The Sermon on the Mount, overview, commentary, and background

Into just one discourse, now know as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus managed to pack the core of his ethical teaching. Recounted in Matthew’s Gospel, his words challenged the world of first century Judaism, provided a moral compass for early Christianity, and, over the past two millennia, have left a  legacy, in the form of ethical expectations that guide a substantial proportion of the global population. The Sermon on the Mount promotes a way of life that: embodies the love of God and touches people with it; knows the peace of God and helps others to find it; acknowledges the moral failings of humanity whilst offering solutions to them. It is a speech that touches the soul and changes lives in the process.

This site exists to help inquirers to climb the mount and sit with Jesus as his disciples did, understanding, through their culture, just how solidly the Sermon was founded on their Hebrew Bible, and hearing not just the grand sweep of Jesus' words, but also the more revealing nuances in his language. It also looks at some of the issues faced by those who now seek to understand these words in their current context, i.e. as part of Matthew's Gospel.

What's here

So what can you expect to find on this site? For the general reader there is:

• A simple introduction, for those just interested in a basic understanding;
• An outline and a section-by-section commentary, for those interested in specific sections;
• Further background, to help answer some of the many questions that might arise when considering the Sermon on the Mount, e.g. what is a beatitude, where is Gehenna, or who was John the Baptist?

For those who have a healthy curiosity and who want to go a bit deeper, there are sections written in a more academic style, as follows:

• Detailed background on selected sections, where you will find more on topics such as the Sermon on the Mount's scriptural parallels, the cultural and biblical context of Jesus' words, and the precise meaning of some of the Greek and Hebrew;
• A comparison of the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain, with an examination of the wider distribution of the Sermon's parallels within Luke and its significance;
• An assessment of the influence of the Sermon on the Mount on the Letter of James, which appears to be profound;
• A summary of parallel passages in other gospels;
• A resources section which provides a bibliography (that attempts to identify the background of the authors) and provides links to some additional online resources;
• A time line to help put into context some of the events leading up to the Sermon, the subsequent evidence for its impact, and the development of academic opinion;
• The Emmaus View, a web-based book examining the divine case-law which lay behind the ministry of Jesus, provided the context for the Sermon on the Mount, and is key to understanding the historical Jesus;
• A consideration of the relationship between the Sermon on the Mount and the Gospel of Thomas, which examines whether, where parallels exist, it is Thomas or the Sermon that appears to have the more authentic version;
• An assessment of the veracity of the Sermon on the Mount from the perspective of Historical Criticism, demonstrating how contextually sensitive evaluation of the evidence supports the historicity of the Sermon;
• The provision of suggested page citations (in the page footers) and (in most cases) mouse-over lookup of biblical references, for which you can specify your preferred Bible version .