Jesus, the scribe, and the first command.



The next bit in Mark is told again in Matthew—from a very different point of view.

In Mark, right after Jesus answered the Sadducees’ crazy hypothetical resurrection story, he took one more question. A scribe really liked his answer to the Sadducees, and wanted to know what was the greatest command. He also really liked Jesus’s answer to his question, and said so; to which Jesus approvingly responded, “You’re not far from God’s Kingdom.”

In Matthew, same background: The Sadducees asked Jesus their resurrection poser; Jesus skilfully parried them. But this time, the Pharisees gathered together for the purpose of testing Jesus, and turned loose their Law-expert in order to challenge him. There was no mutual admiration in this story at all. Just hostility.

So… which story is what really happened?

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