New Testament scholars commonly viewed Jesus’s so called “antitheses” (Matt 5:21–48) in the Sermon on the Mount as abrogating the Torah (at least in some respects; e.g., 5:38–39). Therefore, it was often assumed Jesus’ programmatic statement on the Torah and the Prophets (Matt 5:17–20) was strategically placed before the antitheses as a hermeneutical aid to guard against seeing Jesus as antinomian. Advances in our understanding of Torah interpretation in Second Temple Judaism, however, reveal that Jesus’s antitheses, while intense, fit within the possibilities of first-century Torah interpretation (cf. Loader, Jesus’ Attitude towards the Law, 1997) and support Torah observance rather than dismiss it (cf. Blanton, “Saved by Obedience,” 2013). Nevertheless, despite these advances in historical understanding, scholars still fail to appreciate properly the placement of 5:17–20 before the antitheses, even in some cases still assuming 5:17–20 protects against misunderstanding the antitheses as abrogating. This paper will argue that the antitheses do not need defending, rather the opposite is the case: the antitheses are examples of superb Torah interpretation that defend, substantiate, and prove Jesus’s claim in 5:17–20 that he has come to fulfill and preserve the Torah (cf. Kampen, Matthew, 2019). Moreover, sorting out the proper relationship between the programmatic statement and the antitheses is also critical to understanding the larger rhetorical thrust of 5:17–20. Thus, this paper will also argue that 5:17–20 (especially with its use of “abolish” language: καταλῦσαι x2 in v. 17, and λύσῃ in v. 19) is a crucial part of an argument between Jesus and the Pharisees over whose Torah interpretation and practice is to blame for the defilement and ultimately, the judgment of Jerusalem and the temple (cf. Thiessen, “Abolishers of the Law,” 2012; and Runesson, Divine Wrath, 2016).