Part 3 - The First Century Jewish Mindset

Long Ago, Centuries Earlier...

... between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, the tribes of Israel assemble. They are at Shechem, a location within the steep sided narrow valley between mountains. The tribes are instructed then to take their places. Half the tribes stand on one the lower slopes of Gerizim - the mount of blessing. The others stand on Ebal - the mount of cursing. The ark of the covenant and the Levites remain in the centre. It is from there that the covenant will be read aloud, the words echoing across the valley.

It begins. Declarations of blessings that God will bestow on the obedient. Responses from the tribes. Amen!

It continues. Declarations of cursings that God will inflict on the disobedient. Responses again. Amen!

The law is read aloud communally. The 'Amen's echo back and forth. This is deliberately performative, intended to imprint on the national memory. Blessings and warnings braided together. It is not hard to imagine the sound moving like weather across the valley, phrases caught and thrown back by rock and air, the people themselves completing the speech with their response. This is covenant dramatised, experienced, in the hope that it might be lived.

The experience leaves its imprint. The geography becomes a reminder. The location becomes a symbol in perpetuity of the responsibility to choose aright. Joshua returned here to remind the people. Jesus sat here with the woman at the well, offering her a choice. To obey is to move towards thriving; to turn away is to drift toward desolation.

Life or Death!

Coming forward in time a few centuries...

For the crowd on a different mountainside now, listening to Jesus, that historic Gerazim-Ebal moment is part of their identity. Their understanding of who they are, and who God is. The other great formative events that shape their understanding are The Exodus and the Babylonian Exile. The Exodus reminds them that God delivers; the Exile warns them that unfaithfulness has consequences; and the ceremony at Gerizim and Ebal frames life as a daily choice between those trajectories. For Jesus' listeners, these historic events create context, and understanding, and expectation. They are a mental landscape passed by word of mouth from generation to generation.

So let us examine some of the actual words of blessing and cursing that echoed across the valley on that day. It is recorded in the whole of Deuteronomy 28. We are interested in the entire chapter, but it is very long, so I have summarised some sentences. I have not added or subtracted anything substantive, but you may still want to read the entire text in the click link above.

That's It For The Blessings.

Now for the cursings!

Read on ...

More cursings!

Read on ...

More cursings!

And then it gets worse, so let's skip that part!

There's still more, but we've probably had enough!

So Finally We Get To ...

So if you are a first century Jew, you are in absolutely no doubt that the deal between you and God is transactional. You must fulfil certain conditions and then, and then only, will God bless you. If you fail to regard the law, then God will curse you.

You were first taught it at your mother's knee. Then your father took you to synagogue where you got the same message. Your grandparents often made reference to the way things worked. Your schoolmaster drummed it into you. God is transactional. Beware of doing the wrong thing!

And then as you get older, you realise something about those whose lives are a mess, whether they are diseased, or hungry, or homeless or mentally unstable. Those people have obviously sinned against God! The proof is right before your eyes. The time when the farmer lost his crop to locusts - well he obviously failed God somehow. The woman who had a stillborn child must have been a sinful woman. I wonder what she did to deserve that. It must have been pretty bad.

And the wealthy, the privileged, the elite with their fine clothes and big houses, they were obviously in favour with God because they were fine upstanding people. It stood to reason. The law said it.

So now you have the mindset of a first century Jew.

Enjoy!

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