03_Wilson_201_221_201_221 10/07/15 12:41 Pagina 206 206 WALTER T. WILSON 206 view, CD 11.13-14 can be compared with somewhat more lenient sabbatical rulings preserved in rabbinic literature, for example, m. Bet. 3.4 (which allows an unblemished firstling to be pulled from a pit if it is to be slaughtered on a festival), b. Shab. 128b (which allows cushions and bedding to be placed under the animal in hopes that it can extricate itself), and t. Shab. 14.3 (which allows food to be provided for the animal in order to keep it alive) 23. In assessing the contribution of Matt 12,11-12 to our understand- ing of early Jewish halakhah, it is important to bear in mind that Jesus formulates the illustration in 12,11 as a rhetorical question. In other words, he simply assumes that his Pharisaic interlocutors will agree that the sort of merciful assistance depicted in this verse represents a widely accepted practice: “Jesus rhetorically draws his audience to his side with the presumption that … these humane measures are as obvious to them as they are to him” 24. Indeed, this assumption is essential to his aim of exposing the hypocritical na- ture of the Pharisees’ position: “When they admit to helping an an- imal on the Sabbath but question helping a person on the Sabbath, their interpretation of the law is shown up as illogical and immoral” 25. In the same vein, Jesus employs not only an illustration that would have been familiar to his opponents but a form of argumentation that would have been familiar to them as well, a point made by Doering: “Formally, the Matthean argument is a conclusion a minori ad maius and is therefore close to the rabbinic reasoning qal wa- homer, which was particularly in use with respect to issues about overriding the Sabbath commandment” 26. According to a recent study 27, the qal wa-homer (one of the major hermeneutical rules or middot of rabbinic literature) is an a fortiori inference consisting of “an analogical transfer” between 23 Cf. b. Bet. 37a; DOERING, Schabbat, 194-195, 459-460; SALDARINI, Community, 271-272. 24 MEIER, Marginal Jew, IV, 263. Similar points are made by REPSCHINSKI, Controversy Stories, 110; SALDARINI, Community, 132; Y.-E. YANG, Jesus and the Sabbath in Matthew’s Gospel (JSNTSup 139; Sheffield 1997) 203. 25 REPSCHINSKI, Controversy Stories, 111. 26 DOERING, “Sabbath Laws”, 223-224. Cf. MEIER, Marginal Jew, II, 684; IV, 259; REPSCHINSKI, Controversy Stories, 111; SALDARINI, Community, 132; YANG, Sabbath, 179. 27 A. SAMELY, Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah (Oxford 2002) 174.