The history of early Christianity is replete with uncomfortable textual truths that modern currents prefer to ignore. One of the most disturbing is found at the very heart of the Sermon on the Mount, specifically in Matthew 5:17, where the enigmatic Greek word πληρῶσαι (plērōsai) appears. This term has been subject to hermeneutical manipulation for centuries, but a rigorous examination of patristic, Talmudic, and Marcionite sources reveals a conclusion that demolishes the theological foundations of contemporary movements such as Hebrew Roots, Messianic Christianity, and the various Protestant and Catholic denominations that insist upon some form of continuity with the Mosaic Torah. The thesis is simple and devastating: both the canonical reading and the Marcionite reading of Matthew 5:17 lead to the same practical result, namely, that the Mosaic Law no longer holds validity for the followers of Yeshu.
Codex Sinaiticus, dated around 350 CE and considered one of the oldest Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, presents the text of Matthew 5:17 as follows: "μη νομιϲητε ο τι ηλθον καταλυϲαι τον νομον η τουϲ προφηταϲ ουκʼ ηλθον καταλυϲαι αλʼλα πληρωϲαι" (Think not that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets; I came not to destroy but to fulfil/complete). This text, which represents the textual tradition that eventually became established as orthodox, contains an apparently clear antithesis between καταλῦσαι (katalysai, to destroy) and πληρῶσαι (plērōsai, to fulfil/complete). However, this apparent clarity crumbles when we examine not only the patristic sources that document the Marcionite reading of the passage, but also when we critically analyse the precise meaning of the Greek terms employed and their cultural context.
The first question that must be addressed concerns the term νόμον (nomon) itself in the Greek text. In the Hellenistic Jewish context, the Greek word νόμος (nomos) translated the Hebrew תּוֹרָה (Torah), but this translation was not semantically neutral (Barclay, 1996). The Greek term νόμος had specific connotations in the Greco-Roman world that did not correspond perfectly with the Hebrew concept of Torah. Even more problematic is the use of this term when one considers that in Aramaic, the language Yeshu probably spoke, the word נָמוּסָא (namusah, transliterated from the Greek nomos) specifically meant "pagan custom or practice" (Jastrow, 1903, p. 898). The Targum of Onkelos on Leviticus 20:23 employs precisely this term: וְלָא תְהָכוּן בְנִמוֹסֵי עַמְמַיָא (You shall not follow the customs of the gentiles). Midrash Rabbah on Genesis 48:18 employs the same root: עלת לקרתה הלך בנימוסה (When you enter a city, follow its custom) (Freedman & Simon, 1939). As the Greek etymology indicates, νόμος essentially translates as "customary law", and in Jewish contexts, specifically as "customary law amongst the gentiles" (חֻקֹּ֣ת הַגּ֔וֹי).
This semantic dimension poses a radically different interpretative possibility: if Yeshu delivered his discourse in Greek or in Aramaic using the word nomos or nimusa, he would not be alluding to the Torah of Moses at all, but rather to gentile law, that is, to Roman law or pagan customs. In such a case, the declaration "I came not to destroy the nomos but to fulfil it" would have nothing whatsoever to do with the Jewish Torah, but would rather constitute a political affirmation about his relationship with the Roman Empire. This reading is reinforced by the second term in the passage: προφήτας (prophets). In the classical Greek context, a προφήτης (profētēs) was not a Hebrew prophet in the biblical sense, but specifically "one who speaks for a god and interprets his will to mankind" (Liddell et al., 1996). Herodotus in The Histories 8.36 refers to "prophetic interpreters of Delphi", Aeschylus in Eumenides 19 speaks of "an interpreter of Apollo of Delphi", and Euripides in Bacchae 551 mentions "interpreter, expounder of the will of Zeus, of Tiresias". If we take these terms in their natural Greek sense, Matthew 5:17 would be stating: "Think not that I came to destroy Roman law and the oracles of the Greco-Roman gods; I came not to destroy them but to fulfil them". This reading would appear absurd in a Christian context, but it is precisely what the Greek text states if one takes the terms in their original cultural sense rather than assuming they are mere translations of the Hebrew Torah and Neviim.
This terminological ambiguity is not a mere academic exercise, but rather points to a fundamental problem in the transmission of Yeshu's message from a Semitic to a Hellenistic context. The Greek redactors of the gospels faced the dilemma of how to translate Jewish concepts for a Greco-Roman audience, and in the process, the terms they chose brought with them cultural connotations that did not necessarily correspond to the original intentions (Hengel, 1974). This ambiguity becomes even more problematic when we examine the patristic sources that document radically divergent interpretations of the passage.
In the anti-Marcionite dialogue known as Adamantius 2.15, we find that Marcion's followers quoted Yeshu as saying precisely the opposite: "οὐκ ἦλθον πληρῶσαι τὸν νόμον ἀλλὰ καταλῦσαι" (I came not to fulfil the Law but to destroy it) (Van de Sandt & Flusser, 2002). Even more revealing is the passage from Marc. 4.33.9, preserved in De recta in Deum fide 2.830e, where the "Judaisers" are explicitly accused of having falsified the text: "τοῦτο οἱ Ἰουδαϊσταὶ ἔργαψαν, τὸ οὐκ ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι· οὐκ οὕτως δὲ εἶπεν ὁ Χριστός, λέγει γάρ· οὐκ ἦλθον πληρῶσαι τὸν νόμον ἀλλὰ καταλῦσαι" (This is what the Judaisers wrote: "I came not to destroy the Torah but to fulfil it"; but Christ did not speak thus, for he says: "I came not to fulfil the Torah but to destroy it") (Harnack, 1924, p. 88). This is not merely an interpretative dispute, but rather a direct accusation of textual corruption. The Marcionites maintained that the original text stated the opposite of what is found in the proto-orthodox manuscripts, and accused the Judaising faction of the Great Church of having deliberately inverted the terms of the antithesis to make Yeshu's message compatible with the continuity of the Torah.
This Marcionite accusation of textual falsification must be taken seriously, not because the Marcionites were necessarily correct, but because it reveals the existence of a fundamental textual and theological battle in the second century concerning Yeshu's relationship with the Torah (Lieu, 2015). The question that naturally arises is: which version is original? From a modern text-critical perspective, the most probable answer is that the version in Codex Sinaiticus represents the oldest textual form that survived in the proto-orthodox manuscripts, whilst the Marcionite version was probably a theologically motivated alteration (Metzger & Ehrman, 2005). However, this conclusion does not resolve the fundamental problem posed by the word πληρῶσαι, because even in the canonical version, the term is profoundly ambiguous and can be interpreted in a manner that leads to precisely the same theological conclusion that the Marcionites explicitly defended.
The verb πληρόω (plēroō), of which πληρῶσαι is the aorist active infinitive, has a broad and complex semantic field in Hellenistic Greek. According to Liddell-Scott-Jones, the standard lexicon for classical and Hellenistic Greek, πληρόω fundamentally means "to make full, to fill, to complete" (Liddell et al., 1996). Amongst its documented meanings are: to fill completely with a substance (with genitive), to satiate or glut, to man ships, to complete periods of time, to pay in full, to fulfil promises or obligations, and to bring something to its term or completion. This last meaning is particularly relevant. In Herodotus 6.63, for example, we find "τοὺς δέκα μῆνας πληρῶσαι" (to complete the ten months), where the sense is clearly that the period of time comes to its end. In legal and administrative contexts, πληρόω is used for "completing the time of a sentence" (τὸν τῆς καταδίκης χρόνον πληρῶσαι), that is, serving the sentence until it expires. In Plato, Laws 866a, we find "πληρῶσαι τοὺς χρόνους" (to complete the times), and in Timaeus 39d, "πληρῶσαι τὸν ἐνιαυτόν" (to complete the year). In all these cases, the verb πληρόω implies bringing something to its fullness and, therefore, to its natural conclusion.
The crucial question is this: when πληρῶσαι is applied to the Torah, or more problematically to the νόμος (which can mean gentile customary law), what does it mean exactly? Does it mean to give fullness of meaning, as traditional Christian interpretation argues? Or does it mean to complete its course, to bring it to its term, to finish it? Philologically, both interpretations are perfectly legitimate. The problem for currents that insist upon continuity with the Torah is that the second interpretation is not a forced or capricious reading of the text, but rather a perfectly natural application of the documented meaning of πληρόω in temporal and legal contexts (BDAG, 2000, p. 828). When one "completes" a period of time, that period ends. When one "completes" a contractual obligation, the contract expires. When one "completes" a judicial sentence, the sentence ends. Applied to the Torah, πληρῶσαι can legitimately mean "to bring to its final fulfilment", that is, to its termination.
This ambiguity is neither accidental nor trivial. It represents a fundamental theological tension in early Christianity regarding the relationship between Yeshu's message and the Mosaic Torah (Sanders, 1977). This tension becomes even more evident when we examine other sources that address the same theme. The Babylonian Talmud, in Shabbat 116a-b, preserves a tradition about what Yeshu supposedly said regarding the Torah: "לא למפחת מן אוריתא דמשה אתיתי ולא לאוספי על אוריתא דמשה אתיתי" (I came neither to subtract from the Torah of Moses, nor to add to the Torah of Moses) (Herford, 1903, p. 145). This formulation is radically different from both the canonical and the Marcionite versions. Here there is no mention of "destroying" or "fulfilling/completing", but rather a neutral affirmation that Yeshu altered nothing of the Torah. This Talmudic version may represent an independent Semitic tradition, a rabbinic polemical reformulation, or evidence that multiple versions of the saying circulated from very early on. What is undeniable is that the formulation with πληρῶσαι was not the only way in which this teaching was transmitted, and that the rabbinic community considered it necessary to preserve a version that completely eliminated the ambiguity of the Greek term.
The Marcionite perspective on Matthew 5:17, even when reading the canonical version of the text, is instructive. From the Marcionite philological point of view, πληρῶσαι would be read as "to complete/terminate/bring to an end", specifically in the sense of bringing something to its final fulfilment. The key distinction that the Marcionites would have made is between καταλῦσαι (to destroy violently, arbitrarily, without purpose) and πληρῶσαι (to complete its natural course, to bring to term, to finish). The argument would be: "Think not that I came to destroy prematurely the Law or the Prophets; I came not to destroy it but to complete it, bringing it to its definitive term". For a Marcionite, this would mean that the Law had its time and purpose under the Demiurge, that Yeshu came to complete that cycle, that is, to terminate it in an orderly manner, and that completing does not equate to perpetuating (Blackman, 1948). Once something is completed, it is no longer in force. Fulfilment is its termination, as when one "completes" a period of time in Herodotus, which means it has ended.
The devastating irony is that, philologically, both readings of the text lead to the same practical result. If one reads the canonical version with πληρῶσαι interpreted as "to complete/terminate", the conclusion is that the Law is no longer in force because it has been completed, that is, brought to its end. If one reads the Marcionite version with καταλῦσαι, the conclusion is that the Law is no longer in force because it has been destroyed. In both cases, the final result is the same: the Mosaic Torah has ceased to have binding authority over Yeshu's followers. The difference is merely one of nuance and emphasis, not of theological substance.
This conclusion is dramatically reinforced when we examine other passages from the Marcionite gospel. In Marcion's ancient Greek version of Luke 16:17, we read: "εὐκοπώτερον (δέ ἐστιν) τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν παρελθεῖν ἢ τῶν λόγων μου μίαν κεραίαν (πεσεῖν)" (It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of my words to fall) (Roth, 2015, p. 239). Note well: it does not say "of the Torah" (τοῦ νόμου) but "of my words" (τῶν λόγων μου). This is a textual difference of enormous importance. The canonical version of Luke 16:17 in Codex Sinaiticus states: "ευκοπωτερον δε εϲτιν το ουρανον και την γην παρελθιν η του νομου μιαν καιρεαν πεϲιν" (It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one point of the law to fall). The Marcionite version shifts the focus from the permanence of the Torah to the permanence of Yeshu's own words. This implies a substitution: Yeshu's words replace the Torah as the permanent and immovable norm. If the Torah were still binding, why change the text so that the emphasis falls exclusively on Yeshu's words? The answer is obvious: because the Marcionites understood that Yeshu had established a new norm that completely supplanted the old one.
Even more revealing is Luke 23:2 in Marcion's Gospel, as documented by Epiphanius in Panarion 42.11.6. In the canonical version, the Jewish accusers before Pilate present three accusations against Yeshu: perverting the nation, forbidding tribute to Caesar, and proclaiming himself king. In Marcion's Gospel, an additional and crucial accusation is added: "τοῦτον εὕρομεν διαστρέφοντα τὸ ἔθνος... καὶ καταλύοντα τὸν νόμον καὶ τοὺς προφήτας... (κωλύοντα φόρους... διδόναι) καὶ ἀποστρέφοντα τὰς γυναῖκας καὶ τὰ τέκνα... λέγοντα ἑαυτὸν {βασιλέα Χριστόν}" (We found this man perverting the nation... and destroying the Torah and the Prophets... forbidding to pay tribute... and turning away women and children... saying that he himself is the Messiah King) (Williams, 1994, pp. 69-70). This accusation of "καταλύοντα τὸν νόμον καὶ τοὺς προφήτας" (destroying the Torah and the Prophets) does not appear in any canonical manuscript of Luke. The Marcionites considered this accusation to be authentic and that it had been suppressed by the Judaising redactors of the Great Church precisely because it was true. From the Marcionite perspective, the Jews accused Yeshu of destroying the Torah because that is exactly what he was doing. The accusation was correct, although the accusers did not comprehend that the destruction of the Demiurge's Torah was precisely Yeshu's salvific mission (BeDuhn, 2013).
From a traditional Jewish point of view, this Marcionite reading of Yeshu's ministry is by no means surprising or implausible. If Yeshu was truly preaching the abolition of the Torah, it is perfectly logical that the Jewish authorities would accuse him of this before Pilate. The uncomfortable question this poses to Hebrew Roots movements, Messianic Christians, and various Protestant and Catholic currents that insist upon some form of continuity with the Torah is: why did the Marcionites consider it necessary to preserve this accusation if there were not a very strong tradition in the primitive communities that Yeshu had indeed come to abolish the Torah? If the unanimous position of all early Christian communities had been that Yeshu came to confirm and perpetuate the Torah, whence would the Marcionite version have arisen? The most probable answer is that there existed a very significant current in early Christianity, perhaps the majority current in certain regions, that understood Yeshu's message precisely as a radical rupture with the Mosaic Torah (Dunn, 1991).
The traditional Christian interpretation of Matthew 5:17, which maintains that Yeshu came to give "fullness of meaning" to the Torah without abolishing it, faces serious textual and historical problems. First, this interpretation must explain why πληρῶσαι, when applied to periods of time or contractual obligations in Hellenistic Greek literature, consistently means "to bring to its term", that is, to its completion. Second, it must explain why such a significant current of early Christianity, represented by Marcion and his followers, understood Yeshu's message in a radically opposite manner. Third, it must explain why the canonical texts of the New Testament themselves, particularly Paul's epistles, present an attitude towards the Torah that is, at best, profoundly ambivalent, and at worst, openly hostile. Paul declares in Galatians 3:13 that "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law", in Romans 7:6 that "now we are discharged from the Law", and in Ephesians 2:15 that Christ "abolished in his flesh the law of commandments expressed in ordinances" (Räisänen, 1983). These Pauline passages are extremely difficult to reconcile with the idea that the Torah remains binding for Yeshu's followers.
The typical response of Hebrew Roots and Messianic movements to these Pauline passages is to argue that Paul was referring only to the "Oral Torah" or the "traditions of the elders", not to the written Torah itself. However, this interpretation is philologically untenable. When Paul uses the term νόμος (nomos) in his epistles, he consistently refers to the Mosaic Torah in its entirety, including ethical, ceremonial, and civil commandments (Westerholm, 1988). The later rabbinic distinction between Written Torah and Oral Torah did not yet exist in the form these movements understand it, and it is certainly not what Paul has in mind when he speaks of the "law of commandments expressed in ordinances" that Christ abolished. Moreover, if Paul truly believed that converted gentiles should observe the Torah, why did he so vehemently oppose the circumcision of gentiles in Galatians 5:2-3, where he declares: "If you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law"? This declaration only makes sense if Paul considers that observance of the Torah and faith in Christ are mutually exclusive for gentiles, and probably also for Jews who have accepted the Christian message (Sanders, 1983).
Even more problematic for interpretations that seek to maintain continuity with the Torah is the fact that the term νόμος itself, as has been noted, had connotations in the Judeo-Hellenistic world that did not correspond perfectly with the Torah. If Yeshu spoke in Aramaic and used terms such as נָמוּסָא (namusa), which specifically designated gentile or pagan customs, then the entire discussion about whether he came to "destroy" or "fulfil" the νόμος might have nothing to do with the Torah at all. This possibility, though speculative, must be taken seriously because it reveals how problematic the transmission of Yeshu's message was from an Aramaic/Hebrew context to a Greek one. The Greek redactors of the gospels faced the dilemma of translating Semitic concepts for a Hellenistic audience, and in the process, they inevitably introduced semantic ambiguities and distortions that have haunted Christian interpretation for two millennia (Casey, 1998).
The traditional Catholic interpretation, which maintains that Christ fulfilled the ancient Law and established a "new law" centred on love, is more sophisticated but equally problematic. This position implicitly recognises that the Mosaic Torah has somehow been superseded or replaced, but attempts to soften this by speaking of "fulfilment" rather than "abolition". However, if the Torah has been "fulfilled" in such a way that its specific commandments are no longer obligatory, in what meaningful sense does it remain "law"? The Catholic answer is that the universal moral principles of the Torah remain, but the specific ceremonies and civil laws have been abrogated (Aquinas, 1485/1947, ST I-II, q. 107). But this distinction between moral law and ceremonial law is a later theological construction that is not found in the text of the Torah itself, where ethical and ceremonial commandments are intermingled without categorical distinction. Moreover, this interpretation must confront the problem that many of the "moral principles" that Catholicism claims to retain from the Torah have, in fact, been radically reinterpreted or even inverted by Yeshu himself. The commandment of "an eye for an eye" is explicitly rejected in Matthew 5:38-39. The dietary purity laws are declared null in Mark 7:19. The Sabbath is relativised on multiple occasions when Yeshu declares that "the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath" (Mark 2:28).
Protestant movements present an even broader spectrum of interpretations, from those who, like dispensationalists, openly recognise that the Mosaic Law has been abolished for the church age, to those who, like theonomists, insist that God's law revealed in the Torah remains the standard of justice for all societies (Ryrie, 1995; Bahnsen, 1984). However, even amongst the most conservative Protestants who affirm the continuity of some form of "moral law", there exists an implicit recognition that the Torah as a unified legal system has ceased to be operative. No serious Protestant argues that Christians must observe the sacrificial laws, the ritual purity laws, or the specific civil laws of ancient Israel. The question is: if these parts of the Torah have been abolished, on what textual or theological basis can one argue that other parts remain? The Torah itself does not present itself as a menu from which one can select the commandments one prefers to observe. James 2:10 recognises this problem when it declares: "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it".
The uncomfortable reality that emerges from an honest examination of the sources is that both the canonical and the Marcionite interpretations of Matthew 5:17 lead to the same practical conclusion: the Mosaic Torah, as a binding legal system, came to its end with the coming of Yeshu. The difference between the two interpretations is merely one of rhetorical presentation. The Marcionites stated it explicitly: Yeshu came to destroy the Demiurge's Torah, as evidenced by the accusation preserved in Luke 23:2 of their gospel where the Jews accuse him before Pilate of "καταλύοντα τὸν νόμον καὶ τοὺς προφήτας" (destroying the Torah and the Prophets). The Great Church expressed it more subtly: Yeshu came to "fulfil" the Torah, bringing it to its fullness and, therefore, to its conclusion. But the final result is identical: Yeshu's followers are not obligated to observe the commandments of the Mosaic Torah. The Marcionite evidence from Luke 16:17, where the emphasis shifts from the permanence of the Torah (τοῦ νόμου) to the permanence of "my words" (τῶν λόγων μου), demonstrates that this substitution was explicitly understood in certain early Christian communities.
This conclusion is profoundly disruptive for all contemporary movements that attempt to build bridges between Judaism and Christianity, or that seek to "restore" the Hebrew roots of early Christianity. The uncomfortable truth is that Christianity, from its earliest stages, was defined in large measure by its rupture with Torah observance. This rupture was not a later deviation from a "pure" early Christianity that supposedly observed the Torah, but rather is present from the oldest texts of the New Testament, particularly in Paul's epistles (Bockmuehl, 2000). The idea that gentiles could be saved without converting to Judaism, that is, without observing the Torah, was the fundamental theological innovation that allowed Christianity to emerge as a religion distinct from Judaism. Without this rupture with the Torah, Christianity would simply have been one more messianic sect within Second Temple Judaism, and would probably have disappeared after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE (Fredriksen, 2018).
The word πληρῶσαι in Matthew 5:17, with all its semantic ambiguity, perfectly captures this fundamental tension. For those who wish to maintain some form of continuity with the Torah, πληρῶσαι can be interpreted as "to give fullness of meaning". For those who recognise the radical rupture that Yeshu's movement represented, πληρῶσαι means "to bring to its term, to complete, to finish". What cannot honestly be done is to ignore that the second interpretation is philologically as valid, if not more so, than the first, and that the patristic sources document that a significant current of early Christianity understood the text precisely in this manner. Moreover, the ambiguity of the term νόμος itself, which in Judeo-Aramaic contexts could refer to gentile customs and not to the Torah, adds another layer of complexity that traditional interpretations prefer to ignore.
The final conclusion is inescapable: regardless of whether one reads Matthew 5:17 with the canonical interpretation or with the Marcionite interpretation, the practical result is that the Mosaic Law no longer holds validity for Yeshu's followers. Hebrew Roots movements, Messianic Christians, and those Catholics and Protestants who insist upon some form of continuity with Torah observance are building upon an extremely fragile textual and historical foundation. The philological, patristic, and Talmudic evidence points consistently in one direction: Yeshu's message represented a fundamental rupture with the legal system of the Mosaic Torah. This rupture can be expressed in a more or less radical manner, but it is undeniable.
The Marcionite evidence is particularly devastating for these positions. When Marcion preserves in his gospel the accusation from Luke 23:2 where the Jews accuse Yeshu of "καταλύοντα τὸν νόμον καὶ τοὺς προφήτας" (destroying the Torah and the Prophets), he is documenting a tradition that the Great Church considered so dangerous that it completely eliminated it from the canonical manuscripts. This textual suppression is in itself significant. If Yeshu's position towards the Torah had been one of simple confirmation and continuity, why would it have been necessary to suppress a Jewish accusation that was obviously false? The answer is that the accusation was not false, or at least, was sufficiently close to the truth as to be dangerous. The proto-orthodox redactors of Luke's gospel understood that preserving this accusation would make too obvious what they were attempting to obscure: that Yeshu had indeed come to abolish the Torah.
Similarly, the textual change in Luke 16:17 from "τοῦ νόμου" (of the Torah) in the canonical version to "τῶν λόγων μου" (of my words) in the Marcionite version cannot be accidental. This change reveals the Marcionite understanding that Yeshu's words had completely replaced the Torah as the authoritative norm. If both were equally authoritative and permanent, there would be no need to make such a change. The fact that Marcion considered it necessary to make this change, or that he preserved an older version containing this reading, demonstrates that in certain currents of early Christianity it was understood that there was a fundamental incompatibility between the authority of the Torah and the authority of Yeshu's words. They could not coexist as equally binding norms; one had to give way to the other.
The ambiguity of the term νόμος adds an additional dimension to this problem. If Yeshu delivered his teachings in Aramaic and used terms that referred to gentile customs, then the entire structure of the Christian debate about continuity or discontinuity with the Torah might be based upon a fundamental linguistic misunderstanding. The Greek redactors of the gospels, in translating Yeshu's words, may have introduced an ambiguity that did not exist in the Semitic original. Or alternatively, they may have deliberately used ambiguous terms to allow for multiple interpretations and thus accommodate different audiences: Jewish and gentile, Judaising and Hellenistic. This strategic ambiguity allowed early Christianity to maintain a creative tension between continuity and rupture with Judaism, but it also sowed the seeds of the controversies that would explode in the second century with figures such as Marcion.
The testimony of the Talmud in Shabbat 116a-b, though hostile to Christianity, is particularly valuable because it preserves an independent tradition about Yeshu's teachings regarding the Torah. The formulation "I came neither to subtract nor to add" is neutral and completely avoids the problematic terminology of "destroy" versus "fulfil". This suggests that the Jewish rabbis, in recording this tradition, were also aware of the ambiguity of the term πληρῶσαι and opted for a formulation that eliminated that ambiguity. However, even this rabbinic formulation does not resolve the problem, because if Yeshu truly neither added nor subtracted anything from the Torah, how does one explain his multiple Sabbath transgressions, his abolition of the purity laws, his rejection of the principle of talion, and his authorisation of eating with unwashed hands? All these actions and teachings documented in the canonical gospels represent substantial modifications, if not direct contradictions, of the Torah's commandments. The Talmudic formulation, therefore, appears to be more a rabbinic ideal of what Yeshu should have said if he had been a legitimate Jewish teacher, than an historically precise record of what he actually taught.
Any attempt to reconcile Christianity with the continued observance of the Torah requires not only a selective reading of the New Testament texts, but also a deliberate ignorance of the history of interpretation and of the theological battles of early Christianity. The Marcionites did not invent the idea that Yeshu came to abolish the Torah; they simply made explicit what was already implicit in Paul's teachings and in the praxis of gentile Christian communities. The response of the Great Church was not to deny that the Torah had been superseded, but rather to develop a sophisticated theology of "fulfilment" that allowed them to affirm simultaneously continuity and discontinuity. This theology of fulfilment, though rhetorically skilful, cannot conceal the fact that the practical result is the same as Marcionism: Christians do not observe the Torah.
Contemporary Hebrew Roots and Messianic movements commit the fundamental error of confusing the Jewish origin of Christianity with the continuity of Torah observance. It is true that Yeshu was Jewish, that his first followers were Jewish, and that Christianity emerged from Second Temple Judaism. But from this it does not follow that Christianity maintained Torah observance as a defining characteristic. Indeed, the historical evidence suggests precisely the opposite: Christianity distinguished itself from Judaism precisely by its rejection of the necessity of observing the Torah for salvation. This was the central controversy of the apostolic era, as documented in the book of Acts in the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), and as confirmed by Paul's epistles, particularly Galatians (Dunn, 2005). The decision of the Jerusalem Council not to require circumcision of converted gentiles was the decisive moment in which Christianity began its trajectory towards becoming a religion separate from Judaism.
The word πληρῶσαι remains as a linguistic reminder of this uncomfortable truth: to fulfil something completely means, inevitably, to bring it to its end. When a contract is "fulfilled", the contract terminates. When a sentence is "fulfilled", the sentence ends. When a period of time is "fulfilled", that time expires. There is no philological reason to suppose that "fulfilling" the Torah means something different. The consistent use of πληρόω in Hellenistic Greek literature to indicate the completion of temporal periods and legal obligations cannot be ignored (Delling, 1968, pp. 286-298). Early Christians who spoke Greek would have understood πληρῶσαι in this natural sense: to bring to its term, to complete, to finish. Only subsequently, when the gentile church needed to justify its rupture with the Torah whilst maintaining some form of continuity with the Jewish scriptures, was the sophisticated theology of "fulfilment" developed as "giving fullness of meaning" rather than "bringing to conclusion" (Davies & Allison, 1988).
The patristic evidence of the Marcionite controversy demonstrates that in the second century, barely one hundred years after Yeshu's death, radically divergent interpretations of his relationship with the Torah already existed. The Marcionites explicitly accused the "Judaisers" of having falsified the text of Matthew 5:17, inverting the terms to make it appear that Yeshu had come to fulfil the Torah when in reality he had come to destroy it. The proto-orthodox, for their part, accused Marcion of having mutilated the scriptures to conform them to his dualistic theology (Tertullian, 207-208/1972). Both sides accused the other of textual corruption. This textual battle was not peripheral but central to emerging Christian identity. The question "What did Yeshu do with the Torah?" was the fundamental question that determined what kind of religion Christianity would be: a reformist sect within Judaism, or a universal religion independent of Judaism (Boyarin, 2004).
The historical answer to this question is clear: Christianity chose to be a universal religion independent of Judaism, and this choice required the abolition of obligatory Torah observance. Contemporary movements that attempt to reverse this fundamental historical decision are not "restoring" early Christianity; they are attempting to create something that never existed in a stable manner: a Christianity that is simultaneously faithful to Yeshu as messiah and faithful to the Torah as binding law. Early Christianity faced this same tension and resolved it, more or less explicitly depending on the current, in favour of discontinuity with the Torah. The Marcionites did so explicitly and radically. The proto-orthodox did so more subtly through the theology of fulfilment. But both arrived at the same practical destination (Kinzig, 2004).
The word πληρῶσαι in Matthew 5:17, with all its semantic ambiguity, its history of conflicting interpretations, and its context in the controversies of early Christianity, remains as a linguistic monument to this fundamental truth: Christianity was born from a rupture with the Torah, and any attempt to deny or minimise this rupture requires a hermeneutical violence to the texts that is unsustainable for anyone who examines the evidence honestly. Hebrew Roots movements, Messianic Christians, and the Catholic and Protestant currents that seek to maintain some form of continuity with Torah observance are swimming against the current of two thousand years of Christian history and against the clear testimony of the oldest sources. The philological, patristic, Talmudic, and Marcionite evidence converges upon a single conclusion: the Mosaic Law no longer holds validity for Yeshu's followers, regardless of whether one interprets πληρῶσαι as "to destroy" or as "to fulfil", because both interpretations lead inexorably to the same final result.
References
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