The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law — the reaction is immediate and universal: amazement (ekplēssō). The reason is not miraculous but rhetorical: Jesus teaches with authority (exousia). The teachers of the law taught by citing authoritative tradition — Rabbi so-and-so said, the school of Shammai holds — building their authority on the chain of prior teachers. Jesus teaches without citation, without appeal to prior authority, as if the teaching originates with him. The authority claim implicit in the teaching style is more radical than any content claim: who teaches this way except one who is himself the source?

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