"You have heard it said.." is the bible's General Relativity

Yes I know I've written about this Sermon on the Mount issue many times, but I thought about it over the weekend, including how my own position has shifted somewhat.

The money verses are in Matthew 5, verses 21-44. Here we have these excerpts from the sermon, teachings that came to us directly from the mouth of Jesus:

You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you...  

Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you...  

You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery... 

Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you... 

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you...

There is a false dichotomy when it comes to explaining these passages from the Sermon on the Mount, a mistake in which I have participated.

First, the classic Covenant Theology view of these passages is that Jesus is correcting the Pharisees. This is almost certainly wrong. It makes no sense on three levels, viz.,

1. The "you have heard it said to those of old" construct does not make sense if Jesus is correcting the false teachings  provided by and/or given to those present. It would far clearer to plainly say: "you are hearing it said...".
2. The "you shall not murder" and "you shall not commit adultery" (and, almost, the "you shall not swear falsely) are exactly commandments from the decalogue. Teaching precisely what a commandment says can hardly be construed as false teaching, at least not in a derogatory sense.
3. When Jesus was correcting the Pharisees, he was quite boisterous about it. Here we have none of the "Woe to you scribes and pharisees!" that we have come to expect when Jesus is correcting their false teaching. 

Then there is the New Covenant Theology (NCT) view, the second part of the false dichotomy, which argues that Jesus is replacing the decalogue. But this has its own problems, in that two of Jesus' statements have no direct link the Ten Commandments. One is the statement on divorce. And the other, even more problematic for the NCT view, is that "love your neighbor but hate your enemy" is not associated, even indirectly, with the Ten Commandments,  and nor is it even found anywhere in the Old Testament.

 So the dilemma gets presented this way, as a multiple choice:

 A) The Covenant Theology view: nothing is changing with the Law, Jesus is just correcting bad teaching.

B) The New Covenant Theology view: Jesus is replacing the Ten Commandments with new law.

The obvious problem is there is no option C, and the correct answer in a multiple choice question is always C. So let's offer one, which by the laws of multiple choice will be correct:

C) The organic view: Jesus is correcting false teaching, but the false teaching is acceptable and understandable given the level of revelation at the time. It was appropriate, not inappropriate, for the pharisees to teach "You shall not murder" and "You shall not commit adultery". (They didn't get everything wrong!) Theses commandments stand, as do the other eight. However these commandments are being more fully revealed, and these two now encompass hating your brother and garden variety lust. The decalogue is not abrogated. But nor does it survive unmodified. Every commandment is still valid, but at least some of the commandments, as given to Moses, are only approximations.

The physics analogy is near perfect. Moses' law was Newtonian physics. A really good approximation to realty, and sufficient for the "ancients." But Einstein's relativity is the greater and more complete (and more elegant) revelation--it includes all of the Newtonian approximation, which is sufficient in most circumstances, plus extra insight needed for high precision work.