This post is a followup to the post What Was Jesus’ Bible? What the Gospels Reveal and is Claude.ai’s summary of Ross Nichols follow-up SS lesson titled Mose’s in Red Letters. Ross’ intent was to understand how Jesus used the scrolls they had at that time.
Summary: Ross Nichols (Horeb Institute), Moses in Red Letters: The Torah According to Jesus, Pt. 2
Central thesis
Nichols reverses the usual approach of finding Jesus in Moses. He looks for Moses in the words of Jesus, so that the Gospels show “Moses as Jesus understood Moses.” His claim is that Jesus never opposes the Torah itself. He opposes his contemporaries’ interpretations of it, which he thinks “missed the point.”
1. Case study: John 7:19–24 (circumcision and Sabbath healing)
- Jesus opens with a point his opponents must accept (“Did not Moses give you the law?”), then charges that they do not keep it.
- He argues from lesser to greater. Circumcision is performed on the Sabbath so that Moses’ law is not broken (cf. Lev 12:3), so healing a whole person on the Sabbath cannot be a violation.
- Nichols notes that Jesus says circumcision is “not from Moses, but from the fathers.” This may point to Gen 17, or to the complicated circumcision traditions elsewhere:
- Exod 4:24–26.
- Deut 10 and 30, where circumcision is of the heart.
- Josh 5, where the wilderness generation was uncircumcised.
- The phrase “judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24) echoes Deut 16:18–20. It also echoes Isa 11:3 and Zech 7:9 (“judge not by sight,” “true judgment”). Jesus is holding the judges to their own Torah standard.
2. Sabbath controversies: Matthew 12:5–14
- Jesus cites the priests who “profane” the Sabbath yet are guiltless, quotes Hos 6:6 (“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”), and uses the sheep in the pit to argue that doing good on the Sabbath is lawful.
- Nichols contrasts this with the Damascus Document (CD 11), which forbids:
- assisting an animal giving birth on the Sabbath,
- lifting an animal out of a pit on the Sabbath,
- rescuing a person who has fallen into water or fire with a ladder or rope (Vermes translation).
- His conclusion is that Jesus was not against the Sabbath. He was against a particular, overly strict reading of it, one that existed in his own time.
3. The “seat of Moses”: Matthew 23:2–5
- The difficulty is that Jesus tells the crowd to do what the scribes and Pharisees say, then condemns their hypocrisy.
- Nichols suggests the question is whether they are authorized to teach Moses or have usurped that authority.
- Jesus criticizes the show, not the practice. Broadened phylacteries (totafot; Deut 6:8, 11:18; Exod 13:9) and lengthened fringes are not the problem. Doing them to be seen is. He contrasts this with the “weightier matters”: justice, mercy and faithfulness.
- Nichols cites the medieval Shem-Tov Hebrew Matthew, which he reads as: do what Moses says, but not their ordinances and deeds. He cites George Howard on the text’s independence from the Greek, and Nehemia Gordon’s book on it. He explicitly rejects claims that it is the original Matthew.
4. Matthew 5:17–20
Not abolishing but “fulfilling” the law means that whoever annuls even the least commandment is “least,” and whoever does and teaches them is “great.” Nichols reads this as Jesus distinguishing authentic Moses from other material, and calling for righteousness that exceeds that of his opponents.
5. Jesus’ use of the Pentateuch (Nichols’ own tally)
- People: Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Lot, Lot’s wife, Moses.
- Stories: creation, Abel’s murder, the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah (all Genesis), the burning bush and manna (Exodus), the bronze serpent (Numbers).
- Laws:
- Decalogue: he claims Jesus quotes more of it than any other teacher in the Hebrew Bible.
- Lev 19:18.
- Deut 16:18, Deut 19:15 (Matt 18:16), and lex talionis (Matt 5:38).
- The Shema and Ahavta (Deut 6).
- Divorce (Deut 24; Matt 19, Mark 10): Jesus says it was granted because of hardness of heart, and “from the beginning it was not so.”
- Frequency: Deuteronomy first, then Genesis, Leviticus, Exodus and Numbers. All three temptation replies come from Deuteronomy (6:13, 6:16, 8:3).
6. The greatest commandment: Matthew 22:35–40; Mark 12:28–34
Love of God and love of neighbor are the two greatest commandments, and “everything else hangs on that.” Nichols agrees with Jesus that commandments can be ranked, against teachers who say they cannot.
7. Eternal life
- In Luke 10:25–28 Jesus answers the scholar’s question by pointing him to the Torah: “Do this and you will live.” Nichols links this to Lev 18:4–5.
- He treats the parallel rich-ruler accounts (Matt 19:16–19; Mark 10; Luke 18) the same way. Jesus tells the questioner to keep the commandments and recites several of them.
- Nichols argues that Jesus locates the path to life in Moses, not in a sinner’s prayer or in Paul.
8. Resurrection from the Torah alone
- The Sadducees denied resurrection (Matt 22:23; Mark 12:18; Luke 20; Acts 23; Josephus, Ant. 18.16; War 2.165), and accepted only the Torah as authoritative.
- Jesus therefore argues from Exod 3:6, “in the bush.” God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and so “not the God of the dead but of the living” (Luke adds “for all live to him”).
9. Closing and preview
- The scribe in Mark 12:32–34 agrees that love is worth more than sacrifices, and Jesus says he is “not far from the kingdom of God.”
- Nichols notes that “kingdom of God” is the most frequent theme in Jesus’ teaching. He closes by asking what Jesus meant and where the idea came from, which is the topic of the next session.
Sources
- Nichols, Ross. Moses in Red Letters: The Torah According to Jesus, Pt. 2 (Horeb Institute; TurboScribe transcript of YouTube video).
- Scripture references: John 7:19–24; Matt 5:17–20, 12:5–14, 22:23–40, 23:2–5; Mark 10, 12:18–34; Luke 10:25–28, 18, 20; Exod 3:6, 4:24–26; Lev 12:3, 18:4–5, 19:18; Deut 6, 10, 16:18–20, 30; Josh 5; Isa 11:3; Hos 6:6; Zech 7:9.
- Works Nichols cites: Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (CD 11, 13); George Howard, Hebrew Gospel of Matthew; Nehemia Gordon, The Hebrew Yeshua vs. the Greek Jesus; Josephus, Antiquities 18.16 and War 2.165.
Per Claude.ai – Points to treat with care (critical notes)
- Fulfilling Moses. The thesis that Jesus only disputes interpretation, never Moses, is argued from selected passages. The Divorce passage (Matt 19) and Matt 5:21–48 are often read by other scholars as Jesus correcting or intensifying Torah rather than defending it. Nichols himself concedes the divorce question is open (“I don’t know”).
- Matthew 23:2. The reading depends on Shem-Tov, a very late medieval manuscript. Nichols is careful about its limits, but the case for “do what Moses says” rests on it rather than on the Greek tradition.
- Counting. The claim that Jesus quotes more of the Decalogue than any other Hebrew Bible figure is an assertion without supporting citations. The Pentateuch frequency ranking is Nichols’ own tally (“in my research”), not an established statistic.
- Dead Sea Scrolls. The Damascus Document reflects one sectarian community. The video treats it as an example of strict Sabbath views contemporary with Jesus, not as a representation of all Pharisees or other Jews.
- Transcription errors. The TurboScribe text has garbled names. “Sapphora” is Zipporah, “Gaze of Vermishes” is Géza Vermes, “Karite” is Karaite, and “strain at a net” is Matt 23:24’s “strain out a gnat.” “Seed of Moses” in Gordon’s title should be “Seat of Moses.” The scripture quotations are from the Legacy Standard Bible, as read in the video.
