1[Don Garlington, "Oath-Taking in the Community of the New Age (Matthew 5:33-37)," ]Trinity Journal[ 16 (1995), p. 139.
2[ William Klassen, "Oath" ]The Mennonite Encyclopedia[, vol. 4 (Scottdale: Mennonite Publication House, 1959), p. 3.
3[ The discussion of performative utterances or speech-acts is based upon the following works: J.L. Austin, ]How to Do Things with Words[ (New York: Oxford University press, 1962), and J.R. Searle, ]Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech-Acts[ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
4[ Sheldon Blank, "The Curse, Blasphemy, the Spell, and the Oath," ]HUCA[ 23 (1950-51), p. 92, notes that the curse is seldom explicitly uttered in biblical oaths.
5[ The act of swearing should not be confused with the act of vowing that dedicates an object or an act in service to God.]
6 Austin, How to Do Things with Words, p. 14.
7[ Austin, ]How to Do Things with Words[, p. 16; J. Searle, ]Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language[ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp. 58-60.
8[ Johannes Pedersen, ]Israel: Its Life and Culture[, vol. 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1940), p. 449, and Marvin Pope, "Oaths" in ]IDB[ 3 (1962), pp. 575-77.
9[ Saul Lieberman, "Oaths and Vows" in ]Greek in Jewish Palestine[ (New York: Philpp Feldheim, 1965), p. 117.
10[ This reconstruction of the Phairsaic tradition is based upon ]m. Sebu[ 4:13 ]t. Sebu[ 1:12 and 2:16. The claim that these traditions are early enough to be Pharisaic rests upon external evidence. The terms accepted in the Mishnah are rejected in the Damascus Document (CD 15.1-3). It seem probable that the unnamed authority that the Qumran community rejects is its traditional opponent, the Pharisees. Cf. CD. 1.12; 1.19; 7.21; 8.25 and ]Pesher Nahum[ 1. The Sermon on the Mount also reflects a dispute with an unnamed group that debates these terms. Once again, its seems probable that the Pharisees are in view.
11[ Lawrence H. Schiffman, ]Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls[ (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983), p. 38.
12[ E.g. , ]m. Sebu[ 4:13; ]m. Ketub.[ 9:7-8.
13[ E. P. Sanders, ]The Historical Figure of Jesus[ (London: Penguin, 1993), p. 238.
14[ John Dominic Crosson, ]The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant[. (San Francisco: Harper, 991), pp. 112 and 359.
15[ Cf. Georg Stählin, "Zum Gebrauch von Beteuerungsformeln in neuen Testament," ]NovT[ 5 (1962): 122-29.
16[ Dennis C. Duling, "Against Oaths: Crosson Sayings Parallels 59," ]Forum[ 6 (1990), p. 131, surveys significant critics Paul Minear, Robert Guelich, Gerhard Dautzenberg, Georg Strecker, and Jack Suggs who all, with the exception of Suggs, agree that Matt 5:34b-35 and 5:36 are "disparate pre-Matthean Jewish-Christian elaborations of an earlier saying."
17[ For a careful discussion of these concepts see, John Searle, "Language and Social Reality," in ]The Construction of Social Reality[ ( New York: The Free Press, 1995), pp. 59-78.
18[ For a more detailed discussion of these oaths see my article "Infelicitous Oaths in the Gospel of Matthew," ]JSNT[ 63 (1996), pp. 3-20.
19[ Garlington, "Oath-Taking," p. 155-56.
20[ The notion that Jesus rejects the Torah presupposes that Jesus shares an understanding of the law with the Pharisees. Stephen Westerhom, ]Jesus and Scribal Authority[ (Lund: CKW Gleeerup, 1978), pp. 128-29, has laid this presupposition to rest. The Pharisees viewed the scriptural law as statutes to which they added their extra-biblical laws. A statutory view of the law requires that all laws are equally binding. The Pharisees introduce legislation or resort to legal fiction in order to resolve inevitable conflicts that arise when one believes that the letter of the law must be fulfilled. Jesus, in contrast, does not feel compelled to fulfil the letter of the law.
21[ Jeremias, ]The Proclamation of Jesus[, 11, the divine passive is distributed evenly throughout Mark, Q, and Matthew's and Luke's special material: Mark 21 times; Q 23 times, Matthew's special sayings 27 times, and Luke's special sayings 25 times.
22[ Jeremias, ]The Proclamation of Jesus[, pp. 13-14, points to the prominence of the divine passive as a characteristic of Jewish apolcalyptic literature in the time of Jesus. He then finds that Jesus uses the divine passive for both God's actions at the last judgement and his actions in the present.
23[ C.f. B. F. Meyer, ]The Aims of Jesus[ (London: SCM Press, 1979), p. 131, for an examinination of the verbs which Jesus uses when describing the kingdom.