Jesus said many surprising things in the Sermon on the Mount. Here are just a few of them:

• Every jot and tittle of the Torah must be followed. (Matthew 5:17)
• Whoever calls someone a fool is in danger of going to hell. (5:22)
• A man who looks at a woman with lust commits adultery. (5:28)
• If your eye causes you to sin pluck it out. (5:29)
• If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. (5:30)
• A man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. (5:32)
• Give to anyone who asks your for anything. (5:42)
• Love your enemies and do good to those that hate you. (5:44)
• Don't pray in public. (6:5-6)

But this was the most surprising:

All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12

So according to Jesus, everything in the law of Moses and the writings of the prophets can be summed up by the Golden Rule - Do to others as you'd like them to do to you.

There are only two ways that someone could say such a thing: they have never read the law and the prophets, or they are lying.

Because the first five books of the Bible (the Torah, law of Moses, or Pentateuch) are filled with things that are contrary to the Golden Rule.

Here are just a few examples:

• Kill witches. Exodus 22:18
• Burn to death a man, his wife and his mother-in-law if they have sex together. Leviticus 20:14
• Stone to death blasphemers. Leviticus 24:16
• If your brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend asks you to serve another god stone them to death. Deuteronomy 13:6-10
• Stone to death disobedient children. Deuteronomy 21:18-21
• Stone to death women who are found not to be virgins on their wedding night. Deuteronomy 22:13-21

There is, however, one commandment in the Torah that is similar to the Golden Rule. Here it is:

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Leviticus 19:18

This verse is, in my opinion, the best commandment in the Bible, and yet it is in the Torah. If Jesus had said that the Golden Rule was equivalent to the commandment given in Leviticus 19:18, then I would agree with him.

So how does the law of Moses compare to the Golden Rule? Are there other good verses, like Leviticus 19:18, in the Torah?

Well, yes there are. There are 50 verses that I have included in "the good stuff" at the SAB. They are listed here. And these verses are, more or less, consistent with the Golden Rule.

But there are 1226 verses that are cruel, unjust, intolerant, misogynistic, anti-family, or homophobic.

So for every good verse in the Torah, that is consistent with the Golden rule, there are more than 24 bad verses that aren't.

I did a similar analysis for the prophets, with these results: 40 good verses and 1057 bad. So for every good verse in the books of the prophets (both major and minor), consistent with the Golden Rule, there are more than 26 bad ones.

So Jesus was wrong to say that the Golden Rule is a summary of the law and the prophets. In fact, I can't think of another book that would be more inconsistent with the Golden Rule than the law of Moses and the prophets - except for maybe the Quran.