Jesus
Since we have attributed the Explanations to the early church, any
evidence of Jesus' attitude towards the law must be gleaned from his reply in
the purity logion to the Pharisaic question. But is the logion's interpretation
to be restricted by the nature of that question, or is it to be given a wider
meaning? Put briefly, the Pharisees ask, 'Why do your disciples eat with
unclean hands?', to which Jesus responds, 'Nothing outside a man defiles him as
much as the things coming from him'.
Although assessment of the breadth of meaning intended by a reply
expressed in general terms to a question on a limited point is very difficult,
we see in principle no cause to limit the depreciation in the logion to
contaminated food, simply because the question involves the defilement of food
by unclean hands. Nor, since we have determined that 'going into him' should be
deleted, as secondary, from the first limb, need the depreciation in the logion
be restricted to unclean food generally. We note from Jesus' replies at Mark
2.17 and 3.4 to other Pharisaic questions, that he sometimes stated a wide principle
in response to a question on a narrow point. These factors incline us to the
view that Jesus intended his logion to be understood in the widest sense,
namely that cultic impurity in toto does not harm a man as much as moral
impurity.
As Jesus, in our view, did not deny the fact of cultic impurity in
the logion, but only treated it as of less gravity than moral impurity, it is not
surprising that disputes arose in the early church over the application of
dietary and other cultic laws to Gentile Christians.
(Roger P. Booth, Jesus and the Laws of Purity: Tradition History and Legal
History in Mark 7 [Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement
Series 13; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1968], 219, emphasis in bold added)
