Deuteronomy 8-27/Luke 4-7

Luke
Luke 4: The temptation of Jesus is nearly identical to the one in Matthew, except for the order (Mt 4.1-11). It is likely that they thought the temptation they put last was the trickiest one, and so left it to the last.

Jesus comes out of the wilderness and begins his ministry (this should be a familiar pattern). He reads what was probably a well known passage about the establishment of the kingdom of God and return of the people from exile. He states that it has been fulfilled; the people are intrigued and excited. They perhaps start to question his authority and claim (Is this not Joseph's son?). He answers with two challenges: references to God's grace coming to gentiles (widow of Zarephath and Naaman), coupled with the famous quote about a prophet not being welcome in their home town. Response: they try to throw him off a cliff.

Having encountered this response and weathered the conflict, Jesus next enters into conflict with the demons. This will be an important point in the story of Jesus: his conflict with people and his conflict with the supernatural powers. In Jesus' world, the two would have been more connected than in ours.

When Jesus goes to leave Capernaum and the area of Galilee, the people want him to stay, but he most proclaim his message in other cities. Notice he continues to proclaim that message in the synagogues of Judea (take a look at your maps).

Luke 5 begins with the miraculous fishing and the call of Peter, James and John. During a healing, he touches a leper (which you weren't supposed to do). His healing starts to draw crowds, including the "teachers of the law."

There is a whole section here, from about 5.17 - 6.11 where he has various conflicts and disagreements with these religious leaders. They want him to be proper and respectable. Jesus is more interested in living life and bringing life to others. Notice Jesus also consistently gets away for rest and restoration.

Chapter 6.12-16 is the list of disciples who become "The Twelve." There is some variation in the lists between the different gospels, but they always start with Peter and end with Judas Iscariot.

The end of 6 is Luke's version of the sermon on the mount. Here we have the sermon on the plain (v. 17), and some very basic differences, even in the Beatitudes, which includes the classic formula of blessings and cursings (remember how often this occurs in the Torah). Compare with Matthew 5.

Deuteronomy
8: it is serendipitous to be reading this with Luke 4. We hear the phrase with Jesus quotes to Satan in v. 3 - one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. The point here is clear....it is God who feeds us, who clothes us, who gives us shelter. We are wholly dependent on God. The Israelites are warned not to forget this, now they are moving into a land that is bountiful from a land where they would have starved if bread had not fallen from the sky.

9: retells the story at Mt. Sinai, but there is a deeper warning against self-righteousness. "Do not think you are taking this land as a reward for being good." No, it is God's judgment on the Canaanites and because of the promises made through Abraham that they are receiving the land.

10: a conclusion of the historical recap and a plea, not simply to obey the law, but to love God, and not only God, but the stranger, the widow, the orphan. The point here is that Yahweh is not only the God of the Israelites, but of everyone, especially the downtrodden.

11: We hear again the call to loyalty to God. Notice vv. 10-12. The Nile Valley in Egypt is irrigated by human effort. The land of Canaan is a place of hills and valleys where a large irrigation endeavor won't work. The land of Canaan is a place where the agriculture is completely dependent on the rain God sends. This will become important when the land is afflicted with drought. Notice also the use of the plural you throughout. It is a communal injunction that the community (not just individuals) remain loyal. They were in it together.

12 - 26.15 is the next great body of law in Dt.

12 speaks to a centralized worship of their God to the exclusion of all others. They are to destroy the pagan temples. They were not to worship God there. One of the key distinctions here is that now that the people are living throughout the land, they do not have to bring every animal to the tabernacle to slaughter it. Now when an animal is killed in "a town" it is not a sacrifice, where before it was. There is now also only one place (from among the tribes) for sacrifices to happen. This is where we see the writer reflecting the time of Josiah, when there was only one temple and one altar in Jerusalem rather than places throughout the land. This becomes much more important later. This new description of slaughtering an animal that is not sacrifice is one of the first divisions between the "sacred" and the "secular."

13: Don't worship other gods, no matter who says so. 'Nuff said.

14: Tithe was what was usually owed to the monarch or the landowner - the people are stewards, God is the owner. Their tithe was used to support the Levites and the poor.

15: We hear again of the year of jubilee. Every 7 years, no more debt, no more slavery (most likely indentured servants).

16: Is a revamping of the calendar and the establishment of local courts which usually held their meetings at the town gates.

17: What do you do with crime and disputes. If the local court cannot reach a conclusion, bring them to the temple and the priests and judge (as in the book of Judges) will decide. There is also a provision for a king (strange considering what happens over the next couple of hundred years if this was indeed written before Josiah). Notice the king's power is greatly limited, and there are several prohibitions against extravagance (which is what gets King Solomon in trouble).

18: More on the levitical priesthood, and also in some sense creates the role of the prophet. This is one who speaks for God, not in the way the pagans do (9-14), but in the way Moses did.

19: covers two topics: the cities of sanctuary and the rules of evidence for the court. You must have more than one witness to convict.

20: again we have the herem or the ban. The Israelite holy war described here frankly never took place. The rules here are similar to other Near East descriptions, and you can even see in verse 16 how the rules were amended. When this was written, the Canaanite tribes were already assimilated into the Israelite populace. This was an attempt to idealize the conquering of the land in a way to convince contemporary Jews (7th cent.) to not be tempted by the pagan gods and worship.

21: various situations: how will the land be cleansed by bloodshed if we cannot find the perpetrator? How shall we settle certain civil disputes? Remember, the family was the welfare system; the welfare of woman depended on the rights they demanded from their husbands and fathers. Regarding the corpse on a tree, we find the reason the people asked for Jesus' body before sundown.

22: Lots of different laws mostly covering civil matters; that is the obligations between people. Remember the precarious position of woman in this society. Most of these laws are there to protect her from summary execution or from banishment from the protection of family which would lead either to starvation or prostitution (perhaps both).

23: Restriction on those who could be a part of the Israelite assembly, which was the governing body of Israel, and most likely a popular legislature made up of tribal and town leaders (Edomites are descendants of Esau) .

More in a couple of days....