Jesus’ Response to the Question of His Authority in Matthew 21

By Gene R. Smillie

[Gene R. Smillie is a theological education consultant with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Wheaton, Illinois.]

In the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry before His sufferings and death, religious authorities challenged Him by asking, “By what authority do You do these things, and who gave You this authority?” (Matt. 21:23).[1] At first Jesus responded by not answering them, in fact refusing to answer (v. 27). With Jesus’ curt dismissal the matter was apparently concluded.

What followed this reveals that in fact the matter was not finished. By telling three parables one right after the other (21:28–22:14) Jesus subtly provided an answer to both their questions, “By what authority?” and “Who gave You this authority?” The first parable contrasts two sons; one obeyed his father and the other did not. Those listening to the story were likened to the one who did not obey. In the second parable the same listeners were compared with evil tenant farmers who not only refused to render the true owner of the “vineyard” his due but also killed the owner’s son (whom Jesus identified as Himself), thus incurring the wrath of the father. In the third parable the son in the story was magnified to an even higher status, the son of a king, to whose wedding banquet many were called, but few responded, and even fewer were chosen. Each of these parables features a father, a son (or sons), and response to the father’s authority.

Also in Matthew’s narration that followed those three parables Jesus’ unequaled ability in rabbinic debate served as a response to the question of His authority. As one challenger after another came up to test Jesus and was sent slinking off in ignominious defeat, Jesus’ authority was clearly demonstrated (22:15–46).

The Context of Matthew 21:27

One of the preliminary tasks of exegeting this passage is to identify the antecedents of “these things” (ταῦτα) mentioned in verse 23. What are “these things” that Jesus had been doing, about which He was being challenged? The incident of Jesus driving out the moneychangers a day or two before (vv. 12–13) is usually viewed as the most likely antecedent. However, of the Synoptic Gospels only Matthew presented also the pericope about Jesus healing the blind and the lame in the temple area and the resulting rancor of the chief priests and doctors of the law at this violation and at the violation committed by the children shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David” (vv. 14–16). So “these things” were probably in view as well in the question in verse 23, since it was approximately the same group of vexed authorities who came to challenge Jesus the following day. Verse 15 refers to chief priests and scribes, verse 23 refers to chief priests and elders, and Mark 11:27 and Luke 20:1 mention all three.

While Mark 11:27 mentioned only that Jesus was “walking around” (περιπατοῦντος, a circumstantial participle), both Matthew 21:23 and Luke 20:1 state that Jesus was teaching at the moment the authorities came up to Him. Luke used διδάσκοντος, another circumstantial participle in the genitive case, followed by eight Greek words before articulating the approach of the authorities. “On one of those days, while he was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, there came to him” (Luke 20:1). Luke thus relegated διδάσκοντος to a secondary accompanying description, followed later in the text by the confrontation itself.

Matthew, on the other hand, employedδιδάσκοντι in the dative case to divide “came to him” from its subject, the religious authorities, calling attention by this rather awkward syntax to the participle “teaching” as pertaining to the verb that precedes it: προσ-ῆλθον αὐτῷ διδάσκοντι οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι τοῦ λαοῦ.[2] The dative thus has the effect of explaining why they came to Him; one may infer that Matthew was suggesting they came to Him not only “while” He was teaching (as Luke stated), but concerning or because of his teaching.[3]

The referents of ταῦτα (“these things”), then, about which Jesus was being questioned were seemingly both His actions, some of which were apparently unorthodox in the temple situation, and His teachings and/or His right to teach.

When He was asked, “By what authority do You do these things, and who gave You this authority?” Jesus posed a condition: “I too will ask you a question, which, if you answer Me, I too will then answer yours” (v. 24). Then He asked about the origin or source of John the Baptist’s ministry (v. 25). They wanted to know “by what authority” (ἐν ποίᾳ ἐξουσίᾳ) Jesus did what He did, and He in turn asked them about what John the Baptist did: “from where, or what source, is it: from heaven or from men?” (πόθεν ἦν…ἐξ οὐρανοῦ ἢ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων).

When they did not dare answer His question, He apparently shrugged them off. “Well then, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things” (v. 27). Case closed—or so it would seem.

Jesus’ Implied Answer to the Question about His Authority

Was Jesus through answering, or did He go on? In the ensuing narration He seems to have continued the same conversation. The following verse, 21:28, begins with “But what do you think?” (Τί δὲ ὑμῖν δοκεῖ…), an indication that He was still addressing the same interlocutors and that what immediately followed His apparent refusal to answer them pertained to the same issue.

In the short parable in verses 28–31 Jesus presented two sons who were sent by their father to work in his vineyard and who responded each in his own way, one refusing to go but later doing so, the other saying he would go but never actually doing so.[4] Jesus then applied the parable to His inquisitors. “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him. However, even when you saw this, you did not change your mind afterward to believe him” (v. 32). It is not likely mere coincidence that Jesus again spoke of John when He contrasted the common sinners’ reception of John with the noncommittal attitude of His interlocutors. The subject matter of this application of the parable and that of the rulers’ earlier refusal to pronounce a verdict on John’s ministry are congruent, if not identical. It is clear then that the parable of the two brothers and its application (vv. 28–32) were a part of Jesus’ elaborate but subtle rejoinder to their question about His authority, an answer He seemed at first to refuse to give.[5]

In the following verse the word “another” (“Hear another [ἄλλην] parable,” v. 33) is an important indication that Jesus continued the same thread of discourse into that section as well. Moreover, at the conclusion of the second parable, when the Jewish authorities heard “the parables” (plural, v. 45), they knew that He was talking about them, another indication that these two parables, at least, went together.

In this second parable (vv. 33–43) several of the constituent elements that are emphasized had also been featured in the previous parable: a vineyard, a father, a son, and faithfulness or lack thereof on the part of those working in the vineyard. In the story of the wicked tenants in the vineyard, after the landlord had sent several servants to collect his dues from his tenants, and they in turn had beaten, stoned, and killed the emissaries (vv. 34–36), the owner sent his own son (in Mark 12:6 he is “a beloved son”), thinking they would respect him. Instead, plotting to usurp the inheritance, they killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. Jesus shrewdly let His audience pronounce the judgment that the owner/father would visit on “those wretches” who had killed his son (v. 41).[6] Then He applied that judgment to them, His hearers, saying that the kingdom of God would be taken away from them and given to a people bearing the fruit of it (vv. 42–44).

The story of the vineyard and the tenants is the only one of the three parables recounted by Matthew that appears at this point in both Mark’s and Luke’s narratives as well,[7] an indicator of this parable’s importance for interpreting the surrounding material. Adequate interpretation of the parable of the tenants, the vineyard, and the son killed by the tenants requires more attention than can be devoted to it here, where the focus is necessarily limited. But suffice it to suggest that by means of this parable, complemented by the other two that enfold it, Jesus was gradually unveiling a subtle answer to the rulers’ question, “By what authority do You do these things, and who gave You this authority?” He seemingly identified Himself with the son in the story and His accusers with the son-rejecting tenants from whom the kingdom would be taken and given to others (vv. 42–43). That God the Father was the “owner” was therefore implicit. This suggested an answer to their second question, “Who gave You this authority?”

With the appearance of “a (or ‘the’) son” of the owner of the vineyard (v. 37) Jesus’ oblique answer to the religious leaders’ original question about His authority began to emerge. Although the previous parable had been about two sons, it was not until this point that Jesus actually used the term υἱόν—in fact τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ (“his own son”) with both the definite article and the possessive adjective—followed two words later by the even more poignant τὸν υἱόν μου (“my own son”). In the previous parable Jesus had apparently purposely avoided using the term. In that parable He had referred to τέκνα δύο (“two children,” v. 28) and in the individual cases to ὁ πρῶτος (“the first one”) and ὁ ἑτέρος (“the other one”). Even the father in the parable of the two brothers addressed his progeny as τέκνα rather than υἱοῖ. All this has the effect of highlighting the special term τὸν υἱὸν (“the son”) when it finally does appear in verse 37. The all-important concept of sonship was being developed gradually in the three parables.

Right after this, Jesus offered His listeners another parable in which yet again sonship is an overt theme. This time the matter was of increased importance because it had to do with the son of a king and various reactions to invitations to his royal wedding celebration. Though all modern-day English Bibles show a new chapter starting here, that particular division of the material is misleading. The opening words of 22:1 indicate clearly that this parable was intended to go with the two that preceded it. There are at least four different deictic markers, or signals, in 22:1 that point back to the preceding text and indicate that the following parable was part of the same series: “And Jesus, responding, spoke once more in parables to them, saying” (Καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ ᾿Λησοῦς πάλιν εἶπεν ἐν παραβολαῖς αὐτοῖς λέγων).

This third parable compares “the kingdom of heaven … to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son” (v. 2). This time Jesus placed the apparent allusions to His own status as son of the father/king at the very beginning of the narration. The theme of the parable is how the varied responses of those invited to the wedding feast of the king’s son parallel the responses of those invited to participate in the kingdom of heaven.[8] Actually the question, “How do you respond to the summons to enter the kingdom?” had been implicit in all the material since Jesus asked His question about John the Baptist in 21:25. The conclusion in 22:15 shows how these questioners reacted to the extended challenge issued them in Jesus’ three parables. Rather than accept the implied invitation, they went out and plotted to trap Jesus.

The cumulative effect of this long section from 21:24 through 22:14 is to provide a rejoinder, albeit subtle or indirect, to the questions posed to Jesus in 21:23. After seemingly refusing to answer the Jewish leaders’ questions about His authority, Jesus told three parables that constituted a veiled reply to their query. Without including this following context in interpreting the passage, readers may get the false impression that when Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things” (v. 27), He had finished and had no more to say on the subject. But when the following context is recognized as an unbroken literary succession with the initial confrontation between Jesus and His challengers, it becomes gradually clearer that His true answer, for those with ears to hear, was “I am the Son, and as the Son of the Father I do what I do by the authority that the Father has given Me. The real question is, How do you respond to that authority?”[9]

Matthew’s Implied Answer to the Question about Jesus’ Authority

Even with the conclusion of the third parable the literary and syntactical signals of Matthew’s text do not suggest a change of subject but rather continuity with and elaboration on the previous matter. Matthew 22:15 begins with τότε (“Then”), and the following verse begins with καί (“And”).[10] The subsequent narrative provides a further subtle replication, an implied answer, by Matthew to the question of Jesus’ authority. This time, rather than parabolic allusions to Jesus’ sonship, it is Jesus’ own prowess that is demonstrated in actual debate with the contentious religious authorities.

The Pharisees, irritated by what had just transpired and intending to trap Jesus in His words (v. 15), sent some of their disciples, along with some Herodians, to ask Him a trick question. The particular wording of the question, beginning with τί σοι δοκεῖ; (“what do you think?” v. 17), lets the reader know that rabbinical debate was going on here.[11] Jesus had begun His counterattack to those challenging His authority by using these same formulaic words in 21:28 (τί δὲ υμῖν δοκεῖ;), and He used them again in 22:42 to set up His final blow in the rabbinical combat in 21:23–22:46. The formula marked the parry and thrust of Jewish scholars in intense arguments between themselves.[12]

Several other vocabulary clues suggest that Matthew was presenting this long encounter of Jesus with the religious authorities as a formal rabbinical debate, and one that was hostile in tone. The related verbs ἐρωτάω and ἐπερωτάω, which appear five times in this section, were frequently used of probing, often contentious, questions.[13] Perhaps an English equivalent would be “cross-examine” or “interrogate.” In 16:1 Matthew had put together the words for testing and questioning (πειράζοντες ἐπηρώτησαν αὐτόν) to show that religious authorities were motivated by malice rather than intellectual curiosity in their questions to Jesus. And here at 22:35 Matthew did so again. At 12:10 he had stated even more bluntly that “they questioned him … in order to accuse him” (ἐπηρώτησαν αὐτὸν … ἵνα κατηγορήσωσιν αὐτοῦ). As already noted in 21:24, Jesus was capable of deflecting their thrusts with questions of His own: “I too will pose to you a certain matter” (ἐρωτήσω ὑμᾶς κἀγὼ λόγον ἕνα).

Thus what Matthew was presenting in this long section of nearly two chapters of his book was an additional implicit answer to the question of Jesus’ authority. By demonstrating Jesus’ superiority over His opponents in rabbinical debate Matthew revealed Jesus’ authority to teach (the particular activity in which He was engaged at the moment they challenged Him, 21:23), that is, to declare theological truth. One after another, the religious authorities of His day came at Him to test Him. One after another, they were defeated. The image that emerges from reading Matthew 22 is something like a modern adventure movie in which the hero whirls around, skillfully dispatching one after another of foes that come at him from every direction, and emerges victorious over them all.

The first to challenge Jesus were the chief priests and elders of the people. After He with His three parables destroyed the pretensions of those who had asked about His authority, the Pharisees were the next challengers. They sent some lower-ranked contenders—their own disciples and the Herodians—to try to catch him with the question of paying taxes to Caesar (22:16–17). Jesus stopped them cold with His counterquestion about the image on the coin and His subsequent interpretation. Amazed (ἐθαύμασαν, v. 22), they slumped away, defeated (vv. 18–22). Next the Sadducees approached to try their luck at cross-examining Jesus (again the verb ἐπηρώτησαν is used, v. 23). Hoping to embarrass Him (and anyone else who might believe in a bodily resurrection), they told a far-fetched tale of a widow of seven brothers, followed by the silly question, “Of which one of them will she be the wife in the resurrection?” (vv. 24–28). Jesus, maintaining control of the potentially ludicrous situation, put them in their place and demonstrated their ignorance of the pertinent Scriptures (vv. 29–32). As a result “the listening crowds were astonished at His teaching” (v. 33), and the Sadducees, like those before them, retired from the field, “silenced” (v. 34). Hearing the Sadducees put to shame, the Pharisees gathered together in counsel (v. 34), picked their best law debater, and sent him into the ring with Jesus, again “questioning to test him” (ἐπηρώτησεν … πειράζων αὐτόν, v. 35), hoping to win this time. The champion lawyer posed his question, “What is the greatest commandment?” but Jesus answered so thoroughly that no rebuttal on the part of the questioner was even registered (vv. 36–40).

Then, while the Pharisees were still mulling over their defeat and trying to figure out what to do next, Jesus took the offensive again with a theological riddle of His own (ἐπηρώτησεν αὐτούς, v. 41; τί ὑμῖν δοκεῖ… v. 42). The question was simple: Whose son is the Messiah? But though they could readily answer, “David’s” (v. 42), Jesus immediately followed up with the one-two blow that finished off His opponents. “Well, then,” He asked, “how is it that David in the Spirit calls him ‘Lord,’ saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” ’? If David then calls him ‘Lord,’ how is he his son?” (vv. 43–45). “No one could answer Him a word; in fact, no one, from that day on, would even dare to ask Him any more questions” (v. 46). With that, Jesus had taken the field; no opponents were left to resist Him.

Jesus’ demolition of His theological opponents was complete, and Matthew’s implicit answer to the question of Jesus’ authority was accomplished, as Jesus’ peerless skills and unanswerable authority in debate with the best theologians of His day were demonstrated.[14]

The next verse, 23:1 (beginning with τότε, “Then”), launched Jesus’ long diatribe of 23:2–39 against the “scribes, Pharisees, leaders, rabbis, guides” (vv. 2, 7, 10, 16, etc.) all of those who, though lacking the requisite moral integrity, yet aspired to “sit in the chair of Moses” (v. 2) and exercise jurisdiction over their fellows. Having answered their challenge by demonstrating conclusively that He was qualified to exercise such authority, Jesus then pronounced judgment on the pretenders whom He had just defeated in verbal combat. After emerging victorious from that many-pronged assault, He denounced His opponents for their hypocrisy. The harsh words of chapter 23 of Matthew, often heard out of context, are more readily comprehensible when understood as directly sequential to the conflict recorded in chapters 21 and 22.

The opening verses of chapter 24 probably also pertain to this same ongoing discourse, though they are nearly always viewed as part of a new section of Matthew. Though 24:1 may seem to signal a new pericope (“And Jesus left the temple and was going away”), and probably did serve as a hinge between the public confrontations with His enemies (21:23–23:39) and the private discourse delivered to His disciples (24:4–26:1), Jesus’ response to His disciples’ awe at the magnificent building intimates that He was still in the same frame of mind from the just-concluded polemics with His opponents: “Listen, I’m telling you the truth, not one of these stones that you are looking at so admiringly will be left without being torn down” (24:2). Jesus had been challenged about His right to operate in the temple; He answered the challenge, debunked the religious leaders’ pretensions of authority, and pronounced the end of that particular religious paradigm. This section apparently concludes with Jesus’ postscript offered to His disciples as they were exiting, telling them that the scene that had been the backdrop to the preceding conflict, the temple itself, with all that it represented, was about to be torn down.

The circumstances of the following line in 24:3 seem to be some time later and some distance later. That verse reports that Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives (καθημένου, a genitive circumstantial participle in the present tense) when His disciples came to Him privately (προσῆλθον αὐτῷ …κατ ᾿ ἰδίαν—from somewhere else?), and asked for clarification of things He had spoken earlier. So it seems that a break in the narrative transpired and that a relatively new section of teaching began here. Of course all of the text is of a seamless fabric, so what follows in Matthew 24 and 25 must also be understood in relation to what just preceded it.

Conclusion

While what goes before any given text is widely recognized as important in the interpretation of Scripture, the post-context is less frequently taken into account. But sometimes it is vital to consider what follows a text as well, in order to understand fully what the author was saying. Jesus’ subtle answers to the religious leaders’ challenge concerning His authority continued for several chapters even after it initially seemed that He had stopped. Without reading on, one would miss the answers Jesus actually did give, namely, that He is the Son of the Father, and that He demonstrated His authority conclusively when challenged to debate by those who considered themselves authorities.

Notes

1. All Scripture translations are those of the author.
2. This feature is often overlooked, perhaps because in English grammar a circumstantial participle must accord in person and number with the subject of the principal clause, a restriction to which Greek is not bound.
3. Jack Dean Kingsbury noted that Matthew’s addition of διδάσκοντι placed both Jesus’ acts and His teaching under the question of authority (Matthew: Structure, Christology, Kingdom [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975], 61).
4. The manuscript tradition about which son did the will of the father and which son did not is complex. For a succinct summary of the possibilities see D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 449–50. Jesus’ application of the parable emphasized the refusal of the religious authorities to repent and believe, after observing those who would “go into the kingdom before them” (v. 31). “You, seeing this [i.e., the repentance of the tax collectors and prostitutes who believed John], did not change your mind afterward to believe him” (v. 32). This would seem to favor the version in which the first son refused and then repented, while the second son said he would go but never did.
5. David Daube suggests that the questioners themselves would certainly have perceived the connection. “The Tannaites were perfectly familiar with the [Socratic] form, (1) hostile question, (2) counter question, (3) answer by which the enemy becomes vulnerable, (4) refutation stated by way of inference from the answer” (The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism [London: Athlone, 1956], 219).
6. Many studies of the sociological background of Palestine in the days of Jesus focus on inequalities fostered by an ever-narrower class of landowners. The affluent priestly caste and other well-connected elite had taken over more and more properties to create large “royal estates” during the Seleucid, Ptolemaic, and Herodian dynasties, which simultaneously created a landless peasant class (to which, it is supposed, Jesus and many of His followers belonged). The results of these studies are often brought to bear on the interpretation of the parables. See for example Sean Freyne, Galilee from Alexander the Great to Hadrian (Notre Dame, IN: University Press, 1980), esp. 170–77; Douglas E. Oakman, “The Ancient Economy in the Bible,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 21 (1991): 34-39; and the extensive bibliography in J. D. H. Amador, “Socio-Rhetorical Criticism and the Parable of the Tenants,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 45 (1992): 27-57. Amador’s thesis that the parable in Matthew 21 originally cast the rebellious tenant farmers as revolutionary heroes is not persuasive. But his portrait of the deep-seated resentment of the peasant class and the likelihood that such rebellions often did take place illuminates the emotional response of the high priests and elders to the question Jesus posed to them, “When the owner arrives, what will he do?” Since they likely identified with the landlord in the story, they fell into the trap. But the judgment they pronounced on the tenant farmers turned out, ironically, to be their own.
7. While many parallels have been perceived between the following parable in this series, the one about the wedding feast, and a similar story told in a completely different setting in Luke 14:16–24, not all are convinced that the two should be considered as different versions of the same story. See Carson, “Matthew,” 455–56.
8. The third and final parable ends with the apothegm, “For many are called, but few are chosen” (22:14). Some scribes introduced that phrase into several manuscripts at 20:16. Its relevance here in this context can be readily perceived, while its relevance in the context of 20:16 is less obvious since it has a similar “ring” to that of the original text there (“the last shall be first, and the first last”). For phonetic and poetic reasons, an inattentive copyist easily but mistakenly could have assimilated the familiar πολλοὶ γάρ εἰσιν κλητοὶ, ὀλίγοι δὲ ἐκλεκτοί together with the similar-sounding paroemia of 20:16, ἔσονται οἱ ἔσχατοι πρῶτοι καὶ οἱ πρῶτοι ἔσχατοι. M. D. Goulder noted the uniqueness (compared with Mark and Luke) of Matthew’s many epigrams, in which Jesus’ teachings were formulated into pithy, poetic, and therefore “memorable” sayings (Midrash and Lection in Matthew [London: SPCK, 1974], 70–94). What was helpful to a memorizing disciple, however, could be a stumbling block to a sleepy scribe, which appears to be what occasioned the gratuitous addition of this clause to 20:16.
9. Robert L. Mowery suggests that the use of terms like “son of a god” or “son of a divine father” during the reign of Tiberius, the adopted son of Augustus—when Jesus was telling these parables and also during the Flavian dynasty when coins of Titus and his brother Domitian (sons of Vespasian) used that title—may have influenced how (rightly or wrongly) Jesus’ claims were understood (“Son of God in Roman Imperial Titles and Matthew,” Biblica83 [2002]: 100-110).
10. Careful scrutiny of the ninety different occurrences of τότε in Matthew somewhat surprisingly reveals that he used it almost every time to mark temporal sequence, not just thematic relations, between the events, actions, or words that it connects.
11. David Hill identified 21:23–22:46 as a single unit containing questions and answers arranged in rabbinical controversy order typically found in Talmudic procedure (The Gospel of Matthew [London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1972], 296). Daube found in the Babylonian Talmud (Niddah 696) a remarkable parallel with Matthew’s presentation of the authorities’ controversy with Jesus in chapter 22. Around a.d. 120 some Alexandrians put Rabbi Joshua to the test with four sets of three questions, and each of the four categories corresponds directly to the sequence in Matthew 22: (1) questions interpreting a legal text (which may be compared with the trick question about giving poll tax to Caesar); (2) questions ridiculing a belief (corresponding to the Sadduccees’ question about the seven-times widowed woman); and (3) questions of conduct or how to live in relation to the Law (“What is the greatest commandment of them all?” in v. 36). Daube noted that the fourth category, questions about difficult or apparently contradictory texts, was taken up by Jesus Himself when He asked, “If the Messiah is David’s son, why does he call him ‘Lord’?” Not only the kinds of questions but also the order in which they were posed are identical in the two cases (The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism, 158–63). Numerous other parallels are noted by Herman Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus: erläutert aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munich: Beck’sche, 1922), 1:861–909.
12. Jack Lightstone has challenged the scholarly consensus of a literary pattern coined “mishnaic dispute form” (by Jacob Neusner, The Rabbinic Tradition about the Pharisees beforea.d.70, 3 vols. [Leiden: Brill, 1971]). Lightstone proposes instead that socio-rhetorical analysis of Mishnah texts like Gittin 1:1–2:2 (wherein the opinions of rabbis Gamaliel, Simeon, Eliezar, Judah, and various “sages” are compared on the subject of necessary or valid witnesses to written documents such as writs of divorce or manumission of slaves) suggests that “the Mishnah rhetorically reinforces and reflects a portrayal of elite, authoritative virtuosity which may be characterized as a mastery of guardianship of the old social and cultic order stewarded by priests and their scribal guild” (Mishna and the Social Formation of the Early Rabbinic Guild [Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2002], 26). The origins of rabbinism, he suggests, are to be found in the priestly scribal heirs of the defunct temple state bureaucracy who, after the disaster of a.d. 70, “having lost their institutional base, first tried to preserve and pass on their professional guild expertise” (ibid., 186). Lightstone believes that in an effort to present emergent rabbinic Judaism as a consensus, “Mishnah’s authors have largely eradicated the language of any antecedent sources” (ibid., 184). Whether Neusner’s depiction of Mishnah as a collection of rabbinic disputes evincing the wide variety of opinions within Judaism prevails, or Lightstone’s modification of that portrait to a receptacle of only the opinions “authorized” from within the guild, both reflect jealously guarded prerogatives by rabbis who “portray themselves as similar to, or as heirs of, the priestly-scribal administration of the now defunct Temple state” (ibid., 27). Matthew’s presentation of Jesus’ repartee with authorities in the temple shows that He was not accepted by any of them nor did He try to be. Yet He mastered the techniques of rabbinic disputation to such a degree that He defeated all of them in oral debate, thus establishing His “right” or authority to teach.
13. Heinrich Greeven, “ἐρωτάω,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 685–89.
14. For more on Jesus’ impact on His opponents see Roy B. Zuck, Teaching as Jesus Taught (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1995), 129–55.