Matt 7:12	Luke 6:31	Didache 1	Thom 6
		2 The Way of Life
		is this: first
		you shall love
		the God
		who made you;
		second,
		your neighbor	2 Jesus said:
		as yourself.	"Don't lie
12 "Always		And	and
treat people	27 "Treat people	don't treat people	3 don't do
the way	the same way	the way	what
you want	you want	you don't want	you hate."
them	them	them
to treat you.	to treat you."	to treat you.
This sums up
the Law
and the Prophets."

Conventional maxim

Since the eighteenth century this principle of human relations has usually been called "the golden rule." It has understandably become the most widely known saying ascribed to Jesus. Yet, it cannot easily be traced to him. For unlike the paradoxes earlier in Q's sermon, it is a practical maxim with parallels in the conventional wisdom of many ancient cultures.

Q phrased the golden rule as a positive precept for social behavior. A negative version, however, had long been familiar to Judean sages. Tobit, a popular tale about Israelites taken to northern Iraq more than seven hundred years before Jesus, presented it as parental advice about self-control:

Guard yourself in all you do, my son,
and discipline yourself in all your behavior.
What you hate, don't do to someone else.
-- Tobit 4:15

According to a later anecdote, Hillel, a prominent rabbi from Jesus' time, identified this maxim as the basic rule in Judaic ethics:

What you hate, don't do to another.
That's the whole Law, everything else is commentary.
-- Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbath 31a

So, the sentiment ascribed to Jesus in Matt 7:12b was not novel. Even early Christian texts usually echoed the traditional negative formulation of the golden rule. Thomas 6:3 credits that version to Jesus. Yet, the Didache 1:2 introduced it for what it really was: a common precept of "the way of life" rather than the insight of any particular teacher.

Attribution

Since Jesus obviously did not invent the golden rule, the Jesus Seminar had to decide whether he explicitly endorsed it in one form or another.  Did he echo the traditional formula, as Thom 6:3 reports? Or did he create a positive paraphrase, as Q suggests?  A person who told others to love their enemies would certainly not object to either the negative or the positive form of this maxim.  But tacit agreement in principle does not show that a sentence was uttered by Jesus' own lips.

Golden Rule	%	Red	Pink	Grey	Black	WA	Print
Luke 6:31 Matt 7:12a Matt 7:12b Thom 6:3 Did 1:3		12 12 3 0 0	9 9 3 4 10	50 52 22 4 33	29 27 69 92 57	34 35 14 4 18	grey grey black black black

The hard evidence surprisingly does not prove that Jesus actually taught the golden rule.  Q and Thomas, the two sources, that credit this maxim to Jesus, could not agree on exactly what he said. Only scribes who knew Q (Matthew and Luke) cited the positive formula: "Treat people the way you want them to treat you.” Some Fellows thought that this wording was original enough to accept as a genuine Jesus saying. But its originality was not obvious enough to prevent Thomas and the Didache from preferring the traditional negative version.

Unfortunately, the positive paraphrase of the golden rule does not step enough out of the ordinary to mark it as a genuine Jesus saying. The number of red aphorisms already found in Q's sermon reveal Jesus as an unusual sage who was prone to making dramatic inversions of common opinions.  He inherited many traditional principles, of course. For no one can be totally unconventional. But Jesus' original sayings challenge people to revise their view of themselves and to abandon normal views of self-preservation. "Congratulations, you poor!," "Love your enemies!," and "Turn the other cheek!" are sayings that strike with a sharp edge. The common sense of the golden rule is more comfortable. It uses the fact that people have a self-centered concern with their own well-being to persuade them to treat others better. One Fellow quipped: "If Jesus did not teach the golden rule, he would have been about the only sage who didn't." Yet, if he endorsed it, he failed to give it his characteristic stamp.

Nevertheless, the golden rule was used early and widely to interpret the gist of Jesus' genuine teaching.  It bridged the gap between his distinct viewpoint and common sense.  Hence, the majority of the Jesus Seminar colored Q's positive variant (Luke 6:31//Matt 7:12a) gray.

The added comment in Matt 7:12b that the golden rule is the core of biblical teaching was not in Q.  It sounds like something Matthew learned from Hillel rather than from Jesus.