We live an existence governed by the perceptions of our five senses. We have come to understand that our brains function from both a left and right side. The left-brain is primarily an interpreter of facts - an encyclopedia of personally acquired knowledge and experience. The right brain, the creative and imaginative side, is the source of our music, poetry and inventions.
Both sides of our brains reside in the same cranium and it makes sense that the intent of the Creator is that the two aspects are to be harmonized in use. Through our senses, facts and experience are admitted into our thinking, ordered and collated on the left side of our brain and then conceptualized and understood on the right side.
Furthermore, I'm not aware of any writing, sacred or secular, that advises us to emphasize one side at the expense of the other. Balance and harmony of perception seems the path of our spiritual and physical evolution to wisdom and a higher spiritual plane.
Jesus' criticisms of the priestly class are a part of New Testament scripture. He was at times quite caustic, indignant and outrageous in his effort to deal with a society in which the literal interpretation of scripture had gone to the extreme.
The letter of the Law was the basis for social behavior and decision-making. The spirit of the Law, despite the presence of scripture, tradition and history, was not. Fear of the priesthood was the basis for acceptance and validation and an impetus for feeling fear of both the priesthood and one's peers or neighbors.
The letter and spirit of the Law were not balanced. Left brain thinking with its collection of facts assembled into a knowledge of the "world as it is" almost totally overruled the wisdom that is formed in the right brain based on a creative compiling of facts contained in the left: "the world as it ought to be; the world intended by God."
Jesus did not come to write new laws or overthrow old ones. Rather to teach again the need for wisdom and understanding regarding the laws of a God who had been reduced to two-dimensional form: a judgmental divinity who was either pleased or displeased.
We are equipped to see in three dimensions: height, width and depth. Without three-dimensional vision, we see only a square instead of a box and a circle instead of a sphere.
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