132 - Essays on the Sermon on the Mount

Essays on the Sermon on the Mount
By Hans Dieter Betz
Philadelphia, Fortress, 1985. 170 pp. $24.95.

This is a collection of seven essays published between 1975 and 1984. In the introduction, Betz refers to a commentary for which these studies are preparatory. There is an index of authors and passages.

The perspective that unifies these essays is the assertion that the Sermon on the Mount should be recognized and studied as an independent composition that was compiled prior to its incorporation into the Gospel of Matthew. This leads to some very interesting, but also very limited, conclusions.

Essay 1. This is the most significant essay of the collection and the one which is presupposed in all the others. Betz argues that the Sermon on the Mount is an epitome, that is, a condensation of the teachings of Jesus, collected for the purpose of brevity and precision. Such a genre was useful, because it encouraged a follower or disciple to keep the teacher's entire system in mind.

Essay 2. In this essay on the beatitudes, Betz speaks of the community of the Sermon on the Mount, a Jewish-Christian community conscious of itself as a minority in distress. As in most of these essays, Betz includes an excellent literary analysis. He argues that the Sermon as a whole is the elucidation of the first beatitude and that the community is historically and theologically earlier than the author of the first Gospel.

Essay 3. Betz argues that Mt. 5:17-20 is not part of the Matthean redaction, as is usually assumed. He asserts, therefore, that the commands of the Sermon cannot be regarded as legal provisions, but rather are meant to educate the disciples to recognize the demands of God.

Essay 4. Betz provides a clear description of Mt. 6:1-18 as a cultic didache.

Essay 5. Betz compares Greek theories of vision with Mt. 6:22-23 and argues that this pericope is a Jewish criticism of those theories. The

134 - Essays on the Sermon on the Mount

community Betz described earlier supports a Jewish view, that is, the ethical disposition of a person determines whether one's eyes function properly.

Essay 6. In an analysis of Mt. 6:25-34 to uncover the soteriology of the Sermon on the Mount, Betz argues that positive acts of God are to be understood as gifts, whether they are given in the present or the future. He shows that the Sermon is at home in traditional Jewish piety with an added emphasis (perhaps from Jesus himself) on seeking the righteousness of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Essay 7. Here Betz compares Mt. 7:21-23 to a rabbinic story and to Second Clement 3-4. For the community of the Sermon, Jesus has no salvific function apart from his insistence on obedience to the Torah (properly understood).

My primary criticism is that Betz's main argument, presented in the first essay and assumed throughout the book, is not really demonstrated. If the Sermon on the Mount is an epitome, and should indeed be studied as a separate entity, we should have some demonstration of that fact. Since the epitome as a genre does not have a readily distinctive, defined form, it is certainly possible that the Sermon is an epitome. But one could also assert that it is best understood as a summary of Jesus' teaching composed by Matthew or, preferably, the first of a series of speeches which the redactor (or narrator) placed at the beginning of his story of Jesus. In other words, Betz's position is possible, but not required. By assuming that the Sermon had a separate, and prior, existence, be can draw some very interesting conclusions about the theology of the document (as has also been done for Q, for example), but the case is still merely a possibility. Since the Sermon seems to be an integral part of the gospel, it is up to Betz to show us why it could not have originated as a part of Matthew's Gospel. It is puzzling to me that he does not discuss the implications of this theory for Q and the two-source hypothesis. Since the distinctive features of the community, proposed as the source for this epitome, depend on the independence of the collection, it is difficult to consider them seriously.

On the positive side, there is much to recommend these studies. We have come to expect a depth of analysis and breadth of background information from Betz, and we are not disappointed. Especially helpful are the literary analyses that form the basis for the wider discussion.

The author challenges us to reassess our understanding of this collection of Jesus traditions. He has given us an insightful and challenging work. We eagerly await the commentary for a full treatment of this approach.

Richard A. Edwards
Marquette University
Milwaukee, Wisconsin