‘Leave the Dead to Bury their own Dead’: Q 9.60 and the Redefinition of the People of God

Abstract

The ‘consensus’ interpretation of Q 9.60, according to which, following M. Hengel, Jesus demands a break with Torah for those who follow him in light of the imminence of the kingdom, is shown to be historically and conceptually inadequate. Also unsatisfactory is M. Bockmuehl’s suggestion that Jesus here invites the would-be disciple to take up a Nazirite vow. Rather, Jesus’ words should be understood, first, in the context of the widespread (and pre-Christian) Jewish view that those outside the people of God are spiritually ‘dead’; and second, by comparison with the evidence that Jews used (non-)burial as a means to define the boundary between true membership of the covenant family and apostasy. Jews could, on occasion, actively, and violently, deny burial to their fellow Jews whom they deemed apostate. Jesus advocates detachment from responsibility for the burial of such people, but not violence.