SUBSIDIA BIBLICA - 44

NEUDECKER Reinhard, S.J.

Moses Interpreted by the Pharisees and Jesus . Matthew’s Antitheses in the Light of Early Rabbinic Literature.

The study deals with one of the central parts of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, commonly called the «antitheses». Matthew 5:17-48 presents these contrapositions of the Pharisees and Jesus on certain biblical injunctions in an abbrevoated and biased form. By studying the «antitheses» in the light of early rabbinic sources we gain adequate background information enabling us to discover - apart from some points that do not correspond to present-day conceptions - valuable teachings and insights, many of which were shared by Jesus.

Reinhard NEUDECKER S.J. (born in 1938 in Germany) has been professor of rabbinic literature at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome since 1978. He received the International Award for Interreligious Dialogue 2010 from the International Catholic Organization of the Media (UCIP).