Texts in Conversation
Jesus in Matthew 21 tells a parable that describes tenants who kill a landowner’s son. This is similar to the Aramaic translation of Isaiah in the Targum, where the vineyard represents the temple and the tenants its leaders. This suggests Matthew was influenced by an Aramaic tradition later preserved in the Targum.
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Matthew 21:41
New Testament
37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and get his inheritance!’ 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will utterly destroy those evil men! Then he will lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his portion at the harvest.”
Date: 70-90 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Jonathan Isaiah 5:5
Targum
What more good could I have thought to do to them, which I have not done to them? And what is this? I have thought that they should do good; but they have done evil. And now, now I will tell you what I will do to my people; I will cause my Shekinah to remove from them, and they shall be for a spoil; I will break down the house of their sanctuary, and they shall be for a treading down. I will make them abandoned ones; they shall not be visited, neither shall they be supported; and they shall be cast out and forsaken. I will command the prophets that they do not prophesy to them prophecy. For the people of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. And I thought that they should do judgment, but, behold, they are oppressors; I thought that they should do righteousness, but, behold, they are multiplying sins.
Date: 200-300 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
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Notes and References
"... The second type of affinity does not include the sharing of explicit wording, but it does presuppose a comparable understanding of the same biblical passage in the Targumim and the New Testament. An example is Jesus' parable of the Vineyard in Matthew 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12; and Luke 20:9-19. After he has told his story of the abuse suffered by those the owner sends to acquire his share of the vintage, the Synoptic Gospels agree that the opposition to Jesus among the Jewish authorities hardened to the point that they wanted to seize him. When the symbolism of the vineyard in Targum Isaiah 5:1-7 is considered, the opposition to Jesus becomes easily explicable. There the vine is a primary symbol of the temple, so that the tenants of Jesus' parable are readily identified with the leadership of the temple. They knew he was telling the parable against them ..."
Chilton, Bruce
"From Aramaic Paraphrase to Greek Testament" in Evans, Craig A. (ed.) From Prophecy to Testament: The Function of the Old Testament in the New
(pp. 23-43) Hendrickson Publishers, 2004
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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