Pulling grain from the ear is not the same as picking from a plate of food. It is indeed gathering food, perhaps considered harvesting in one sense of the word.
Slade wrote:
This is an interesting point. Shammai argued it was harvesting. Hillel argued it was not harvesting because like the 1st and 7th day of Unleavened bread (which are Shabbats) you would cook and prepare food (which involves manufacturing heat to cook) yet it was not considered profaning the Shabbat. In like manner, peeling heads and rubbing them in your hands to chew the grains (according one one thought) is not harvesting and is not viewed as work. It's considered providing nourishment for a single meal to provide comfort for man on Shabbat, for Shabbat was made for the comfort of man.
Extrapolating Hillel's argument about food preparation to saying that he would not have condemned the talidim of Yeshua for plucking grain from living stalks in the field is a bit of a stretch. Hillel was not always so liberal. For example, Hillel also argued that one is guilty if he eats an egg that was laid on shabbat, while Shammai said that was ok. Hillel also said they could not pick up the husks off the table but Shammai said they could.
In any case, my intent was not to get bogged down on a judgment here of whether or not Jesus broke the sabbath, but to help point out that the question of whether they were "working" on the sabbath is not resolved by simply saying that they were eating and so it was not work. The fact that they were "plucking grain" from plants in the ground is rather significant and controversial in the rabbinic literature.
Philo said, "it was not lawful to cut a plant, or branch, or so much as a leaf", on a sabbath day. John Gill quotes from Maimon. Hilch. Sabbat, c. 8., sect. 3 & 7 as saying, "he that reaps (on the sabbath day) ever so little, is guilty (of stoning), and "plucking of ears of corn is a derivative of reaping."
Now please don't misunderstand me to be arguing that Jesus broke the sabbath. I am simply recognizing that this situation is a little sticky. I have even heard some Messianics claim that this phrase that says they plucked grain was added to the text by a copyist and is not to be trusted as Scripture.
Now I realize that you are going to ask me, "who," so a quick google gave me the following quote for you:
http://www.geocities.com/thefaithofjesus/did_yeshua_abolish_law_cx.htm
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David Flusser sees only one explicit violation of the Law attributed to Yeshua in the Synoptic Gospels (the plucking of gain on the Sabbath). This, however, is understood as coming from a Greek translator who added the "plucking" of the grain to make the scene more vivid. What actually took place was only the rubbing of grain in the hands, which was allowed by Torah (rubbing was not considered work which was forbidden on the Sabbath). Even so, it was Yeshua's disciples who were guilty of the supposed infraction, and not Yeshua.
Having understood the Greek copyist addition to the text, we find in Yeshua a "Torah-true" Jew, who never and nowhere in the Gospels transgressed against the Mosaic and orthodox Rabbinic legislation. Nowhere and never does he condemn or reject one single Mosaic or Rabbinic institution.
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You probably know that David Flusser was an orthodox Jew and a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The author of this article uses him to try and substantiate that Jesus did not break the sabbath, if we accept his assumption that this statement of "plucking the grain" was not part of the original text. I find his assumption dubious, but my point is simply to say that this matter has difficulties that cannot be dismissed by simply saying that it is stupid to think of plucking grain, rolling it in the hands, and eating it as work.
Slade wrote:
I personally believe in the liberal understanding of Hillel while you apparently take Shammai's conservative understanding.
I hope you don't believe in the liberal understanding of Hillel in regards to divorce. Hillel taught that a man could divorce his wife if she spoiled his dinner. :-) Shammai taught the same as Jesus did on marriage and divorce.
While I may not be the liberal that Hillel was in most matters, I certainly am not a legalist like Shammai. My comments were meant only to point out that the concept of plucking grain treads closely upon the concept of work, and that the argument that Jesus used was not that it was not work, but rather that there were other factors to consider that made them innocent in what they were doing.
Slade wrote:
Thankfully, Hillel won out in the end (unless you speak with an antimissionary who sides with Shammai to prove Yeshua is a false Messiah... much like you just did. If you and the Antimissionary are correct, your faith could be worthless).
If I am correct, my faith could be worthless? I proved Yeshua was a false Messiah? I don't think so. I don't know if this is a gross misunderstanding of what I wrote or an attempt at assasinating my character. :-) Try reading my previous post again, or let's just kiss and makeup.
Peace be with you.
David Miller.
---------- "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
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