Texts in Conversation
Jesus in Matthew 7 teaches that the way you judge someone else will be used to judge you in return, a teaching also found in the Aramaic translation of Isaiah in Targum Jonathan. This suggests that Jesus was influenced by an Aramaic tradition that was later preserved in the Targum.
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Matthew 7:2
New Testament
1 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. 2 For by the standard you judge you will be judged, and the measure you use will be the measure you receive. 3 Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ while there is a beam in your own? 5 You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Date: 70-90 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Jonathan Isaiah 27:8
Targum
5 If they would lay hold on the words of my law, peace would be made with them; henceforth peace woidd be made with them. 6 They shall be gathered from the midst of their captivity, and return to their country; there children shall be bom to the house of Jacob; they of the house of Israel shall be fruitful, and they shall midtiply; their children's children shall fill the face of the world. 7 Hath he smitten him (Judah and Israel) as He smote those that smote him? Or is he (Judah and Israel) slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by Him (by God)? 8 With the measure wherewith thou didst measure, they shall measure unto thee, thou didst send forth and oppress them. He meditated a word against them. He' prevailed against them in the day of wrath.
Date: 200-300 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
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Notes and References
"... 'With the measure you were measuring with they will measure you' appears in Targum Isaiah 27:8; a saying of Jesus' is strikingly similar: "In the measure you measure it shall be measured you" (Matthew 7:2; Mark 4:24). The measure in Targum Isaiah, however, is applied to a single figure, the oppressor of Jacob rather than to a general group, as in Jesus' saying. A Similar aphorism, crafted in in the third person, was common in rabbinic literature (see, e.g., b. Sotah 8b and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Genesis 38:25), so we have here a proverb in Aramaic that Jesus and a meturgeman of Isaiah both happened to use. This is a case in which, despite close verbal agreement, no case for dependence can be made one way or another ..."
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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