Texts in Conversation
In Matthew, Jesus treats murder as a matter for a court, saying a murderer is liable to judgment, language with no known source in the Hebrew Bible. In the Aramaic Targum Onkelos on Genesis, judges similarly condemn a murderer on witnesses’ testimony.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Onkelos Genesis 9:6
Targum
4 But the flesh with its life-blood you shall not eat. 5 And also I will require an accounting for your lifeblood; I will require it from every animal, and from the hand of man. From the hand of the man who sheds the blood of his brother I will require an accounting for human life. 6 Whoever sheds the blood of man, by witnesses, by the sentence of the judges, his blood shall be shed; because He made humans in the image of God. 7 And you, spread out and multiply; have offspring on the earth and multiply on it. 8 And the Lord spoke to Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 9 And I, look, I establish my covenant with you and with your children after you, 10 and with every living thing which is with you, birds, of cattle, and of every wild animal of the field that is with you, of all coming out from the ark of every animal of the earth.
Date: 50–500 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Matthew 5:22
New Testament
21 “You have heard that it was said to an older generation, ‘Do not murder,’ and ‘whoever murders will be subjected to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that anyone who is angry with a brother will be subjected to judgment. And whoever insults a brother will be brought before the council, and whoever says ‘Fool’ will be sent to fiery hell. 23 So then, if you bring your gift to the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your gift.
Date: 70–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The first antithesis is introduced in Matthew 5:21 with the formula: “You have heard that it was said to the men of old”. Whereas the first part of the saying that follows (“You shall not kill”) is obviously taken from Exodus 20:13 (= Deuteronomy 5:17), the rest cannot be found in any Old Testament text. Martin McNamara was the first to point to the targumic paraphrase of Genesis 9:6 as a clear parallel to he Matthew 5:21 ending. Targum Onqelos interprets the biblical “Whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed ...” as relating to a juridical procedure in which “by man” means “following the testimony of witnesses according to the decision (sentence) of judges”: The targumic paraphrase of the Torah seems to have been one of the pillars of public teaching in the synagogue already in the late Second Temple period. Biblical passages, therefore, could often be remembered in their Aramaic form, and it is highly probable that the popular exegetical tradition concerning Genesis 9:6 (attested in Targum Onqelos and also in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan) was in great part responsible (together with Exodus 20:13) for the quotation form in Matthew 5:21 ..."
Serge Ruzer, Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 12–13.
* 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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