Matthias Konradt, “The Commandment of Love for Enemies in Matt 5.43-48 and Its Early Jewish Context,” translated by Wayne Coppins, Accessible German New Testament Scholarship 1 (2025), 36.
Matthew has removed the Golden Rule from the direct context of love for enemies and placed it at the end of the body of the Sermon on the Mount in 7.12. The connection to love for enemies is not, however, eliminated with this rearrangement. For Matthew has connected the placement of the Golden Rule as the conclusion of the body of the Sermon on the Mount with the fact that it functions as a summary of the Law and the Prophets, which Jesus has come to fulfill according to 5.17 and whose fully valid understanding is exemplarily unfolded in the antitheses. This means that in Matthew the Golden Rule, in terms of content, is no longer related solely to the renunciation of retaliation and love for enemies but rather to the whole series of antitheses, including love for enemies, and, conversely, the series of antitheses as a whole are rationalized and made understandable through the Golden Rule. Here, we find a description of conduct that one hopes to receive for oneself from others. Let us begin with the first antithesis, the radical interpretation of the prohibition of murder: no person, who is in their right mind, can wish to be beaten down by another person – even if it is only verbally. Thus, one should not act aggressively toward others. Likewise, however, one hopes even from their enemy that they will not refuse to help him or her in a situation of distress. Accordingly, one must also love the enemy in this way.
The Amateur Exegete 
Hi Ben, still on the topic of Job and James.
From what you’ve said, it seems that the author of Job would understand all moral temptation — including the inducement to sin — as originating from God, since in Job it is God who “puts Job in the situation” that could potentially lead him to sin.
If that is the author of Job’s view, then are you saying that:
temptations that lead to greed,
temptations that lead to pride,
temptations that lead to slander,
temptations that lead to rivalry and discord
— all of which James describes as arising from one’s own desires (Jas 1:14–15; 3:14–16) —
would, according to the logic of Job, have been caused by circumstances that God himself created?
In other words, in the view of the author of Job, would God be the indirect (or even direct) cause of the circumstances that give rise to these sins?
I ask because this conclusion seems to create a significant contrast between:
James’s view, in which temptations to evil arise from human desires,
and
the reading of Job you are proposing, where God is the one who creates the conditions in which a person might fall.
Is this really what you understand the author of Job to be saying?
In one of our conversations you used Abraham as an example of someone whom God tempted to sin.
The first problem with this reading is that it presupposes that human sacrifice was already understood as morally evil within the horizon of the text, which is anachronistic. Explicit prohibitions against human sacrifice only appear later in Israelite legislation. Genesis 22 belongs to a patriarchal and narrative context, not a legal one, and therefore cannot be evaluated on the basis of norms that had not yet been instituted within the world of the text.
Second, to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that ancient Jews understood Abraham as being on the verge of committing a sin. On the contrary, both in the text itself and in later Jewish tradition, the Akedah is interpreted as a test of faithfulness and obedience, not as a near moral failure. If the intent of the text were to portray Abraham as standing on the brink of a morally evil act, it would be strange that this reading is entirely absent from the history of its reception.
Finally, the argument seems to depend on an even deeper anachronism: the imposition of modern moral categories onto an ancient text. What is morally unacceptable to us in the twenty-first-century West was not necessarily conceived in the same way by the people of the time, place, and culture in which Genesis was composed. I am not denying that human sacrifice is morally wrong; rather, I am pointing out the methodological problem of mixing modern ethical judgments with a historical and exegetical analysis of the biblical text.
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Interesting piece. I like how it places the teachings of Jesus in the framework of the Golden Rule that was widely preached throughout different parts of the ancient world (e.g. China, India, Pre-Socratic Greeks) rather than trying to assume that Jesus was “above” the ethical understandings of the day.
As a former believer, one of my grievances with modern Bible scholarship is its tendency (even among the more liberal academics) to automatically treat the moral commands of the New Testament as either inscrutable or to be in agreement by default with what we wished them to mean. I am now inclined to consider Jesus as part of a secular pantheon of moral “greats” (alongside typical examples like Buddha, Socrates, Gandhi, etc.) that will hopefully continue to expand with further investigation (e.g. depending on whether or not some of the early Stoics merit inclusion).
One example of a case where I think Jesus comes up short compared with a person like Socrates is his inability to show epistemic humility. There are scarce examples in the New Testament of phrases like Montaigne’s “But what do I know?,” “Could I be mistaken?”, or some other phrase indicative of a humble truth-seeker. His knowledge was clearly constrained by his humanity (just like everyone else) as is demonstrated by his assertion that the “mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds” and his promise that the twelve disciples would sit on those thrones judging their countrymen after the Son of Man returned. Of course, if the Gospels were in some sense “hagiographic” (as classicist Matthew Wade Ferguson puts it), it wouldn’t have been their wont to portray Jesus as having shortcomings.
Think of how many of history’s worst dictators also were well-received by crowds because “they spoke with authority.” (A certain American political figure who likes to flaunt his “Christianity” also comes to mind.)
Pardon the above digression and thanks again for posting these excerpts.
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