04_Biblica_1_C_Thiessen_Layout 1 30/01/13 13:16 Pagina 554 554 MATTHEW THIESSEN movement brought about the destruction of the Temple and God’s wrath by pointing out the Pharisees’ law-keeping inadequacies 25. As we have seen, Josephus blamed the events of 70 C.E. on the Zealots whom he repeatedly accused of abolishing the law, demon- strating the possibility that others laid the blame on Jewish followers of Jesus, whom they viewed as law abolishers 26. It is conceivable that a group competing for the loyalties of other Jews, such as the Pharisees, argued that Jesus came to abolish the law and that his movement was the cause of the destruction of Jerusalem. What bet- ter way to discredit them as contenders for a leading role in the post- 70 Jewish community than to claim that Jesus himself was a law abolisher? Matthew’s gospel should therefore be understood, in part, as a response to such charges. * * * I have argued that the threefold occurrence of the verbs katalu/w and lu/w in Matt 5,17-20 is evidence of an accusation leveled at Jesus and the Jewish community that followed him. It has been seen that there is a high density of occurrences of these words in two locations — accounts of the Antiochan persecution, and Josephus’s account of the Zealots in the Jewish War. Matthew 5,17-20 should, therefore, be read against the backdrop of these two verbal clusters. In these verses, Matthew answers the dangerous accusation that his community mem- bers are law abolishers and consequently a threat to all Jews. Just as the authors of 2 and 4 Maccabees believed that the Jewish Hellenizers brought about the Antiochan persecution, and just as Josephus argued that the law-abolishing Zealots brought about the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, so, too, some may have argued that Jewish- Christian abandonment of ancestral customs occasioned divine wrath. If so, the correct response of other Jewish groups to Matthew’s com- munity should conform to Moses’ command, as mentioned by Jose- Cf. D.M. MOFFITT, “Righteous Bloodshed, Matthew’s Passion Narrative 25 and the Temple’s Destruction: Lamentations as a Matthean Intertext”, JBL 125.2 (2006) 299-320. Possible confirmation for this suggestion can be found in Josephus’s 26 claim that the high priest Ananus put James, the brother of Jesus, and some of his companions to death on the accusation that they were law transgressors (paranomhsa&ntoi, A.J. 20.200). © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati