Some critics
of the historicity of Matt 16:13-19 argue that the historical Jesus would never
have known of, let alone discussed, the then-future establishment of a Church.
However, many scholars would take a diametrically opposed view. In defence of
the thesis that there being no reason why Jesus should not have used the Septuagintal term εκκλησια, John M. Rist wrote:
For εκκλησια see Deut. 31.30 etc. To say that Jesus may
have envisaged an organization is not to imply that he intended to separate his
movement from Judaism. Rather the ‘Church’ would act as a ‘cell’ which was
intended eventually to swallow Judaism as a whole. More generally, see W.H.
Brownlee, ‘Messianic Motifs of Qumran and the New Testament’, NTS 3 (1956) 16-17. He observes that the
Qumranic Teacher of Righteousness refers to the Qumran community as ‘my Council’.
(John M. Rist, On the Independence of
Matthew and Mark [Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 32;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978], 122 n. 113)
Deut 31:30,
the verse Rist references above reads in the NRSV as:
Then Moses recited the words of this song, to
the very end, in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel
The term
translated as "assembly" is the Hebrew קהל and in the LXX is εκκλησια.