The background of the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5.1-2.

Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount begins in Matthew 5, where Jesus “went up into a mountain” Mt 5.1 KJV to teach his students (Greek μαθηταὶ/mathité, “pupil,” KJV “disciple”).

Matthew 5.1-2 KWL

1Seeing the crowds,

Jesus goes up, into the hill,

and as he is sitting down

his students come to him.

2Opening his mouth,

Jesus is teaching his students,

saying…

and he starts with the Beatitudes.

Y’notice my translation has “hill.” The original Greek text has ὄρος/óros, which can mean either “hill” or “mountain,” and the person (not necessarily St. Jerome) who originally translated Matthew for the Vulgate decided it meant montem, “mountain,” so that’s how Christians have historically interpreted it. That’s why it’s the Sermon on the Mount, not Hill.

Thing is, I’ve been to the Mount of Beatitudes in northern Israel, where Christian tradition says Jesus gave this sermon. It’s a hill.

A view of the Mount of Beatitudes from Capharnaum. See that domed building? That’s the octagonal Church of the Beatitudes, built by the Roman Catholics in 1938. Berthold Werner, Wikimedia

True, not everybody agrees what the difference is between a hill and a mountain. In English and American custom, a mountain is 1,000 feet above its surrounding geography. But of course if the locals are used to calling a nearby hill “the mountain,” state geographers might disagree, but it’s a mountain to the locals regardless. The same is true with the Mount of Beatitudes: Christians keep calling it a mountain, but it’s not. It’s only about 200m (about 650 feet) above Lake Tiberias (i.e. the Sea of Galilee). It’s actually 25m below sea level. Where I’m sitting in the Sacramento Valley, as I write this, I am at an elevation 31m above the Mount of Beatitudes. That’s how low of a “mountain” it is.

This particular hill.

Now there are other Christians who claim Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount from other locations; from other hills. Other Israelis who’d really like it if tourists visited their hills, and bought their tchotchkes from their souvenir shops, and didn’t bother with the Church of the Beatitudes.

Okay, so why’s it this hill and not the others? Two reasons. The text says Jesus went up the hill, τὸ ὄρος/to óros, not just any hill. The hill of what? Obviously the hill of Capharnaum, the town he moved to, Mt 4.13 the town where he called Simon, Andrew, James, and John. Mt 4.18-22 Yeah there’s that paragraph where he travels the Galilee, and crowds of people come to see him for themselves and be cured by him, Mt 4.23-25 but when it comes time to teach them he climbs the hill, and that’s probably the hill near his hometown.

Further, verse 1 says Jesus went into the hill. I realize other translations don’t use the word “into.” I do, and the KJV does—and the Vulgate does. That’s what the word εἰς/eis means. It can be translated “on” or “onto,” which is how most other translations go, but I went with “into” because ancient tradition says he went into the hill.

Well okay, not all ancient tradition. St. Jerome thought he went to Mt. Tabor, ’cause that’s a proper mountain. St. Chromatius of Aquileia thought he went to the Mount of Olives, ’cause isn’t that where he’s coming back? In general these saints were blinded by their attitudes; Jesus must’ve given his Sermon from an important location, so they picked places which were important to them, rather than the most likely place.

But the people of Capharnaum claimed Jesus went up their hill, and pointed to a particular cave where they claimed Jesus sat down and taught from. He went into their hill. Probably not far into it; probably just enough so his voice would echo in the cave and it’d amplify him. Were you wondering how such a big crowd could hear him? That’d be how. Neat trick, huh?

Still funny how Monty Python imagined the very back of the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount. Life of Brian

As for the Sermon on the Plain…

There are those who think the Sermon on the Mount, and the Sermon on the Plain of Luke 6, are the same sermon.

They both start with Jesus on the hill, Lk 6.12 but in Luke, after praying, Jesus comes down the hill to level ground and preaches from there, Lk 6.17 and the people who embrace this theory think Matthew simply neglected to say Jesus came down. Jesus also designated his first 12 apostles at that time, and these folks figure that’s when this sermon took place; not at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, but in the middle. Matthew just puts it at the beginning because… well, you oughta start your mission with your manifesto, shouldn’t you?

Me, I figure Jesus simply preached the same sermon, or bits from the Sermon on the Mount, throughout his ministry. His students needed to learn it, memorize it, internalize it, and do it. Everybody else needed to hear it for the first time—because in it, we hear what God’s kingdom is like, and how we oughta start living in this kingdom now, and not just wait till the second coming. So the Sermon on the Mount, and Sermon on the Plain, easily coulda taken place at two different times—and it’d be unnecessarily redundant for both gospels to give all these teachings again.

As for where the Sermon on the Plain happened: Don’t know. Could be anywhere in the Galilee. Sheep could be grazing on it right now.