Either way of interpretation leads to fluent reading of the text and an easy understanding of it. The writer of this section uses specific circumstances in the text to paint a picture for the audience such as "An eye for an eye and A tooth for a tooth" or "when someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other as well". The reader of this text can picture Jesus sitting on top of a mountain saying these verses to people as they listen to him. This is unique because this phrase was initially created for an oral society and not a society that writes everything down as ours does today. Overall the use of language, where the section is placed in the Gospel of Matthew, and the overall presentation of this text seemed very effective when I initially inspected the text.
After inspecting the text, I sourced the verses in Matthew 5:38-42. The first verse, 38, came from M although there were many parts in Mark that seemed to touch around the same point. Although this verse can be found in a number of different places in the bible such as Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24: 19-20, and Deuteronomy 19: 21, it is not found in Mark or Q meaning that it must be from M. Verse 39 came from Q 6: 29a and verse 40 came from Q 6: 29b. Verse 41 was not in Mark or Q so it came from M, and verse 42 came from Q 6: 30. It is apparent that the writer of this text used a lot of material in Q when writing this section of the Sermon on the Mount and did not use any of Mark. I found this to be interesting, and it is important to source the information to see how the writer of this text acquired his ideas.
After inspecting and sourcing Matthew 5: 38-42, I used the commentary of Roger Shinn to see how he interpreted this section of the Sermon on the Mount. Roger L. Shinn is a Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and has written books about how the Sermon on the Mount is one of the most influential parts of the New Testament.
