The Great Commandment Revisited

A text from 2nd Kings got me thinking. Here is the text:

“He [Josiah] executed the priests of the pagan shrines on their own altars, and he burned human bones on the altars to desecrate them…. He did this in obedience to all the laws written in the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had found in the LORD’s Temple. Never before had there been a king like Josiah, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and soul and strength, obeying all the laws of Moses. And there has never been a king like him since.” (2 Kings 23:20-25 NLT)

Notice that we have a recapitulation of the commandment from Deuteronomy that forms the first of three texts of the Shema. Note also that it is in the context of a zealous hermeneutic. Notice how Josiah (under whom the Deuteronomic reform took place) is valorized.

Now I wonder if Jesus had this particular text in mind when formulating the ‘Great Commandment’? I wonder if Jesus intentionally put the ‘love your neighbor’ part with the part to ‘Love God with all your heart…’ in order to highlight that the perceived enemy is the neighbor. Is this why perhaps Luke’s version also follows the Great Commandment pericope with the story of the ‘Good Samaritan’, that most execrable of villains (neighbors)?

If so, this validates further the insight from The Jesus Driven Life that all three Synoptic citations of the ‘Great Commandment’ are in hermeneutical contexts, and one (Mark) specifically within an anti-sacrificial context.

Furthermore, when Jesus adds “and your mind” to the Great Commandment, could it be said he does so because in order to become free from sacrificial religion one must learn to think critically?

I wonder, yes I do.