468 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS
to assume that it will be the law at the heart of the Sinai covenant (KimJ:ii:
"There will never be a new Torah"), which at minumim would be the Ten Com-
mandments, but doubtless somethng more (B. W. Anderson 1964: 236-37). Jew-
ish and Christian valuations of the law differ, even as valuations differ within
both traditions. Pharisaic Judaism counted 613 commandments to be obeyed,
which, by any measure is radically reduced by Christians. But Christians do
not reject a core of Sinaitic Law being at the heart of the new covenant, as is
sometimes alleged. Jesus holds the Ten Commandments in high regard (Matt
19: 17-19; 22:36-40), claiming also to fulfill the law, not do away with it (Matt
5:17-18). Paul, too, for all his polemic againstthe Law, considers the Law holy
and claims to uphold it (Rom 3:31; 7:12; see Excursus V). But already at the
Jerusalem Conference reported in Acts 15, compromises had to be made.
There it was agreed that while Gentiles did not have to be circumcised, they
should nevertheless abstain from eating food offered to idols, blood and meat
from strangled animals, and also from sexual immorality.
The new covenant is new because Yahweh's torah will be written on the hu-
man heart (von Rad 1965: 213-14; Weinfeld 1976: 28; Wolff 1983: 54). The
Sinai covenant was written on tablets of stone (Exod 24:12; 31:18; et passim).
In the homiletical rhetoric of Deuteronomy, however, the torah was supposed
to find its way into the human heart (Deut 6:6; 11:18). But Deuteronomy
knows-as does Jeremiah-that the heart is deceitful and layered with evil
(Deut 10: 16; 11: 16; J er 4:4). Jeremiah is the more negative in assessing the hu-
man condition. He says the heart is evil, stubborn, and rebellious (5:23; see
Note for 3: 17), that sin is "engraved" on the tablet of the heart ( 17: 1 ), and that
the heart "is deceitful above all things" ( 17:9). In addition, he believes that the
people have not the ability within themselves to make their relationship with
Yahweh right again (2:25; 13:23; von Rad 1965: 216-17; B. Robinson 2001:
204). Nevertheless, prior "heart talk" in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah is back-
ground for and determines the articulation of the new covenant promise
(H. Weippert 1979). If the law did not penetrate the human heart before, and
this might still be debated (Ps 119: 11 ), it will with the new covenant in place,
because Yahweh promises to make it happen (cf. Isa 51: 7). Even in the later
chapters of Deuteronomy, which may be contemporary with Jeremiah, the law
is said to reside in human mouths and hearts, enabling people to carry it out
without difficulty:
Indeed this commandment that I am commanding you today, it is not too
difficult for you, and it is not far off; it is not in heaven that one should say,
'Who will go up for us to the heaven and get it for us that we may hear it
and do it?' And it is not from across the sea that one should say, 'Who will
cross over for us to the other side of the sea and get it for us that we may
hear it and do it?' Indeed the word is very near you, in your mouth and in
your heart to do it.
(Deut 30:11-14)