Colleen Shantz’s contribution investigates the intriguing saying about the eye as a lamp (6:22-23). Seeing is embodied and enactive. From the beginning of life, the embodied character of the human visual system affects how and what we know, as well as what is possible for the purpose of acting in the world. With this fact in mind, Shantz employs the growing research field of embodied, embedded, enactive and extended cognition (the four E’s) to renew the analysis of how the saying might appeal to the listener. Jesus’s saying about the “evil eye” is embedded in an agonistic culture where the jealous gaze was considered a dangerous force. Thus, the cultural construct of the evil eye weaves morality into the perceptual potentials of vision. Studies of infants and children reveal our deep-seated capacity to use our eyes in our interaction with other humans and to take the perspective of others. The eye is therefore central to reciprocal action. Moreover, cognition is enacted, that is, not mere perception, but arises from a combination of the visual input and intent of the seer. What you see depends on your motivation. The enacted understanding of vision allows us to understand the saying about the eye as a lamp, since a lamp acts on the world with its light. How you see is also how you act.

By means of insights from risk research, Rikard Roitto considers how the Sermon convinces its readers to accept its risky ethics. The human estimate of risk is based largely on emotions associated with reward, dread, moral appreciation, trust and other factors, and the Sermon’s rhetoric skillfully guides the listeners’ emotional appreciation of the dangers and rewards involved in abiding by its ethics. The dangers involved in an ethics that makes one vulnerable is countered by dread-invoking images of the final judgment and promises that God will make sure that the righteous will not lack basic material resources. The ethics is also portrayed as both prototypical for those who belong to the Kingdom of Heaven (the Matthean community) and morally superior to ordinary ethics, which would have led its readers to a positive emotional evaluation of its injunctions. This, in turn, would have repressed negative emotions of danger, since humans tend to strive for uniform emotional responses. In a final section, Roitto discusses the potential social effects of the risky ethics of the Sermon and suggests that it had the potential to encourage the Matthean community to remain in socially risky interaction with other Jewish groups.

Thomas Kazen, in the first of two contributions to the volume, asks whether the Sermon’s ethics of non-retaliation and love of enemy (5:38-48) are compatible with our innate moral drives. Although the commands should probably be taken as hyperbolic loose talk (cf. Kazen’s second contribution), they are, nonetheless, highly charged challenges to a radical ethics. Reviewing biological and psychological research on empathy and altruism, Kazen argues that emotions are indispensable to moral decision-making, perhaps even more foundational than explicit rational reasoning. Mirror neurons, which contribute to the capacity for perspective-taking (theory of mind), along with other cognitive mechanism comprise the capacity for empathy that elicits altruism and forgiveness. However, the sense of justice is as deeply embedded in our moral feelings as is empathy, and sometimes these two intuitions clash. Moreover, benevolence typically is offered primarily to kin and friends, but under what circumstances can it extend beyond those considered ingroup? The fictive-family imagery of the Sermon expands kin to include even enemies, so that it tilts the balance in favour of forgiving behaviour, since forgiveness is usually favoured over revenge among kin. Kazen sketches a history of development in which the Hebrew God becomes more universal and his grace more emotional under the influence of different strands of Hellenistic thought, which makes God’s fatherly forgiveness toward humanity a role-model for universal love and non-revenge. The fictive kin-imagery with God as prototype thus pushes the limits of ingroup altruism to an extreme that includes even enemies.

Rodney A. Werline reads the exhortations to give alms, pray, and fast in secret (6:1-19) in the light of a number of ritual theories. By shifting the focus from reading these texts as theology to reading them as ritual instructions, he describes the lived experience of those attempting to practice Jesus’s commands. Ritual form theory and comparisons between ritual and compulsive actions allow us to see that the text promises ritual efficacy (God’s reward) for those who perform these rituals with the proper behavior and attitude. Two modes theory—the theory that religious systems tend to be either “imagistic” with focus on intense but rare rituals, or “doctrinal” with frequently repeated, less intense, rituals—reveals that the Sermon’s ritual instructions are much less detailed than one would expect, since repeated rituals are typically performed with procedural rigor. Perhaps the Sermon assumes that such knowledge does not need to be spelled out? Insights from anthropologists that rituals are social and political events prompt us to ask what function private rituals could possibly have and expose the tension between private and collective ritual action in the passage. Even if the community is not present, the ritual performance ingrains the values and of the community in the ritual performer’s body and manifests the distinction between the community and surrounding outgroups. Finally, whenever the Lord’s prayer is prayed together, commitment to the prayer’s vision becomes a social fact that obliges the praying participants.

In his second contribution to the volume, Thomas Kazen discusses the effect of hyperboles on the listener. A long history of reading the Sermon as authoritative commands within a theological framework has made it difficult for most readers to appreciate the humorous surprise present in its exaggeration. In this situation, linguistic research on the cognitive and communicative function of hyperbole illuminates this hidden feature. When we hear a hyperbole, we negotiate the literal meaning of the hyperbole with a realistic version of the event and end up with a blend of the two, that—if successful—allows us to see matters in a new way. The vivid quality of hyperbole is also a source of humour and evokes emotions, which trigger engagement and guide moral evaluation of the topic at hand. According to relevance theory, those who hear hyperbole will intuitively understand that it is not meant literally, given that the contexts (the literary context of the saying as well as the context of the hearer) make such an interpretation more relevant than other interpretations. Through contemporary linguistic insights, Kazen helps us appreciate the quality of Jesus’s hyperbole anew. Matthew’s redactional activity sometimes softens the hyperbolic character of these sayings to make them more viable as moral exhortation (e.g. in the beatitudes, 5:1-12). In other cases, the hyperboles are stark (e.g. the so-called anti-theses, 5:21-48). The shocking disproportions were probably not taken literally by the Matthean audience, but nevertheless provoked a sense of moral urgency as their minds negotiated the absurd literal interpretation with their sense of proportion. Perhaps this provocative quality is one of the major reasons behind the continuing rhetorical power of the Sermon.

Lauri Thuren takes on all the 18 parables of the Sermon. Just like Lahti’s chapter below, the interpretative tool is Toulmen’s pragma-dialectics. The first part of the chapter gives an overview of the differing qualities of the parables. Some of them are complex, full narratives while others are simple rules. Some argue by means of credible premises that nobody would question while others postulate premises that an audience might find questionable. The second part gives brief analyses of the argumentative structure of the parables in order to explore their persuasive power to their audience. In the final section Thurén suggests that the parables help the reader explore the meaning of discipleship by means of entering the world of the parable. The contents of the parables are far less shocking than many of the exhortations in the Sermon and help the reader/listener to view their life in a new way, which in turn facilitates the process of accepting the adjoining exhortations.

Niilo Lahti asks whether Jesus convincingly argues that there is no reason to worry (6:25-34). He does so by means of Stephen Toulmen’s model for analyzing the argumentative structure of rhetoric, called pragma-dialectics. With pragma-dialectics, we can disentangle complex argumentation and strategic rhetorical maneuvering in order to evaluate whether the arguments in the Sermon can convince the reader to accept the claim that worry is superfluous. The starting points of the argumentation, that birds and lilies do not worry, might not strike the reader as a fair analogy and could thus be questioned; nonetheless, they function as strategic manoeuvers to confront the reader. However, the argumentation of the passage lets the reader know that these examples illustrate the arguments that God supports those who do not worry and that worries cannot prolong one’s life. These two lines of argument are backed by various supporting arguments and cumulatively support the claim. Although the rational arguments might not convince every sceptic, Jesus speaks authoritatively as one who lives according to his teaching and the idea of a life free from worries is appealing to our emotions. Thus, the arguments of the Sermon are powerful enough to convince at least those who view Jesus and his way of life as authoritative.

John Teehan reads the Sermon in the light of the thesis that human morality has evolved as an ingroup adaptation and that religion has evolved to foster cooperation. Moral codes enforced by punishment of transgressors allows generosity within the ingroup, since it reduces the threat of free-riders and encourages reciprocation. Costly religious rituals allow group members to signal their commitment to group norms, and the belief in a morally interested all-knowing God that punishes evil and rewards good encourages group members not to cheat even if no human will discover their transgression. Teehan uses these insights to analyse how the Sermon forms a communal identity and moral ethos for the newly formed group of Matthean followers of Jesus. The radical interpretation of the Torah in the so-called antitheses distinguishes the group from other groups and encourages intensified trust in other group members. Alms, fasts and prayers performed in secret before the all-knowing God are a signal of commitment that cannot be judged as being insincere (hypocritical), but at the same time effectively turns those signals into a signal only to oneself and God. Instead, other costly signals, such as willingness to suffer for one’s identity, fills the function of signalling group commitment.

Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme sets out to understand the rationality of the command to give alms in secret (6:1-4) by making use of research on reciprocity and gift-giving in anthropology and evolutionary studies. Gift-giving is an open-ended form of delayed and often asymmetrical reciprocity that fosters good long-term relations. Gudme pays special attention to how the perceived rationality of alms changes when God enters the exchange as receiver and giver of favours, for instance in the Jewish Wisdom Literature. From an evolutionary perspective, altruistic giving is potentially detrimental for the individual givers, but often beneficial for the survival of the group. The idea of Big Gods―morally interested all-knowing gods―allows for a more generous attitude, since givers can hope for divine blessings. Jesus’s promise in the Sermon that “your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (6:4) is a prime example of how belief in Big Gods can promote altruism.

Elisa Uusimäki builds on the social identity approach as she compares the macarisms of the Sermon (5:1-12) with those in 4QBeatitude (4Q525). Both sets of macarisms declare and urge prototypical attitudes for their recipient communities. Social identities are cognitive categories with borders and prototypical ideals, shared among community members, that facilitate differentiation from outgroups. The macarisms of the 4QBeatitude are characterized by contrastive language, those of the Sermon less so, but both formulate an identity prototype with character traits that sets the audience communities apart from other groups. An interesting feature shared by the two texts is the formulation of their identity in royal terms: as participants in their respective communities they inherit royal status.

Alicia Batten concludes the volume with a fascinating example of a network of communities that can be said to have lived inspired by the ethos of the Sermon: Plateau Vivarais-Lignon, especially the town Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, in France during World War II. Non-conformist groups of Christians from different denominations hid and protected Jews and others who fled from the German occupiers. Social memory theorists suggest that although social memory is malleable and constantly under negotiation, it can gain a certain amount of stability, especially when it is manifested in cultural objects, not only in individuals’ memories. The Sermon, well known and objectively present in printed form in European culture, can be seen as social memory with potential to guide and restrain present behaviour. Protestant Minister André Trocmé, who was instrumental in this network of activists, exemplifies how the Sermon as social memory could inspire such activity. Trocmé preached pacifism and non-violence in a time of war, and frequently reflected on the Sermon in his writings to motivate his position. His views were not his own, though, but shared by the network of communities in which he was active; they were expressions of an action-inspiring social memory in which the Sermon was paramount.

Social and Cognitive Perspectives on the Sermon on the Mount introduces a broader group of scholars, students, and clergy to the relevance of social scientific and cognitive studies for interpretation of the Bible, by applying these approaches to what is possibly the most read and discussed text in the Bible. Because these approaches are invested in patterns of human cognition and social mechanisms, this collection highlights the persistent appeal and persuasiveness of the Sermon: from innate moral drives, to the biology of emotion and risk-taking, to the formation and obliteration of in-group/out-group distinctions. Through these socio-cognitive theories the authors show why—even across cultures and history—the Sermon continues to grip both individual minds and groups of people to shape moral communities.