Mat 5.13 reads as follows:
Ὑμεῖς ἐστε τὸ ἅλας τῆς γῆς· ἐὰν δὲ τὸ ἅλας μωρανθῇ, ἐν τίνι ἁλισθήσεται; εἰς οὐδὲν ἰσχύει ἔτι εἰ μὴ βληθὲν ἔξω καταπατεῖσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων.
You are the salt of the earth. Now if the salt becomes bland, with what will it be salted? It is not good for anything anymore except being cast out to be trampled by people.
Compare this to the parallel in Luke 14.34-35:
34 Καλὸν οὖν τὸ ἅλας· ἐὰν δὲ καὶ τὸ ἅλας μωρανθῇ, ἐν τίνι ἀρτυθήσεται; 35 οὔτε εἰς γῆν οὔτε εἰς κοπρίαν εὔθετόν ἐστιν, ἔξω βάλλουσιν αὐτό. ὁ ἔχων ὦτα ἀκούειν ἀκουέτω.
Therefore, salt is good: but if even the salt becomes bland, with what will it be seasoned? It is suitable neither for the ground nor the dung heap; they throw it out. The one who has ears to hear, hear!
These two sayings are parallel in many respects. An interesting difference appears in the way each writer presents the things saltless salt is not good for. Luke uses a simple statement, “it is not fitting for the ground or the dung heap,” emphasizing its general uselessness. Matthew’s version, by contrast, is interesting in the way it is structured.
The except in Matthew 5.13
Matthew’s Jesus could easily have said, “salt that loses its saltiness εἰς οὐδὲν ἰσχύει (is good for nothing),” and left it at that. That is not what he says, though. He adds an except clause: εἰ μὴ βληθὲν ἔξω καταπατεῖσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων. This is a rhetorically marked way to say what he is saying. Compare to the usage here in Matt 11.27:
- Πάντα μοι παρεδόθη ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρός μου, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐπιγινώσκει τὸν υἱὸν εἰ μὴ ὁ πατήρ, οὐδὲ τὸν πατέρα τις ἐπιγινώσκει εἰ μὴ ὁ υἱὸς καὶ ᾦ ἐὰν βούληται ὁ υἱὸς ἀποκαλύψαι.
- Everything has been given to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, no one knows the father except the son, and whoever the son desires to reveal him to.
The basic assertion is: “The son is the only one who knows the father and the father is the only one who knows the son.” These assertions are presented in a marked pattern. First, there is a total denial of the category, “no one,” which is followed by the single exception, “except,” introduced by the phrase εἰ μή. This is not an uncommon pattern to come across in the NT. It is marked in that it puts extra focus on the one exception to the pattern.
Here are a couple more examples from Matthew just to demonstrate the same pattern:
- Matt. 12:4 πῶς εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοὺς ἄρτους τῆς προθέσεως ἔφαγον, ὃ οὐκ ἐξὸν ἦν αὐτῷ φαγεῖν οὐδὲ τοῖς μετ’ αὐτοῦ εἰ μὴ τοῖς ἱερεῦσιν μόνοις;
- And how did he enter into the house of God and they ate the bread of the presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, except only the priests?
Put in a less marked way: “It is only lawful for the priests to go into the house of God and eat the bread of the presence.”
- Matt. 12:24 οἱ δὲ Φαρισαῖοι ἀκούσαντες εἶπον· οὗτος οὐκ ἐκβάλλει τὰ δαιμόνια εἰ μὴ ἐν τῷ Βεελζεβοὺλ ἄρχοντι τῶν δαιμονίων.
- Now the Pharisees, having heard, said: “This one is not driving out demons except by Beelzeboul, the Prince of Demons.”
Put in a less marked way: “This one drives out demons by Beelzeboul, the Prince of Demons.”
These examples demonstrate how εἰ μή phrases usually work: state an on overly strong position which is not true until the except portion of the clause is added. In each of the above cases, the original statement is false—“no one knows the father,” “he is not casting out demons” (the example with David is less clear though the basic mechanics remain the same—the exception clause indicates the class for whom the statement is true in a heightened way). It is with the addition of the marked “except” portion of the clause that the whole statement becomes true.
In statements which follow this pattern. then¸ the except portion is crucial to the meaning. The entire import of the saying cannot be understood until the except portion is processed at the end. There is an element of surprise, as it were, thrown in at the end which forces the hearer to quickly rethink the entire expression.
What is saltless salt good for?
So, in Matthew 5.13 what is saltless salt good for? R. T. France writes:
The trampling of the tasteless “salt” does not have to imply that it then finds a useful role as surfacing for a path; it is simply thrown out into the street as refuse.
The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2007), 175.
While this may be the case, if that is the intention it is odd that the marked syntax, which usually puts emphasis on the except element, is used here. The marked syntax leads to an expectation that the εἰ μή portion is significant for the meaning of the whole negative expression. Following the normal pattern, we expect that “it is good for nothing” is actually an overstatement which becomes true only when the qualifying “except for” is added.
If the basic idea of “you are the salt of the earth” saying is that Jesus’ disciples are to be a flavor (of wisdom) and preservative to help keep the world from corruption, the syntax here suggests a further contribution of the saying in its Matthean form. It suggests there is a positive use for salty salt and a negative use for saltless salt (but a use nonetheless).
Salt of the earth vs. Salting the earth
The main point of this post has been to engage the syntax. The syntax gives an invitation to consider a more complex meaning of the saying than just focusing on the positive. The largely parallel saying about “light of the world” in v. 14-16 does not include a similar negative emphasis, so I don’t think we should make too much of this one here. But even in the following “light of the world” saying, it is fair to assume that the absence of light is inherently a bad thing, not just a useless state.
My preliminary thought here is that “except to be trampled underfoot” is meant to echo the idea of judgement in some form or another. Why use a marked syntax to just reinforce that saltless salt is not good for seasoning? A meaning like, “saltless salt is good for using as pavement on the path,” seems a rather bland thing to say in a marked way.
I wonder if the background here is more the practice of salting a conquered city. In the OT, Abimelech salts Shechem after destroying it (Judges 9.45). The practice was known in the Ancient Near East more broadly, even if not entirely clear in terms of symbolism. Perhaps the idea of Jesus’ statement here works something like this:
As the salt of the earth, you will be doing something: either good for the earth, or destructive towards it.
Within a sort of “two ways” understanding, if salt is good and light is good for the world, then saltless salt and the absence of light is inherently bad for the world–not just inconvenient or useless, but bad. Verse 13 may just make that implication clear(er).
NT Greek et al. 
For what it might be worth…I’ve never read this anywhere, but I’ve often thought that Ὑμεῖς ἐστε τὸ ἅλας τῆς γῆς is, in idiomatic English, “You are fertilizer.” It’s not saying you have to “taste good” to the world. It’s saying, “you provide vitality and growth to the world.” That is, you’re trans formative. What brought me to that was the text that says they put salt on a dung heap. Well, why would you do that? Modern organic methods coupled with ancient (even modern) Palestinian salt (think Dead Sea salt) gave me the answer, not that 1st century Jews used modern horticultural methods. They used what they had; and it turns out, it works quite well.
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing the idea. It is interesting and I’ve never heard that idea before.
In the spirit of scholarly thinking, there are a variety of difficulties I see in your idea, some minor and some major.
1. You’ve got a lack of ancient evidence for salt as fertilizer. To my thinking, this is the place to start. Unless you find somewhere evidence of use of salt in ancient agriculture, your reading is pretty much doomed. We know lots of uses of salt in the ancient world: flavoring, a component of Jewish sacrifices, a valuable substance, road pavement of sorts, grit for the ramp in the temple, and of course as a flavoring agent. I have never seen nor heard any reference to salt as fertilizer. I’m no expert in ancient agricultural practices, but given the many ways we know salt was used in the ancient world (and among Jewish sources as well), you really need some sort of evidence to support your view. Since there is so much evidence for other uses of salt to see this proverb against, you’re fighting a major uphill battle.
2. The form of the saying in Matthew implies the “except” part of the saying is not good. Note the form of the saying: “If the salt becomes bland/saltless, how do you make it salty? It is not good for anything…” The salt being trampled into the earth only happens after it ceases to have its good use as salt. Since the word used seems to mean something like “becomes bland” (μωραίνω means “to be foolish, stupid, insane,” so the idea here is that the salt is departing from its normal state of “sane = salty”) it suggests that salt as flavoring/preservative is in view. So, the “salt of the earth” saying should refer to a normative use of salt, namely as a flavoring/preservative (to which, see again point 1).
The ”except” portion introduces a reality which only comes into play once the salt has ceased to be “normal” salt and thus is no longer able to be used in any normal usage of salt. Throwing it on the road or into the κοπρία “dung heap” is not presented as a desirable use, but one that only happens when the salt has ceased to be “sane/normal” salt. In short, the “except” introduces a bad usage of salt, not a desirable one.
*** Note as well that you have conflated passages in your interpretation. The passage in Luke, which refers to the κοπρία “dung heap” says that the salt is not fit for the ground or the “dung heap.” It is to be “thrown out.” The salt is not even useful for throwing on the dung heap (see point 4 for what this might be). Thus, it is not even good enough to go on the trash pile. The Matthew account (point 3), whose syntax is under view in my post, only mentions the “bland” salt being trampled under foot. Your interpretation mixes the two together without paying very close attention to what each version of the proverb actually says. I’m personally skeptical of interpreting a “composite” version of different sayings of Jesus which we reconstruct based on our own idea of what parts of the different sayings should be put together. I would encourage you to go back and pay careful attention to what each version of the proverb says as you try to interpret them. They are not the same, though quite similar. ***
3. The Matthean version, which is under view, speaks of “trampling under foot,” which makes it very unlikely that an agricultural application is in view. Using salt as “grit” for walking surfaces was a normal usage of salt, which would be more immediately applicable within the shape of Jesus’ proverb.
4. Finally, the Lukan version speaks of a κοπρία, a “dung heap.” Your take on this passage assumes that κοπρία “dung heap” means a manure pile or compost pile. I’m no expert on ancient composting techniques, but at least one common usage of this word refers to a “rubbish heap,” not a “dung heap” in the sense of a compost pile. Such a “rubbish heap” refers to the ancient city dump. This usage is attested in the Egyptian papyri and the LXX. A “rubbish heap” is the sort of place that people threw their used papyri, potsherds, assorted refuse, likely lots of compostables, etc. (lots of our papyri findings in Egypt are mined from these ancient trash piles). These sorts of “trash heaps” were certainly not used for agriculture.
In sum, your idea is interesting. I think you’ve got (1) some major leg work to do in ancient agricultural theory and practice if you want to substantiate this as a valid reading of the text and (2) to deal more carefully with the way that the two versions of the proverb are different from each other, rather than conflating the two together and picking and choosing which parts of each you assemble a “macro-proverb” from. As it stands, there are other ways of understanding the text which are obvious and attractive, both in terms of theology and in terms of what we know the ancients did with their salt and which better respect the form of the proverb as it stands in Matthew and Luke. It might be an interesting research project to try to substantiate your idea as a possible reading of the passage.
Blessings on your endeavor.
LikeLike