Sunset on the Sabbath day was approaching. As they went along through a grain field, and the hungry disciples picked heads of grain and ate them.
Pharisees, observing this, said, Look, your students are doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath!
And Yeshua replied, Remember what David did, when he and his companions were hungry and in need: He entered the house of the holy one and took the consecrated bread, meant only for the priests, and he and his companions ate the bread. If you knew what it means, ‘I seek mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not condemn the innocent.
Further, It has been said, the Sabbath was made to serve people, rather than people to serve the Sabbath.
Continuing on, they entered the synagogue, where he was to teach.
A man with a wasted hand was brought forward.
The canon-lawyers and Pharisees watched closely, hoping to catch him in wrongdoing with which he could be charged.
Sensing that this had been set as a trap, he asked the man to stand where all could see him.
Looking around, Yeshua looked into the face of each person, saying, What is permissible on the Sabbath, doing good or doing bad, or worse, doing nothing? What is permissible on the Sabbath, saving a life or destroying a life, or worse, ignoring the needs of life?
Who of you, if you had but one sheep and it feel into a pit on the Sabbath, would not reach in and pull it out? How much more important than a sheep is a person? Enough that it is right to do a good deed on the Sabbath.
He bade the man stretch out his hand to the congregation. He stretched it out, and all saw that it had been restored to health.
The Pharisees met afterward. Yeshua had challenged their authority. He challenged way things had always been understood, the way things had always been done.
© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com
A brief note about my literary exploration of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: I have undertaken this exercise having read, sung (in several languages), meditated and prayed on the contents of the Synoptic Gospels (as well as the Non-Synoptic Gospels) for at least 45 years. In that time, I’ve accumulated a bit of a library (which comes as no surprise to those who know me), and I try to follow modern scholarship. Here is a partial list of the authors and books that come to mind as I write these episodes:
Ballentine, Debra Scoggins, The Conflict Myth & the Biblical Tradition; Oxford University Press 2015
Erdman, Bart, various titles
Gaus, Andy, The Unvarnished New Testament; Phanes Press, 1991
Herzog, William R., Parables as Subversive Speech; Westminster John Knox Press, 1991
Louden, Bruce, Greek Myth and the Bible; Routledge, 2019
Tatian, Diatesseron; www.earlychristianwritings.com/diatessaron.html
Wajdenbaum, Philippe, Argonauts of the Desert, Routledge, 2011
Ward, Keith, The Philosopher and the Gospels, Lion Hudson, 2011
Yosef ben Maityahu (Titus Flavius Josephus), various writings
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