95]; cf. b. Mak. 24b)

מעשה באחד שיבשה זרועו ולא הניחה לקיים מה שנא′ ברך ה′ חילו ופועל ידיו תרצה

An anecdote concerning one [i.e., a priest who was offering incense—JNT and DNB] whose arm dried up, but he did not stop it [i.e., the incense offering—JNT and DNB] in order to fulfill [לְקַיֵּים] what is said, Bless, O LORD, his strength and accept the work of his hands [Deut. 33:11]. (y. Yom. 2:3 [12b])

Therefore, if Jesus had wanted to say that a prophecy or a divine promise had been fulfilled or that he himself was fulfilling them, it is unlikely that he would have used the obsolete verb מִלֵּא instead of the then current use of verbs from the [no_word_wrap]ק-ו-מ[/no_word_wrap] root.

But in the saying preserved in Matt. 5:17 Jesus did not want to say that he was fulfilling the Torah’s oracles,^[79] a point that is crucial for exposing the fallacy that מִלֵּא must be behind πληροῦν in Matt. 5:17. As we have already noted, in addition to “to fulfill a promise or prediction” the verb πληροῦν could also be used in the sense of “to fulfill a command or obligation.” Since in Jesus’ saying the verb refers to the Torah, the latter is the most likely sense of πληροῦν the Greek translator of Jesus’ saying intended. However, verbs from the root [no_word_wrap]מ-ל-א[/no_word_wrap] never mean “fulfill a command or obligation,”^[80] so it is highly unlikely that a verb from the [no_word_wrap]מ-ל-א[/no_word_wrap] root stood behind πληροῦν in the saying preserved in Matt. 5:17. The verb קִיֵּם, on the other hand, could be used in the sense of “fulfill a command,” or even more specifically “fulfill [the obligations of] the Torah,” as we see in the following examples:

ר′ יוֹנָתָן אוֹמֵ′ כָּל הַמְקַיֵּים אֶת הַתּוֹרָה מֵעוֹנִי סוֹפוֹ לְקַיְּימָהּ מֵעוֹשֶׁר וְכָל הַמְבַטֵּל אֶת הַתּוֹרָה מֵעוֹשֶׁר סוֹפוֹ לְבָטְלָהּ מֵעוֹנִי

Rabbi Yonatan says, “Everyone who fulfills [מְקַיֵּים] the Torah from [a state of] poverty—his destiny is to fulfill it [לְקַיְּימָהּ] from [a state of] wealth. And everyone who nullifies the Torah from [a state of] wealth—his destiny is to nullify it from [a state] of poverty.” (m. Avot 4:9)

ולא עוד אלא שהיה ארונו של יוסף מהלך עם ארון חי העולמים והיו אומות העולם אומרים להן לישראל מה טיבן של שני ארונות הללו והם אומרים להן זה ארונו של חי העולמים וזה ארונו של מת והיו אומרים להם אומות העולם מה טיבו של ארונו של מת שמהלך עם ארון חי העולמים אמרו להן המונח בארון זה קיים מה שכתוב במונח בארון זה

And not only that, but the ark of Joseph[’s bones ⟨cf. Exod. 13:19⟩—DNB and JNT] went about with the ark of the One who lives eternally. And the nations of the world would say to Israel, “Of what kind are these two arks?” And they [i.e., the Israelites—DNB and JNT] would say, “This is the ark of the One who lives eternally, and this is the ark of one who is dead.” And the nations of the world would say to them, “What kind of ark of a dead person is it that goes about with the ark of the One who lives eternally?” They said to them, “The one who rests in this ark fulfilled [קִיֵּים] that which was written in what rests in this ark.” (Mechilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, BeShallaḥ §1 [ed. Lauterbach, 1:121])

נוח קיים מה שכת′ בתורה…אברהם קיים את התורה כולה…יצחק קיים מה שכתוב בתורה…יעקב קיים מה שכתוב בתורה…יהודה קיים מה שכת′ בתורה…יוסף קיים מה שכת′ בתורה

Noah fulfilled [קִיֵּים] that which is written in the Torah [even before it was given to Israel]…. Abraham fulfilled [קִיֵּים] the entire Torah…. Isaac fulfilled [קִיֵּים] that which is written in the Torah…. Jacob fulfilled [קִיֵּים] that which is written in the Torah…. Judah fulfilled [קִיֵּים] that which is written in the Torah…. Joseph fulfilled [קִיֵּים] that which is written in the Torah…. (Lev. Rab. 2:10 [ed. Margulies, 50]; cf. b. Yom. 28b)

A Greek translator, therefore, who encountered קִיֵּם in Jesus’ saying might understandably have translated קִיֵּם with πληροῦν, since both verbs could be used for the fulfillment of the obligations of the Torah. Had he done so, however, he probably missed the nuance of קִיֵּם Jesus actually intended. In addition to “fulfill a prophecy” and “fulfill an obligation,” קִיֵּם could also be used in the sense of “establish” a verse of the Torah, or the Torah in its entirety, by interpreting it correctly so as to give every word in the Torah its full force. This is the sense of קִיֵּם we noted above in Comment to L1. Postulating קִיֵּם in the underlying Hebrew text has significant explanatory power. It explains why the Greek translator of Jesus’ saying selected πληροῦν as an equivalent, it explains why the author of Matthew misunderstood πληροῦν as referring to the fulfillment of oracles and prophecies rather than the fulfillment of obligations, and this misunderstanding explains why the author of Matthew added “or the Prophets” in L4. No other reconstruction, especially not מִלֵּא, has such explanatory power.

On attaching the third person feminine pronominal suffix to לְקַיֵּם despite the lack in the Greek text of an equivalent accusative pronoun, see above, Comment to L5.

The Text of the Torah

L7-17 Unlike the first half of Heaven and Earth Pass Away, which occurs in a single version unique to the Gospel of Matthew, the second half of the pericope occurs in two versions: a DT version concerning the Torah (Matt. 5:18 ∥ Luke 16:17) and a TT version concerning Jesus’ teaching embedded in the eschatological discourse (Matt. 24:35 ∥ Mark 13:31 ∥ Luke 21:33). We regard the TT version as an FR composition based on the DT version (see the Story Placement and Conjectured Stages of Transmission discussions above). For the purpose of reconstructing the Hebrew Life of Yeshua, the greatest value of the TT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away is that it enables us to identify redactional elements in Matt. 5:18 that are the product of Matthean cross-pollination.

Scholars debate whether Matthew’s DT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away or Luke’s parallel presents the Torah as more enduring.^[81] According to Matthew’s version, the Torah will endure as long as heaven and earth remain, which might be understood as a statement regarding the Torah’s eternal validity, except that according to Jesus’ worldview and that of his listeners the present world was destined to give way to the world to come. Thus, in Matt. 5:18 we learn only of the Torah’s status in the present but not in the future age. In Luke’s parallel we read that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the Torah to be altered, but since the passing away of heaven and earth was considered to be possible (unlike a camel passing through the eye of a needle), Luke 16:17 leaves the Torah’s alteration open as a possibility. The One who will do away with heaven and earth could also do away with the Torah, albeit with greater difficulty. Nevertheless, the point of both versions of Jesus’ saying is that for all intents and purposes the Torah is immutable. Neither version indicates that the Torah will be altered, even if the alteration of the Torah remains theoretically possible. Perhaps the form and/or content of the Torah will change in the world to come, but whether or not it shall is not in view in Matthew’s version of the saying. Perhaps God, who will cause heaven and earth to pass away, could also cause the Torah’s lettering to be altered, but the point of Luke’s version is not that God has any intention of doing so. While alteration of the text of the Torah is a theoretical possibility in both DT versions of Heaven and Earth Pass Away, such alteration remains a practical impossibility for everyone in Jesus’ audience.

L7-8 ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι (GR). Numerous scholars regard the entire phrase ἀμὴν γὰρ λέγω ὑμῖν (amēn gar legō hūmin, “Amen! For I say to you…”) in Matt. 5:18 as a Matthean addition,^[82] often on the grounds that 1) no parallel to this phrase occurs in Luke 16:17^[83] and/or 2) ἀμὴν γάρ is unique to the Gospel of Matthew.^[84] However, it would hardly be surprising if, in the process of extracting Jesus’ saying from its original context, the “Amen! I say to you” was stripped away from the “string of pearls” version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away, so the absence of this phrase in Luke 16:17 is hardly conclusive.^[85] Neither is the presence of γάρ (gar, “for”) in Matt. 5:18 (L8) proof that the entire phrase is redactional. We must take fully into account the possibility that the author of Matthew simply inserted γάρ into ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, which he took from his source.^[86] A more serious challenge to adopting ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν (without the γάρ) for GR is the possibility that this phrase is the result of cross-pollination from the version of Completion that appears in the eschatological discourse (Matt. 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32), which contains some form of this phrase in all three of its synoptic versions. As we noted in the Conjectured Stages of Transmission discussion above, it is necessary to be suspicious of any wording Matt. 5:18 shares in common with Mark 13:30-31 (Matthew’s source of the TT version of Completion) that does not also appear in Luke 16:17. This suspicion notwithstanding, ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν is so characteristic of Anth., it is so Hebraic, and it is so fitting in Matt. 5:18 that we think it likely this phrase did occur in Matthew’s source. In our view, “Amen! I say to you” together with the key words “heaven and earth” and “pass away” were the catalysts for the author of Matthew’s cross-pollination efforts in Matt. 5:18.

To λέγω ὑμῖν in L8 we have added the conjunction ὅτι (hoti, “that,” “because”), since so many ἀμὴν γὰρ λέγω σοι/ὑμῖν declarations in Anth. were followed by ὅτι. The author of Matthew may have omitted ὅτι in L8 to offset his insertion of γάρ in L8.

אָמֵן אֲנִי אֹמֵר לָכֶם (HR). On reconstructing ἀμήν (amēn, “Amen!”) with אָמֵן (’āmēn, “Amen!”), see Sending the Twelve: Conduct in Town, Comment to L115.

Many scholars regard “Amen!” in Matt. 5:18 as the opening of a new sentence and regard this introductory usage of “Amen!” as unique to Jesus.^[87] However, it is only because scholars deny the original unity of Matt. 5:17 and Matt. 5:18 that they assume “Amen!” in Matt. 5:18 functions as an introduction. We believe it is better to regard the “Amen!” in Matt. 5:18 not as an introduction to what follows but as a reaffirmation of what Jesus had just said in the preceding verse.^[88] In other words, by exclaiming “Amen!” in response to his statement that he had come to interpret the Torah in a way that validates every verse in the Scriptures, Jesus made this statement the grounds to his further statement that not a single graphical symbol will ever be stricken from the sacred text of the Torah.

Although we included ὅτι in GR to L8, we have not included anything corresponding to this conjunction in HR. A Hebrew equivalent to ὅτι such as כִּי (ki, “that,” “because”) is simply unnecessary in the present context. If ὅτι occurred in Anth., it was probably added by the Greek translator of the Hebrew Life of Yeshua for stylistic reasons, not because it reflected a word in his source text.

L9 εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστιν (GR). Some scholars regard Matthew’s wording in L9 (“until might pass away”) as more original than Luke’s (“but [it is] easier”), either because they think the author of Luke was attempting to open up the possibility of alteration of the Torah^[89] (but then, why so small an opening?), or because they regard Luke’s phrasing as more elegant than Matthew’s,^[90] or because they regard sayings with the ἕως/μέχρις + subjunctive/future clause ⇄ οὐ μὴ + subjunctive pattern to be characteristic of authentic sayings of Jesus.^[91] But these arguments do not take into account the phenomenon of Matthean cross-pollination, which easily explains the presence of ἕως ἂν παρέλθῃ (heōs an parelthē, “until might pass away”) in Matt. 5:18. These words appear to be adapted from μέχρις οὗ ταῦτα πάντα γένηται (mechris hou tavta panta genētai, “until all these come to pass”) in Mark 13:30 and οὐ μὴ παρελεύσονται (ou mē parelevsontai, “will not pass away”) in Mark 13:31 (cf. οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ [ou mē parelthē, “will not pass away”] in Mark 13:30). Given the author of Matthew’s tendency to increase the similarity of parallel sayings by blending their vocabulary, the possibility that ἕως ἂν παρέλθῃ in Matt. 5:18 is the product of Matthean cross-pollination must be taken seriously. Matthean cross-pollination must at least be regarded as more probable than the author of Luke’s attempt to conform his DT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away to other εὐκοπώτερον sayings,^[92] since a phenomenon of Lukan cross-pollination has not been demonstrated.

Since the use of εὐκοπώτερον (evkopōteron, “easier”) is not characteristic of Lukan redaction/composition,^[93] and since this comparative adjective reverts easily to Hebrew, we have adopted Luke’s εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστιν (“easier is”) for GR.

Luke’s δέ (de, “but”), on the other hand, we have excluded from GR. This conjunction was probably supplied by whoever (the First Reconstructor? an earlier tradent of Jesus’ sayings?) arranged the sayings in Luke 16:16-18 into a “string of pearls.”

נוֹחַ (HR). On reconstructing εὐκοπώτερον (evkopōteron, “easier”) with נוֹחַ (nōaḥ, “easy”), see Rich Man Declines the Kingdom of Heaven, Comment to L76.

Since Hebrew lacks comparative adjectives, comparisons like “more than,” or in our case “easier than,” were expressed with adjective + מִן (min, “from”).^[94] Therefore, to make נוֹחַ serve its comparative function we have affixed the preposition מִן to לְיוֹד (l^eyōd, “for a yod”) in HR to L13.

We have omitted an equivalent to Luke’s ἐστιν (“he/she/it is”) in HR, since in Hebrew a “to be” verb is unnecessary in the present context.

L10-11 τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν (GR). Both the DT and the TT versions of Heaven and Earth Pass Away are in agreement in referring to heaven and earth in L10-11. Having determined that εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστιν (“it is easier”) probably represents Anth.’s wording of Jesus’ saying, we have adopted the accusative phrasing of “heaven and earth” in Luke 16:17 for GR.

לַשָּׁמַיִם וְלָאָרֶץ (HR). On reconstructing οὐρανός (ouranos, “heaven”) with שָׁמַיִם (shāmayim, “heaven”), see Not Everyone Can Be Yeshua’s Disciple, Comment to L39.

On reconstructing γῆ (gē, “land,” “earth”) with אֶרֶץ (’eretz, “land,” “earth”), see Sending the Twelve: Conduct in Town, Comment to L118.

“Heaven and earth” is a typical Hebraic hendiadys for the universe.^[95] 

Whereas some scholars debate whether the DT version of Jesus’ saying conceives of the passing away of heaven and earth as a real possibility^[96] or whether the image of heaven and earth passing away is merely a rhetorical way of saying “never,”^[97] Flusser pointed to ancient Jewish sources that refer to a mystical relationship between the Torah and the existence of heaven and earth.^[98] The book of Proverbs regards Wisdom as the agent of creation (Prov. 8:22-31), but by identifying Wisdom with the Torah,^[99] the sages regarded the Torah as having been present at the world’s creation and the means by which heaven and earth came into being (cf., e.g., m. Avot 3:14).^[100] The reason it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for any part of the Torah to be deleted is that creation depends upon the Torah for its existence, as Rabbi Eliezer declared:

גדולה תורה שאילמלא תורה לא נתקיימו שמים וארץ שנאמר אם לא בריתי יומם ולילה חקות שמים וארץ לא שמתי וגו′‏

Great is the Torah! For were it not for the Torah heaven and earth could not exist [נִתְקַיְּימוּ], for it is said, if not for my covenant by day and night, I would not have established the ordinances of heaven and earth [Jer. 33:25]. (b. Ned. 32a; cf. b. Pes. 68b)

An early expression of this mystical relationship is found in the following saying of the high priest Shimon ha-Tzadik:

שִׁמְעוֹן הַצַדִּיק…הָיָה אוֹ′ עַל שְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים הָעוֹלָם עוֹמֵד עַל הַתּוֹרָה וְעַל הָעֲבֹדָה וְעַל גְּמִילוּת חֲסָדִים

Shimon ha-Tzadik…used to say, “The world stands upon three things: upon the Torah, upon the Divine Service, and upon acts of benevolence.” (m. Avot 1:2)

In other words, the Torah is one of the pillars that upholds the universe. From sources such as these it appears the scholarly debates regarding whether in Jesus’ saying the passing away of heaven and earth is a real possibility or merely hypothetical miss the true import of Jesus’ statement. For Jesus, as for the Jewish sages, creation’s existence is bound up with the Torah. The Torah could not be altered without dire consequences for the cosmos and all of its inhabitants.^[101] 

L12 παρελθεῖν (GR). Both the DT and TT versions of Heaven and Earth Pass Away are agreed in using some form of the verb παρέρχεσθαι (parerchesthai, “to pass by”) to refer to the passing away of creation. Such agreement is a fairly secure anchor for GR. But whereas the DT version of Jesus’ saying merely envisions the passing away of heaven and earth as a possibility (whether real or hypothetical), in the TT version the passing away of creation is a certainty. The discrepancy is due to the difference in context. The TT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away is embedded in the eschatological discourse, which describes the collapse of the cosmos leading up to the Son of Man’s coming (Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:24-25; Luke 21:25-26). It was therefore necessary for the First Reconstructor to refer to the passing away of heaven and earth as a certainty when he adapted Jesus’ saying about the Torah into an affirmation of the contents of Jesus’ prophecy. Since we believe the comparative form of Jesus’ saying in Luke 16:17 is closest to the original, we have adopted the infinitive form παρελθεῖν (parelthein, “to pass away”) from this verse for GR.

לַעֲבֹר (HR). In LXX most instances of παρέρχεσθαι (parerchesthai, “to pass by”) occur as the translation of עָבַר (‘āvar, “pass by,” “cross over”).^[102] We also find that the LXX translators more often rendered עָבַר as παρέρχεσθαι than as any other Greek verb.^[103] 

Dalman argued that to reconstruct παρέρχεσθαι in Heaven and Earth Pass Away with עָבַר “would not be in keeping” with the contrast between קִיֵּם (qiyēm, “establish”) and בִּטֵּל (biṭēl, “nullify,” “strike out”) which underlies and unites Matt. 5:17-18.^[104] Nevertheless, we believe that עָבַר is the better option for HR, not only because of the LXX evidence, but also because having reconstructed καταλύειν (katalūein, “to demolish”) with בִּטֵּל in L2 and L5, it is infelicitous to reconstruct παρέρχεσθαι also with בִּטֵּל in L12. Presumably the Greek translator of Jesus’ sayings in Heaven and Earth Pass Away had a reason for using different verbs. The most likely reason is that he was confronted with different verbs in his Hebrew text. Moreover, [no_word_wrap]ע-ב-ר[/no_word_wrap] and בִּטֵּל were sometimes used in synonymous parallelism, as we see in the following examples:

בֶּן מֵאָה כְּאִילוּ מֵת וְעָבַר וּבָטֵל מִן הָעוֹלָם

A hundred-year-old person is like a dead person and he has passed away [וְעָבַר] and ceased [וּבָטֵל] from the world. (m. Avot 5:21 [ed. Blackman, 4:538])

יוֹחָנָן כֹּהָן גָּדוֹל הֶעֱבִיר הוֹדָיַית הַמַּעֲשֵׂר אַף הוּא בִיטֵּל אֶת הַמְעוֹרְרִים וְאֶת הַנּוֹקְפִים עַד יָמָיו הָיָה הַפַּטִּיש מַכֶּה בִירוּשַ׳ וּבְיָמָּיו אֵין אָדָם צָרִיךְ לִשְׁאוֹל עַל הַדְּמַיִי

Yohanan the high priest did away with [הֶעֱבִיר] the confession of the tithes, also he suspended [בִיטֵּל] the awakeners and the stunners. Until his days the hammer used to strike in Jerusalem, and in his days no one had to ask about doubtfully tithed produce. (m. Sot. 9:10)

In addition to the synonymous parallelism of [no_word_wrap]ע-ב-ר[/no_word_wrap] and בִּטֵּל, we also note that עָבַר could be used in contrast to [no_word_wrap]ק-ו-מ[/no_word_wrap], for instance:

ויקרא שם המקום ההוא בית אל עבר שם הראשון ונתקיים שם השני כיוצא בו דרש ולא יקרא עוד את שמך אברם וגו′ עבר שם ראשון ונתקיים שם השני כיוצא בו דרש שרי אשתך לא תקרא וגו′ עבר שם הראשון ונתקיים שם השני

And he called the name of that place Bethel [Gen. 28:19]. The first name passed away [עָבַר], but the second name was established [וְנִתְקַיֵּים]. In the same way he interpreted And your name will no longer be called Abram, etc. [Gen. 17:5]. The first name passed away [עָבַר], but the second name was established [וְנִתְקַיֵּים]. In the same way he interpreted No longer will you call your wife Sarai, etc. [Gen. 17:15]. The first name passed away [עָבַר], but the second name was established [וְנִתְקַיֵּים]. (Mechilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Pisḥa §16 [ed. Lauterbach, 1:91])

These examples demonstrate that reconstructing παρέρχεσθαι with עָבַר in L12 does no violence to the underlying contrast between קִיֵּם (qiyēm, “establish”) and בִּטֵּל (biṭēl, “nullify,” “strike out”) that unites the sayings belonging to Heaven and Earth Pass Away. We therefore see no obstacle to prevent us from adopting עָבַר in L12 for HR.

An example of עָבַר used to describe the passing away of heaven and earth occurs in the following midrash:

אמר ירמיהו המאס מאסת את יהודה וגו′ השיבו הקב″ה אם ראית שמים וארץ שעברו, אותה שעה תוכל לומר שאני מאסתי בהם

Jeremiah said, “Have you utterly rejected Judah?,” etc. [Jer. 14:19]. The Holy One, blessed be he, answered him, “If you see that heaven and earth have passed away [שָׁמַיִם וְאֶרֶץ שֶׁעָבְרוּ], at that time you will be able to say that I have rejected them.” (Midrash Aggadah 1:1 [ed. Buber, 1:1])

L13 ἢ ἰῶτα ἓν (GR). Scholars are divided as to whether the author of Matthew (or his source) added the reference to the Greek letter iota (Ι | ι) to Jesus’ saying^[105] or whether Luke’s parallel omits this reference.^[106] Dalman and Gundry argued that Matthew’s addition of iota was for the benefit of Greek readers, but their explanations are unsound.

Dalman claimed that in the time of Jesus the letter yod was not the smallest letter, but was even larger than the vav, whereas in Greek iota was definitely the smallest letter.^[107] Therefore, a reference to the letter yod in Jesus’ saying would have been nonsensical. An added reference to the Greek letter iota, on the other hand, would have clarified Jesus’ saying for a Hellenistic audience. But Dalman’s information is antiquated. In first-century Herodian scripts yod and vav are indeed very similar, but the yod was shrinking and it was smaller than the vav in the minds of the scribes, even if the yod was not always noticeably smaller than the vav in the documents they produced.^[108] Dalman was also incorrect in asserting that iota was the smallest Greek letter. While it is true that in minuscule manuscripts iota is tiny, in the majuscule scripts current in the first century iota was not especially small.^[109] So, in fact, the smallness of the Hebrew letter yod in Herodian scripts does make sense of Jesus’ saying, while an inserted reference to the Greek letter iota does not.

Gundry argued against the originality of iota from a different direction, claiming that the author of Luke, being so Hellenistic, would hardly have omitted a reference to a Greek letter had it occurred in his source. Therefore, Matthew’s iota must be an editorial addition having nothing to do with the Hebrew alphabet.^[110] However, it is not difficult to turn Gundry’s argument against him. A Greek editor concerned about Hellenistic style would have known that the pairing of κεραία (keraia, “pen stroke,” “serif”) with ἰῶτα (“iota”) was incorrect. In Greek it was συλλαβαί (sūllabai, “letters,” “syllables”) that were properly paired with κεραία (“serifs”).^[111] Therefore, the pairing of iota and serif would have sounded distinctly odd,^[112] making its correction desirable. The simplest way to correct this barbarism would have been to omit iota, because the statement “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one keraia to fall from the Torah” would have been entirely comprehensible to Greek-speaking audiences, since the use of κεραία (keraia) in the sense of “pen stroke” or “serif” was well established.^[113] Moreover, by omitting ἰῶτα ἓν Luke 16:17 avoids having to repeat ἤ (ē, “or,” “than”), which would otherwise have been necessary (viz., ἢ ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μίαν κεραίαν [ē iōta hen ē mian keraian, “than for one iota or one serif”]).

Since the addition of iota was not needed for the clarification of Jesus’ saying,^[114] but rather detracted from it in the ears of Greek audiences, it is more likely that Matthew’s ἰῶτα (iōta, “iota”) was taken over from his source. This conclusion is further supported by the fact that ἰῶτα is easily explained as a reference to the Hebrew letter yod (י).^[115] Reference to a Hebrew letter not being deleted from the Torah in the original form of Jesus’ saying is inherently likely, since Torah scrolls were written in Hebrew.^[116] Moreover, the denial that a yod would ever be deleted from the text of the Torah was probably already proverbial in the time of Jesus. Evidence for this proverb appears in a rabbinic discussion about King Solomon’s transgressions:

ומי קיטרגו אמר ר′ יהושע בן לוי יו″ד שבירבה קיטרגו תני ר′ שמעון בן יוחי עלה ספר משנה תורה ונשתטח לפני הקב″ה אמר לפניו רבון העולם כתבת בתורתיך כל דייתיקי שבטלה מקצת בטלה כולה והרי שלמה מבקש לעקור יו″ד ממני אמר ליה הקב″ה שלמה ואלף כיוצא בו בטילין ודבר ממך אינו בטל

And who brought charges against him [i.e., Solomon—DNB and JNT]? Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi [said]: “The yod that is in yarbeh [from the commandment lo’ yarbeh lō nāshim, “(the king) must not multiply wives to himself”; Deut. 17:17—DNB and JNT] brought charges against him.” It was taught [in a baraita]: Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai [said], “The book of Deuteronomy ascended and unfurled itself before the Holy One, blessed be he. It said before him, ‘Ruler of the Universe, you wrote in your Torah every covenant that is nullified in part is nullified in whole. And behold! Solomon is seeking to uproot a yod from me!’ The Holy One, blessed be he, said to it, ‘Solomon and a thousand like him will be deleted, but not a word from you will be deleted.’” (y. Sanh. 2:6 [13a]; cf. Exod. Rab. 6:1 [ed. Merkin, 5:107])

A version of this imaginative tale occurs in Leviticus Rabbah, but there God’s promise to the book of Deuteronomy is stated differently:

הרי שלמה בטל ומאה כיוצא בו ויוד ממך אינו בטל לעולם

Behold! Solomon and a hundred like him will be deleted, but a yod from you will never be deleted. (Lev. Rab. 19:2 [ed. Margulies, 1:421])^[117] 

Why it was the letter yod that brought charges against Solomon is not readily explained on the basis of Deut. 17:17.^[118] Deleting the yod would cause the text to read וְלֹא רבה לּוֹ נָשִׁים (“and he [God?] did not increase women for him [i.e., the king of Israel]”). Solomon would have done better to delete לֹא, which would have changed the prohibition into a mandate: וְיַרְבֶּה לּוֹ נָשִׁים (“and he [i.e., the king of Israel] shall accumulate wives for himself”). It appears, therefore, that the reason the yod is made to protest against Solomon in Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai’s (second century C.E.) imaginative tale is that the claim that no yod will ever be deleted from the Torah was a commonplace. Shimon ben Yohai’s imaginative tale simply dramatized a popular and, by that time, possibly ancient proverbial saying.

Thus, the originality of Matthew’s iota is highly probable, since it ties Jesus’ saying very closely to the Hebrew text of the Torah.^[119] The omission of iota in Luke 16:17, on the other hand, distances Jesus’ saying from the Hebrew text of the Torah, making it better suited for non-Hebrew-speaking audiences. So we find that the First Reconstructor (or perhaps the author of Luke) had several reasons for omitting ἰῶτα from Jesus’ saying: 1) κεραία (“pen stroke,” “serif”) on its own had the advantage of being perfectly clear, 2) the deletion of ἰῶτα avoided the unusual departure from the typical pairing of κεραία with συλλαβαί (“syllables”), 3) it also avoided the awkwardness of needing to repeat ἢ, and 4) the omission of ἰῶτα made Jesus’ saying more applicable to non-Jewish audiences.

Since the evidence weighs in favor of Matthew’s having taken over the reference to the iota from his source, we have accepted ἰῶτα ἕν in L13 for GR.

מִלְּיוֹד אֶחָד (HR). The noun יוֹד (yōd), the name of the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, does not occur in MT, so we cannot look to LXX precedent upon which to base our reconstruction. Nevertheless, ἰῶτα and יוֹד are clear equivalents. Not only do they have approximately the same phonetic value, the names of the two letters are etymologically related, the Greeks having derived their letters and the names of their letters from the Phoenicians, from whose alphabet the Hebrew characters also descended.

An early instance of the noun יוֹד may be found in DSS (4Q511 10 I, 12), although in this instance יוד may be a misspelling of ידו (yādō, “his hand”).^[120] A certain instance of יוֹד occurs in the Mishnah in reference to swearing by יוֹד הֵי (yōd hē), the first two letters of the Tetragrammaton (m. Shevu. 4:13). If in Heaven and Earth Pass Away ἰῶτα really does represent יוֹד, and if the Hebrew Life of Yeshua had survived, it would have preserved the earliest attestation of the noun יוֹד in an ancient Hebrew source.

Delitzsch translated ἰῶτα ἕν (iōta hen, “one iota”) in Matt. 5:18 as יוֹד אַחַת (yōd ’aḥat, “one yod”), treating yod as a feminine noun. Jastrow did not indicate the gender of יוֹד in his Dictionary,^[121] and rabbinic evidence regarding the gender of yod is equivocal. The Babylonian Talmud twice quotes a saying referring to “the serif of a yod,” but in one place the phrase is quoted as קוֹצוֹ שֶׁל יוֹד (qōtzō shel yōd, “the serif of a yod”; b. Men. 34a), where the suffix attached to qotz indicates that yod is masculine, while in the other place the phrase is quoted as קוֹצָהּ שֶׁל יוֹד (qōtzāh shel yōd, “the serif of a yod”; b. Men. 29a), where the suffix attached to qotz indicates that yod is feminine.^[122] So it seems the name of the letter י could be treated either as feminine or masculine.^[123] Since, however, the plural form of יוֹד is יוֹדִים (yōdim) with a masculine ending,^[124] it appears that treating yod as masculine would have been more usual. We have therefore reconstructed ἰῶτα ἕν as יוֹד אֶחָד (yōd ’eḥād, “one [masc.] yod”).

οἱ δὲ λόγοι μου (Luke 21:33). Note how cleverly the First Reconstructor adapted the DT version of Jesus’ saying to its new purpose as a confirmation of everything Jesus had described in the eschatological discourse. Parallel to “a single pen stroke of the Law” (Luke 16:17) we find “my words” in Luke 21:33.

L14 ἢ μίαν κεραίαν ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου (GR). We can accept with great certainty the three words the DT versions of Heaven and Earth Pass Away share in common in L14—ἤ (ē, “or”), μία (mia, “one [fem.]”) and κεραία (keraia, “pen stroke,” “serif”)^[125] —as stemming from Anth. The only difference with respect to these three words in Matt. 5:18 and Luke 16:17 is that in the former the words are given in the nominative case while in the latter they appear in the accusative. Since the accusative case befits the comparative sentence, these are the forms we have adopted for GR. When the author of Matthew transformed the comparative sentence into an emphatic denial, the change to the nominative case became necessary.

Between ἤ and κεραίαν μίαν Luke 16:17 includes the phrase τοῦ νόμου (tou nomou, “of the law”). These words correspond to the phrase ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου in L16 of Matthew’s parallel. Despite the similar phrasing, there is a slight difference of nuance. While Luke 16:17 refers to “one pen stroke of [i.e., belonging to] the Law,” Matt. 5:18 describes graphical markings not passing away “from the Law.” Luke’s phrasing is more elegant Greek and defies Hebrew word order, whereas Matthew’s “from the Law” reverts easily to Hebrew. Nevertheless, comparison of Jesus’ saying with the reassurance God gave the book of Deuteronomy in Shimon ben Yohai’s imaginative tale gives us pause. According to Leviticus Rabbah, God said:

שלמה בטל…ויוד ממך אינו בטל

Solomon will be deleted…, but a yod from you will not be deleted. (Lev. Rab. 19:2 [ed. Margulies, 1:421])

In this example it is not entirely clear whether מִמְּךָ (mim^echā, “from you”) modifies the verb (“deleted from you”) or the noun (“a yod from you,” i.e., “one of your yods”). In any case, the placement of מִמְּךָ in the quotation above opens the possibility that neither Matt. 5:18 nor Luke 16:17 has preserved Anth.’s wording exactly. Regarding the wording, Matthew’s ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου (“from the law”) is probably original, representing מִן הַתּוֹרָה (min hatōrāh, “from the Torah”), but perhaps Luke’s placement of τοῦ νόμου prior to the infinitive is correct. Thus, our reconstruction in L14 is something of a compromise between Matt. 5:18 and Luke 16:17.

The meaning of κεραία (keraia, lit., “little horn”) in Jesus’ saying is not entirely clear, and the meaning of κεραία in Matt. 5:18 may not be identical with its meaning in Luke 16:17. If Luke 16:17 is interpreted without reference to Matt. 5:18, the most natural meaning of κεραία is “pen stroke,”^[126] a sense that was common in Koine Greek.^[127] In Matt. 5:18 the meaning of κεραία appears to be more specific, since it is used in conjunction with ἰῶτα (“iota”).

The third-century C.E. church father Origen used the term κεραία in a context that many interpreters of Matt. 5:18 have found to be illuminating.^[128] While discussing discrepancies between the Hebrew text of the Scriptures and their LXX translation, Origen used the term κεραία to describe the graphical markings that distinguish between certain Hebrew characters:

Ὁ τριακοστὸς τρίτος ψαλμὸς ἐπιγεγραμμένος, «τῷ Δαυῒδ, ὁπότε ἠλλοίωσε τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ἐναντίον Ἀβιμέλεχ,» ἔοικε τὸν ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ τῶν Βασιλειῶν Ἀχιμέλεχ ὠνομασμένον Ἀβιμέλεχ ἀποκαλεῖν· τῶν στοιχείων παρ᾽ Ἑβραίοις, λέγω δε τοῦ χὰφ καὶ τοῦ βὴθ πολλὴν ὁμοιοτητα σωζόντων, ὡς κατὰ μηδὲν άλλήών διαλλάττειν ἢ βραχείᾳ κεραίᾳ μόνῃ. Ἔχει δ’ οὖν ἡ ἱστορία οὕτως· «Καὶ ἔρχεται Δαυῒδ εἰς Νομμᾶν πρὸς Ἀχιμέλεχ τὸν ἱερέα, καὶ ἐξέστη Ἀχιμέλεχ τῇ ἀπαντήσει αὐτοῦ, καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Τί ὅτι σὺ μόνος, καὶ οὐδεὶς μετὰ σοῦ; Καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ Δαυΐδ· Ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐντέταλταί μοι σήμερον ῥῆμα, καὶ εἶπέ μοι· Μὴ γνώτω μηδεὶς τὸ ῥῆμα περὶ οὗ ἐγὼ ἀποστέλλω σε, καὶ περὶ οὗ ἐγὼ ἐντέταλμαί σοι.

The epigram of the thirty-third Psalm reads, Of David, when he changed his face before Abimelech [Ἀβιμέλεχ]. It seems the one named Achimelech [Ἀχιμέλεχ] in 1 Kingdoms is here called Abimelech. Now, with respect to the letters of the Hebrews, I can attest that there is much similarity between the chaf (כ) and the beth (ב), so that it is not possible to distinguish between them except by one tiny keraia [ἢ βραχείᾳ κεραίᾳ μόνῃ]. And so this history relates, And David came to Nob to Achimelech the priest, and Achimelech was surprised at meeting him, and said to him, “Why are you alone and no one is with you?” And David said to him, “The King charged me with an errand today, and said to me, ‘Do not make known to anyone the errand about which I am sending you and concerning which I charge you’….” [1 Kgdms. 21:2-3]. (Selecta in Psalmos [ed. Migne, 12:1068])

While Origen’s explanation for the discrepancy between Abimelech and Achimelech is inadequate,^[129] his discussion does show that the term κεραία could be used to refer to small, yet essential, parts of Hebrew letters.^[130] 

Another explanation of κεραία in Matt. 5:18 that has gained less scholarly acceptance is the suggestion that since ἰῶτα (“iota”) in Jesus’ saying probably translates יוֹד (“yod”), κεραία ought to be expected to translate the name of another Hebrew letter. Noting that וָו (vāv), the name of the letter ו, can also mean “hook” in Biblical Hebrew, a few scholars suggest that κεραία in Matt. 5:18 is really a mistranslation of the name of the letter vav.^[131] A reference to the letter vav in Jesus’ saying would make sense not only because the two letters are graphically similar (in ancient MSS yod and vav are sometimes indistinguishable), but because yod and vav are unique in serving the dual functions of consonants and vowels. As vowel-letters yod and vav were sometimes included and sometimes omitted, resulting in alternate spellings of certain words in the Hebrew Scriptures (i.e., plene and defective spellings).^[132] Thus, Jesus’ saying could be understood to mean that even vowel-letters in the text of the Torah that are not strictly required for the text to make sense will not be deleted from the Torah.

Despite the ingenuity of this suggestion, it is not fully convincing. First, we may note that in MT the noun וָו is rare, it always occurs in the plural, and it always occurs in reference to part of the pillars of the Tabernacle.^[133] The LXX translators never rendered וָו as κεραία, but variously as κεφαλίς (kefalis, “capital”), κρίκος (krikos, “[curtain] ring,” “hoop”) or ἀγκύλη (ankūlē, “curtain ring,” “curtain hook”).^[134] Thus, κεραία (“horn”) is not an obvious equivalent of וָו (“hook”). Second, it is unlikely that a Greek translator would have failed to recognize that וָו did not mean “hook” in Jesus’ saying. In Mishnaic Hebrew וָו in the sense of “hook” had become obsolete, and its exclusive use (apart from scriptural quotations) was for the letter vav,^[135] so confusion is improbable, and the context would have made it clear that it was to the letter ו, not a hook, that Jesus’ saying referred. Third, it is not quite the case, as Nodet claimed, that a Greek translator did have an option for translating וָו with the name of a Greek letter.^[136] While it is true that by the first century the letter ϝ, the ancient Greek equivalent of ו, was no longer in use for spelling, its name, δίγαμμα (digamma), had not been forgotten,^[137] and the digamma was still in use as a numerical symbol representing the number 6 (the same numerical value as the letter ו). So a Greek translator of Jesus’ saying could have rendered וָו as δίγαμμα (if וָו had occurred in his source) without causing confusion. But more importantly, it appears that Jesus’ saying cited the stock image of a yod and a qotz,^[138] qotz being the Hebrew term for the non-essential serif that was sometimes attached to the yod, especially in formal documents.

אוֹ לְקוֹץ אֶחָד מִן הַתּוֹרָה (HR). On reconstructing ἤ (ē, “or”) with אוֹ (’ō, “or”), see Yeshua’s Discourse on Worry, Comment to L47.

The noun קוֹץ (qōtz, “thorn”) was never rendered as κεραία (“pen stroke”) in LXX,^[139] but this is hardly surprising since קוֹץ did not acquire the meaning “serif” until after the last of the books of the Hebrew Scriptures were written. Indeed, קוֹץ in the sense of “serif” is not attested until relatively late in the rabbinic corpus. It does not occur in this sense, for instance, in the Mishnah, Tosefta or the halachic midrashim. Nevertheless, late attestation is not proof that the usage itself was late. Rabbinic literature, being a compilation of Oral Torah, was not particularly concerned with describing the appearance of written documents, so references to the formation of letters only appears by chance. Such a chance reference occurs in an interpretation of a verse from Song of Songs:

קווצותיו תלתלים אמר רב חסדא אמר מר עוקבא מלמד שיש לדרוש על כל קוץ וקוץ תילי תילים של הלכות

His locks [קְווּצּוֹתָיו] are wavy [תַּלְתַּלִּים] [Song 5:11]. Rav Hisda said, “Mar Ukba teaches that one must expound mounds upon mounds [תִּילֵי תִּילִים] of halachot upon each and every serif [עַל כָּל קוֹץ וְקוֹץ] [in the Torah—DNB and JNT].” (b. Eruv. 21b)^[140] 

Here the sages made a double wordplay based on the graphical similarities between קְוֻּצּוֹת (q^evutzōt, “locks [of hair]”) and קוֹץ (qōtz, “serif”) and between תַּלְתַּלִּים (taltalim, “curly locks”) and תִּילֵי תִּילִים (tilē tilim, “mounds of mounds”). This double wordplay is also present—albeit behind the scenes—in an imaginative scene in which God predicts to Moses that Rabbi Akiva will one day bring out every slightest nuance of the Torah’s text:

אדם אחד יש שעתיד להיות בסוף כמה דורות ועקיבא בן יוסף שמו שעתיד לדרוש על כל קוץ וקוץ תילין תילין של הלכות

There is to be a certain man at the end of so many generations—Akiva ben Yosef is his name—who will expound mounds upon mounds of halachot upon each and every qotz.^[141] (b. Men. 29b)

The allusion to Song of Songs in this scene makes sense, for in addition to being the greatest halachist in history, Rabbi Akiva was also a renowned expositor of Song of Songs.^[142] The point of the double wordplay in the previous citation is to insist that every qotz attached to a letter in the Torah is significant, a point that is not dissimilar to the saying of Jesus preserved in Matt. 5:18 ∥ Luke 16:17.

The same point is made in the following statement:

ארבע פרשיות שבתפילין מעכבות זו את זו ואפילו כתב אחד מעכבן פשיטא אמר רב יהודה אמר רב לא נצרכא אלא לקוצו של יו″ד

The four paragraphs contained in tefillin can invalidate one another, so even one graphical error can invalidate them [m. Men. 3:7]. Is this not obvious? For Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav, “It must not be other than according to the qotz of a yod.” (b. Men. 34a; cf. b. Men. 29a)

The pairing of qotz and yod in the above statement parallels the pairing of iota and keraia in Jesus’ saying. The pairing of qotz and yod also occurs in a version of the imaginative tale of the yod that brought charges against King Solomon. While in the Yerushalmi’s version God assures the book of Deuteronomy, “Not a word of you will be deleted,” in the version in Exodus Rabbah God assures the yod, קוֹצָה מִמֵּךְ אֵינִי מְבַטֵּל (qōtzāh mimēch ’ēni m^evaṭēl, “I will not even delete a serif from you”; Exod. Rab. 6:1 [ed. Merkin, 5:107]).^[143] 

As we have stated, the use of קוֹץ in the sense of “serif” is not attested in the earliest rabbinic sources. Nevertheless, the association of traditions attributing significance to every qotz in the Torah with Rabbi Akiva (mid-second cent. C.E.) suggests that qotz in the sense of “serif” was current prior to the Bar Kochva revolt. Support for an even earlier use of qotz in the sense of “serif” may be found in the field of paleography (the study of ancient writing). Paleographers have noted that one of the most distinctive features of the Herodian scripts, which developed in the first century B.C.E. through the first century C.E., was the addition of serifs to certain letters.^[144] What vocabulary first-century Hebrew speakers used for “serif” is unknown, but it is probable that they had some term to describe this new phenomenon, and we think qotz is a likely candidate.

Cross referred to the serifs in the Herodian script as keraia, noting that “[t]he keraia of the New Testament (Mt. 5:18 = Lk. 16:17), normally translated ‘tittle,’ no doubt refers to an ornamentation of the Herodian book hand.”^[145] By referring to the Herodian serifs by the Greek name keraia, Cross evidently wished to avoid a certain confusion rampant among New Testament scholars who have anachronistically interpreted the phrase μία κεραία (mia keraia, “one pen stroke”) as referring to the “crowns” attached to certain letters in medieval Torah scrolls and in the parchments contained in tefillin and mezzuzot.^[146] These crowns were formed by the addition of three tiny zayin-shaped (ז) strokes (זִיּוּנִין [ziyūnin]) to the top of a letter, which gave it the appearance of wearing a crown. However, Jesus’ saying could not possibly have referred to the scribal convention of attaching “crowns” to certain letters because in the first century this practice had not yet come into being.^[147] “Crowns” are not found in any of the scriptural manuscripts discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Neither do they occur in any of the mezzuzah or tefillin parchments that date back to the Second Temple period. In order not to perpetuate the misapprehension that “crowns” existed in the first centuries B.C.E. and C.E., Cross refrained from using the term tag and keter to describe the serifs that characterize the Herodian scripts. But by also avoiding the term qotz, we believe Cross was being overly cautious.

The term for the scribal “crown” is תָּג (tāg; plural: תָּגִים [tāgim] or תָּגִין [tāgin]) or כֶּתֶר (keter; plural: כְּתָרִים [k^etārim]), not קוֹץ (qōtz).^[148] Proof that קוֹץ is not to be conflated with תָּג/כֶּתֶר may be adduced from the fact that “crowns” are only attached to the letters [no_word_wrap]ש-ע-ט-נ-ז-ג-צ[/no_word_wrap] (b. Men. 29b), while י, which is not among the letters that can receive a “crown,”^[149] was well-known for possessing a qotz, as we have seen from rabbinic sayings cited above. The qotz, moreover, came to be regarded as integral to the proper formation of every yod, whereas the addition of ziyunin to form “crowns” was merely ornamental. Thus, although qotzim were sometimes discussed in the same context as tagin/keterim, they do not refer to the same graphic phenomena.^[150] 

Since 1) in Mishnaic Hebrew qotz could be used in the sense of “serif,” and 2) there is reason to believe this usage was current in the first century, and 3) κεραία was also regularly used for “serif,” and 4) it appears that in his saying Jesus alluded to the proverbial pairing of yod and qotz,^[151] we believe קוֹץ is the best option for reconstructing κεραία in L14.

On reconstructing νόμος (nomos, “law”) with תּוֹרָה (tōrāh, “Torah,” “law”), see above, Comment to L3.

Numerous scholars have made the unwarranted assumption that Jesus’ reference to an iota and a keraia really represents “the minutiæ in the Mosaic legislation”^[152] (e.g., laws of ritual purity) or the nitpicking of the scribes and Pharisees (e.g., tithing mint and cumin), which Jesus supposedly criticized.^[153] But it is both more accurate and more honest to interpret Jesus’ saying at face value as a statement about the written text of the Torah.^[154] According to Matthew’s version of the saying, the text of the Torah will remain unsullied as long as heaven and earth endure. According to Luke’s parallel, it is easier to do away with heaven and earth than to make even the slightest alteration to the text of the Torah. Leaping to the conclusion that Jesus’ statement about the Torah’s text really had to do with certain Jewish religious practices too easily allows Christians to bypass the radical (and thoroughly Jewish) commitment to the Torah of Moses Jesus expressed in this saying. According to Jesus, the Torah as it had been presented to Moses was flawless down to every last letter, and even down to the very last serif. Moreover, the Torah’s text had reached Jesus’ generation in pristine condition, and its transmission would remain inviolate until the end of time.

The view of the Torah Jesus espoused in this saying is highly idealistic and, like every other idealistic conception, difficult to square with reality. Setting aside the fact that all five books of the Torah were not revealed on Sinai—most of Deuteronomy is presented as a farewell discourse Moses delivered to Israel on the verge of their entry into the Promised Land—Jesus’ idealistic saying ignores the fact that the alphabet in which the Hebrew language was written changed from the paleo-Hebrew script in use before the Babylonian exile to the Aramaic script Jewish scribes brought back with them after the Restoration of Zion, which later evolved into the Jewish scripts used for the writing of Hebrew in the first century and beyond.^[155] If any part of the Torah existed prior to the return from exile, then it must have been written in the paleo-Hebrew script, and indeed the Samaritan version of the Torah continues to be written in paleo-Hebrew characters until the present day.^[156] Copies of the five books of Moses written in paleo-Hebrew script were also discovered at Qumran.^[157] There, too, were discovered “transitional” texts in which the main text was transcribed in the modern script but the Tetragrammaton was preserved in paleo-Hebrew characters, the scribes who produced these copies being more conservative with the divine name than with the rest of the text.

When the form of the letter yod in paleo-Hebrew (𐤉) is compared with the form of the yod in the newer Jewish scripts (more or less like this: 𐡉), we realize that the size and shape of the yod was drastically reduced.^[158] At least two pen strokes are missing. In view of the change of the Hebrew alphabet, Jesus’ declaration that not a single pen stroke would disappear from the Torah strikes us as remarkable, either for its ignorance, its naïveté, its obstinance, or its hyperbole. Let us explain.

That a change in the Torah’s script had taken place ought to have been common knowledge in the time of Jesus. Torah scrolls written in the paleo-Hebrew script were not unknown to the later rabbis, they were contained in the library of Qumran (and likely many other ancient libraries as well), the Samaritans wrote their Torah scrolls in the paleo letters, and the rabbinic authorities openly discussed the change of script and its circumstances.^[159] Moreover, the paleo-Hebrew script was probably familiar to most literate Jews, since coins issued during the First Jewish revolt against Rome (66-73 C.E.) and the Bar Kochvah revolt (132-135 C.E.) displayed propaganda slogans written in paleo-Hebrew letters. So it would be astounding if Jesus had been oblivious to the existence of Torah scrolls written in a more ancient script than the one found in the Torah scrolls he would have been accustomed to reading in the synagogue.

If Jesus’ statement regarding the text of the Torah cannot be explained on the basis of his ignorance, perhaps he was simply naïve. Perhaps Jesus accepted “as gospel” the anti-Samaritan propaganda which claimed that the Torah had originally been written in the familiar Jewish characters and that the paleo-Hebrew script was a later corruption, only to be restored to its proper form in the time of Ezra.^[160] Even if we assumed Jesus was naïve enough to swallow this self-serving nationalistic narrative, it still cannot be reconciled with Jesus’ claim that the text of the Torah never has been nor ever will be altered.

Perhaps, therefore, Jesus’ saying is better understood as an expression of resistance to the new Jewish scripts and reactionary loyalty to the paleo-Hebrew characters. The retention of Torah scrolls written in paleo-Hebrew in Qumran and especially the existence of transitional texts that continued to use the paleo-Hebrew script for the Tetragrammaton even after the rest of the Torah had been transcribed into the new characters suggest that there was resistance in some quarters to the adoption of the newer script for the copying of the Torah. Could Jesus’ saying be reacting against newfangled Torah scrolls? It seems most unlikely. By Jesus’ time the change of the Torah’s script was a fait accompli. Why continue to fight long after the battle was lost? Moreover, resistance to the new script was more likely to be found in conservative priestly circles (like the Sadducees or the Qumran sect) than among groups like the Hasidim or the Pharisees, for whom Jesus exhibited a stronger affinity.^[161] And if Jesus had rejected Torah scrolls written in anything other than the paleo-Hebrew script, how could he have read from the Torah in the synagogue in Nazareth,^[162] whose Torah scroll would almost certainly have been written in the newer Jewish script?^[163] 

If Jesus’ saying was not ignorant, naïve, or reactionary, perhaps the best explanation is that Jesus’ saying is hyperbolic. After all, the rabbinic sages could tell stories of how the book of Deuteronomy was reassured that not even a single yod would be deleted from its columns, and how the yod of the word ירבה was assured that not even its qotz would be omitted from the text despite the sages being fully aware that mistakes in copies of the Torah were a commonplace^[164] and that famous examples of text criticism in which some readings were preserved and others were deleted had taken place in the Temple.^[165] If in the face of certain knowledge that the Torah was subject to copyists’ errors the sages could nevertheless maintain that neither a yod nor a qotz would ever be omitted, there is no reason why Jesus could not speak idealistically of the immutability of the Torah without being ignorant of the change of scripts or polemicizing for or against this change and without denying that copyists’ errors had and would continue to take place. When Jesus claimed that neither a yod nor a qotz would be deleted from the text of the Torah he was not speaking realistically about actual Torah scrolls, which, being the products of human manufacture, are fallible. Jesus spoke of the Torah in idealistic terms that emphasized its divine origin.^[166] Jesus spoke of the ideal Torah, whose perfection every scribe aspires to produce but that no individual Torah scroll ever manages to achieve.

L15 καταλυθῆναι (GR). We think it is possible that in L15 neither Matt. 5:18 nor Luke 16:17 preserves Anth.’s wording. Matthew’s οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ (ou mē parelthē, “will not pass away”) is inherently suspect because it is easily explained as the product of Matthean cross-pollination with the sayings in Mark 13:30-31 (the phrase οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ occurs in Mark 13:30 in reference to “this generation”).^[167] The author of Matthew would have had as additional motive for replacing Anth.’s wording in L15 with οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ the resulting repetition of the verb παρέρχεσθαι (parerchesthai, “to pass by”) in L9 and L15, which mimics the double use of παρέρχεσθαι in Mark 13:31.^[168] On the other hand, Luke’s πεσεῖν (pesein, “to fall”), which has a better claim to originality, if only because of its uniqueness in comparison with all the other synoptic versions of Heaven and Earth Pass Away, does not sound right if it is reverted to Hebrew with its natural equivalent נָפַל (nāfal, “fall”).^[169] As we noted above in Comment to L12, the natural companion of עָבַר should be a verb from the root [no_word_wrap]ב-ט-ל[/no_word_wrap]. Moreover, a [no_word_wrap]ב-ט-ל[/no_word_wrap] verb is exactly what we should expect for the striking out of an item from a text. In L2 and L5 the Greek verb we reconstructed with [no_word_wrap]ב-ט-ל[no_word_wrap] was καταλύειν (katalūein, “to demolish”). Perhaps καταλύειν also stood in Anth. in L15. If so, καταλύειν would have given a coherence to the sayings in Matt. 5:17-18 that is no longer evident in Matthew’s Gospel on account of his redactional activity.

The author of Matthew might have sacrificed the thematic coherence and verbal unity provided by καταλύειν in L15 for the sake of emphasizing the prophetic function of the Law by means of cross-pollination with the TT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away (see below, Comment to L17). The author of Luke, or (more likely) whoever was responsible for collecting Luke 16:17 together with the other sayings in Luke 16:16-18 into a “string of pearls,” would have had even less reason than the author of Matthew to preserve καταλύειν in Jesus’ saying. In the “string of pearls” καταλύειν did not serve to provide a verbal link with Jesus’ saying that he had not come to abolish (καταλύειν) the Torah, since this saying is not preserved in the “string of pearls” or anywhere else in Luke’s Gospel. And without Jesus’ saying about not abolishing the Torah to give καταλύειν context, a pen stroke being “demolished” from the Law sounds over the top; a pen stroke “falling” out of the Law is more reasonable.

We therefore hypothesize that where Matt. 5:18 reads οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ (“will not pass away”) and where Luke 16:17 reads πεσεῖν (“to fall”) Anth. read καταλυθῆναι (katalūthēnai, “to be demolished”).

לִיבָּטֵל (HR). On reconstructing καταλύειν (katalūein, “to demolish”) with verbs from the [no_word_wrap]ב-ט-ל[no_word_wrap] root, see above, Comment to L2.

Here we have adopted the passive nif‘al stem. An example of נִבְטַל (nivṭal, “be nullified,” “be deleted”) in the infinitive occurs in the following rabbinic statement:

ר′ יוחנן אמר הנביאים והכתובים עתידין ליבטל וחמשת סיפרי תורה אינן עתידין ליבטל

Rabbi Yohanan said, “The Prophets and the Writings will be nullified [עֲתִידִין לִיבָּטֵל] [or ‘deleted’—DNB and JNT], but the five books of the Torah will not be nullified [עֲתִידִין לִיבָּטֵל] [or ‘deleted’—DNB and JNT].” (y. Meg. 1:5 [7a])

L16 ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου (Matt. 5:18). Above in Comment to L14 we explained our preference for placing the phrase ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου (“from the law”) before the infinitive. A side-by-side comparison of our Hebrew Reconstruction with the imaginative portrayal of God reassuring the book of Deuteronomy that not one of its yods will be deleted illuminates our decision:

HR	Lev. Rab. 19:2
נוֹחַ לַשָּׁמַיִם וְלָאָרֶץ לַעֲבֹר	שלמה בטל…
It is easier / for heaven / and for earth / to pass away	…Solomon / is being deleted
מִלְּיוֹד אֶחָד אוֹ לְקוֹץ אֶחָד	ויוד
than for yod / one / or / for serif / one	but a yod
מִן הַתּוֹרָה	ממך
from / the Torah	from you
לִיבָּטֵל	אינו בטל
to be deleted	is not / being deleted

In both our Hebrew Reconstruction and God’s promise to the book of Deuteronomy the final emphasis is on nothing being deleted.

L17 ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται (Matt. 5:18). We are hardly unique in suspecting the author of Matthew of having inserted “until everything happens” into the saying preserved in Matt. 5:18 from the declaration in the eschatological discourse that “this generation will not pass away until everything happens” (Matt. 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32).^[170] On the other hand, our explanation for why the author of Matthew chose to add ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται to the end of Matt. 5:18 may set us apart.

Jeremias idiosyncratically regarded ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται as a Matthean addition, but nevertheless maintained that this addition aptly brought out the original intention of Jesus’ saying, which was to announce that the prophetic utterances of Scripture, especially those that foretold the Messiah’s suffering, “would be fulfilled to the utmost.”^[171] Meier thought that with the addition of “until everything happens” the author of Matthew attempted to reinterpret the eschatological event Jesus described as the passing away of heaven and earth as the death and resurrection of the Messiah, which, Meier claimed, was, in the author of Matthew’s mind, the beginning of “the new heavens and the new earth.” In this way the author of Matthew was able to communicate to his Gentile audience that, now that Jesus had risen, the Law of Moses was no longer in force.^[172] The failings of Meier’s interpretation are threefold. Meier’s explanation does not adequately reckon with the fact that in the eschatological discourse, which is the origin of the phrase ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται, “until everything happens” refers to the Son of Man’s coming, not to Jesus’ death and resurrection. Second, Meier’s explanation defies the rhetoric of Jesus’ saying, which clearly affirms that the Law (and the Prophets) are not soon to expire. Jesus’ death and resurrection, by contrast, were already on Matthew’s narrative horizon and, for his readers, already in the past. In order for Meier’s explanation to be correct we must accept that the author of Matthew turned a statement about the Torah’s longevity into a declaration that the Law had already become obsolete. Finally, Meier’s contention that the author of Matthew sought to declare the Jewish Law to be no longer valid for believers cannot be squared with the author of Matthew’s polemicizing against fellow Christians whose greatest sin he characterized as ἀνομία (anomia, “lawlessness”; Matt. 7:23; 13:41; 24:12).^[173] 

How, then, do we account for the author of Matthew’s addition of “until everything happens” to the end of the saying preserved in Matt. 5:18? Key to our explanation is the function the author of Matthew ascribes to the Law in this passage. In Matt. 5:17 the author of Matthew redactionally inserted “the Prophets” into Jesus’ declaration that he had not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. As we argued above, his insertion of “the Prophets” indicates that the author of Matthew understood “fulfill” not as “carry out,” as the Greek translator of Jesus’ saying had intended, but as the fulfillment of prophecy. Thus it is the prophetic function of the Law as predicting the program Jesus must follow that will not pass away “until everything happens.” As we have stated, the eschatological discourse defines “until everything happens” as the Son of Man’s coming, and we may therefore conclude that, in the author of Matthew’s view, the Law (and the Prophets) predicted the Son of Man’s coming. Until the Son of Man comes, the prophetic function of the Law will not have been exhausted. Confirmation of our interpretation comes from Matt. 11:13, where Jesus declares, “the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.” And what did John the Baptist prophesy? He foretold of a Coming One who will gather in his wheat and burn up the chaff (Matt. 3:12). It cannot be a coincidence that the author of Matthew uniquely ascribed to the Son of Man the task of separating the lawless darnel from the righteous wheat (Matt. 13:41-43), the bad fish from the good (Matt. 13:47-50), and the accursed goats from the righteous sheep (Matt. 25:31-33) at the final judgment. It must be that, for the author of Matthew, John the Baptist, like the Prophets and the Torah before him, had prophesied the Son of Man’s eschatological coming. The addition of ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται to Jesus’ saying signified that the prophetic function of the Law will have ceased only when the Son of Man has come in judgment. Only at that point will everything have happened. But even after the Law’s prophetic function has ceased, Jesus’ words will have lasting significance.

Redaction Analysis

Luke’s Versions^[174] 

Heaven and Earth Pass Away
Luke 16:17		Anthology
Total Words:	15	Total Words:	34
Total Words Identical to Anth.:	13	Total Words Taken Over in Luke:	13
% Identical to Anth.:	86.67	% of Anth. in Luke:	38.24
Click here for details.

Heaven and Earth Pass Away
Luke 21:33		Anthology
Total Words:	13	Total Words:	34
Total Words Identical to Anth.:	1	Total Words Taken Over in Luke:	1
% Identical to Anth.:	7.69	% of Anth. in Luke:	2.94
Click here for details.

The Gospel of Luke contains two versions of Heaven and Earth Pass Away. The first, in Luke 16:17, preserves only the second half of Jesus’ two-part saying. Since the two parts of Jesus’ saying are mutually enlightening, the absence of the first half of Jesus’ saying distorts the meaning of the whole. Nevertheless, the second half of the saying is fairly well preserved in Luke 16:17,^[175] this despite its having been adapted from Anth. by the First Reconstructor or, perhaps, from an editor who collected various Anth. sayings into “strings of pearls.” Thus, Luke 16:17 accurately preserves the saying as a comparative description of it being easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for graphical features of the Torah to disappear. Luke 16:17 characteristically omits overtly Hebraic features such as ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι (L7-8) and ἰῶτα ἕν (L13). The omission of the ἀπό from τοῦ νόμου and the placement of τοῦ νόμου ahead of κεραίαν μίαν in L14 are improvements to the saying’s Greek style. None of these editorial changes affected the substance of the saying. It is clear from Luke 16:17 that Jesus declared that the written text of the Torah was not subject to change.

Luke’s second version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away (Luke 21:33) is the product of the First Reconstructor’s redactional activity. The First Reconstructor reworked the saying preserved in Luke 16:17, which concerned the text of the Torah, into a summary statement in the eschatological discourse affirming the validity of the predictions contained therein. The First Reconstructor borrowed vocabulary from the “string of pearls” version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away (ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ; παρέρχεσθαι), but the saying itself is modeled on the preceding verse (Luke 21:32), which states, “This generation will not pass away until everything happens.” The result is “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” The diagram below illustrates the First Reconstructor’s compositional process:

Luke 16:17	Luke 21:32	Luke 21:33
	ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι
	Amen / I say / to you / that
εὐκοπώτερον δέ ἐστιν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν		ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ
easier / But / it is / [for] the / heaven / and / the / earth		The / heaven / and / the / earth
παρελθεῖν	οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη	παρελεύσονται
to pass away	no / not / might pass away / the / generation / this	will pass away
ἢ τοῦ νόμου μίαν κεραίαν	ἕως ἂν πάντα	οἱ δὲ λόγοι μου
than / of the / law / [for] one / pen stroke	until / ever / everything	the / but / words / of me
πεσεῖν	γένηται	οὐ μὴ παρελεύσονται
to fall.	happens.	no / not / will pass away.

By means of his creative process, the First Reconstructor transformed a saying about the Torah into a saying about Jesus’ teaching, and he morphed a saying about the unlikelihood of heaven and earth’s passing away taking place anytime soon into a declaration that the passing of heaven and earth will definitely take place.

Neither of Luke’s versions hint that it is at all likely that the Law of Moses actually is destined to pass away.

Mark’s Version^[176] 

Heaven and Earth Pass Away
Mark		Anthology
Total Words:	13	Total Words:	34
Total Words Identical to Anth.:	1	Total Words Taken Over in Mark:	1
% Identical to Anth.:	7.69	% of Anth. in Mark:	2.94
Click here for details.

The author of Mark’s version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away is an exact replication of Luke 21:33, with the result that Mark’s version is no farther away from Anth. than is Luke’s TT version of Jesus’ saying.

Matthew’s Versions^[177] 

Heaven and Earth Pass Away
Matthew 5:17-18		Anthology
Total Words:	42	Total Words:	34
Total Words Identical to Anth.:	22	Total Words Taken Over in Matt.:	22
% Identical to Anth.:	52.38	% of Anth. in Matt.:	64.71
Click here for details.

Heaven and Earth Pass Away
Matthew 24:35		Anthology
Total Words:	13	Total Words:	34
Total Words Identical to Anth.:	1	Total Words Taken Over in Matt.:	1
% Identical to Anth.:	7.69	% of Anth. in Matt.:	2.94
Click here for details.

Matthew’s is the only Gospel to preserve the two parts of Jesus’ saying regarding the text of the Torah (Part One [Matt. 5:17]: his interpretation of it; Part Two [Matt. 5:18]: the immutability of its text), and it is only because the author of Matthew kept these two halves together that it is possible to recover the original intention of Jesus’ two-part saying. Nevertheless, the author of Matthew did not preserve either half of Jesus’ saying in the pristine state in which he had received it from Anth.

Into the first half of the saying the author of Matthew inserted a reference to “the Prophets” (L4), thereby reinterpreting Jesus’ declaration that he had come to fulfill (the precepts of) the Torah into a statement that he had come to fulfill the Messianic agenda the Law and the Prophets (i.e., the Holy Scriptures) had prophesied for him. His insertion of “the Prophets” in the first half of Jesus’ saying anticipates his far more extensive revision of its second half.

His purpose in revising Jesus’ saying about the text of the Torah was to affirm that the Law (and the Prophets) had prophesied the Messianic agenda all the way through the eschatological coming of the Son of Man at the final judgment. To achieve this purpose the author of Matthew cross-pollinated Matt. 5:18 with words and phrases from Jesus’ affirmation of his prophecy of the Son of Man’s coming embedded in the eschatological discourse (Mark 13:30-31 ∥ Matt. 24:34-35). Because Jesus had declared the passing away of heaven and earth to be a certainty in the eschatological discourse, the author of Matthew changed the comparison of two unlikely events (the passing away of heaven and earth [unlikely] and the alteration of the text of the Torah [even more unlikely]) into a chronology (the Law will not be altered [if at all] until heaven and earth pass away [which they will]). But more to his purpose, by importing “until everything happens” into Matt. 5:18 from Mark 13:30 ∥ Matt. 24:34 the author of Matthew was able to indicate that it was the prophetic function of the Law (and the Prophets) that will not come to an end until the Parousia. The author of Matthew’s genius was to use the First Reconstructor’s retooling of Heaven and Earth Pass Away (which he knew only from Mark’s Gospel) to reinterpret Anth.’s version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away to suit his theological agenda.

The author of Matthew’s method of cross-pollination in Matt. 5:18 can be observed in the table below. Cross-pollination was possible because Anth.’s version of Jesus’ saying about the text of the Torah had certain features in common with the affirmation of the Son of Man’s coming in the eschatological discourse (purple). Pink lettering indicates the vocabulary the author of Matthew imported from the eschatological discourse into Matt. 5:18. Blue lettering (eight words total) indicates everything in Matt. 5:18 that derives solely from Anth.

Matt. 24:34-35	Matt. 5:18	Anth. (Reconstructed)
ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη ἕως ἂν πάντα ταῦτα γένηται ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ παρελεύσεται οἱ δὲ λόγοι μου οὐ μὴ παρέλθωσιν	ἀμὴν γὰρ λέγω ὑμῖν ἕως ἂν παρέλθῃ ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μία κεραία οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται	ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστιν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν παρελθεῖν ἢ ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μίαν κεραίαν ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου καταλυθῆναι
Amen! I say to you that this generation will not pass away until all these things happen. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.	For amen I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, one iota or one serif will not pass away from the law until all things happen.	Amen! I say to you that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one iota or one serif from the law to be destroyed.

The blue lettering in the Matt. 5:18 column cannot easily be dismissed as Matthean redaction: ἢ μία κεραία (“or one serif”) and τοῦ νόμου (“of the law”) are confirmed by Luke 16:17; ἰῶτα ἕν (“one iota”) does not serve the author of Matthew’s redactional purpose. His purpose could just as easily have been achieved by writing, ἕως ἂν παρέλθῃ ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ὁ νόμος ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται (“Until heaven and earth pass away, the Law will not pass away until everything [that the Law predicts about the Son of Man’s coming] happens”). Thus, the references to the graphical features of the Torah in Matt. 5:18 can, with great confidence, be traced back to Matthew’s source (Anth.) and ultimately to the Hebrew Life of Yeshua.

The version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away in Matt. 24:35 is a near clone of the version he found in Mark 13:31.

Results of This Research

1. What is meant by “abolish” and “fulfill”? There are three levels of meaning to the terms “abolish” and “fulfill” in Matt. 5:17. On the surface there is the meaning understood and intended by the author of Matthew. Below this level is the meaning understood and intended in Matthew’s source, the Anthology, which we presume to be the same as the meaning conveyed in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Life of Yeshua. At the deepest level is the meaning intended by the author of the Hebrew Life of Yeshua, which we believe accurately reported an authentic saying of Jesus.

At the most fundamental level it appears that Jesus used two terms, בִּטֵּל (biṭēl, “nullify”) and קִיֵּם (qiyēm, “establish”), known from halachic midrash to describe his interpretive approach to the Torah. His interpretations would bring out the true intention of the Torah’s commandments without rendering a single verse, word, letter, or even pen stroke superfluous.

The Greek translator of Jesus’ saying found it difficult to render these technical terms into Greek that would be understood by his audience. As the equivalent of בִּטֵּל (biṭēl, “nullify”) he chose καταλύειν (katalūein, “to demolish”), and as the equivalent of קִיֵּם (qiyēm, “establish”) he chose πληροῦν (plēroun, “to fulfill”). His selection of πληροῦν to translate קִיֵּם was likely facilitated by the dual use of קִיֵּם for the establishment of Scripture through accurate exegesis and for the fulfillment of prophecy. The Greek verb πληροῦν had a similar dual usage; it could refer to the fulfillment of obligations or to the fulfillment of prophecies, oracles and predictions. At the level of Greek translation Jesus’ saying meant, “I have not come to do away with the Torah by abolishing it, I have come to fulfill the Torah by doing it.”

The author of Matthew, who had a keen interest in the fulfillment of prophecy and who believed that Scripture mapped out the Messiah’s agenda from beginning to end, (mis)understood πληροῦν in the sense of fulfillment of prophecy. He therefore had Jesus declare, “I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, I have come to fulfill the role the Scriptures foreordained for me.”

We see, therefore, how at each stage of its transmission the meaning of Jesus’ saying drifted further and further from its original intent. From a saying about Jesus’ interpretive approach to the Torah, which he was about to pursue in the homily that followed, Jesus’ saying became a declaration of fidelity to the Torah in its Greek translation, and finally became a Christological statement at the Matthean level of redaction.

2. By declaring “I have not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill,” was Jesus defending himself against accusations that he was anti-Torah or anti-Judaism? Many scholars have regarded Jesus’ saying in Matt. 5:17 as evidence that Jesus was responding to accusations that his teaching and behavior were antithetical to the Torah. Others have supposed that the saying in Matt. 5:17 was manufactured by Jewish Christians in order to refute the “Law free” Gospel embraced by Gentile believers. We believe that Hebrew reconstruction of Jesus’ saying makes these hypotheses unnecessary. The original intention of Jesus’ saying was simply to lay out the exegetical approach to the Torah he was about to pursue in the homily that followed this introductory remark.

3. Is the statement “I have not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill” a Christological declaration? Scholars who interpret Jesus’ saying on the level of Matthean redaction are not unjustified in giving Matt. 5:17 a Christological interpretation. A certain amount of restraint, however, is called for. Even at the Matthean level of redaction Jesus’ saying about his role vis-à-vis the Law and the Prophets should not be twisted into meaning its opposite. Thus, the view of Davies and Allison that since the Law and the Prophets point to Jesus, Jesus is “naturally more important”^[178] might be countenanced as characterizing the view espoused by the author of Matthew (though not by the historical Jesus), but Witherington’s view—that Jesus did not abolish the Law “by declaring it untrue,” but to the extent that Jesus fulfilled the Law he did render its commandments obsolete unless Jesus explicitly reaffirmed them for believers^[179] —is consistent neither with the author of Matthew’s view nor with the view of Jesus. Despite their differences both Jesus and the author of Matthew would have agreed with the Jewish sages that one must first accept the Kingdom of Heaven before being able to shoulder the yoke of the commandments (m. Ber. 2:2). The Kingdom of Heaven is not at odds with the Torah, as Witherington maintains; the one is the prerequisite of the other.

4. Does Matt. 5:17 use “the Law and the Prophets” as shorthand for “the whole Old Testament”?^[180]  First we wish to emphasize that the concept of an “Old Testament” would have been as foreign to the author of Matthew as it would have been for Jesus. The concept of Old Testament Scripture is entirely anachronistic when projected back into the first century, the era in which the writings that were eventually to be collected into the “New Testament” were still being composed. That being said, the author of Matthew probably did use “the Law and the Prophets” in the sense of “Scripture as a whole.” We have found, however, that it was the author of Matthew who inserted “and the Prophets” into Matt. 5:17. Jesus’ saying originally pertained exclusively to the Torah.

5. What is the significance of “jot” and “tittle”? “Jot” and “tittle” are the traditional English translations of ἰῶτα (iōta, “[the name of the Greek letter] iota”) and κεραία (keraia, “serif,” “pen stroke”) in Matt. 5:18. Presumably, iota stands for the Hebrew letter yod, while keraia refers to small markings that were part of Hebrew letters in the Herodian scripts current in Jesus’ day. The Hebrew term for these markings was probably qotz. Jesus’ saying did not refer to the “crowns” that are attached to certain Hebrew letters in Torah scrolls and in the parchments encased in tefillin and mezzuzot, since this scribal convention had not yet come into existence by the first century.^[181] 

Jesus’ reference to graphical features of Torah scrolls should not be passed over too hastily. It is difficult to imagine that Jesus would express such fidelity to the form in which the letters of the Torah were written if Jesus had been incapable of reading those letters. Jesus’ saying about the immutability of the text of the Torah should be combined with other evidence (e.g., Luke’s account of Jesus reading from the Scroll of Isaiah; Jesus’ allusions to scriptural verses; Jesus’ quotation from a lost pseudepigraphon [Luke 11:49-51]^[182] ) to support the conclusions that Jesus was indeed literate and intimately familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures.

Conclusion

In Heaven and Earth Pass Away Jesus played on two senses of the verb בִּטֵּל, which could mean both “nullify” and “strike from a text.” In rabbinic parlance “nullify” could be used as a criticism of faulty exegesis that failed to bring out the unique contribution of every scriptural verse or that failed to make the most of every word and every letter. The opposite of “nullify” was “establish” (קִיֵּם). Proper exegesis established the worth of each verse and found significance in every letter. Thus, when Jesus claimed that he did not come to “nullify” the Torah but to “establish” it, he meant that he intended to bring out its meaning to the fullest. Jesus went on to say that not even one letter nor even one pen stroke will ever be deleted from the Torah, thus playing on the other sense of בִּטֵּל (“strike from a text”). Given the manner in which scribal practices evolve and the inevitability of copyists’ errors, Jesus’ declaration was obvious hyperbole. His point in making this exaggerated claim was simply to reinforce (“Amen! I say to you…”) his stated commitment to interpret the text of the Torah with faithfulness and precision.

---

Click here to return to The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction main page. _______________________________________________________

---

Notes

1. For abbreviations and bibliographical references, see “Introduction to ‘The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction.’” ↩
2. This translation is a dynamic rendition of our reconstruction of the conjectured Hebrew source that stands behind the Greek of the Synoptic Gospels. It is not a translation of the Greek text of a canonical source. ↩
3. See Bundy, 102 §23; Kilpatrick, 17-18; Gerhard Barth, “Matthew’s Understanding of the Law,” in Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew (ed. Günther Bornkamm, Gerhard Barth, and Heinz Joachim Held; trans. Percy Scott; London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 58-164, esp. 67; Beare, Matt., 138; Jeremias, Theology, 211; Schweizer, 104; Gundry, Matt., 78; Kloppenborg, 79; Hagner, 1:104; Luz, 1:211. ↩
4. See Schweizer, 106. ↩
5. See Knox, 2:99. ↩
6. See Bundy, 102 §23; Kloppenborg, 79. ↩
7. See Bultmann, 138; Bundy, 102 §23; Beare, Matt., 141; Luz, 1:21. ↩
8. For such scholars the so-called “antitheses” in the Sermon on the Mount were thought to contradict the claim that Jesus had not come to abolish the Law. See Bultmann, 138; Beare, 58 §21; Witherington, 125. It has since become clear that in the “antitheses” what Jesus challenged were what he regarded to be invalid interpretations of the Torah, not the Torah itself. See David Flusser, “Die Tora in der Bergpredigt,” in Juden und Christen lesen dieselbe Bibel (ed. Heinz Kremers; Duisburg: Braun, 1973), 102-113, repr. in his Entdeckungen im Neuen Testament (2 vols.; ed. Martin Majer; Neukirchener, 1987-1999), 1:21-31 (for an English translation of this article see idem, “The Torah in the Sermon on the Mount,” on WholeStones.org, esp. under the subheading “Interpreting the Torah: Abolish or Fulfill, Undergird or Undermine.”) See also Serge Ruzer, “The Technique of Composite Citation in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:21-22, 33-37),” Revue Biblique 103.1 (1996): 65-75; idem, “Antitheses in Matthew 5: Midrashic Aspects of Exegetical Techniques,” in his Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 11-34. ↩
9. For the characterization of the sayings in Matt. 5:17-18 as “ultra-conservative,” see Bundy, 102 §23; Jeremias, Theology, 211. Cf. Manson’s reference to “unbending conservatism” (Sayings, 135). However, the Torah’s authority over Jews and its durability were not matters of debate in Second Temple Judaism. Even a Jew as thoroughly Hellenized as Philo of Alexandria insisted that the Torah’s commandments must be observed. The sentiment expressed in Matt. 5:17-18 is not “ultra-conservative” but simply Jewish. ↩
10. Manson (Sayings, 135) accepted the authenticity of Matt. 5:18, but only by twisting its meaning into the opposite. ↩
11. Meier did not rule out the possibility that the author of Matthew found the sayings in Matt. 5:17-18 already joined to one another in his source. See John P. Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel: A Redactional Study of Mt. 5:17-48 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1976), 120-122. ↩
12. Cf., e.g., Matt. 19:17-19 ∥ Mark 10:19 ∥ Luke 18:20; Matt. 23:23 ∥ Luke 11:42; Matt. 22:37-39 ∥ Mark 12:29-31 ∥ Luke 10:28. ↩
13. On the author of Luke’s dependence on FR for the “strings of pearls,” see LOY Excursus: Sources of the “Strings of Pearls” in Luke’s Gospel. On the possibility that the First Reconstructor inherited the “strings of pearls” from an earlier written source or oral tradition, see Completion, under the subheading “Conjectured Stages of Transmission.” ↩
14. Pace Bundy, 102 §23; Gundry, Matt., 78; Kloppenborg, 79. ↩
15. See Flusser, “The Torah in the Sermon on the Mount,” under the subheading “Interpreting the Torah: Abolish or Fulfill, Undergird or Undermine.” ↩
16. See David Flusser, Die rabbinischen Gleichnisse und der Gleichniserzähler Jesus (Bern: Peter Lang, 1981), 99. ↩
17. Cf. Vermes, Authentic, 355. ↩
18. We will discuss why πληροῦν was selected as the translation of קִיֵּם in Comment to L6. ↩
19. See Gustaf Dalman, Jesus—Jeshua: Studies in the Gospels (trans. Paul P. Levertoff; New York: Macmillan, 1929 [1922]), 58; Jeremias, Theology, 83; David Flusser, “An Early Jewish-Christian Document in the Tiburtine Sibyl” (Flusser, JOC, 359-389, esp. 378); Peter J. Tomson, “An Alienated Jewish Tradition in John 7:22-23: Proposal for an ‘Epichronic’ Reading,” in his Studies on Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 297-314, esp. 299 n. 5. ↩
20. Paul’s καταργεῖν (katargein, “to nullify”) is closer to בִּטֵּל (biṭēl, “nullify”) than is Matthew’s καταλύειν (katalūein, “to demolish”), and Paul’s ἑστάναι (hestanai, “to stand”) is closer to קִיֵּם (qiyēm, “establish”) than is Matthew’s πληροῦν (plēroun, “fulfill”). ↩
21. Both the Aramaic language in which the tale is related and the family ties between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabban Gamliel this story postulates indicate that the story is late and unhistorical. On the Babylonian Talmud’s tendency to connect prominent historical personalities with ahistorical family ties, see Shmuel Safrai, “Tales of the Sages in the Palestinian Tradition and the Babylonian Talmud,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 22 (1971): 209-232, esp. 229-232. On Imma Shalom, see Tal Ilan, Mine and Yours are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History from Rabbinic Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 110-118. There Ilan demonstrated that the anti-Christian tale is based on an earlier story (cf. Pesikta de-Rav Khana 15:9 [ed. Mandelbaum, 1:260-261]) about the bribing of a corrupt judge that did not involve the issues of a daughter’s inheritance or anti-Christian polemic and in which neither Imma Shalom nor Rabban Gamliel played a part. ↩
22. See Jeremias, Theology, 83-84. ↩
23. See Dalman, Jesus—Jeshua, 62; Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 73-74 n. 76; and above, Comment to L6. ↩
24. See Flusser, “An Early Jewish-Christian Document in the Tiburtine Sibyl,” 379. ↩
25. See Harnack, 56; Bundy, 102 §23, 382 §286; Kilpatrick, 17; Conzelmann, 159 n. 1; Catchpole, 236. See also Georg Strecker, The Sermon on the Mount: An Exegetical Commentary (trans. O. C. Dean, Jr.; Nashville: Abingdon, 1988), 55. ↩
26. So Knox, 2:99; cf. Luz, 1:212. ↩
27. Only 18.52% of Matthew’s wording in Matt. 5:18 is identical to Luke 16:17, and only 33.33% of Luke’s wording in Luke 16:17 is identical to Matt. 5:18. For these figures, see LOY Excursus: Criteria for Distinguishing Type 1 from Type 2 Double Tradition Pericopae. ↩
28. See LOY Excursus: Criteria for Distinguishing Type 1 from Type 2 Double Tradition Pericopae, under the subheading “Causes of Verbal Disparity in DT Pericopae.” ↩
29. Cf. Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 62; Catchpole, 236. Nolland (Matt., 217) noted that the “level of overlap” between Matt. 5:18 and Mark 13:30-31 “is striking,” but concluded that this overlap had no “implications for judgments about source forms”! ↩
30. As indeed we do with regard to Matthew’s γάρ. See above, Comment to L7-8. ↩
31. As we suppose was the case with respect to ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν. See above, Comment to L7-8. ↩
32. Many scholars have suspected as much with regard to ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται (“until everything comes to pass”). See Harnack, 56; McNeile, 59; Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 63; Gundry, Matt., 79; Catchpole, 236. See also Lindsey, LHNS, 25 §21; Flusser, Jesus, 74-75 n. 42. ↩
33. The author of Matthew’s heightening of the verbal similarities between the DT and TT versions of Heaven and Earth Pass Away also highlights a notable contrast in their messages. According to Matt. 5:18, the Torah is temporal, while according to Matt. 24:35, Jesus’ words are eternal. The parallel to Matt. 5:18 in Luke 16:17 does not claim that the Torah is temporal, it merely states that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the Torah to change. It does not follow that if (or when) heaven and earth do pass away the Torah will cease to exist. What the status of the Torah will be in the world to come is simply beyond the purview of Luke 16:17. ↩
34. See Completion, under the subheading “Conjectured Stages of Transmission.” ↩
35. In other words, rather than adapting an Anth. saying twice, once for a “string of pearls” and once for the eschatological discourse, it may be that the First Reconstructor adapted a saying once, the “string of pearls” version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away into the version he inserted into the eschatological discourse. ↩
36. See Bovon, 2:121. ↩
37. Cf. Kilpatrick, 18; Barth, “Matthew’s Understanding of the Law,” 67 n. 2; Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 65, 68, 81, 84; Gundry, Matt., 78; Davies-Allison, 1:482. ↩
38. See Betz, 174. ↩
39. Cf. Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 85. ↩
40. Within this overall pattern there are slight variations. In Matt. 5:17 “I did not come to destroy” lacks an object, while in Matt. 10:34 “peace” is the object of “I have not come to cast.” And whereas the final clause of Matt. 5:17 has an infinitive (“but to fulfill”), the final clause of Matt. 10:34 has a noun (“but a sword”). It is not possible to adapt Matt. 10:34 to make it conform more closely to Matt. 5:17, but it would be possible to adapt Matt. 5:17 to conform more closely to Matt. 10:34 by adding τὸν νόμον after οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι and by adding αὐτόν after ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι. Even so, the structures of the two verses would not be identical, and we must allow that the different subject matters might generate minor differences in the overall Do not think that I came to do X; I did not come to do X but Y structure. ↩
41. It appears the author of Luke (or the First Reconstructor before him) replaced the phrase μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι (“Do not think that…”) with δοκεῖτε ὅτι (“Do you think that…?”) and eliminated the repetitive οὐκ ἦλθον + infinitive. ↩
42. Cf. Davies-Allison, 1:484. ↩
43. See Hatch-Redpath, 2:946. ↩
44. The phrase אַל תַּחְשְׁבוּ occurs twice in MT (Zech. 7:10; 8:17). ↩
45. According to Hammer (105 n. 12), the reference is to the Bar Kochva revolt. ↩
46. See McNeile, 57; Barth, “Matthew’s Understanding of the Law,” 67; Beare, Matt., 141; Davies-Allison, 1:484; France, Matt., 182. ↩
47. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 66; Hagner, 1:104; Betz, 173; Nolland, Matt., 217. ↩
48. See Flusser, “An Early Jewish-Christian Document in the Tiburtine Sibyl,” 378; idem, “A Rabbinic Parallel to the Sermon on the Mount” (JOC, 494-508, esp. 504 n. 40); idem, Jesus, 90-91. ↩
49. Ibid.; Sandt-Flusser, 217-218. Cf. Dalman, Jesus—Jeshua, 57; Young, JJT, 265. ↩
50. We do not know what the overlayings of the hire of a prostitute or the price of a dog might refer to. The overlayings of a domesticated animal used for idolatry, on the other hand, presumably refers to gold overlays used to decorate the horns of sacrificial animals. ↩
51. See Hatch-Redpath, 2:738. ↩
52. See Even-Shoshan, Concordance, 165. ↩
53. For a detailed discussion of the tradition preserved in Sifre Deut. §356 and in parallels elsewhere in rabbinic sources, see Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Three Scrolls of the Law that were Found in the Temple Court,” Textus 2:1 (1962): 14-27. ↩
54. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 70; Betz, 177 n. 70; Nolland, Matt., 217-218. ↩
55. See Bultmann, 138; Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 41; Betz, 177 n. 73; Hagner, 1:105; Luz, 1:213. ↩
56. See Allen, 46; McNeile, 58; Hagner, 1:105; Sandt-Flusser, 217. ↩
57. See Schweizer, 106. In Matthew “law” and “prophets” are paired 4xx (Matt. 5:17; 7:12; 11:13; 22:40), compared to 0xx in Mark and only 1x in Luke (Luke 16:16). The table below shows each of the instances of Matthew’s pairing of “law” with “prophets” and the synoptic parallels (if any):

    Matt. 5:17 U (but cf. Matt. 5:18 ∥ Luke 16:17) Matt. 7:12 DT (cf. Luke 6:31) Matt. 11:13 DT = Luke 16:16 Matt. 22:40 TT (cf. Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27) Key: TT = pericope has parallels in all three Synoptic Gospels; DT = Lukan-Matthean pericope; U = verse unique to a particular Gospel

     ↩
58. See Dalman, Jesus—Jeshua, 62; Tomson, If This Be, 288-289. ↩
59. The author of Luke had no motive for deleting a reference to the prophets in Luke 16:17. On the contrary, a reference to the prophets in Luke 16:17 would have helped forge a thematic link between Luke 16:17 and the preceding verse, which does mention “the Law and the prophets.” Moreover, the author of Luke paired the Law of Moses with the Prophets together with the Psalms in Luke 24:44 (and cf. “Moses and the prophets” in Luke 16:29, 31; 24:27), so it is clear that he had no aversion to paring “law” and “prophets.” On the coupling of the Law and the Prophets with the Psalms in Luke 24:44, see David Flusser, “‘Everything Written…in the Psalms About Me’ (Luke 24:44),” on WholeStones.org. ↩
60. See Allen, 46; Flusser, “An Early Jewish-Christian Document in the Tiburtine Sibyl,” 378; Tomson, If This Be, 288-289. ↩
61. See David Flusser, “The Torah in the Sermon on the Mount,” under the subheading “Interpreting the Torah: Abolish or Fulfill, Undergird or Undermine,” n. 9. Schweizer (106) believed “or” replaced the more usual “and” “because a negation precedes.” Nevertheless, “the Law or the Prophets” seems to assume a surprising degree of independence of the Prophets from the Law, whereas the typical formula, “the Law and the Prophets,” conceives of the pair as a unity. Or is ἢ τοὺς προφήτας rather than καὶ τοὺς προφήτας in Matt. 5:17 simply another instance of Matthean sloppiness? On a certain degree of thoughtlessness that can be detected in Matthean redaction, see Woes on Three Villages, Comment to L24. ↩
62. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 84; Davies-Allison, 1:484. ↩
63. As evidenced by the numerous fulfillment notices that are unique to Matthew’s Gospel. On which, see A Voice Crying, Comment to L40. ↩
64. Cf. Allen, 46; McNeile, 58. ↩
65. Cf. Harnack, 56. ↩
66. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 71-73. ↩
67. The author of Matthew cited verses from Isaiah (Matt. 1:22-23; 4:14-16; 8:17; 12:17-21), Jeremiah (Matt. 2:17-18), Hosea (Matt. 2:15), Zechariah (Matt. 21:4-5) and Psalms (Matt. 13:35) as belonging to the Prophets. The author of Matthew also cited verses of unknown provenance (Matt. 2:23; 27:9-10 [attributed to Jeremiah]) as belonging to the Prophets. ↩
68. On this tendency, see Lord’s Prayer, Comment to L10. ↩
69. In the table below we cite instances where the LXX translators omitted a pronoun equivalent to the pronominal suffix attached to -לְ + infinitive construct:

    Gen. 2:15 καὶ φυλάσσειν = וּלְשָׁמְרָהּ (in this instance וּלְשָׁמְרָהּ is preceded by לְעָבְדָהּ, which the LXX translators rendered as ἐργάζεσθαι αὐτόν) Gen. 15:7 κληρονομῆσαι = לְרִשְׁתָּהּ Gen. 23:2 καὶ πενθῆσαι = וְלִבְכֹּתָהּ Lev. 18:23 βιβασθῆναι = לְרִבְעָהּ Deut. 7:1 κληρονομῆσαι = לְרִשְׁתָּהּ Deut. 9:6 κληρονομῆσαι = לְרִשְׁתָּהּ Deut. 11:22 ποιεῖν = לַעֲשֹׂתָהּ Deut. 19:9 ποιεῖν = לַעֲשֹׂתָהּ Deut. 21:1 κληρονομῆσαι = לְרִשְׁתָּהּ Deut. 25:19 κατακληρονομῆσαι = לְרִשְׁתָּהּ Ezek. 30:21 τοῦ δοθῆναι ἰσχύν = לְחָזְקָהּ Prov. 26:15 ἐπενεγκεῖν = לַהֲשִׁיבָהּ

     ↩
70. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 84-85. Cf. Tomson, If This Be, 288. ↩
71. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 85. ↩
72. Aside from LXX examples of πληροῦν in the sense of “fulfill a prophecy” (cf., e.g., 3 Kgdms. 2:27; 2 Chr. 36:21), the author of Matthew would have been familiar with this sense from everyday Koine usage. For instance, an example of πληροῦν in the sense of “fulfill a prophecy” occurs in the writings of Polyaenus (2nd cent. C.E.):

    Ἀθηναίοις καὶ Πελοποννησίοις πόλεμος ἦν. ὁ θεὸς ἔχρησε νικᾶν Ἀθηναίους, εἰ ὁ βασιλεὺς αὐτῶν ἀποθάνοι πρὸς ἀνδρὸς Πελοποννησίου…. παιωνίσαντες Ἀθηναῖοι—τί γὰρ οὐκ ἔμελλον τοῦ λογίου πεπληρωμένου;—θυμῷ καὶ ῥύμῃ πλείονι προΐασιν εἰς μάχην

    There was a war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians. The deity made it known that victory was the Athenians’ if the Peloponnesians killed their king…. The Athenians striking out—for what remained of the oracle to be fulfilled [πεπληρωμένου]?—being in great fury and boldness advanced into the fray…. (Polyaenus, Strategems 1:18 [ed. Melber, 19])

    Text according to Ioannes Melber, ed., Polyaeni Strategematon Libri VIII Ex Recensione Edvardi Woelfflin (Stutgardiae: in aedibus B.G. Teubneri, 1970 [repr. from 1887/1901]). ↩

73. The pairing of בִּטֵּל (or any other verb that might have been translated as καταλύειν) with עָשָׂה (‘āsāh, “do”), the Hebrew equivalent of ποιεῖν (“to do”), is unknown in rabbinic sources. ↩
74. The equivalence of πληροῦν and [no_word_wrap]ק-ו-מ[/no_word_wrap] was proposed by Dalman, Jesus—Jeshua, 57-62. See also Daube, 60-61; David N. Bivin, “Matthew 5:17: ‘Destroy’ the Law,” under the subheading “To fulfill [the law].” ↩
75. See Gerhard Delling, “πληρόω,” TDNT, 6:286-298, esp. 293; Barth, “Matthew’s Understanding of the Law,” 68; C. F. D. Moule, “Fulfilment-Words in the New Testament: Use and Abuse,” New Testament Studies 14 (1967-1968): 293-320, esp. 313-314, 318; Jeremias, Theology, 83; Hagner, 1:105; Luz, 1:212 n. 8. Luz incorrectly cited Lapide as claiming “that מָלֵא in connection with the Law is not Semitic,” from which Luz drew the inference “that there was no Semitic original of Matt 5:17.” What Lapide actually wrote was that Matthew’s verb, viz., πληροῦν, “when used in connection with the Torah, is alien to the Semitic spirit of the language.” See Pinchas Lapide, The Sermon on the Mount: Utopia or Program for Action? (trans. Arlene Swidler [Die Bergpredigt—Utopie oder Programm, 1982]; Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1986), 18. Lapide did not discuss מָלֵא, but he did indirectly indicate that קִיֵּם would be an appropriate equivalent for Matthew’s πληροῦν. Jeremias’ argument fails the “goose and gander” standard, for he argued against קִיֵּם on the grounds that the LXX translators never rendered [no_word_wrap]ק-ו-מ[/no_word_wrap] as πληροῦν, but then argued (on the basis of b. Shab. 116b) that Matthew’s πληροῦν must stand for [no_word_wrap]י-ס-פ[/no_word_wrap] even though the LXX translators never rendered verbs from the [no_word_wrap]י-ס-פ[/no_word_wrap] root as πληροῦν! ↩
76. Cf. Sandt-Flusser, 218 n. 74. ↩
77. Compare the use of הֵקִים (hēqim, “establish”) in MT for the “establishment” or “fulfillment” of God’s word (1 Kgs. 2:4; 12:15; Isa. 44:26) and in MT and DSS for the “establishment” or “fulfillment” of [the terms of] the covenant (Deut. 8:18; Jer. 34:18; 1QS V, 21-22, VIII, 10; 1QSb [1Q28b] V, 23). ↩
78. Additional examples of מִלֵּא in the sense of “fulfill a promise or prophecy” occur in 1 Kgs. 8:15, 24; Jer. 44:25; Ps. 20:5, 6; 2 Chr. 6:4, 15. In each of these instances the LXX translators rendered מִלֵּא with πληροῦν. ↩
79. Pace Jeremias, Theology, 211. ↩
80. See BDB, 569-570; Jastrow, 785. ↩
81. Harnack (56) and Bundy (382 §286) thought that Luke 16:17 implied that the Torah would outlast heaven and earth, but the greater difficulty of altering the Torah does not necessarily indicate that it must sequentially follow the easier feat of doing away with heaven and earth. Meier (Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 59-60) and Gundry (Matt., 80) both regarded the Torah as more enduring in Matthew’s DT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away, but they drew opposite conclusions from this assessment. Meier supposed that because the pre-Matthean form of Matt. 5:18 is more stringent than Luke 16:17 Luke’s more lenient version must be secondary. Gundry, on the other hand, regarded Matthew’s DT version of Heaven and Earth Pass Away as an escalation of the pre-Matthean version better preserved in Luke 16:17. ↩
82. See Harnack, 56; Catchpole, 236. ↩
83. See Gundry, Matt., 79; Davies-Allison, 1:489. ↩
84. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 47, 58; Gundry, Matt., 79. ↩
85. Not a single “string of pearls” saying in Luke (Luke 8:16-18; 9:23-27; 16:16-18; 17:1-6) opens with “Amen!” ↩
86. That the γάρ in Matt. 5:18 is redactional is likely, for not only is ἀμὴν γάρ unique to Matthew, it is also un-Hebraic. Cf. Dalman, Jesus—Jeshua, 61. On γάρ following ἀμήν as the product of Matthean redaction, see Completion, Comment to L11. Nevertheless, there is one instance of ἀμὴν γὰρ λέγω ὑμῖν that may have occurred in Anth. See Blessedness of the Twelve, Comment to L10. ↩
87. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 46; Davies-Allison, 1:489; Hagner, 1:106; Nolland, Matt., 219; France, Matt., 184. ↩
88. For a re-evaluation of Jesus’ use of “Amen!” see Robert L. Lindsey, “‘Verily’ or ‘Amen’—What Did Jesus Say?” ↩
89. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 59-60; Nolland, Matt., 217. ↩
90. See Bovon, 2:467 n. 70. ↩
91. Synoptic sayings with the ἕως/μέχρις + subjunctive/future clause ⇄ οὐ μὴ + subjunctive pattern occur within the following verses:

    Matt. 5:18 DT ἕως ἂν παρέλθῃ ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μία κεραία οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου (cf. Luke 16:17) Matt. 5:26 DT οὐ μὴ ἐξέλθῃς ἐκεῖθεν ἕως ἂν ἀποδῷς τὸν ἔσχατον κοδράντην ≈ Luke 12:59 Matt. 10:23 U οὐ μὴ τελέσητε τὰς πόλεις τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ ἕως ἂν ἔλθῃ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου Matt. 16:28 TT εἰσίν τινες τῶν ὧδε ἑστώτων οἵτινες οὐ μὴ γεύσωνται θανάτου ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενον ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ αὐτοῦ ≈ Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27 Matt. 23:39 DT οὐ μή με ἴδητε ἀπ’ ἄρτι ἕως ἂν εἴπητε ≈ Luke 13:35 Matt. 24:34 TT οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη ἕως ἂν πάντα ταῦτα γένηται ≈ Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32 Matt. 26:29 TT οὐ μὴ πίω ἀπ’ ἄρτι ἐκ τούτου τοῦ γενήματος τῆς ἀμπέλου ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης ὅταν αὐτὸ πίνω μεθ’ ὑμῶν καινὸν ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ πατρός μου ≈ Mark 14:25; Luke 22:18 Mark 9:1 TT εἰσίν τινες ὧδε τῶν ἑστηκότων οἵτινες οὐ μὴ γεύσωνται θανάτου ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐληλυθυῖαν ἐν δυνάμει ≈ Matt. 16:28; Luke 9:27 Mark 13:30 TT οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη μέχρις οὗ ταῦτα πάντα γένηται ≈ Matt. 24:34; Luke 21:32 Mark 14:25 TT οὐκέτι οὐ μὴ πίω ἐκ τοῦ γενήματος τῆς ἀμπέλου ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης ὅταν αὐτὸ πίνω καινὸν ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ ≈ Matt. 26:29; Luke 22:18 Luke 9:27 TT εἰσίν τινες τῶν αὐτοῦ ἑστηκότων οἳ οὐ μὴ γεύσωνται θανάτου ἕως ἂν ἴδωσιν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ ≈ Matt. 16:28; Mark 9:1 Luke 12:59 DT οὐ μὴ ἐξέλθῃς ἐκεῖθεν, ἕως καὶ τὸ ἔσχατον λεπτὸν ἀποδῷς ≈ Matt. 5:26 Luke 13:35 DT οὐ μὴ ἴδητέ με ἕως [ἥξει ὅτε] εἴπητε ≈ Matt. 23:39 Luke 21:32 TT οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται ≈ Matt. 24:34; Mark 13:30 Luke 22:16 U οὐ μὴ φάγω αὐτὸ ἕως ὅτου πληρωθῇ ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ Luke 22:18 TT οὐ μὴ πίω ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ γενήματος τῆς ἀμπέλου ἕως οὗ ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ ἔλθῃ ≈ Matt. 26:29; Mark 14:25 Key: TT = pericope has parallels in all three Synoptic Gospels; DT = Lukan-Matthean pericope; U = verse unique to a particular Gospel

    The Lukan-Matthean agreements to use the ἕως + subjunctive/future clause ⇄ οὐ μὴ + subjunctive pattern in DT sayings of Jesus prove that this pattern did occur in the pre-synoptic tradition. But note how many of the instances of this pattern in the Synoptic Gospels occur in versions of Completion (Matt. 10:23; Matt. 16:28 ∥ Mark 9:1 ∥ Luke 9:27; Matt. 24:34 ∥ Mark 13:30 ∥ Luke 21:32) and Heaven and Earth Pass Away (Matt. 5:18) due to the redactional activities of the First Reconstructor and the cross-pollination activity of the author of Matthew. ↩

92. Pace Harnack, 56. ↩
93. The only other instances of this comparative adjective that occur in Luke are supported by the synoptic parallels (Luke 5:32 = Matt. 9:5 ∥ Mark 2:9; Luke 18:25 = Matt. 19:24 ∥ Mark 10:25). See Davies-Allison, 1:490; Luz, 1:212 n. 10; Catchpole, 236. Note, too, that εὐκοπώτερον never occurs in Acts, where the author of Luke’s personal writing style is more evident than in his Gospel. ↩
94. See Segal, 193 §391. ↩
95. See David N. Bivin, “Hendiadys in the Synoptic Gospels.” ↩
96. See John P. Meier, The Vision of Matthew: Christ, Church, and Morality in the First Gospel (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 229; Hagner, 1:107. ↩
97. See Allen, 46; Strecker, The Sermon on the Mount, 55. ↩
98. See Flusser, Jesus, 90-91; idem, “The Torah in the Sermon on the Mount,” under the subheading “Interpreting the Torah: Abolish or Fulfill, Undergird or Undermine.” ↩
99. On the identification of Wisdom and Torah in rabbinic sources, cf., e.g., Sifre Deut. §48 (ed. Finkelstein, 107-114), §317 (ed. Finkelstein, 359). The identification of Wisdom with the Torah had already been made in the Second Temple Period. Cf., e.g., Sir. 24:1-29. ↩
100. On the rabbinic identification of Wisdom with Torah, see Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (2 vols.; trans. Israel Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975), 1:287. ↩
101. And so we find in Leviticus Rabbah:

     כת′ שמע ישראל י″י אלהינו י″י אחד אם את עושה ד′ ר′ מחריב את כל העולם כת′ כי לא תשתחוה לאל אחר אם עושה את ר′ ד′ את מחריב את כל העולם

     It is written: Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God the LORD is One [אחד] [Deut. 6:4]. If you make the dalet (ד) a resh (ר), you destroy the entire universe [i.e., because you have changed “the LORD is one ⟨אחד⟩” to “the LORD is another ⟨אחר⟩”—DNB and JNT]. It is written: You must not worship another [אחר] god [Exod. 34:14]. If you make the resh (ר) a dalet (ד), you destroy the entire universe [i.e., because you have changed “you must not worship another ⟨אחר⟩ god” to “you must not worship the One ⟨אחד⟩ God”—DNB and JNT]…. (Lev. Rab. 19:2 [ed. Margulies, 1:422])

     The midrash continues in this vein with several more examples of adding or subtracting the distinguishing marks between similarly formed letters leading to catastrophic results. Note that according to this midrash the universe does not depend upon the Torah as an abstract entity; its existence depends upon the written text of the Torah remaining unaltered. ↩

102. See Hatch-Redpath, 1068-1069. ↩
103. See Dos Santos, 148. ↩
104. See Dalman, Jesus—Jeshua, 61. ↩
105. See Dalman, 5-6; Gundry, Matt., 80; Davies-Allison, 1:490; Catchpole, 236. ↩
106. See Harnack, 56; Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 50. ↩
107. See Dalman, 5-6. ↩
108. See Frank Moore Cross, “The Development of the Jewish Scripts,” in The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of William Foxwell Albright (ed. G. Ernest Wright; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965), 170-264, esp. 218-219, 227-228; Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 50 n. 29. ↩
109. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 56 n. 20; Luz, 1:212. Pace Gundry, Matt., 80; Hagner, 1:106. ↩
110. See Gundry, Matt., 80. ↩
111. Examples of the pairing of συλλαβαί with κεραία occur in Philo, Flacc. §131; Dio Chrysostom, Orationes 31:86; Plutarch, Moralia 1100A. See Arthur J. Dewey, “Quibbling Over Serifs: Observations on Matt 5:18/Luke 16:17,” Forum: Foundations and Facets 5.2 (1989): 109-119, esp. 114-115 n. 24; Wolter, 2:276. ↩
112. See Harnack, 56. Since the iota was written with a single pen stroke (see Luz, 1:212, 218), the pairing of ἰῶτα with κεραία would have been redundant as well as unusual. ↩
113. See Betz, 182 n. 102. ↩
114. See Étienne Nodet, “PAS UN YOD, PAS UN WAW (Mt 5,18),” Revue Biblique 117.4 (2010): 614-616, esp. 616. For an English translation of Nodet’s article, click here. ↩
115. See A. B. Bruce, 104; Allen, 46; McNeile, 59; Lindsey, JRL, 71; Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 50; Hagner, 1:106; Betz, 182 n. 102; Vermes, Authentic, 355 n. 1. ↩
116. Cf. Nolland, Matt., 220. ↩
117. It is difficult to say which response is original. Certainly the assurance that a yod would never be deleted fits the story better, but perhaps an editor recognized this was the case and so changed “not a word from you” to “not a yod from you.” On the other hand, one would not have expected an editor to decrease “Solomon and a thousand like him” to “Solomon and a hundred like him,” the usual tendency in imaginative tales being inflationary. Perhaps, then, there is reason to suppose that the reference to the yod is original. ↩
118. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 50-51 n. 30. The problem is more evident in Leviticus Rabbah’s version of the story, where we read:

     כת′ לא ירבה לו נשים והרבה לו נשים. לא ירבה לו סוסים והרבה לו סוסים לא ירבה לו כסף וזהב והרבה לו כסף וזהב

     It is written, He must not accumulate [ירבה] wives for himself [Deut. 17:17], but he accumulated [והרבה] wives for himself; he must not accumulate [ירבה] horses for himself [Deut. 17:16], but he accumulated [והרבה] horses for himself; he must not accumulate [ירבה] silver and gold for himself [Deut. 17:17], but he accumulated [והרבה] silver and gold for himself. (Lev. Rab. 19:2 [ed. Margulies, 1:421])

     The deletion of י from ירבה does not result in הרבה. ↩

119. Matthew’s iota can hardly refer to the Aramaic letter yod, since Torah scrolls were not written in Aramaic. Moreover, there was a general prohibition against writing down Aramaic targums, which seems to have been respected, at least with regard to the Torah, if not other books in the Hebrew canon, during the Second Temple period. See Randall Buth, “Where Is the Aramaic Bible at Qumran? Scripture Use in the Land of Israel.” ↩
120. See DSS Study Edition, 2:1032. ↩
121. See Jastrow, 567. ↩
122. Similarly, we find two versions of a question attributed to Rabbi Akiva regarding certain letters written in the Torah. In one version the names of the letters are treated as masculine (אלף זה בית זה למה נכתב [“This [masc.] aleph, this [masc.] bet, why is it written [masc.]?”]; Avot de-Rabbi Natan, Version B §12 [ed. Schechter, 29]), while in the other version the names of the letters are treated as feminine (אלף זו למה נכתבה בית זו למה נכתבה [“This [fem.] aleph, this [fem.] bet, why is it written [fem.]?”]; Avot de-Rabbi Natan, Version A §6 [ed. Schechter, 29]). ↩
123. Note that in Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai’s imaginative tale God’s reassuring statement יוד ממך אינו בטל (“a yod from you will not be deleted”; Lev. Rab. 19:2) treats yod as masculine. ↩
124. See Jastrow, 567. Cf. Sifre Deut. §36 (ed. Finkelstein, 65-66). ↩
125. In Codex Vaticanus we find κερέα (kerea, “horn”) in Matt. 5:18 instead of κεραία (keraia, lit., “little horn”; “pen stroke,” “serif”) as in critical texts. While we use Codex Vaticanus as the base text for our reconstructions, the reading of the critical texts is almost certainly correct. ↩
126. See Nodet, “PAS UN YOD, PAS UN WAW (Mt 5,18),” 615. ↩
127. See Betz, 182 n. 102; Luz, 1:213; Wolter, 2:276. ↩
128. See Creed, 207. Other scholars adopted the interpretation based on Origen’s use of κεραία without crediting Origen. See A. B. Bruce, 104; Marshall, 630; Hagner, 1:106. ↩
129. The difference between כ and ב cannot explain the confusion between אֲחִימֶלֶךְ (’^aḥimelech) and אֲבִימֶלֶךְ (’^avimelech), since the guttural in Achimelech is a ḥet (ח) not a kaf (כ). We also note that in LXX we have Αβιμελεχ both in Ps. 33:1 and in 1 Kgdms. 21:2ff., so either Origen was working from a Greek text different from LXX or he was working from memory or both factors were at play. In any case, it is not merely the spelling of the name that differs between Origen’s quotation and LXX. ↩
130. See Edmund Felix Sutcliffe, “One Jot or Tittle, Mt. 5, 18,” Biblica 9.4 (1928): 458-460, esp. 459. Nodet dismissed this evidence on the grounds that Origen’s use of κεραία in this passage was influenced by Matt. 5:18 (“PAS UN YOD, PAS UN WAW [Mt 5,18],” 615), but since κεραία was the normal Greek term for “pen stroke,” and since Origen does not mention Matt. 5:18 in his discussion, influence from Matt. 5:18 seems unlikely. We note, moreover, that when Origen did discuss Matt. 5:18 in the quotation below, he did not relate the noun κεραία to the distinguishing characteristics of Hebrew letters:

     Εἰ δὲ «τὰ λόγια Κυρίου λόγια ἁγνὰ, ἀργύριον πεπυρωμένον, δοκίμιον τῇ γῇ, κεκαθαρισμένον ἑπταπλασίως,» καὶ μετὰ πάσης ἀκριβείας ἐξητασμένως τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα ὑποβέβληκεν αὐτὰ διὰ τῶν ὑπηρετῶν τοῦ λόγου, μήποτε καὶ ὑμᾶς διαφεύγῃ ἡ ἀναλογία, καθ᾽ ἣν ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ἔφθασε Γραφὴν ἡ σοφία τοῦ Θεοῦ θεόπνευστον μέχρι τοῦ τυχόντος γράμματος· καὶ τάχα διὰ τοῦτο ὁ Σωτὴρ ἔφη· «Ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μία κεραία οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου, ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται.». Ὃν τρόπον γὰρ ἐπὶ τῆς κοσμοποιίας ἡ θεία τέχνη οὐ μόνον ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἡλίῳ καὶ σελήνῃ καὶ ἄστροις φαίνεται δι’ ὅλων τῶν σωμάτων ἐκείνων πεφοιτηκυῖα, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς ἐν ὕλῃ εὐτελεστέρᾳ τὸ αὐτὸ πεποίηκεν…οὕτως ἡμεῖς ὑπολαμβάνομεν περὶ πάντων τῶν ἐξ ἐπιπνοίας τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος ἀναγεγραμμένων, ὡς τῆς ἐπιδιδούσης τὴν ὑπὲρ ἄνθρωπον σοφίαν ἱερᾶς Προνοίας διὰ τῶν γραμμάτων τῷ γένει τῶν ἀνθρώπων, λόγια σωτήρια ἐνεσπαρκυίας, ὡς ἔστιν εἰπεῖν, ἑκάστῳ γράμματι κατὰ τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον ἴχνη τῆς σοφίας.

     But if “the oracles of the Lord are undefiled, refined silver unadulterated with earth, purified seven times” (Ps. 11:7 [12:6]) and if the Holy Spirit has prompted them with deliberate precision through the servants of the Word (see Lk. 1:2), we must not miss the analogy, since the wisdom of God has permeated the whole of Scripture even to the individual letter [γράμματος]. This is indeed why the Savior said: “Not one iota or one stroke will pass away from the law, until everything comes to be” (Mt. 5:18). For just as the divine skill in the fabrication of the world appears not only in sky, sun, moon, and stars—all of these being bodies through which it courses—but it has acted on earth in the same way even in the meanest material object…[s]o with regard to everything recorded by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit we accept that, since divine providence has endowed the human race with a superhuman wisdom by means of the Scriptures, he has, so to speak, sowed traces of wisdom as saving oracles, in so far as possible, in each letter [ἑκάστῳ γράμματι]. (Selecta in Psalmos [ed. Migne, 12:1080-1081]; trans. Trigg, 71)

     Translation according to Joseph W. Trigg, Origen (London & New York: Routledge, 1998). ↩

131. See McNeile, 59; Günther Schwarz, “ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μία κεραία (Matthäus 5 18),” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 66.3-4 (1975): 268-269 (for an English translation of this article click here); Nodet, “PAS UN YOD, PAS UN WAW (Mt 5,18),” 614-616 (for an English translation of this article click here). ↩
132. Compare, for instance, the spelling of the name “Zebulun” as זְבֻלוּן (z^evulūn) in Gen. 30:20 versus זְבוּלֻן (z^evūlun) in Gen. 35:23. ↩
133. In the Hebrew Scriptures the use of וָו in the sense of “hook” is confined to the book of Exodus (Exod. 26:32, 37; 27:10, 11, 17; 36:36, 38; 38:10, 11, 12, 17, 19, 28). ↩
134. See Dos Santos, 51. ↩
135. See Jastrow, 372. ↩
136. See Nodet, “PAS UN YOD, PAS UN WAW (Mt 5,18),” 614. ↩
137. The first-century B.C.E. grammarian Tryphon referred to the digamma in his writings, as did the second-century C.E. grammarian Apollonius Dyscolus. See LSJ, 421. ↩
138. See Jehoshua M. Grintz, “Hebrew as the Spoken and Written Language in the Last Days of the Second Temple,” Journal of Biblical Literature 79.1 (1960): 32-47, esp. 40. ↩
139. Indeed, the noun κεραία does not occur in LXX at all, so pace Zimmerman (81) it is not true that κεραία is the LXX equivalent of קֶרֶן (qeren, “horn”). Nevertheless, it is true that most instances of κέρας (keras, “horn”) in LXX do occur as the translation of קֶרֶן (see Hatch-Redpath, 2:759), and the LXX translators rendered most instances of קֶרֶן as κέρας (see Dos Santos, 186). ↩
140. A parallel to this midrashic interpretation of Song 5:11 occurs in Yalkut Shim‘oni:

     קוצותיו תלתלים, זו הסרגול, שחורות כעורב אלו קוצי אותיות

     His locks are wavy [Song 5:11]—this [refers to] the ruled lines, [which are] black as a raven [Song 5:11]. [Alternatively,] these [refer to] the serifs of the letters. (Yalkut Shim‘oni §988)

      ↩
141. Rabbi Akiva’s attribution of significance to every serif in the written text of the Torah may be compared to his querying of the formation of every letter in Scripture:

     היה ר′ עקיבא נושא ונותן בינו לבין עצמו ואומר אלף זה בית זה למה נכתב שנאמר בצורות יאורים בקע וכל יקר ראתה עינו

     Rabbi Akiva would take up [a text] and set his mind to it and say, “This aleph, this bet, why is it written [in this manner]?” As it is said, In the rocks he cuts channels and everything of value his eye sees [Job 28:10]. (Avot de-Rabbi Natan, Version B §12 [ed. Schechter, 29])

     According to Saldarini, this tradition plays on the meanings of צורות, which in Job 28:10 refers to rocks, but which in Mishnaic Hebrew can mean “formations.” See Anthony J. Saldarini, trans., The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan (Abot de Rabbi Nathan) Version B: A Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 95-96 n. 11. ↩

142. On Rabbi Akiva’s exposition of Song of Songs, see Marc Hirshman, A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity (trans. Batya Stein; Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1996), 83-94; Peter J. Tomson, “The Song of Songs in the Teachings of Jesus and the Development of the Exposition on the Song,” New Testament Studies 61 (2015): 429-447, esp. 430-436. ↩
143. In Exod. Rab. 6:1 we encounter the form קוֹצָה (qōtzāh, “serif”), a variant of קוֹץ. See Jastrow, 1340. ↩
144. See Cross, “The Development of the Jewish Scripts,” 223 (Note, however, that Cross did not specifically mention serifs in his descriptions of the formation of vav or yod in the Herodian scripts [“The Development of the Jewish Scripts,” 227-228]). Cf. Albright-Mann, 58-59. ↩
145. See Cross, “The Development of the Jewish Scripts,” 259 n. 129. ↩
146. For examples of this misconception, see Sutcliffe, “One Jot or Tittle, Mt. 5, 18,” 458-460; Manson, Sayings, 135; Barth, “Matthew’s Understanding of the Law,” 65 (citing Werner Georg Kümmel, “Jesus und der jüdische Traditionsgedanke,” Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 33.2 [1934]: 105-130, esp. 127); Marshall, 630; Hagner, 1:106. This anachronistic interpretation of Jesus’ saying also made its way into the Encyclopaedia Judaica and unfortunately survived into its second edition. See the entries for “Tagin” in Encyclopaedia Judaica (16 vols.; ed. Cecil Roth and Geoffrey Wigoder; Jerusalem: Keter, 1971-1972), 15:700, and Encyclopaedia Judaica (2d ed; 22 vols.; ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik; Detroit: Macmillan, 2007), 19:433. ↩
147. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 51; Fitzmyer, 2:1118; Nodet, “PAS UN YOD, PAS UN WAW (Mt 5,18),” 615. ↩
148. Pace Sutcliffe, “One Jot or Tittle, Mt. 5, 18,” 460. See Even-Shoshan, Millon, 1181. Meier (Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 51) and Vermes (Authentic, 355 n. 1) made the error of conflating “crowns” and qotzim. ↩
149. See Zimmerman, 81. ↩
150. Could the term qotz be used to refer to the tiny marks that distinguish between similarly formed letters, e.g., ב and כ or ד and ר? There is one tantalizing clue that this may have been the case. In Song of Songs Rabbah two sayings having to do with the formation of letters having the potential to destroy the world are treated as a unity (unlike Leviticus Rabbah, where the two traditions are separated from one another):

     א″ר לוי אפי′ דברים שאת רואה קוצין בתורה תילי תילים הן, יכולות הן להחריב את העולם ולעשותו תל, המד″א תל עולם, כתיב שמע ישראל ה′ אלהינו ה′ אחד, אם תעשה מן הדל″ת רי″ש תחריב לכל העולם, לא תשתחוה לאל אחר, אם תחליף רי″ש בדל″ת תחריב העולם

     Rabbi Levi said, “Even things that you regard as thorns [קוֹצִין] in the Torah are mounds upon mounds—they are able to destroy the universe and make it a mound [of rubble], as it is said, the world is a mound [תֵּל עוֹלָם] [Deut. 13:17]. It is written: Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God the LORD is One [אחד] [Deut. 6:4]. If you make the dalet (ד) a resh (ר), you destroy the entire universe [i.e., because you have changed “the LORD is one ⟨אחד⟩” to “the LORD is another ⟨אחר⟩”—DNB and JNT]. It is written: You must not worship another [אחר] god [Exod. 34:14]. If you make the resh (ר) a dalet (ד), you destroy the entire universe [i.e., because you have changed “you must not worship another ⟨אחר⟩ god” to “you must not worship the One ⟨אחד⟩ God”—DNB and JNT]….” (Song Rab. 5:11 §2 [ed. Etelsohn, 203])

     In Rabbi Levi’s saying “thorns in the Torah” could be understood as “things as worthless as thorns in the Torah,” but the use of the distinction between ד and ר to illustrate Rabbi Levi’s remark suggests that קוֹצִין is better understood as “pen strokes.” Whether or not that was Rabbi Levi’s original intention, the compilers of Song of Songs Rabbah appear to have interpreted Rabbi Levi’s statement in this manner, suggesting that they were familiar with the use of the term qotz to refer to the distinguishing markings between similar letters. Note, however, that yod did not need a qotz to distinguish it from other letters. It is likely, therefore, that qotz generally referred to a serif belonging to any letter. There were, however, some letters that were distinguished from one another merely by the presence or absence of a serif. ↩

151. Zimmerman (81) noted that the pairing of yod and qotz occurs in Hebrew but not in Aramaic. ↩
152. The quotation comes from A. B. Bruce, 104. Cf. Schweizer, 104; Beare, Matt., 140; Strecker, The Sermon on the Mount, 56; Davies-Allison, 1:491; Hagner, 1:106; Nolland, Matt., 220; France, Matt., 186. ↩
153. Manson (Sayings, 135) believed that Jesus’ saying in Matt. 5:18 ∥ Luke 16:17 was an ironic attack against the traditions of the scribes. According to Manson, “The saying thus comes to mean: It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the scribes to give up the smallest bit of that tradition by which they make the Law of none effect.” ↩
154. Cf. Dalman, Jesus—Jeshua, 62; Bundy, 382 §286; Meier, The Vision of Matthew, 230; Nolland, Luke, 2:816; Betz, 182-183; Buchanan, 1:235. See also Flusser, “An Early Jewish-Christian Document in the Tiburtine Sibyl,” 378. Because Jesus’ saying emphasizes the Torah in its textuality, Meier (Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 52) is correct that the oral traditions of the Pharisees and their successors fall outside the purview of Jesus’ saying by virtue of their not having (yet) been written down. ↩
155. On the change of alphabets in which Hebrew was written, see Aaron Demsky and Meir Bar-Ilan, “Writing in Ancient Israel and Early Judaism,” in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. Martin J. Mulder and Harry Sysling; CRINT II.1; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 1-38, esp. 9-10. ↩
156. See Demsky and Bar-Ilan, “Writing in Ancient Israel and Early Judaism,” 10. ↩
157. Scrolls from Qumran of the five books of Moses written entirely in paleo-Hebrew script include: 1QpaleoLeviticus-Numbers; 2QpaleoLeviticus; 4QpaleoGenesis-Exodus; 4QpaleoGenesis; 4QpaleoExodus; 4QpaleoDeuteronomy; 6QpaleoGenesis; 6QpaleoLeviticus; 11QpaleoLeviticus. ↩
158. Cf. Gill, 7:42. ↩
159. The change in the Hebrew alphabets is discussed in sources such as the following:

     אף הוא ניתן בידיו כתב ולשון שנ′ וכתב הנשתון כתוב ארמית ומתורגם ארמית מה תורגמו ארמית אף כתבו ארמית ואומ′ ולא כהלין כתוב במקרא וגו′ מלמד שבאותו היום ניתן ואו′ וכתב לו את משנה התורה הזאת כתב עתידה להשתנות למה נקרא שמו אשורי על שום שעלה עמהן מאשור ר′ אומר בכתב אשורי נתנה תורה לישראל וכשחטאו נהפכה להן לרחץ וכשזכו בימי עזרא חזרה להן אשורית שובו לבצרון וגו′ ר′ שמעון בן לעזר או′ משם ר′ אליעזר בן פרטא שאמ′ משם ר′ אלעזר המודעי בכתב זה ניתנה תורה לישראל שנ′ ווי העמודים ווין שהין דומין לעמודים ואו′ ואל היהודים ככתבם וכלשונם מה לשונם כלשון היה אף כתבם כלשון היה ולמה נקרא שמו אשור על שום שהוא מאושר בכתבו

     Also through him [i.e., Ezra—DNB and JNT] were given a script and a language, as it is said, and the script of the letter was written in Aramaic and the translation was Aramaic [Ezra 4:7]. Just as his translation was Aramaic, so was his script Aramaic. And it says, and they could not read the script, etc. [Dan. 5:8], which teaches that on that day it was given. And it says, and he [i.e., the king of Israel—DNB and JNT] will write for himself a copy [מִשְׁנֵה] of this Torah, etc. [Deut. 17:18], a script [Zuckermandel: Torah] that will be changed [עתידה להשתנות]. Why is it [i.e., Ezra’s script—DNB and JNT] called Assyrian? Because it came up with them from Assyria. Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi says, “In Assyrian script the Torah was given to Israel, but when they sinned it was changed for them to raḥatz [meaning uncertain—DNB and JNT], and when they were deserving in the days of Ezra it reverted for them to Assyrian, as it is said, Return to the stronghold, [O prisoners of hope, also today I proclaim, I will revert the change for you] [Zech. 9:12].” Rabbi Shimon ben Lazar says in the name of Rabbi Eleazar ben Parta, who said in the name of Rabbi Eleazar of Modiin, “In this script [i.e., in Aramaic characters—DNB and JNT] the Torah was given to Israel, as it is said, the vavs of the pillars [Exod. 27:10]. [They are called] vavs because they look like pillars. And it says, And to the Jews according to their writing and according to their language [Esth. 8:9]. Just as their language [i.e., Hebrew—DNB and JNT] did not change, so their script did not change [Here we follow Zuckermandel’s text, which reads: מה לשונם לא נשתנה אף כתבם לא נשתנה—DNB and JNT]. And why is it called Assyrian? Because it is good for writing.” (t. Sanh. 4:7-8; Vienna MS)

     אשורי יש לו כתב ואין לו לשון עברי יש לו לשון ואין לו כתב בחרו להם כתב אשורי ולשון עברי ולמה נקרא שמו אשורי שהוא מאושר בכתבו אמר רבי לוי על שם שעלה בידם מאשור

     Assyrian has a script but no language, Hebrew has a language but no script. They chose for themselves the Assyrian script and the Hebrew language. And why is it named Assyrian [אשורי]? Because it is good [מאושר] for writing. Rabbi Levi said, “Because it came up with them from Assyria [מאשור].” (y. Meg. 1:9 [10a])

     אמר מר זוטרא ואיתימא מר עוקבא בתחלה ניתנה תורה לישראל בכתב עברי ולשון הקודש חזרה וניתנה להם בימי עזרא בכתב אשורית ולשון ארמי ביררו להן לישראל כתב אשורית ולשון הקודש והניחו להדיוטות כתב עברית ולשון ארמי מאן הדיוטות אמר רב חסדא כותאי מאי כתב עברית אמר רב חסדא כתב ליבונאה

     Mar Zutra said, or some say Mar Ukba, “At first the Torah was given to Israel in Hebrew script and in the holy tongue [i.e., Hebrew—DNB and JNT]. Later it was given to them in the days of Ezra in Assyrian script and the Aramaic language. [Eventually] Israel chose for themselves the Assyrian script and the holy tongue, and they left for the rabble the Hebrew script and the Aramaic language.” Who are the rabble? Rav Hisda said, “The Cutheans [i.e., the Samaritans—DNB and JNT].” What is the Hebrew script? Rav Hisda said, “Livunaah [meaning uncertain—DNB and JNT] script.” (b. Sanh. 21b)

     These and other sources are discussed in D. Diringer, “Early Hebrew Script Versus Square Hebrew Script,” in D. Winton Thomas, ed., Essays and Studies Presented to Stanley Arthur Cook In Celebration of his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (London: Taylor’s Foreign Press, 1950), 35-49. ↩

160. See the sources cited in the previous note. The rabbinic sages did not accept the validity of Torah scrolls and other scriptural texts unless they were written in the newer Jewish script:

     כוֹתבָה…לֹא יָצָא עַד שֶׁתְּהֵא כְתוּבָה אֲשּׁוּרִית על הָסֵּפֶר בַּדְּיוֹ

     If he was writing it [i.e., a megillah at the time for its liturgical reading—DNB and JNT]…he has not fulfilled the mitzvah unless it is written in Assyrian [script] on a scroll with ink. (m. Meg. 2:2)

     לְעוֹלָם אֵינוּ מְטַמֵּא עַד שֵׁיִּכְתֵּבינּוּ אַשּׁורִית עַל הָעַוֹר בַּדְּיוֹ

     [A document] never makes [one’s hands] impure [i.e., counts as Holy Scripture—DNB and JNT] unless it is written in Assyrian [script] on parchment in ink. (m. Yad. 4:5)

      ↩
161. See Demsky and Bar-Ilan, “Writing in Ancient Israel and Early Judaism,” 10. Cf. Diringer, “Early Hebrew Script Versus Square Hebrew Script,” 46-49. ↩
162. For the deduction that Jesus read from the Torah as well as from the Scroll of Isaiah at the synagogue in Nazareth, see Shmuel Safrai, “Synagogue and Sabbath,” under the subheading “Synagogue Reading”; R. Steven Notley, “First-century Jewish Use of Scripture: Evidence from the Life of Jesus,” under the subheading “Haftarah Readings on the Sabbath”; idem, “Jesus’ Jewish Hermeneutical Method in the Nazareth Synagogue,” in Early Christian Literature and Intertextuality (2 vols.; ed. Craig A. Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2009), 46-59, esp. 47. See also Lee I. Levine, “The Synagogues of Galilee,” in Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods (2 vols.; ed. David A. Flensy and James Riley Strange; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014-2015), 1:129-150, esp. 132. ↩
163. Josephus reports as a routine occurrence that Jewish villages kept Torah scrolls (J.W. 2:229), so the village of Nazareth would not have been extraordinary in this regard. ↩
164. The rabbinic sages were certainly aware that letters could easily be confused by copyists:

     וכתבתם, כתב שלם, מיכן אמרו, כתב לאלפים עינים ולעינים אלפים, לביתים כפים ולכפים ביתים, לגמלים צדים ולצדים גמלים, לדלתים רישים לרישים דלתים, להיהים חיתים לחיתים היהים, לווים יודים ליודים ווים, לזיינים נונים לנונים זיינים, לטיתים פיפים לפיפים טיתים, לכפופים פשוטים לפשוטים כפופים, למימים סמכים לסמכים מימים, לסתומים פתוחים לפתוחים סתומים, כתב לפרשה סתומה פתוחה לפתוחה סתומה, כתב שלא בדיו או שכתב שירה כיוצא בה או שכתב את האזכרות בזהב הרי אלו יגנזו

     And you must write them [Deut. 6:9] [i.e., the mezuzot—DNB and JNT] with precise lettering. On account of this they said, “If he wrote ayins (ע) for alefs (א) or alefs for ayins, kafs (כ) for bets (ב) or bets for kafs, tzades (צ) for gimmels (ג) or gimmels for tzades, reshes (ר) for dalets (ד) or dalets for reshes, ḥets (ח) for hes (ה) or hes for ḥets, yods (י) for vavs (ו) or vavs for yods, nuns (נ) for zayins (ז) or zayins for nuns, pes (פ) for tets (ט) or tets for pes, regular letters for slanted letters or slanted letters for regular letters, samechs (ס) for mems (ם) or mems for samechs, for closed letters open letters or for open letters closed letters, or writes a closed section in place of an open one or an open one in place of a closed one, or does not write in ink or writes the Song like the rest of the text, or writes the mentions [of the divine name] in gold—Behold! These are put in a genizah.” (Sifre Deut. §36 [ed. Finkelstein, 65-66])

      ↩
165. On the text-critical activity that took place in the Temple, see above, Comment to L2. John Lightfoot, writing in the 1600s, recognized the relevance of the change of Hebrew alphabets and the textual criticism of the Torah in the Temple to the understanding of Jesus’ saying in Matt. 5:18 ∥ Luke 16:17 (see Lightfoot, 2:102-105). Nevertheless, Lightfoot’s conclusions regarding these issues (viz., that the Torah really was given in the newer “Assyrian” script and that the text-critical activity has to do with kre/ketiv) are completely wrong. ↩
166. In a slightly different vein a baraita makes the following statement about the Torah’s divine origin:

     ואפילו אמר כל התורה כולה מן השמים חוץ מדקדוק זה…הוא כי דבר ה′ בזה

     …and even if someone says all of the Torah is from Heaven [i.e., God—DNB and JNT] except for this point…he [is the one referred to in the verse] for he despised the word of the LORD [Num. 15:31]. (b. Sanh. 99a)

     But whereas Jesus’ saying focuses on the immutability of the (divinely given) Torah, the baraita’s focus is the Torah’s divine authorship. ↩

167. On contamination in Matt. 5:18 from Matthean cross-pollination with Mark 13:30-31, see the Conjectured Stages of Transmission discussion above. ↩
168. Davies and Allison similarly judged Matthew’s παρέρχεσθαι in L15 to be redactional (Davies-Allison, 1:490). ↩
169. On reconstructing πίπτειν (piptein, “to fall”) with נָפַל (nāfal, “fall”), see Return of the Twelve, Comment to L17. On the other hand, in MT נָפַל is used to deny that the spoken promises of God have failed. Cf., e.g., Josh. 21:45; 23:14; 2 Kgs. 10:10. ↩
170. See Harnack, 56; McNeile, 59; Jeremias, Theology, 211; Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 63; Gundry, Matt., 79; Davies-Allison, 1:494; Catchpole, 236; Luz, 1:212; Bovon, 2:467 n. 70; Flusser, Jesus, 74-75 n. 42; Nolland, Matt., 217. Schweizer (104) is among the few scholars who regard ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται in Matt. 5:18 as original. ↩
171. See Jeremias, Theology, 211. For a critique of Jeremias’ view, see Dewey, “Quibbling Over Serifs: Observations on Matt 5:18/Luke 16:17,” 109-110. ↩
172. See Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 63-65. ↩
173. Meier’s contention that, since in the Great Commission the author of Matthew does not have Jesus require Gentiles to be circumcised, the Jewish Law must no longer be in force for believers is faulty, in as much as the Torah nowhere requires non-Jews to be circumcised. Rather, it appears that, like the Didache, the author of Matthew espoused a two-tiered system of discipleship that prioritized the teachings of Jesus for everyone, but that required law observance for “perfection.” Compare the Didache’s requirement, “If you are able to bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect [τέλειος]. But if you are not able, whatever you are capable of, this you must do” (Did. 6:2), with the uniquely Matthean advice Jesus gives to the rich man that if he wishes to be “perfect” (τέλειος), he must keep the Torah’s commandments and sell all in order to become a follower of Jesus (Matt. 19:21). Only the combination of discipleship plus Torah observance would lead to perfection. Thus, both Jews and Gentiles were lacking apart from Jesus’ instruction. For the author of Matthew, Judaism without Jesus’ teachings to give it substance was empty ritual, while Gentiles who possessed no more than Jesus’ instruction were only partially formed. Perfection demanded law observance (as defined by the Matthean community) and discipleship. This Judaizing approach to Gentile believers put the Matthean community at odds with Pauline Christianity, which insisted that obedience to Jesus’ instruction was all that was required for Gentile believers. ↩

174. Heaven and Earth Pass Away
     Luke’s DT Version		Anthology’s Wording (Reconstructed)
     εὐκοπώτερον δέ ἐστιν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν παρελθεῖν ἢ τοῦ νόμου μίαν κεραίαν πεσεῖν		μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστιν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν παρελθεῖν ἢ ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μίαν κεραίαν ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου καταλυθῆναι
     Total Words:	15	Total Words:	34
     Total Words Identical to Anth.:	13	Total Words Taken Over in Luke:	13
     Percentage Identical to Anth.:	86.67%	Percentage of Anth. Represented in Luke:	38.24%

     .

     Heaven and Earth Pass Away
     Luke’s TT Version		Anthology’s Wording (Reconstructed)
     ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ παρελεύσονται οἱ δὲ λόγοι μου οὐ μὴ παρελεύσονται		μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστιν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν παρελθεῖν ἢ ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μίαν κεραίαν ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου καταλυθῆναι
     Total Words:	13	Total Words:	34
     Total Words Identical to Anth.:	1	Total Words Taken Over in Luke:	1
     Percentage Identical to Anth.:	7.69%	Percentage of Anth. Represented in Luke:	2.94%

      ↩

175. Cf. Luz, 1:212 and the reconstruction of “Q” in Catchpole, 236. ↩

176. Heaven and Earth Pass Away
     Mark’s Version		Anthology’s Wording (Reconstructed)
     ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ παρελεύσονται οἱ δὲ λόγοι μου οὐ μὴ παρελεύσονται		μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστιν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν παρελθεῖν ἢ ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μίαν κεραίαν ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου καταλυθῆναι
     Total Words:	13	Total Words:	34
     Total Words Identical to Anth.:	1	Total Words Taken Over in Mark:	1
     Percentage Identical to Anth.:	7.69%	Percentage of Anth. Represented in Mark:	2.94%

      ↩

177. Heaven and Earth Pass Away
     Matthew’s DT Version		Anthology’s Wording (Reconstructed)
     μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον ἢ τοὺς προφήτας οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι ἀμὴν γὰρ λέγω ὑμῖν ἕως ἂν παρέλθῃ ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μία κερέα οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται		μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστιν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν παρελθεῖν ἢ ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μίαν κεραίαν ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου καταλυθῆναι
     Total Words:	42	Total Words:	34
     Total Words Identical to Anth.:	22	Total Words Taken Over in Matt.:	22
     Percentage Identical to Anth.:	52.38%	Percentage of Anth. Represented in Matt.:	64.71%

     .

     Heaven and Earth Pass Away
     Matthew’s TT Version		Anthology’s Wording (Reconstructed)
     ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ παρελεύσεται οἱ δὲ λόγοι μου οὐ μὴ παρέλθωσιν		μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστιν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν παρελθεῖν ἢ ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μίαν κεραίαν ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου καταλυθῆναι
     Total Words:	13	Total Words:	34
     Total Words Identical to Anth.:	1	Total Words Taken Over in Matt.:	1
     Percentage Identical to Anth.:	7.69%	Percentage of Anth. Represented in Matt.:	2.94%

      ↩

178. See Davies-Allison, 1:487. ↩
179. See Witherington, 126-127. ↩
180. The phrase “the whole Old Testament” is taken from Strecker, The Sermon on the Mount, 53; cf. Witherington, 126. ↩
181. For a fuller discussion see David N. Bivin and Joshua N. Tilton, “The Significance of Jesus’ Words ‘Not One Jot or One Tittle Will Pass from the Law’ (Matt. 5:18).” ↩
182. See Innocent Blood, under “Conjectured Stages of Transmission.” ↩