The Historical Context of the Sermon on the Mount

For any event in the life of Jesus, we need to keep in mind two different contexts in which to understand the event. This is actually true of anything in the Bible, or any literature that purports to relate historical fact.

First, there is the historical context of the event in the “real world” life of Jesus. How old was he? How long had he ministered to others? Where was he? What was he trying to accomplish in his own time and place? What sorts of people were around him?

For much of this we can only take educated guesses. Even though we cannot definitively answer many of these questions, I do believe that it is helpful for us to conjure up in our minds what the situation was for Jesus. Sometimes this exercise will help us excise implausible notions from our minds about our perfect savior Jesus. The fact is, his life was far from perfect (I’m not talking about sin; I’m talking about what we think of as “the perfect life”—one of peace and happiness) and almost all the people with whom he came in contact eventually opposed him and demanded his death.

For some of the implausible notions that are often in our minds, just go to YouTube and search for “Sermon on the Mount”. The first few clips give typical depictions of this scene—Jesus walks around on the side of a mountain among an enormous crowd, all of whom hang on his every word. Some begin to weep as Jesus declaims the beattitudes, overturning cultural norms and giving hope to the countless masses while dramatic music ratchets up the drama. This is perhaps what we often think regarding the Sermon on the Mount, but a moment’s reflection should dispel this notion.

It seems more likely that the people far from Jesus couldn’t make out a word, or what they did hear they misunderstood (“Blessed are the cheesemakers”). Have you ever listened to a sermon outside in the open without a sound system? Most of the time for me it’s been impossible to hear if I’m more than 20 feet or so from the one speaking, especially if anyone’s whispering to his neighbor, or there’s any breeze. I imagine also that on that Galilean mountain mothers were holding crying babies, kids were running around, many people were getting impatient waiting for lunch. (Is this not what happens in our own lives every Sunday morning?) You might say, “But this is Jesus. The people would pay attention!” On the contrary, we know that the vast majority of the people following Jesus couldn’t care less about his message; they just wanted supper (John 6) or a sign (Matt. 12:38-45).

The people that actually cared about what Jesus was saying were probably few and probably crowding closer to him so that they could hear. This may be what Matthew intends for us to imagine, anyway (5:1–2). I know that the “crowds” were amazed at his authoritativeness (7:28), but it wouldn’t take a whole lot of concentration to discern the difference in this regard between Jesus’ Sermon and rabbinic teaching.

I say all this in order to make this point: the accounts we have about Jesus are literature (i.e., the Gospels), and this literature aims not to report exhaustively every episode in Jesus’ life (no literature could; cf. John 21:25), but to communicate most effectively the meaning of Jesus’ life in order to bring people to faith (cf. John 20:30–31). Therefore, it omits much historical detail deemed (rightly) irrelevant to this purpose, such as the exact number of people at this Sermon, or the various distractions that competed with Jesus for the attention of the people. When once we realize that sacred literature has no interest in imparting these details, we are free to imagine what would most likely be the case, based on any relevant data external to the text, even from our own experiences. If a casual reading of Matthew 5–7 creates the impression that Jesus was speaking under perfect conditions to a perfect audience, a consideration of the nature of the Gospel of Matthew should relieve us from feeling bound to this impression.

This previous paragraph is more about literary context than historical context, but that is the subject of the next post.

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