Matthew’s Gospel: Introduction

What is a Gospel?

Before attempting to study Matthew’s Gospel, there are a few preliminary questions we need to ask. The first is ‘What is a Gospel?’ This is a crucial question, since the answer is not necessarily self-evident. Imagine trying to take a class on “British Antidisestablishmentarianism” when you were absent the first day and don’t know what ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ is! In the same way, since Matthew was not the first person to write a book that came to be known as a ‘Gospel’, we need to ask what exactly a Gospel is.

But before in order to be clear on what a Gospel is, we must also be clear on what a Gospel is not. A Gospel is not a modern biography. It does bear a strong resemblance to ancient biographies (on this topic see the work of Richard A. Burridge, What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Cambridge University Press, 1992). Modern biographies make good reading for modern people, but ask and seek to answer quite different questions than ancient biographies did. Today, we want a comprehensive story, from birth until death or until the present. Ancient biographies focused on important achievements of a particular figure, and often told legendary stories about their births. Today, we are interested in the psychology of the historical figure we are considering; in ancient biographies, such questions are not asked, let alone answered. Questions about the influences on a person’s thought do not get the sort of attention we would like. The Gospels share many of these features in common with other ancient biographical works.

In the case of the Gospels, we also have to take into consideration the fact that these documents were intended not only to inform or entertain, but to provide a foundation-document for one or more Christian communities. For this reason, concerns such as chronology are not of primary importance, nor is being as comprehensive as possible. Rather, the Gospel authors select from the material they have available to them, and arrange it so as to make certain points that will be helpful in instructing readers and listeners in the Christian faith. The Gospels make no claim to objective, unbiased testimony. Far from it! They are out to prove something!

The word ‘Gospel’ or ‘good news’ (Greek euangelion) is met in Christian literature for the first time in Paul’s writings. There, it refers to the Christian message that he proclaims, rather than to a type of book. It seems safe to assume that in Paul’s time, none of the Gospels we now have was already available in their written form, although obviously much of the information which was later written down in the Gospels was already known to Paul and others of his contemporaries. Mark in fact appears to have created the genre of the Gospel as a literary work by prefacing his own work with ‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ…’ In fact, Matthew does not follow Mark in doing this: he starts his own book with the words ‘Book of the generations’, which alludes back to the historical writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet even if Matthew did not necessarily think of what he wrote using the term ‘Gospel’, he nevertheless derived a great deal from Mark, as we shall see in the next section. Justin Martyr (writing c. 155 CE) appears to be the first person to refer in writing to ‘Gospels’ in the plural [so David Aune, The New Testament in its Literary Environment, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987, p.18].

Perhaps the most important thing to stress at this stage is that Matthew wrote a book. He did not write an issue of Our Daily Bread or something else. Although Matthew clearly did not expect that his entire book would be read in churches on a Sunday, he certainly did write a book that has a narrative, a plot, a beginning and an ending and everything else one might expect. Matthew’s book tells a story, and so it is important to remember that, in studying Matthew, it will not be enough simply to ‘divide and conquer’. It will not be enough to study a few individual passages, even if we do so in some detail. It is important to have an overview of the whole, and that can only be gained by actually reading Matthew’s book, and reading it as a book. Try reading Matthew’s story the way you might watch a movie about Jesus. Notice what Matthew emphasizes, what he includes, what he leaves out, what he adds that other Gospel authors do not. Notice what the characters in the story talk about, and what they do. Notice the indications the narrator gives about where the story is going. If your aim is to understand Matthew’s Gospel, nothing can substitute for actually reading it, in its entirety. We shall have more to say later on about literary approaches to Matthew’s Gospel, but for now, it is important when thinking about what Matthew wrote to remember that he wrote a book.

Sources

Matthew’s book is not just a Gospel, it is one of what are known as the Synoptic Gospels. This term is used for Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three of which overlap significantly. So the question obviously arises of why they overlap not just in telling about the same events, but also often in telling about these events in the same order using the exact same words and phrases. The most obvious solution is to suggest that one or more of the Gospels borrowed material from the others, but who borrowed from whom? It is only by studying the Gospels and comparing them in detail that one can answer these questions, and that is something that we do not have time to do here. I presume you will have looked at this question before (if you are interested in more information, you can visit: http://religion.rutgers.edu/nt/primer/ ). In the present context, we can only summarize and give one or two examples of the evidence for the most likely solution to what is known as ‘the Synoptic problem’.

First, it seems quite certain that Matthew used Mark’s Gospel. Matthew generally follows Mark’s order, as does Luke when he has material in common with Mark. If Matthew departs from Mark’s order, generally Luke doesn’t follow him, and likewise when Luke departs from Mark’s order, Matthew generally doesn’t follow him. This seems to suggest that both Luke and Matthew used Mark’s Gospel in writing their own, and that Mark’s Gospel is the earliest Gospel we have in the canon.

Just to give one example, let’s compare the accounts of the execution of John the Baptist in Mark and Matthew:

Mark 6:17 For Herod had sent and seized John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife; because he had married her. For John said to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe. When he heard him, he was much perplexed; and yet he heard him gladly.

But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and the leading men of Galilee. For when Herodias' daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, "Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will grant it." And he vowed to her, "Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom." And she went out, and said to her mother, "What shall I ask?" And she said, "The head of John the baptizer." And she came in immediately with haste to the king, and asked, saying, "I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter." And the king was exceedingly sorry; but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her. And immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard and gave orders to bring his head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl; and the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

Matthew 14:1-12 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus; and he said to his servants, "This is John the Baptist, he has been raised from the dead; that is why these powers are at work in him." For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison, for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife; because John said to him, "It is not lawful for you to have her." And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people, because they held him to be a prophet.

But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and pleased Herod, so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. Prompted by her mother, she said, "Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter." And the king was sorry; but because of his oaths and his guests he commanded it to be given; he sent and had John beheaded in the prison, and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came and took the body and buried it; and they went and told Jesus.

As you can see from the preceding example, in the underlined words, Matthew’s version has introduced a tension into the story. Whereas Mark’s account is consistent in presenting Herod as sympathetic to John, Matthew introduces the idea that Herod wanted to kill him. The best explanation of the fact that Matthew nevertheless says that Herod was sad when asked for the head of John the Baptist is that Matthew was copying from Mark’s Gospel, and followed Mark at this point, without noticing the tension with what he himself had written.

Another clear sign that the dependence is literary (and not simply dependence on the same oral tradition) can be seen if we compare Matthew 24:15-16 with what is presumably its source, Mark 13:14:

Again, the points of agreement have been underlined. You can probably see how Mark’s wording, which is intentionally vague, is clarified and explained in Matthew’s Gospel, this tendency to explain, to clarify, and to tie up loose ends being a characteristic trait of Matthew’s Gospel. But note the parenthetical comment by Mark, which is placed in bold in the text above. Again, it is clearly an editorial remark, since it is clearly not Jesus speaking. What is striking is that, although Matthew is seeking to reproduce and at the same time to clarify the teaching of Jesus preserved in Mark 7, he omits Mark’s own clarification/interpretation of Jesus’ words. They were presumably a bit too like Paul’s teaching for Matthew, who emphasizes the ongoing value and validity of the Law of Moses. At any rate, here we see that, although Matthew used Mark’s Gospel as a source, he does not always reproduce Mark’s parenthetical and interpretative asides.

So much for Matthew’s use of Mark. But we also find that there are overlaps between Matthew and Luke where there is no parallel in Mark. How are these instances to be explained? One way to explain it would be to suggest that either Matthew used Luke or Luke used Matthew. Yet when we consider that both Matthew and Luke, in using Mark, took over most of what Mark wrote and incorporated it into their own Gospels (Matthew includes all but 50 of Mark’s 662 verses), it would then be hard to explain why Matthew and Luke do not reproduce so much of each other’s material, and disagree so significantly at points (an obvious example being the genealogies). And so it is that scholars have posited a common source underlying both Matthew and Luke. In the prologue to his Gospel, Luke refers to ‘many’ who have undertaken to write about Jesus prior to him, and so it should not surprise us to find that there were other written accounts of what Jesus said and did. Perhaps one reason this source was not preserved is precisely because most if not all of it was now available in Matthew and Luke. At any rate, this common source for non-Markan material is called ‘Q’, from the German word ‘Quelle’ which means ‘source’. [For a translation of ‘Q’ inasmuch as it can be reconstructed, see The Lost Gospel Q: The Original Sayings of Jesus, Berkeley: Ulysses Press, 1996]

In order to see the evidence for this common source, one needs only look at the relationship between Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” and Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain”.

Luke 6 Matthew 5-7

Introduction 20a 5:1-2

Beatitudes 20b-23 5:3-12

Woes 24-26

Love of enemy 27-36 5:38-47

Golden Rule 31 7:12

Do not judge 37-38 7:1-2

Blind guides 39

Teacher and disciple 40

Speck and beam 41-42 7:3-5

A tree and its fruit 43-45 7:16-20

Lord, Lord 46 7:21

The house on a rock 47-49 7:24-27

As can be seen from a comparison of these two passages, both Matthew and Luke have added to what they found in their source, ‘Q’. In contrast with Matthew, Luke is generally thought to more accurately preserve the order of Q, although not always the exact wording and content. Matthew has a tendency to organize teaching into large sections by topic, as is clearly the case in the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ – it is obviously far more likely that Matthew organized Jesus’ teaching into a single discourse, than that Luke found something like the Sermon on the Mount in his source and decided to take the material from it and scatter it almost at random throughout his Gospel! But at any rate, it can be seen that, although both supplement their common source, both Matthew and Luke for the most part follow its order. The one significant change is the ‘Golden Rule’, which Matthew moves to place in a more climactic setting.

Perhaps the clearest evidence that Matthew did not use Luke nor Luke Matthew, is the fact that they contain two contradictory genealogies. There is no obvious reason why one or the other would have ‘corrected’ the genealogy of the other, and so the best explanation is that neither had access to the other’s Gospel, and likewise neither had the genealogical information that the other had. (The genealogies of Luke and Matthew are a genuine historical difficulty, since both authors claim to be providing genealogies of Joseph. There have been numerous attempts to force them to agree, but it is much simpler to suggest that both Matthew and Luke knew Jesus to have been a descendent of David, and included genealogies to emphasize this point. There is no way of knowing whether either of them actually had access to authentic information from Jesus’ family).

But what then are we to make of the few places where Matthew and Luke agree against Mark? In some cases, this may be explained as being due to the fact that Mark and Q overlap. One example of this is the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, which Mark mentions briefly but which Matthew and Luke clearly know of from another, common source. However, in other cases there is no need to posit an overlap between Mark and Q: it is plausible that Matthew and Luke made similar ‘improvements’ to Mark’s grammar or other aspects of his narrative. Mark’s Greek and his style are often ‘unpolished’, and it is not surprising that, in changing what Mark wrote to better Greek, both Matthew and Luke would make the same or at least very similar changes. In other cases theological or other motives can explain what we see happening. A great example of this is Mark 12:8 and parallels. You will notice if you look at Matthew 21:39 and Luke 20:15 that both Matthew and Luke change the order of events found in Mark, to one that is far less obvious and logical than that found in Mark. How is this to be explained? Presumably both Matthew and Luke regarded the parable of the tenants as an allegory of Jesus’ rejection and execution in Jerusalem, and therefore they changed the order to fit the fact that Jesus was first taken outside the city (= the vineyard) and then killed. Here, we can see how concern to make earlier sayings and traditions more accurately ‘fit the facts’ of what actually happened could lead both Matthew and Luke to make similar changes to Mark, one of the two sources they both used.

A good passage to refer to in concluding our discussion of Matthew’s use of sources is Matthew 16:13-20. There, Matthew adds words praising Peter for his confession, which are not found in either Mark or Luke. Is it likely that either Mark or Luke, had they known Matthew’s version, would have changed it in such a way as to almost call into question the validity of Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Anointed One? Here once again we see that the most logical explanation is that Matthew used Mark, and that the material Matthew and Luke have in common is to be explained in terms of a common source rather than in terms of a literary interdependence between them. And thus we conclude that the ‘two source’ explanation of the Synoptic problem, while not without difficulties, is the most convincing explanation of the phenomena found in the Gospels. This explanation can be outlined as follows:

In other words, both Matthew and Luke used the same two sources, Mark and Q, and they did so independently of each other.

[For additional discussion of the question of Matthew’s sources and of the interrelatedness of the Synoptic Gospels, see the following books: John Riches, Matthew, Sheffield Academic Press, 1996, pp.19-28; Robert H. Stein, Studying the Synoptic Gospels (earlier editions may also be used, the title being The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987)]

Redaction Criticism

All of this information about sources Matthew is likely to use is hopefully interesting. But it is also relevant to the interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel. The way it can help is this: if we know (with reasonable certainty) that Matthew used Mark and ‘Q’ as sources, then we can compare Matthew to these two sources and, by seeing how he used his sources, work out what things he was trying to say and to emphasize. This is called ‘redaction criticism’, which means the careful, scientific study of the way an author edited or ‘redacted’ his sources.

What kinds of things can we learn about Matthew’s Gospel from redaction criticism? Well, one example might be Matthew’s emphasis on the fulfillment of Scripture. Of course, one can see this in Matthew’s Gospel without the help of redaction criticism: it is something repeated throughout the Gospel, and one does not need to compare Matthew to Mark and Luke to notice this feature. Yet it is certainly highlighted when one notices how Matthew inserts an emphasis on this point into material he has taken over from his sources. Take the following examples:

In the three examples given above, the part from Matthew that is placed in bold print is clearly Matthew’s addition to material he took over from his sources. And so by practicing redaction criticism and comparing Matthew to his sources, we can tell from his modification of the sources in question that one of his emphases is on the fulfillment of Scripture. And so, as we study Matthew, we will at times use this method to clarify what Matthew’s theological emphases are. In short, this is why knowledge of what sources Matthew used can help us interpret his Gospel: it highlights those places where Matthew has edited, rearranged, omitted, or supplemented the material he inherited, giving us thereby insights into his emphases and concerns. [For a detailed treatment of Matthew’s use and editing of his sources, see W. D. Davies and Dale Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew: Volume I, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988, pp.95-127].

Who was Matthew?

So far we have been using the name ‘Matthew’ to refer to both this Gospel and its author. However, unless one is tied in some way to the authority of church traditions on this matter, there is no reason not to ask the question “Do we really know who wrote this book?” The answer to that question is that no, we don’t, but we can know a lot about the author from the book that he wrote. So let’s now turn to examine this question about the evidence concerning the authorship of this Gospel.

The Gospel attributed to Matthew was one of the most popular in the early church, and in the earliest quotations from the Gospels there is a tendency to reflect Matthew’s form. It is generally assumed that it was some time during the first quarter of the second century that the Gospels were prefaced with the titles they now bear (that is, ‘According to Matthew’, ‘According to Mark’, etc.). The apparent uniformity of titles suggests that this was the case, since ‘According to X’ was not a usual way of referring to a book’s author. The earliest person in the history of the church to attribute a Gospel specifically to Matthew is Papias, who is usually thought to have written around 140 CE, although a date even as early as around 100 CE is not impossible. In fact, there is much that is uncertain about Papias and the information attributed to him, since we only know of what Papias wrote concerning the Gospel of Matthew through a quotation in Eusebius’ History of the Church, written in the 300s CE. [See the discussion in R. T. France, Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher, pp.53-60 for more information]. Papias wrote a phrase that is extremely difficult to translate and interpret, but which means something like “Matthew for his part compiled the oracles in the Hebrew (or Aramaic) language (or style), and each translated/interpreted them as best he could”. It is unclear from this what exactly Matthew wrote. ‘The oracles’ is not as difficult a phrase as it might first seem, since Papias called a book he wrote ‘An Interpretation of the Oracles of the Lord’, and so clearly ‘the oracles’ refers to the words and teaching of Jesus. The big question is whether he meant that Matthew wrote in a Semitic language (Hebrew or Aramaic) or a Hebrew style. If the former, then it could not be a reference to the Gospel we now know as Matthew, which shows no sign of being a translation. Most scholars, however, appear to favor the latter meaning, and this could well refer to Matthew as we now know it, since the style is accurately described as ‘Hebraic’ or ‘Jewish’.

But even if Papias was referring to the Gospel we now know as Matthew, should we take his word on the question of authorship? In fact, if we are correct in suggesting that Mark wrote first and Matthew used Mark, then there is one feature that seems to tell strongly against Matthew having been the author. For Matthew, who was supposedly an eyewitness, to have copied Mark’s account in its entirety would not be a major problem, but it is hard to see how he could have merely copied the account of his own calling! (See Matthew 9:9, cp. Mark 2:14) In fact, it is quite likely that Matthew 9:9 was the reason the early church attributed the Gospel to Matthew, assuming that it says ‘Matthew’ rather than ‘Levi’ because he was the author and preferred this name. There is thus every reason to think that the earliest church was guessing as to the author of the Gospel.

It is for this reason far better to focus on the internal evidence within the Gospel itself, and to see what if anything it may tell us about its author, either implicitly or explicitly. First, we may say that the author is writing for Greek-speakers. Matthew (we shall continue to call the author ‘Matthew’ for convenience) translates many of the Aramaic words that Mark simply transliterates into Greek letters. Yet Matthew shows definite concerns that indicate a largely Jewish (that is, Jewish-Christian) readership, such as his tendency to use ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ instead of ‘Kingdom of God’. Note also 10:5 and 15:24, where Jesus’ ministry is limited to the lost sheep of Israel (although his followers are to go to all nations). Matthew 23:3 enjoins obedience to those who sit on Moses’ seat, referring to the rabbinic/pharisaic authorities. Proper Christian behavior and piety are contrasted with the behavior of ‘Gentiles’ in 5:47 and 6:7 (see also 18:17). And note also Matthew 1:21, which is essentially unintelligible to someone who does not know Hebrew.

There is also a reference to what to do when bringing one’s gift to the altar in the Temple, suggesting that while the Temple in Jerusalem still stood, this community continued to frequent it. Jesus’ followers are to pray that their flight not be on a Sabbath day (24:20, a Matthean addition to Mark), suggesting that they continued to keep the Sabbath and would not travel more than a Sabbath-day’s journey even were there to be a war or other extenuating circumstances. We have every reason to conclude that the Jewish Christians who formed the foundation of the Christian community in and for which Matthew’s Gospel was written continued to keep the Law of Moses. The attitude of Jesus as presented in Matthew is that whereas one must focus on the ‘weightier matters of the Law’ (23:23), one should keep the details, the ‘jots and tittles’, as well. So presumably these Christians tithed their mint and cumin. Note too the difference between Mark 7:1-23 and the Matthean account of the same incident in Matthew 15:1-20 [On this see further Ulrich Luz, The Theology of the Gospel of Matthew, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p.15].

Yet alongside these features are statements like that that ‘the kingdom will be taken from you and given to a people who will bear fruit’ (21:43). Does this already suggest a concept of the church as a ‘separate people’ from Israel, the parting of the ways already having taken place? Matthew is the only Gospel author to use the term ‘church’ – perhaps this is one of the reasons. In contrast with Luke, Matthew’s view of the Pharisees is pretty much entirely negative. And so we seem to be dealing with a book that is written by a group of Jewish origin that does not quite feel at home within the context of the Synagogue. Had they already left, whether willingly or unwillingly, or were they still within it, in ongoing debate with the ‘scribes and Pharisees’ who feature so prominently in Matthew’s Gospel? It is really hard to say on the basis of the evidence of Matthew’s Gospel.

If we reject the tradition which says that Matthew the apostle wrote his Gospel in Hebrew in Jerusalem, then we are also left wondering about where the Gospel was written. While here it is to an extent even harder to attain certainty than in the case of authorship, there are a few clues that may prove to be important. First, there is the obvious general observation that this Gospel must have been written in a setting and region where there was a large Jewish population. Beyond this, two conflicting pieces of evidence provide the only clues that might lead us to a more specific milieu for the Gospel. One is Matthew’s interest in Syria, and perhaps in countering certain ‘Pauline’ ideas, which would fit well it having been written in Antioch in Syria. The church in Antioch for centuries to come was led by Christians who were scholars versed in Hebrew and the Jewish Scriptures, as well as in the study of the Gospels. But there is another piece of intriguing evidence, namely the fact that Matthew twice refers to ‘beyond Jordan’ as though Jerusalem and Judea are on the other side of it from him! (See Matthew 14:5 and 19:1). But as these two clues pull in different directions, this may force us to reckon with what should anyway have been a serious possibility: namely that the material now included in this Gospel was transmitted and edited over a long period of time, during which the Gospel’s author or maybe a number of the Christians for whom he wrote may have lived in Jerusalem, then perhaps they fled to Pella or another location in Transjordan after the outbreak of the Jewish war, and then settled in Antioch in Syria. But the only certainty is that the readership was predominantly Jewish and linked to a large Jewish community, yet their primary language (presumably in the home, and not just in trade or society in general) was Greek. It was presumably a city, since on a number of occasions Matthew changes ‘village’ in his source to ‘city’. Beyond this, we do not have enough evidence to draw any firm conclusions with any degree of certainty.

Can we know anything else about the community that produced this Gospel or for whom it was written? Certainly there are other clues. As we have already seen, they were a Law-observant Jewish-Christian community which either was in tense relations with the Synagogue leadership in their area, or had recently broken away from the Jewish community to form a sect, perhaps in a manner similar to the Qumran community, the Jewish group that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. But there is much in Matthew that indicates that this was not a group that would go away and withdraw into the wilderness. Also, we have already seen that this was an urban church. And they were not simply a Jewish-Christian community, but clearly had interest in mission to the Gentiles as well, as can be seen from the ‘Great Commission’ (see Matthew 28:19). This can also be seen in the mention of the pagan astrologers who come to worship the child Jesus (2:1-12). The reference to the world as a harvest field in 13:38 also probably indicates the same thing, namely that this community was interested in mission as something that reached non-Jews as well as Jews. Yet it is not to be neglected that, in view of their emphasis on the Law, their understanding of what mission to non-Jews entailed may have been very different from that of Paul’s.

Further, there are within the Gospel indications that it was a prosperous community. Matthew mentions ‘gold’ and ‘silver’ more times than Mark and Luke combined, and he regularly increases the value of amounts found in his sources. Where Mark contains a command for the disciples to take no copper coins with them (Mark 6:8), Matthew makes it ‘no gold, or silver, or copper coins’ (Matthew 10:9). Where Luke has a parable involving minas, Matthew increases it to talents (Luke 19:11-27; Matthew 25:14-30). And Matthew adds the remark that Joseph of Arimathea was “a rich man” who was a follower of Jesus (Matthew 27:57). In addition, it may not be insignificant that Matthew tones down the beatitude so that it speaks of being “poor in spirit”. [On this point see further Donald Senior, What Are They Saying about Matthew?, p.13] So, while we cannot reconstruct a complete history or detailed description of the community within and for which this Gospel was produced, we do have clues, and these may help us to better interpret Matthew’s Gospel.

When was Matthew’s Gospel written?

This is a subject about which it would be easy to speculate, but hard evidence is hard to come by. It is clear that some time had passed after the events described, since Matthew occasionally adds a comment that something is still there ‘to this day’ (11:12; 27:8; 28:15). This doesn’t need to imply more than a few decades, but it does set one limit for speculation at around 60 CE. On the other end we can say that the Gospel could not have been written much later than 100 CE, when allusions to the Gospel appear in other early Christian literature.

Can we narrow it down further? One place to look for clues is to see if there is any indication of knowledge of that traumatic watershed in Jewish history, the Jewish war that climaxed in 70 CE with the destruction of the Temple. Here, the evidence can be read in two ways. On the one hand, since we have seen Matthew’s willingness to ‘fix’ the version of the parable of the tenants found in Mark in order to make it agree with actual past historical events. This being the case, we might have expected Matthew to improve on the predictions relating to the destruction of the Temple and the flight of Jesus’ followers to agree with what actually happened (compare his account to Luke’s, which mentions Jerusalem surrounded by armies). Would Matthew have added the warning to pray that their flight not have to take place on a Sabbath day, if that event was already in the past anyway? Yet one must also consider passages such as Matthew 22:7, where the armies burning the city seems out of place in terms of the inner logic of the parable, but would fit what actually happened when the Romans sacked Jerusalem. On the whole, most scholars accept that a date after 70 CE is more likely. This would also place Matthew’s community and Gospel in the context of rabbinic Judaism as it sought to define and re-define itself in the aftermath of these tragic events. Prior to 70 CE, ‘rabbi’ was not a technical term for a trained scholar; after this turning point (and in particular after the (re)birth of rabbinic Judaism at Jamnia), this came to be the case (see Matthew 23:5-10). Rabbinic Judaism in this period, after the destruction of the Temple, also emphasized the words of Hosea the prophet, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6), and Matthew has a particular interest in Jesus’ understanding of this phrase, as contrasted with that of the Jewish leaders (see Matthew 9:13; 12:7). So it seems that the evidence supports the conclusion of Davies and Allison: “Matthew was almost certainly written between A.D. 70 and A.D. 100, and in all probability between A.D.80 and 95” (Matthew, p.138).

Literary criticism

In addition to looking at the Gospel of Matthew historically, trying to answer questions about the author’s community and setting, not to mention his identity, one can also look at the Gospel as a piece of literature. This approach does not entirely negate the importance of the author or his context, but it recognizes how little if anything we can know with real certainty about such matters. Thus, as for example in Garland’s commentary, such issues are for the most part left to one side, and focus is placed instead on the book we now have, known as the Gospel of Matthew. This book is what is certain, the argument goes, and it is therefore better to analyze this text rather than to speculate about its composition. There is certainly truth in this, and much is to be gained by taking a literary approach, but I for one cannot see how uncertainty about critical historical issues invalidates the work of historical criticism and study, any more than science is invalidated in searching for a cure for cancer even though it does not yet have the necessary resources and knowledge to accomplish the task. The task itself is worthwhile, and even if ideally in order to accomplish it one might have additional resources and information at one’s disposal, in fact there is much that can be learned and accomplished by those who undertake the task.

Be that as it may, literary approaches and historical approaches cannot really be undertaken simultaneously, because they ask different sorts of questions. And so, when you look at Matthew from a literary perspective, you will ask questions about the book, its narrative, its characters and the interaction between them, its plot, and the emphases of the narrator. These are things that lie accessible to us and to our study, within the text itself. Yet to establish, to give one example, the role Peter plays in Matthew’s narrative, does not tell you whether Peter as a historical figure ever said or did the things he is described as doing in Matthew’s narrative. To answer those questions, one must take a historian’s approach, comparing available historical documents and sources, discussing probabilities, and so on.

In short, a narrative or literary approach looks at the text and the story itself, while a historical approach seeks to dig behind the text and to look at questions like ‘what really happened?’ This may be illustrated as follows:

The Structure of Matthew’s Gospel

One question we may ask about Matthew’s Gospel from a literary perspective is about its structure. This is not to say that Matthew’s Gospel does not follow an apparently chronological narrative timeline, as one might expect in a biographical work. He certainly does: he begins with Jesus’ birth, and proceeds from there to his life, death, and resurrection. Within this narrative there are two key turning points to which Jack Kingsbury has drawn attention: In Matthew 4:17 and 16:21, Matthew tells us ‘From that time on Jesus began to…’ These points are like two hinges on which the narrative turns. The first turning point sums up and leads to Jesus’ public ministry of proclamation, teaching, healing, and exorcizing. The second ‘hinge’ introduces the idea of Jesus’ impending death and the cross and resurrection as central to his mission.

Yet alongside this consecutive narrative flow from beginning to end, there is also a thematic structural arrangement within Matthew. If we examine Matthew’s Gospel carefully, we find that it alternates back and forth between narrative and discourse. In fact, the teaching of Jesus is grouped into 5 main sections which group his teaching together along thematic lines. Some have even suggested that this may be intended to compare Jesus with Moses, to whom were attributed the first five books of the Bible, the ‘Pentateuch’. But it is impossible to know whether Matthew intended such symbolism: it is certainly not impossible, since (as we shall see in the coming lessons) Jesus is most definitely presented and portrayed as a ‘new Moses’ in Matthew’s Gospel. Be that as it may, the five sections of teaching are as follows:

[These designations are derived from Mark Allan Powell’s book, Fortress Introduction to the Gospels, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998, p.62; he has derived them, in turn, from the writings of other scholars]

Each discourse ends with the same Greek phrase, which in English is usually translated, “And it came to pass when Jesus had finished these sayings” (Matthew 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1).

Emphases of Matthew’s Gospel

We shall spend most of our time this semester looking at the earliest part of Matthew’s Gospel: the infancy narrative, the story of Jesus’ baptism and temptation, and the Sermon on the Mount. What we will find is that, by combining a literary approach with one that is informed by historical study and background information, we will see that the story of Jesus’ birth and the Sermon on the Mount are not simply timeless truths, spoken to no one in particular, which echo down the ages. As Matthew writes of the flight of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus into Egypt, or as he records the famous repeated phrase “You have heard it said…but I say to you”, he is making use of, alluding to, and interacting with ideas, issues, concepts, and literature that were known and familiar to Matthew’s contemporaries. Now obviously you do not have convenient access to documents that might provide you with background information. But Matthew very explicitly and emphatically refers to at least a particular group of writings that his contemporaries knew well and to which you also have access: the Jewish Scriptures, otherwise known as the Old Testament. Matthew emphasizes the fulfillment of Scripture all throughout his Gospel, and he gets off to quite a start in the infancy narrative. In total, Matthew includes nine OT proof texts not found in Mark or Luke (1:22-23; 2:15; 2:17-18; 2:23; 4:14-16; 8:17; 12:17-21; 13:35; 27:9-10). Each of these begin with a similar phrase: "this happened in Jesus' life to fulfill what the prophet had said". For next time, I want you to read Isaiah 7:1-8:18; Hosea 11:1-7; and Jeremiah 31:15-17, and to think about how Matthew’s use of quotations from these passages in the first two chapters of his book relate to the original contexts in which the quotations are found in the Old Testament.

But we shall leave such questions until next time. For today, let us be content to examine one of the least popular parts of Matthew, namely the opening genealogy. How many of you usually skip right over it? I can’t say that I blame you. Genealogies rarely interest people in North America, unless it is the genealogy of someone you know, and there are famous people in it. But Matthew’s genealogy would have been extremely interesting to his contemporaries. Perhaps the most interesting thing is that he included a genealogy at all, since he goes on to tell a story that indicates that Jesus wasn’t really Joseph’s son! But be that as it may, there are a number of interesting features to Matthew’s genealogy, ones that tell us something about his emphases.

1) The ‘book of genesis’: Matthew starts his book with the words ‘the book of the genesis/genealogy of Jesus Christ’. This phrase would have recalled the book of Genesis from the Jewish Scriptures, where (in the Greek translation, the Septuagint) the exact same words Matthew uses introduce genealogies in Genesis 2:4 and 5:1. There, of course, it refers to a list of descendents rather than a list of ancestors. But the phrase would still have tied this genealogy into others with which readers were familiar. One emphasis in this is that what God has done in and through Jesus is continuous with what he has done in the earlier history of humankind, and of the people of Israel in particular. By alluding to the book of Genesis, Matthew may also have wished the reader to hear overtones of ‘new creation’ as well.

2) The ‘fourteen’ generations: the number 14 is introduced artificially here. Matthew has to omit a number of names mentioned in the genealogies in the Jewish Scriptures, and in the last group of ‘14’ there aren’t in fact 14 names (since Jeconiah has already been counted in the second batch). The number is used, not because it represents an actual number of descendents, but because of its symbolic value. Hebrew (and likewise Greek) letters were also used as numbers, so words and names had numerical values. ‘14’ was the numerical value of David’s name, and so that is probably the main significance of Matthew’s introduction of the number here. In this sense the genealogy is quite artificial, and this should alert the reader that much of what is written may be included for its symbolic rather than its historical value. At any rate, the genealogy obviously emphasizes that Jesus is the Son of David, the ‘heir to the throne’ as it were. This is the first introduction of this, another theme that is important throughout the rest of the Gospel (in addition to 1:1, see also: 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30; etc.).

3) The women of Matthew’s genealogy: Today, Jewish lineage is traced through the mother. In Matthew’s time, it was traced through the father. Women were usually not mentioned unless there was some doubt about issues of paternity. This may be one reason that Mary is mentioned, but what about the other names? Matthew mentions four other women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (the wife of Uriah). Why do you think he mentions these women, and them in particular? One way to try to figure out the puzzle is to ask what all four of them have in common. Sometimes it is suggested that it was something to do with their sinfulness. This is chauvinistic: as though the various kings mentioned were any less sinful! Instead, asking what they have in common ought to lead us fairly quickly to the fact that they were all Gentiles. Tamar was a Canaanite. Rahab was too. Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and thus was implicitly a Gentile. And Ruth was a Moabite, a member of a nation who were permanently excluded from worshipping God in his holy place. Thus Matthew shows here his interest in the fact that God is including the Gentiles in his purposes in the present, and that this in fact ties in with what God had always been doing throughout the history of his people Israel. The women who appear in the genealogy are not just Gentiles, but righteous Gentiles; and as the Jewish Scriptures show, there has always been a place for such people in God’s purposes and in God’s people.

So we see that there is a lot that can be learned even from a genealogy, and in particular Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. It would have been a pity to rush on to more obviously interesting stuff, and to have missed these cues regarding the themes that will be important throughout the rest of Matthew’s Gospel. And of course, the break in the pattern that takes place in 1:16 prepares the reader for the narrative that is to follow. The way is prepared for the story of the virgin birth through this break in the pattern in the genealogy. Where one would have expected ‘Joseph begat Jesus’, we are told that Joseph was the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus. The reader would not have missed this in a culture in which parentage and lineage were so important. Was there some irregularity regarding the question of who Jesus’ father was? The genealogy thus also stirs the reader’s interest and prepares the way for what follows. And to that we shall turn…next time.

What is the relationship between the way Matthew uses these passages and their original contexts?

Matthew

What conclusions can we draw about the way Matthew is reading and interpreting these passages from the OT? Does he take texts out of context and make them ‘pretexts’? Or does he have presuppositions and some underlying logic so that his use of the OT would have made sense to him and his contemporaries and been recognized as intelligible and legitimate?