Theme: Christian love as bifocal

Exegetical note
In a sense, Jesus refuses here to play along with the Pharisee's question, which called for a singular answer. Jesus' answer, advocating a "bifocal" love, was not original in the rabbinic tradition. Others had emphasized these two Old Testament injunctions before. Jesus does, however, appear to raise the second commandment to a nearly co-equal status with the first with the word "like" in v. 39, and in his citing both as the foundation for the law and the prophets.

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