18
limitations."
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Through haggadic interrogation Jesus discovered his opponents'
understanding of the Messiah's authority. They should have understood the Messiah's
authority so that when he came they would know how to submit to him. Jesus had
effectively made the case that he acted as Messiah with God's authority. How dare they
demand ask the Lord Messiah by what authority he does these things (21:23). At least
from a rhetorical point of view, as Psalm 110:1 prophesied, Jesus' "enemies have been
put under His feet." Therefore, as the undefeated and now unchallenged victor, Jesus
proclaims his verdict through the means of an epideictic speech--chapter 23.
Final denunciations: The seven woes 23:1-39
The constraints on this paper necessitate that only an abbreviated summary of
chapter 23 can be here attempted. Admittedly, such vitriolic terms--"fools", "hypocrites",
"blind guides" or "sons of hell"--upon Jesus' lips may seem inconsistent with the ethics of
the Sermon on the Mount. But "liberal sentimentality" or political correctness clouds the
rhetoriographical inquiry into the way invective was used and intended in antiquity. The
hard language in chapter 23 was not the words of personal irritation or malice. It was
typical of the conventional language of polemical rhetoric common to the philosophical
tradition, of Jews writing about Gentiles, or Jews against other sects within Judaism.
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Ultimately, the polemic in chapter 23 is reflective of the prophetic tradition of the Old
Testament, where the L
ORD
's prophet speaks divine warning, condemnation, and points
to impending judgment.
In the first section (23:1-12) Jesus gives his disciples and the crowds following him
reasons why they ought not do as the Pharisees do. He gives them three examples, three
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Carson, 468; Keener, 532-34. Such a solution to the paradox was unimaginable, and the
Pharisees' silence is tribute to that fact. Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi was not by deduction or
imagination but by revelation (16:16-17). When, however, this solution of a high Christology is expressed
propositionally in the trial before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish leaders deemed it blasphemous (26:63-68).
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Luke Timothy Johnson, "The New Testament's Anti-Jewish Slander and Conventions of Ancient
Rhetoric," Journal of Biblical Literature 108 (1989): 419-41; Davies and Allison, 3.258-63; Hagner, 654-55.