Introduction

Introduction

The Focus of This Commentary

Different commentaries emphasize differing primary concerns, such as redaction criticism (Gundry 1982), structuralism (Patte 1987), and the history of interpretation (Luz 1989; cf. idem 1994; Schnackenburg 1996). Without minimizing or excluding such concerns, this commentary focuses especially on two aspects of interpretation: analysis of the social-historical contexts of Matthew and his traditions on one hand, and pericope-by-pericope suggestions concerning the nature of Matthew’s exhortations to his Christian audience on the other. The latter aspect can be helpful today in that most readers of Matthew commentaries use them not simply to reconstruct early Christian history but to attempt to reapply Matthew’s instruction (or those of his traditions) to their own generation (or, in the case of scholars, often to teach those who will do so).

But if there is to be any degree of analogy between the early Christians’ wisdom and that of their modern interpreters, we must take into account the historical context not only in which but also to which they communicated their message. Such a context naturally shaped the form of their message, suggesting the importance of my first focus for my second. Intrinsic study of the text is more essential to understanding the text than extrinsic analysis, but most users of commentaries will require more assistance with extrinsic data.¹ This social-historical study of Matthew will include some attention to the rhetoric both of his Gospel (especially in terms of genre, forms, and narrative techniques) and of its traditions, as well as to historical matters made relevant to a study of Matthew by Matthew’s genre (see below).

Yet our information concerning the precise social situation the First Gospel addresses is quite limited.² For this reason, the social situation of the earliest traditions behind the Gospel sometimes provide more fertile ground for exploration. Even if we cannot reconstruct the precise social situation of Matthew or his traditions, the general social context is far more accessible for both. Most of Matthew’s traditions probably reflect the same general eastern Mediterranean, perhaps Syrian, Jewish milieu as that in which Matthew writes. Comparing the issues Matthew addresses with what we know of the historical situation of Jewish-Christian relations in the late first century provides us a basic picture of what issues he must have considered relevant for his community, but to move too far beyond that basic picture into details is necessarily speculative.³ Given modern readers’ cultural remove from the first-century eastern Mediterranean world, however, background from the larger milieu remains helpful even where we cannot reconstruct more precisely the details of Matthew’s particular situation.

A detailed analysis of how Matthew uses his tradition would require a full-scale commentary devoted largely to redaction-critical concerns (like Gundry’s massive 1982 work), which is not the primary focus of this commentary. At the same time, given the Gospel’s basic genre, Matthew’s literary method is inseparable from his presuppositions as a biographer/historian, so I will often pause to explore historical questions behind particular Matthean sections or pericopes, interacting to some degree with contemporary Jesus research.

Because ancient biography normally included some level of historical intention, historical questions are relevant in evaluating the degree to which Matthew was able to achieve the intention his genre implies. This does not require us to demand a narrow precision regarding details, a precision foreign to ancient literature, but to evaluate the general fidelity of substance.⁴ (Ironically, however, Matthew remains closer to the earliest sources than we are, so any attempt to evaluate his success demands some humility.)⁵ My most striking discovery while writing this commentary was how often Matthew “re-Judaizes” his sources, probably mostly on the basis of concrete Palestinian, Jewish-Christian oral traditions. (This re-Judaizing is all the more noticeable in view of Matthew’s frequent abridgment of Mark.) I suspect that Matthew remains closer to the earliest strata of tradition than has often been supposed.

The purpose of this commentary does not allow me to summarize and interact in detail with all secondary sources on Matthean research.⁶ At the same time, to make this commentary as useful as possible to students who wish to pursue their own research further, I have cited as much of the secondary literature as is feasible where it proves most relevant.⁷ The brevity with which I have cited many sources does not permit the fine nuancing of detailed interaction, nor in most cases the opportunity to list both strengths and weaknesses of various works. Nevertheless, I have provided them for the reader’s further exploration. It should be understood that, as in most scholarly work, disagreement with any author on a particular point does not indicate criticism of that author’s scholarship in general, nor is the reader obliged or expected to concur with all the exegetical decisions reflected in this commentary.

I have often chosen to include far more citations than necessary for the point in the text because scholars and seminarians who use this commentary will thereby have access to much more information, which they can then expand in research articles and papers, than I could include in other than such summary fashion. (In lecturing I prefer to illustrate my points with some concrete ancient examples, usually the more graphic or entertaining; but here I frequently list instead multiple references for those who may wish to investigate more sources for themselves.) Naturally those who wish to make use of a commentary without such documentation (like my lighter Matthew commentary for the InterVarsity New Testament Commentary series) will generally simply ignore it. Where possible, I have tried to provide primary sources that have not been available in other commentaries, although in the interest of thoroughness I have also followed other commentators at many points (noted in the commentary where space permits); because a significant percentage of my sources do not appear in earlier commentaries I hope that this commentary will contribute to further research.

The focus of this commentary will lie in understanding the lessons Matthew’s Gospel may provide his first-century, predominantly Jewish-Christian community. That is, rather than merely providing various bits of information related to details in verses of Matthew’s text, I will subsume as much of the detailed information as possible under the larger lessons or morals found in each of Matthew’s narrative units. This attempt is somewhat more precarious and less certain than simply placing various items within the text in their social-historical context.

Nevertheless, looking for the text’s lessons fits the genre and purpose for which Matthew undoubtedly wrote it. Ancient narrators regularly sought to teach morals or lessons through their narratives;⁸ some historians explicitly listed as central to their purposes for writing history both the desire to praise the virtuous and the urge to spur others to emulate them (Dion. Hal. 1.6.3-5). Others stated that history tells about a nation’s greatness and provides models one may imitate (Livy 1, pref. 10). Understanding why events happened could allow statesmen to use such historical accounts as precedents or models (paradeigasin — Dion. Hal. 5.56.1),⁹ just as early Christians (1 Cor 10:11) and other early Jews (Philo Abr. 4) used Israelite Scripture. Some biographers and historians emphasized moral lessons more than others, or even varied the level within their own works according to their sources.¹⁰ But among the various overlapping purposes for biographies, praising the subject, using his life as an example, and teaching ethics were common. Many philosophers and politicians employed historical biographies as propaganda in apologetic or polemical situations (Burridge 1992: 80, 149-51, 185-88); official writers also tended to reflect positively on their political or economic patrons (cf. Josephus’s pro-Flavian propaganda in, e.g., Saulnier 1991; cf. his portrayal of pagan rulers in Feldman 1993e; 1994a).

The Gospels demonstrate features consonant with such purposes, including the early Christian use of Jesus as a moral example (Phil 2:5; 1 Pet 2:21; 1 Jn 2:6). Matthew probably provides the clearest example of this purpose; his “intention to provide a ‘paradigm’ for discipleship is noted by many redaction critics” (Burridge 1992: 214-15).¹¹ Contemporary literary criticism has properly demonstrated the limitations of endeavoring to infer the author’s “intention” from a text. At the same time, the implied author has given us enough explanations and thematic clues throughout the narrative for us to observe his general didactic method.¹²

Thus, when I infer the lessons Matthew or his tradition may have been preaching from the stories and teachings in this Gospel, I extrapolate on the basis of his rhetorical method to the kinds of lessons I believe Matthew would at least affirm to be consistent with his purpose.¹³ This step can help bridge the gap between traditional exegesis and modern sermon or Bible study preparation, which I suspect also returns more consistently to the purpose for which Matthew recorded his Gospel (cf. 28:19). That is, when we consider the contexts in which Matthew’s exhortations find their greatest relevance, we are better positioned to hear the true force of his exhortations. Others will undoubtedly note didactic principles I have missed and question some of those that I think I have found; the historical question of what the writers intended and their audiences inferred is always more hypothetical than the much broader possibilities of what could be inferred in any given historical context. Nevertheless, I hope that this commentary will point readers toward further fruitful explorations of their own into Matthew’s probable didactic methods.

Relevant Social Contexts

Because we cannot locate Matthew’s community or communities with absolute certainty, reconstructing specific settings remains hypothetical. Where patterns emerge consistently in specifically Matthean emphases, we may infer the sorts of community needs Matthew was addressing, but the fruits of such inferences are usually more slender than a historian would like. Reconstructing the general milieu of the eastern Mediterranean, however, sheds much light on how Matthew’s first readers (vis-à-vis modern readers) would approach his Gospel. Even if we knew the precise location, variables like social class and prevailing ideologies in the particular synagogue and church communities there might elude us, but a general knowledge of antiquity provides more of the data Matthew and his first audience would have assumed than a purely modern reading of the text would.

For such reasons as these, I have drawn from as wide a range of sources as possible.¹⁴ Diverse Greek and Roman sources often attest to customs or ideas that had long before begun to permeate society in general. No one can read Josephus, Egyptian Jewish papyri, or many documents widely circulated among first-century Jews (like the Wisdom of Solomon or 2 Maccabees) without recognizing that Judaism, even Palestinian Judaism, was part of a broader Mediterranean social world. Although sources depicting Jewish life in Syria-Palestine may therefore be most directly helpful (especially when considering Jesus’ Galilean ministry), other sources that place that life in its broader eastern Mediterranean context will also be helpful (especially when considering how Matthew’s audience would have understood his work). A wide variety of ancient narratives, from distant genres like widely circulated epics of the past to nearer ones like history and especially biography, shed light on Matthew’s narrative techniques.

None of the specific Jewish sources on which this commentary depends is without some problems. For example, Josephus, one of my most important sources, is early and adequately broad, but as frequently as possible he translates native Jewish ideas into broader hellenistic categories to make them more intelligible (and acceptable) to his milieu. (Philo carries this process still further, and, while providing one helpful perspective on how hellenistically educated aristocratic Jews in Alexandria could think, must be counterbalanced by other sources closer to Jesus’ usual milieu.) The Dead Sea Scrolls are early, Palestinian, and in many respects analogous to early Christianity (although the latter never segregated themselves physically from the larger Jewish society), but they represent particular sectarian perspectives that do not always indicate the sentiments of common Judaism. Rabbinic texts preserve many customs and ideas that appear in the broader culture, but when unparalleled in other Jewish texts must be employed with greater caution because even the earliest texts stem from a period after their particular segment of Judaism had achieved some measure of power, in contradistinction to the first-century situation.¹⁵

Given the limitations of using any single pool of ancient data, the safest way to reconstruct a knowledge of the general milieu in which Jesus lived, in which Palestinian Jewish Christians transmitted the traditions, and in which Matthew wrote, is to look for customs and ideas within the widest possible frame of sources. Thus if third-century rabbis, the Qumran sect, and a second-century Roman novel all inadvertently attest a common practice, we may guess that some form of this practice widely permeated ancient Mediterranean society. Standard logic can also be helpful; whereas some later Jewish texts contain likely Christian interpolations,¹⁶ other texts bear no signs of direct or indirect Christian influence, suggesting that the Christian practice reflects the influence of the Jewish custom rather than the reverse. Thus dependence on the widest possible range of sources seems the safest method for reconstructing Matthew’s general milieu (even if not always his local situation).

Nor is the function of a given “parallel” necessarily self-evident. Parallels in wording can represent coincidence (especially if one has large samples of nonparallel texts in the collection from which the parallel text derives), reflections of a common milieu, analogous function within a common milieu, linguistic influence, allusion, deliberate contrast, or deliberate quotation.¹⁷ Thus, although I sometimes simply list citations to keep the commentary to a workable size, I usually endeavor to emphasize how they shed light on a Matthean text. At the same time, my attention to Matthew itself has not permitted me to digress here into questions of dating, textual problems, and so forth in each text I cite, because of the limits of a one-volume commentary.¹⁸ Some sources are more valuable than others, but I have listed the broadest range of sources, trusting that those readers who pursue further work with those sources will already have or will acquire adequate competence in those sources.¹⁹

Questions of Interpretation

Before treating other questions, it is important to survey various methods traditionally employed in critical works on the Gospels. A brief treatment of these methods is relevant here because these methods inform this commentary to some degree, although the space limitations and purpose of this work have led me to focus especially on social-historical methods and social-historical information less accessible to most readers of commentaries.²⁰

Source Criticism

As nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars sought to test the historical reliability of the Gospels, their attention naturally turned to source criticism.²¹ Source criticism asks the question: What written sources might the author of a Gospel have used? Scholars who study Greco-Roman literature have increasingly recognized the weaknesses of traditional source criticism (e.g., Whittaker 1969: lxi-lxii), but the criteria appear somewhat more objective in Matthew, where we probably retain evidence for at least two of Matthew’s sources. Although various source theories have come and gone, the majority of scholars today agree that Matthew used Mark, “Q” (i.e., a source shared by Luke), and some other material not employed by Mark or Luke. Scholars commonly call this view the “Two-Source Hypothesis.”

While this remains the general consensus, however, scholars are no more unanimous on this subject than on most others. Following the older Griesbach Hypothesis, some able scholars have made a defensible case that Mark used Matthew rather than the reverse (e.g., Farmer 1964), and their case merits fair consideration in modern scholarship.²² But because so much of Mark appears in Matthew and Luke, most scholars remain convinced that Matthew and Luke both used Mark and at least one other source they shared in common (see Senior 1983: 17-19; Davies and Allison 1988: 98-114). Consistent patterns appear in Matthew’s abbreviation of Mark (Davies and Allison 1988: 73-74),²³ and Matthew uses an eclectic text-type for his Old Testament quotations except where he overlaps with Mark, in which case he tends to follow Mark in employing the Septuagint (see Gundry 1975: 9-28; cf. Stanton 1993: 353-63).²⁴

Most scholars also agree that Matthew shared with Luke another source (e.g., Davies and Allison 1988: 115-24), which is nicknamed Q (probably from the German Quelle, “source,” which Weiss abbreviated to “Q” in 1890) for lack of a better name (Stanton 1995a: 63). Here, too, scholarship lacks complete unanimity. Although some write as if they are very certain about the substance and extent of Q (e.g., Edwards 1975; Mack 1988: 84; idem 1993), most scholars express skepticism about the degree of certainty to which it can be reconstructed.²⁵ Still others have debated even its existence as a conplete document (e.g., Burkitt 1907: 123; Dodd 1961: 39; idem 1968: 70). While most view Q as a complete document (e.g., Schweizer 1971: 124-25; Tuckett 1996: 1-39), some envision it as purely oral tradition (e.g., Betz 1968: 22), and still others as a composite of sources (e.g., Petrie 1959; Perry 1920: 11). Some dispense with Q altogether, suggesting that Luke (some here add Mark) simply used Matthew;²⁶ this final view, however, remains a distinct (though respectable) minority position (see Martin 1956; Grant 1965; Tuckett 1984).²⁷ Q was probably also edited a number of times, and the Gospel writers probably employed Q in various stages of its editing (cf. Koester 1982: 2:46).

But since Matthew and Luke often follow Q in the same sequence (with Tuckett 1996: 34-39; the divergences to which Ellis 1991: 35 points are minor and explained by Matthew’s penchant for rearrangement), I concur with the most common theory about Q: it probably represents a single prominent written source. Although I acknowledge weaknesses in this position (and probably interaction with continuing oral tradition at every stage of writing), this commentary will begin from the basic Two-Source Hypothesis. Because the Q collection was probably edited in the 40s, less than two decades after the events it describes (Theissen 1991: 203-34, especially 220-21, 230-32; pace Mack 1988: 84), we may assume a high degree of reliability for its traditions. In contrast to the arguments of some who radically distinguish Q from other elements of early Christianity, its theology resembles that of other early Christian documents (see, e.g., Meadors 1992; Keener 1995; for future eschatology, see Tuckett 1996: 139-63).

Because Matthew follows Mark and Q closely (by ancient literary standards) where we can check him, the assumption held by many scholars that he simply invents material where we cannot check him (traditionally loosely called “M” material, though no longer held to represent a single source) appears to be simply imagination run amuck.²⁸ His basically conservative editing at most points will impress one if one begins with neither a thoroughgoing skepticism nor a naive fundamentalism, but the standards of ancient texts in general. As Witherington puts it (1994: 214), Matthew

takes over more than 90% of his Markan source (606 out of 661 Markan verses), while Luke takes over only a little over 50%. The difference in degree of word for word appropriation of Mark in the pericopes and sayings that Matthew and Luke take over is minimal. Luke uses about 53% of Mark’s exact words in the material culled from that source, while the First Evangelist uses about 51% of Mark’s exact words of the 606 verses he appropriates. This means that Luke and the First Evangelist are about equally likely to preserve the exact wording of their source, and they do so about half the time.

So “conservative” is Matthew’s editing by ancient standards that Witherington suspects that Matthew “very likely saw himself as primarily an editor or redactor, not an author” (1994: 343).²⁹ Even if this suggestion overstates the case (Matthew edited his Gospel so tightly that it surely functions as a unified whole), many changes that Matthew makes in some of his sources depend on information his other sources supply.³⁰ Thus Matthew sometimes “corrects” ambiguities in Mark (e.g., Mt 12:3-4//Mk 2:25-26; Mt 3:3//Mk 1:2-3; Mt 14:1//Mk 6:14); sometimes he re-Judaizes his language (“kingdom of heaven/God”; Mt 19:3, 9//Mk 10:2, 11-12); and at least on some occasions he makes his changes because of early tradition older than Mark (Mt 12:28//Lk 11:20; missing in Mk 3:23-29).

At the same time, Matthew’s relative conservatism need not render all his sources of equal historical worth; and where the sources were oral, Matthew may have exercised greater freedom in their retelling.³¹ At any rate, Matthew’s community certainly had other Palestinian traditions besides Mark and Q, and these traditions had undoubtedly been interacting with Mark and Q long before he wrote his Gospel (Meier in Brown and Meier 1983: 55).³² From the earliest period, Mediterranean storytellers regularly drew on a much larger body of oral traditions; for example, though countless allusions in Homer (e.g., Od. 12.69-72) were developed later, they are often so incomplete by themselves that it is clear that Homer alludes to commonly known fuller stories that he does not record.

Form Criticism

Because the early Christians told and retold the stories about Jesus orally before writing Gospels, scholars also began to ask about the way the early Christians transmitted them, and developed form criticism (see, e.g., Duling and Perrin 1994: 16-20; Carson, Moo, and Morris 1992: 21-25). Many form critics noted that Jesus used teaching forms popular among his contemporaries (such as parables and witty sayings), and that early Christians transmitted Jesus’ sayings and deeds in forms used by other biographers and storytellers of their day. Some form critics started with skeptical presuppositions and consequently produced studies with predictably skeptical conclusions (e.g., Bultmann 1968); others started with less skeptical premises and produced more favorable conclusions (e.g., Dibelius 1971; Jeremias 1971; Taylor 1935).

The conclusions differed in part because of the varying premises with which different scholars started, and in part because flaws existed in the standard methodology (see Sanders 1969). Some criteria for authenticity that form critics developed were, however, reasonable; for instance, a saying of Jesus attested in a variety of independent sources or which would not have been made up by the later church was probably authentic. At the same time, although these criteria could logically help to verify traditions, they could not logically help to falsify them; one could hardly assume that a saying of Jesus preserved only once or that his followers agreed with must be inauthentic! In other words, the best criteria of form criticism work much better to demonstrate the reliability of the Gospels than to argue the reverse (see France 1976).

The abuse of these criteria has led to pure speculation grounded only in preexisting theories about the development of early Christianity (so Wright 1992a: 341-42). In a post-Schweitzer period of skepticism about the historical Jesus, Bultmann and many other New Testament scholars focused on the early communities that transmitted reports about Jesus, which they thought might prove more fruitful historically. But this approach has proved ironic, for we know far less about the earliest transmitting communities than we know about the historical Jesus (Wright 1992a: 342).³³

Redaction Criticism

While source and form criticism were sometimes helpful in understanding the nature of Jesus’ teachings and the way the Gospels are written, scholars asked these questions mainly to test the Gospel stories’ reliability, not to understand the Gospels’ message. Inevitably scholars began to ask, “Given that Matthew used Mark and Q, why does Matthew edit Mark and Q the way he does? What is Matthew’s point?” This question became the focus of the editorial critics, generally called redaction critics.³⁴

More sober controls eventually checked the early excesses of some redaction critics. Some early redaction critics assumed that any material Matthew or Luke added to their main sources was not historical; this view stemmed not from the method, however, but from some unlikely presuppositions, namely, that Matthew and Luke had no other information available except in Mark and Q, and that editing a source for literary style or theological emphasis renders one’s information unhistorical.³⁵ The probable presence of substantial traditional material in Matthew besides Mark and Q weakens the premises of stylistic analysis (Jones 1995: 13-14).³⁶ Further, characteristic diction or style does not make elements ahistorical (see Payne 1983: 209); indeed, writers could openly acknowledge their stylistic redaction of earlier sources even for purely aesthetic reasons (Phaedrus 2, prol. 8-12). Current scholarship thus practices its redaction criticism more carefully, though it would be a mistake to abandon the method’s insights altogether (Stanton 1993: 23).

Other redaction critics focused on the Gospel writers’ theology, preferring more conservative historical conclusions or leaving historical questions aside (e.g., Marshall 1970; Martin 1972; cf. Osborne 1991: 169-70). By focusing on how Matthew consistently edits his sources, one can observe some of his emphases, which in turn helps one interpret more obscure passages in light of his whole Gospel (cf., e.g., Gundry 1982: 624-25). This tool can provide checks on scholarly imagination concerning Matthew’s emphases (Jones 1995: 33). The Gospel writers’ contemporaries, such as Josephus, noticeably exercised a degree of both freedom and fidelity in their handling of biblical history (see, e.g., Begg 1996), and one would expect the Gospels to represent the same mixture, albeit not necessarily in the same degree of each. Luther apparently considered concern over divergences among the sources on points of detail a pedantic exercise (Stanton 1995a: 8); modern historians of the period regularly mine various ancient historians for data despite divergences among them (e.g., Whittaker 1969: xlv-lii).

Although I have exercised severe restraint in making redactional observations due to this commentary’s focus and length and the potentially competing literary or theological explanations for most changes Matthew makes in his sources, one important social-rhetorical pattern has emerged. Where possible, Matthew has made Mark’s Jesus “more Jewish.” That is, where Mark adapted Jesus to a broader (more “universal”) Greco-Roman audience, Matthew has consistently re-Judaized Jesus. In some cases, Matthew may have been following the rhetorical practices of speech-in-character and historical verisimilitude,³⁷ making Jesus fit what was known about him in general (e.g., as a Jewish teacher, he should have introduced parables with the sorts of formulas used by Jewish teachers; he may have used “kingdom of heaven”); and, given Matthew’s proximity to Jesus’ situation, his guesses are more apt to be correct than ours. In other cases, however, I am reasonably sure that Matthew has re-Judaized Jesus based on solid traditions available to him. Some of these may be more Palestinian (e.g., 27:51-53) but not necessarily more historical than Mark (so Brown 1994: 59-60); others may actually represent the original oral traditions behind Mark or some other materials shared with Luke. Thus the Didache regularly cites some of this pre-Matthean tradition, sometimes material attested nowhere else but in Matthew (e.g., Blomberg 1995: 42; cf. Draper 1984).³⁸

Such revision should not surprise us; Matthew elsewhere “corrects” Mark’s adaptations for Gentile readers to accord better with historical data available to him (see especially Theissen 1991: 88n.70, who concludes that Matthew here improves Mark’s historical accuracy). Matthew and Luke occasionally add the same material from oral tradition or from Q where Mark has omitted something (e.g., Mt 12:28//Lk 11:20), further indicating Matthew’s readiness to adapt Mark on the basis of prior tradition. At times Matthew also demonstrates a more sensitive understanding of Palestinian Jewish nuances than Luke or his tradition (Vermes 1993: 153-54; cf., e.g., Mt 19:3//Mk 10:2) or at least a more sensitive understanding of how his Jewish audience would be able to hear Jesus’ original message as he has reconstructed it. (Omission of Mark’s Aramaic might be for purely stylistic reasons, since some Roman teachers similarly often disapproved of including foreign terms in a Latin composition, e.g., [Virgil] Catalepton 7.) Vermes is thus correct to argue that Matthew has preserved much of the special Jewish coloring of Jesus, which fits with our picture of Jesus in undeniably authentic traditions (1993: 17-19).

At the same time, Matthew also fills the story of Jesus with fresh insights, interpreting the Jesus tradition with an abundance of intentional overt and covert biblical allusions (Allison 1993b: 139) that should have been intelligible to his Jewish audience (cf. Vermes 1993: 186). His explicit fulfillment quotations derive from whole sections of the Old Testament that early Christians had already applied to Jesus (Gundry 1975: 205-8), perhaps on principles drawn from Jesus’ own teaching (Gundry 1975: 213-14; cf. Lk 24:25-27, 44-47). Matthew often builds on a typological scheme, recognizing analogies in God’s work in history (see Longenecker 1975: 141-42). Nevertheless, it is more likely that Matthew generally finds such analogies already present in his tradition than that he creates them simply to fulfill the Old Testament; otherwise we would have to expect far more new fulfillment material than we in fact have, with far less of it beyond the special Matthean material overlapping with Mark and Luke. We would also expect his narratives to conform more closely to the citations and expect Matthew to have chosen more obvious citations (see comment on the infancy narratives).

Contemporary Literary Criticism

Because redaction criticism’s focus was in locating the Gospel writers’ emphasis, redaction-critical questions naturally led to a new set of questions that were more concerned with the points the Gospel writers sought to convey than with their historical accuracy or attempts to reconstruct a history of tradition behind an extant text. The 1970s began to expose more of the weaknesses of traditional redactional assumptions (e.g., that all changes were theologically motivated and that what writers change is more significant than what they retain), paving the way for a more wholistic interpretation of each Gospel (see Spencer 1993: 385-86; cf. Jones 1995: 7-16). Scholarship also increasingly recognized that the traditional redactional attempt to explain every emphasis in the Gospel by reconstructing hypothetical external referents represented simply a new form of allegorization (Anderson 1996: 248; Watson 1998).³⁹

Redaction criticism thus gave way to “composition criticism,” which examines themes that run through each Gospel and asks, “What does this Gospel mean as a whole?”⁴⁰ (Earlier formalist literary critics like T. S. Eliot and C. S. Lewis emphasized discovering meaning from the text itself rather than from something extrinsic to it; unfortunately, Gospels scholarship had remained decades behind trends in literary criticism in general.) Narrative criticism adds characterization, plot, and perspective (matters that also concerned ancient readers, e.g., Arist. Poetics 15, 1454a) to the thematic pursuits of composition criticism (Powell 1992; Bauer and Powell 1996: 9-10).

More recent literary approaches such as structuralism and reader-response criticism have approached texts for their transcultural literary themes or to examine how current readers in various interpretive communities interpret texts.⁴¹ Although various forms of literary criticism adopt different methodologies, they all point beyond layers of tradition behind the text, whether to the text itself (as in the older formalism) or to the act of reading the text from various social locations or interpretive frameworks (as in various reader-response orientations). In contrast to some modern literary critics, Matthean scholars usually embrace the various interpretive strategies as complementary rather than contradictory (Bauer and Powell 1996: 25).

But though literary questions are essential, not all literary approaches are equally helpful for a given purpose. My aim is to reconstruct as well as possible what Matthew endeavored to communicate to his readers in their shared historical and social context (which, on almost all views, is at least one important goal in interpretation — see Allison 1993b: 3; Ashton 1991: 113). Focusing on this approach is not intended to devalue other approaches that remain outside this focus. Thus, for example, as helpful as hearing a text from a first-time reader’s perspective may be, it was probably not the dominant reading experienced in the earliest Christian communities. Matthew’s audience probably knew Mark, and probably listened to Matthew in segments (Stanton 1993: 76), and Matthew probably expected his audience to hear his Gospel more than once. Reading Matthew as a narrative whole, however, is fully in keeping with his Gospel’s biographical genre (Burridge 1998: 127).

Social-Historical and Sociological Interpretation

Although the extant evidence is incomplete, it is adequate to allow us to reconstruct a general first-century Mediterranean setting more relevant to the original constructions of Matthew than are our own contemporary settings, which we might otherwise presuppose. Asking social-historical questions is therefore essential, provided we acknowledge the requisite limitations imposed by incomplete knowledge of some matters.

This commentary involves less application of more direct social-sciences approaches, however, except in interacting with works that employ them as their primary method. Such approaches can be quite helpful in reconstructing the social context by extrapolation (often on the basis of cultures with some social patterns more like the culture we study than our own is) where our evidence is limited. Nevertheless, the assurance of modern interpreters’ conclusions must remain constrained to some degree by the limitations of our data. Current sociological and anthropological scholarship emphasizes that models must function heuristically, and be adjusted or discarded where they do not fit the hard data.⁴² In all cases, then, I will give preference to hard data from archaeological or literary sources over extrapolations from models or generalized cultural patterns, helpful as the latter can sometimes be.

Above all, Matthew invites his audience to hear the Gospel in the context of the early Christian message: his central discourse is emphatic that only those who press close as persistent disciples of the kingdom can truly understand the message of the kingdom (13:11-23). Matthew’s Jewish-Christian community, rooted both in the new message of the kingdom and the broader context of Israel’s ancient kingdom story (13:52), held a special advantage.

Matthew as Biography

Readers approach different works with different expectations, which affect the meanings they construct on those texts (see Shuler 1982: 25-28; Hirsch 1967: 68-126). Expectations also affected the way ancient readers approached works, and many ancients no less than contemporary literary theorists recognized this principle. Thus ancient writers distinguished literary forms from one another (Theon Progymn. 2.5-33), and on a larger level one genre from another (see Burridge 1992: 27-29, 34), though then, as today, writers in practice mixed categories (Burridge 1992: 56-57, 61; Aune 1981: 10-11, 48; idem 1987: 83).

What kinds of questions would ancient readers expect a work like Matthew to answer? Scholars have offered various proposals concerning the genre into which a Gospel like Matthew falls. Some writers have said that the Gospels are “unique” (e.g., Hennecke 1963: 1:80; Riesenfeld 1970: 2), but in whatever sense this description might be true (cf. Jones 1995: 43, 169; Guelich 1991), it is not very helpful in informing us how the first readers would have approached them.⁴³ Indeed, while the Gospels are in some sense distinct from other kinds of narrative, they are also distinct from each other (Marxsen 1969: 150). K. L. Schmidt’s view that the Gospels are popular or “folk literature” of the lower classes (Schmidt 1923; also, e.g., Kümmel 1965: 37) is equally unhelpful and at the same time inaccurate. Schmidt’s “high” literature actually influenced “folk” literature, rendering clear-cut distinctions questionable (Burridge 1992: 11, 153; Aune 1987: 12, 63; Downing 1988c). Further, the Gospels themselves vary in levels of audience expectation (e.g., Luke is far more conscious of considerations of classical style than Mark — Koester 1982: 1:108). Finally, biographies appear at both ends of the continuum (Tacitus’s Agricola versus the popular Life of Aesop).

Readers throughout most of history understood the Gospels as biographies (Stanton 1989a: 15-17), but after 1915 scholars tried to find some other classification for them, mainly because these scholars compared ancient and modern biography and noticed that the Gospels differed from the latter (Talbert 1977: 2-3; cf. Mack 1988: 16n.6).⁴⁴ The current trend, however, is again to recognize the Gospels as ancient biographies.⁴⁵ The most complete statement of the question to date comes from a Cambridge monograph by Richard A. Burridge. After carefully defining the criteria for evaluating genre (1992: 109-27) and establishing the characteristic features of Greco-Roman “lives” (128-90), he demonstrates how the canonical Gospels fit this genre (191-239). The trend to regard the Gospels as ancient biography is currently strong enough for British Matthew scholar Graham Stanton to characterize the skepticism of Bultmann and others about the biographical character of the Gospels as “surprisingly inaccurate” (1993: 63; idem 1995: 137).⁴⁶

Ancient biographers did not write the way modern biographers do; they could start in the subject’s adulthood (so Mark or Life of Aesop); they also had the freedom to rearrange their material topically rather than in chronological sequence (4 Macc 12:7; Aune 1987: 31-32; Stanton 1974: 119-21). Further, like other writers they could expand or abridge accounts freely (2 Macc 2:24-25; Theon Progymn. 3.224-40; 4.37-42, 80-82).⁴⁷ Thus Matthew often abridges Mark, probably sometimes because of considerations of length.⁴⁸ Historians likewise wrote history differently than most historians do today. Where biographers and historians lacked access to definite historical sources, they simply tried to construct as reasonable an account as they could (Plut. Theseus 1.3; Aune 1987: 83). Nevertheless, it appears that even more frequently ancient writers, like modern ones, cited the divergent sources, sometimes preferring one source but at other times leaving the decision to the reader (Diog. Laert. 1.23; 6.113; 8.2.67-72; Paus. 2.5.5; 2.26.3-7; Plut. Lycurgus 1.1; Diod. Sic. 5.70.1; Dion. Hal. 1.84.4; 1.87.4; 3.35.1-4; 8.79.1; Suet. Tib. 5; Appian R.H. 11.9.56; 12.1.1; Livy 9.44.6; 23.19.17; 25.11.20; 25.17.1-6; 42.11.1; Arrian Alex. 1, pref. 1-3; 3.3.6; 4.9.2-3; 4.14.1-4; 5.3.1; 5.14.4; 6.2.4; 7.14.2; 7.27.1-3; Corn. Nep. 7 [Alcibiades], 11.1; 9 [Conon], 5.4; Herodian 7.9.4; 7.9.9; Contest of Homer and Hesiod 323; Parthenius L.R. 11.1-3; 14.5; p. Soṭa 9:13, §2). (That the Gospels do not list divergent sources may result from the recentness of the events they narrate, which have not yet generated such widely divergent traditions in the apostolic circle. This observation would be consistent with works reporting relatively recent events.) But though such historians did not always write the way we write history today, they were clearly concerned to write history as well as their resources allowed (Jos. Ant. 20.156-57; Arist. Poetics 9.2-3, 1451b; Diod. Sic. 21.17.1; Dion. Hal. 1.1.2-4; 1.2.1; 1.4.2; cf. Mosley 1965).⁴⁹

Although the historical accuracy of biographers varied from one biographer to another, biographers intended biographies to be essentially historical works (see Aune 1988: 125; Witherington 1994: 339; cf. Polyb. 8.8).⁵⁰ Although the biographical genre differs from that of history, shared interests between them allow us some comparisons. Historians sought to make their accounts interesting (2 Macc 2:24-25; Aune 1987: 80, 95) and had specific emphases in writing,⁵¹ but these practices do not oppose historical interest.⁵² Biographers shared some common interests with historians, though they focused more on the virtues of their chosen protagonists and generally intended their works for less technical audiences (Corn. Nep. 16 [Pelopidas], 1.1). Historians focused on events rather than persons (Lucian How to Write History 7), but even historians distinguished “history” from mere “chronicles” by the way one selected and arranged the material (Lucian History 4-6).

Yet to what extent their historical interest determined their historical accuracy varies from one writer to the next, depending on how they used their sources. Chronological distance from the events they report inevitably affected writers. Whereas biographers like Plutarch and Livy spice up their accounts and often depend on ancient legends, biographers like Tacitus and Suetonius are much more accurate and depend on information closer to their own time.⁵³ Many are freely skeptical of some earlier accounts (Diod. Sic. 1.6.2; 1.9.2; 4.8.4; Dion. Hal. 1.39.1; 1.41.1; Livy 6.1.2; 7.6.6; Arrian Alex. 4.28.1-2; Jos. Apion 1.15, 58; some, like Hesiod W.D. 158-60, 165; Arrian Alex. 5.1.2, allow for a supernatural element) but have a higher standard for the more recent period (Diod. Sic. 4.8.3; Livy 6.1.3), especially while eyewitnesses remain alive (Jos. Life 359-66; Apion 1.50).⁵⁴ Some report their sources but urge the reader to employ discretion in evaluating them (Livy 4.29.5-6; 23.47.8), evaluate the historical probability of their sources (Arrian Alex. 3.3.6), determine the historically probable nucleus of their sources (e.g., Livy 3.8.10), explain legendary material on rationalistic grounds (Arrian Alex. 2.16.6), or simply admit that they do not know how something happened (Sall. Jug. 67.3).

Despite Josephus’s self-serving agendas (and sometimes reasonable self-defense — Life 336-67; Krieger 1994 may go too far), he gets correct many details now confirmed by archaeology (see Josephus 1982: passim; cf. Rajak 1983: 9-10; Sanders 1992: 6; Syon 1992; Cotton and Geiger 1989), though he remained quite capable of making mistakes (Fischer and Stein 1994).⁵⁵ N. T. Wright likewise notes that Josephus retells the same event differently in different books (comparing the ascension in Lk 24:51; Acts 1:3), but that this does not imply that the event “did not happen, only that he is presenting it from a different angle” (1992a: 378). However creative they may have been with many details,⁵⁶ even Plutarch and Livy apparently did not create for their accounts events from whole cloth.

Specifically Jewish biographies without Greco-Roman influence are more difficult to locate. Our best examples rarely represent biographies in the sense of entire books depicting the life of a main character. Traditional Jewish books surrounding central characters (Job, Ruth, Judith, Jonah, Esther, Daniel, and Tobit; see Hengel 1991: 219-20) were not strictly biographies, since they focused more on events than on persons (Stanton 1974: 126; though cf. Dihle 1991: 366-67); clear dependence on earlier sources is also missing. Nevertheless such works may provide our closest Jewish models widely circulated in Jesus’ day, when they were usually treated as historical. Although the parallels in these sources may be inadequate, biographical information in rabbinic sources is still much more incidental (e.g., Neusner 1970: 8).

Jewish sources also reveal another range of writings that provides some overlap with historical or biographical sources, though the examples at the least historical extreme of the spectrum could be classified as historical novels. Palestinian Jewish storytellers gradually expanded biblical stories (especially from the Pentateuch) (e.g., Jubilees; Ps-Philo) and sometimes produced wholly new, novelistic accounts about the characters (1 Enoch; Life of Adam and Eve/Assumption of Moses; History of Joseph; Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs; Testament of Abraham). Although works in the former category like Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities add many details (e.g., Murphy 1988), they may follow the biblical narrative closely (often virtually quoting it); works in the latter category, however, sometimes share with the Bible no more than the names of characters. Although these reworkings are not strictly midrash nor targum (Harrington 1986: 242), the writers employed some midrashic or haggadic principles in their composition (e.g., Johnson 1985: 252). Such works could involve rewritings of biblical narratives in ways relevant to their own audiences (Mendels 1988; Vander Kam 1992).

As in other Greco-Roman literature, ancient Jewish literature generally permitted variation in detail. Although amplification in matters of halakah was sometimes discouraged (e.g., ARN 1A), the practice was especially frequent in narratives, either to answer questions posed by a narrative⁵⁷ or to heighten the praise of God or the protagonist,⁵⁸ sometimes by fanciful midrash.⁵⁹ Similarly, negative incidents could be toned down,⁶⁰ omitted,⁶¹ or justified⁶² in the character’s favor. This could range from the sort of “twist” on a narrative acceptable in modern journalism to fabricating details to explain what was not said. The way to distinguish Jewish works on this continuum between historical works and novels surrounding historical characters is to evaluate their degree of fidelity to prior sources (especially the Old Testament, which the Jewish works regarded as historically accurate — e.g., Philo Creation 1-2). In this respect, Matthew and Luke, whose fidelity we can test against some of their sources, rank high among ancient works.

All four Gospels, written in Greek and probably addressing audiences outside Palestine, are closer to the Greek model (Aune 1987: 22); but of course Jewish documents in Greek typically adopted hellenistic narrative techniques (Cohen 1987: 43; cf. van der Horst 1978). Most Jewish works in Greek (especially those from outside Palestine) followed Greek models to varying degrees. The Lives of the Prophets resembles the briefer Greek lives of the poets (Aune 1987: 41-42). Philo follows hellenistic biographic conventions (cf. Canevet 1986), though like some traditional Greek biographers he writes lives of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses mainly to interpret them for lessons about virtue and adjusts details where necessary to accommodate his ideals (cf. Petit 1976; Stanton 1974: 127). Josephus follows hellenistic literary (both biographic and novelistic) conventions in describing the Aqedah, Joseph, Moses, Saul, and others.⁶³ Shaye Cohen in fact lists 2 Maccabees and Josephus among Jewish historical works owing “more to Herodotus, Thucydides, and hellenistic historiography than to Kings and Chronicles” (1987: 194).

Nevertheless, the language and thought of the Greek version of the Old Testament pervades the Gospels, and Matthew and John stand closer to Palestinian Jewish biographical forms than Mark and Luke do.⁶⁴ Thus, while adapting the genre of the hellenistic bios, or “life,” the Gospel writers developed a style steeped in Old Testament historiography (Luz 1989: 44-45).

For this reason, some writers have suggested that Matthew “midrashically” expanded elements in his tradition’s story of Jesus. There is probably some measure of truth in this proposal, but it must not be pressed too far. That Matthew interprets Jesus in light of the Old Testament is clear, but Matthew also interprets the Old Testament record in light of Jesus; indeed, had Matthew been creating infancy narratives about Jesus to match Old Testament messianic texts, he usually could have chosen better texts to start with and created stories that matched them better (cf. Soares Prabhu 1976: 159-60). Matthew customizes his account to show fulfillment of prophecy, but this is not the same as creating events from whole cloth. Like most Greek-speaking Jewish biographers, Matthew is more interested in interpreting tradition than in creating it.⁶⁵ Many scholars thus point out, against other scholars, that it is too simplistic to define Matthew’s narratives as midrash and to define midrash as historically inaccurate embellishment (see Payne 1983; Cunningham and Bock 1987; Blomberg 1987: 43-53).⁶⁶

Whether one reads Greek-speaking Jewish historical writers or Roman historians, one must evaluate the degree of fidelity to a writer’s sources by comparing the sources. A Gospel writer like Luke was among the most accurate of ancient historians, if we may judge from his use of Mark (see Marshall 1978; idem 1991) and his historiography in Acts (cf., e.g., Sherwin-White 1978; Gill and Gempf 1994). Luke clearly had both written (Lk 1:1) and oral (1:2) sources available, and his literary patron Theophilus already knew much of this Christian tradition (1:4), which would exclude Luke’s widespread invention of new material.⁶⁷ Luke undoubtedly researched this material (1:3)⁶⁸ during his (on my view) probable sojourn with Paul in Palestine (Acts 21:17; 27:1; on the “we-narratives,” cf., e.g., Maddox 1982: 7).⁶⁹ Although Luke writes more in the Greco-Roman historiographic tradition than Matthew does, Matthew’s normally relatively conservative use of Mark likewise suggests a high degree of historical trustworthiness behind his accounts.

Matthew did not write his Gospel without forethought; he was a historian-biographer and interpreter and not just a storyteller. Just as speech writers carefully premeditated their works (Quint. Inst. Or. 10.6.1-2), writers of narratives began with a rough draft, then revised and polished it (Aune 1987: 82, 128; cf. Hata 1975; Krieger 1992a).⁷⁰ Like other writers, Matthew would follow one main source (in this case Mark) and weave his other sources around it.⁷¹ Matthew also had to plan the length of his Gospel; the Gospels conform to the standardized lengths of the scrolls on which they are written, all of which fall into the appropriate range for ancient biography (Burridge 1992: 118, 199, 225-26).⁷²

If Matthew’s basic genre suggests historical intention, his relatively conservative use of sources (where we can check them, especially Mark) indicates that Matthew’s other purposes did not obscure an essential historical intention. My survey of data below suggests that the sources on which Matthew depends also preserved a substantially reliable picture of Jesus, the tradition being “carefully transmitted and relatively stable” as well as quite close in time to the events described (Hagner 1993: xliii).

How Reliable Are Jesus’ Teachings in Matthew?

My own judgment, after working through the Synoptic pericopes and comparing how Matthew and Luke adapt Mark, supports this assignment of the burden of proof to those skeptical of Matthew’s historical accomplishment. Nevertheless, in many cases inadequate historical evidence remains to make a clear historical judgment in either direction. Needless to say, therefore, scholars who start with the working assumption that material is likely inauthentic till proven otherwise are apt to arrive at conclusions quite different from those who start with the opposite assumption. For that reason it is important to form the most reasonable assumptions possible before approaching the material. While genre provides a very general framework for forming accurate critical assumptions, it is only an introductory step.

Although our survey of matters of genre suggests that Matthew has followed his sources about Jesus in a substantially accurate manner, “substantial accuracy” only minimally circumscribes freedom in matters of detail. Further, even if the Gospel writers simply transcribed their sources verbatim (and they did not), this transcription would not guarantee the accuracy of their sources. Critical scholars have sometimes followed traditions about what is or is not historically accurate (note Meier 1994: 2), but scholars increasingly recognize that on historical grounds issues must be decided case by case (hence the historical comments in this commentary). The most one can say from the above study is that in any given instance the burden of proof weighs on those who deny, rather than on those who affirm, historical authenticity.⁷³ The burden of proof shapes one’s general approach to the material, but it does not invite one to neglect more specific historical data where available.

The Importance of Such a Question for Matthew

As noted above, ancient biographers often arranged their material topically; a good disciple could also arrange his teacher’s sayings for relevance to the issues that he felt compelled to address.⁷⁴ With his five major blocks of Jesus’ sayings (Mt 5–7; 10; 13; 18; 23–25), Matthew clearly wants to emphasize Jesus’ teachings (28:19). Many scholars even suggest that Matthew intended Christian scribes to use the collections of Jesus’ teachings in his Gospel as a teaching manual, the way later rabbis and probably earlier scribes provided running commentary on Scripture (28:19; cf. Bultmann 1968: 356; F. F. Bruce 1972a: 62-63; Sandmel 1958: 180). The manual may offensively support the church’s missionary task, but it may also function defensively as an apologetic tool to equip new disciples for challenges from hostile synagogue leaders (cf. Blomberg 1992a: 34-35).

Matthew’s emphasis highlights one of Jesus’ historical activities. Whatever Jesus’ other roles, he was undoubtedly a sage as well; I will discuss this issue in more detail under Jesus’ identity, below. Matthew is not the only Gospel to portray people asking Jesus legal questions, faith questions, or difficult riddles (e.g., Mk 10:2, 17; 12:18-23, 28; Lk 12:13). Matthew deepens this emphasis, however, so that the wording of Jesus’ teachings in his Gospel comes closer to Jewish rabbis’ formulations than does the way Mark and Luke put Jesus’ teachings.⁷⁵

The Rhetoric of Jesus

Returning to the historical question, how accurately does Matthew preserve Jesus’ teachings? How accurately would Jesus’ followers still remember his teachings? As a Jewish teacher, Jesus used parables, graphic illustrations, hyperbole, and other standard rhetorical techniques to communicate points to his readers (see Stein 1978; Tannehill 1975; Funk 1993: 28, 31). Further, although reconstructing the Aramaic behind the Gospel traditions is more complex than often allowed, some have argued that the Aramaic original of as much as 80 percent of the Synoptic sayings material appears to fit a poetic or rhythmic form helpful for memorization (Witherington 1990: 16-17; Riesner 1982b: 507).

These standard Jewish rhetorical forms helped Jesus communicate his point, but they also made it easier for disciples to remember their teachers’ sayings, and (as we argue further below) it is quite likely that Jesus’ disciples accurately remembered and transmitted his teachings.

Later Revision by the Church?

Clearly the early Christians resisted the temptation to read major issues of their day (such as the debate about Gentile circumcision) into Gospel materials (Stein 1980: 225-28; Wright 1992a: 421; Stanton 1995a: 60-61).⁷⁶ Some of Paul’s occasional letters also inadvertently attest the accuracy of elements of the Jesus tradition (1 Cor 7:10-12; 11:23; 15:3; 1 Thess 4:15), whereas the Jesus tradition in the Gospels exhibits little Pauline influence (Gundry 1975: 191; cf. Pfitzner 1979; Thompson 1991; Richardson and Gooch 1984: 52). That Paul does not quote the Jesus tradition frequently should not surprise us any more than the lack of quotations from the Fourth Gospel in the Johannine Epistles; the specific genre of apostolic letters differs considerably from gospels and “calls specifically for only occasional or incidental reference to the Jesus-tradition” (Stuhlmacher 1991b: 16-19, especially 18; cf. Gerhardsson 1991.)

Indeed, many sayings in the tradition imply a setting relevant only to Palestine and/or the specific time of Jesus (see Theissen 1991: 25-59). More to the point, written Gospels were appearing within three decades of Jesus’ ministry, while eyewitnesses maintained positions of prominence in the church;⁷⁷ Luke attests his reader’s awareness of many existing written sources (Lk 1:1-4). Had early traditioners and writers indulged in free invention in various communities, we could have expected Gospels much more diverse than our Synoptics are (Gundry 1975: 191) — more like the later Gnostic materials formed under such conditions (e.g., Hill 1979: 163, 172; cf. P. Oxy. 1 in Jeremias 1964c: 106-11).

Discerning “tradition” on the basis of spontaneous revelation (cf. Acts of Paul 3:1; Thecla 1) also appears to be a later practice. Although all concur that the early Christians prophesied, it is highly unlikely, as suggested by some scholars,⁷⁸ that many “sayings of the risen Jesus” were attributed to the historical Jesus.⁷⁹ The few clear examples of prophecies we have in the New Testament are always explicitly identified as such (cf., e.g., Hill 1979: 160-170; Aune 1983: 243-44; Stanton 1995a: 97),⁸⁰ and again, issues of the later church rarely appear in collections of Jesus’ teachings (see Witherington 1990: 3-7). Jesus was a prophet who launched a prophetic movement (see below); but he was also a sage who taught his disciples to preserve and expound his teachings. The disciples probably were communicating the substance of Jesus’ teaching even during his lifetime, if (as I argue in my comments on Mt 10) even a historical kernel lies behind Jesus’ sending the Twelve in his lifetime (Witherington 1990: 181).

Written and Oral Tradition

It is unlikely that the early Christians depended only on the memories of those who knew Jesus. Disciples of Greek teachers normally took notes on what their teachers said (Stowers 1988: 74; Gempf 1993: 299; cf. Diog. Laert. 6.1.5), and sometimes published them afterward (Kennedy 1980: 19). Such notes often reflected the teacher’s own style (Epict. Disc. 1, pref.), and the teachers themselves might later attest the accuracy of the notes (Quint. Inst. Or. 1, pref. 7-8; cf. Diod. Sic. 40.8.1); some also gathered other forms of research in copious written notes (Aul. Gel., pref. 2, 22). Jewish students emphasized oral transmission far more than Greek students did, but they could also take some notes to help prod them in memorizing larger bodies of oral tradition (Gerhardsson 1961: 160-62; cf. Safrai 1974/1976a: 966). Eventually many sayings were gathered into collections (e.g., Proverbs; ʾAbot; cf. Diog. Laert. 2.18-47; Plut. Sayings of Kings, Mor. 172B-194E).

Even without notes, however, disciples’ memories in the first generation should have preserved Jesus’ teachings quite accurately.⁸¹ Some more skeptical scholars have depended on studies of oral tradition that focused on modern folklore transmission in limited regions like the Balkans (see Witherington 1990: 17-18), but their conclusions underestimate Palestinian Jewish education (especially its emphasis on learning Scripture — Jos. Apion 1.60; 2.204),⁸² assume a much longer period of transmission than is possible before the Gospels were written, compare accounts whose historical rootage is quite different, and fail to explain the preservation of so many elements in Jesus’ teachings uncomfortable to the later church (Witherington 1990: 8, 19-20).⁸³

While some cultures have shown rapid adaptation of oral traditions, methods of transmission in many other cultures have proven substantially accurate and enduring even over centuries (e.g., African traditions confirmed by European travelers’ accounts — Lewis 1975: 43; for a humorous European example, see Lampe and Luz 1991: 404). Ancient Mediterranean society as a whole also emphasized memory. Thus, for example, Roman orators regularly memorized their speeches even when these were several hours long (Quint. Inst. Or. 11.2.1-51); memoria, “learning the speech by heart in preparation for delivery,” was one of the orator’s five primary tasks (Satterthwaite 1993: 344). More relevant here, members of Greek schools passed on sayings of founders from one generation to the next (Culpepper 1975: 193; cf. Diog. Laert. 10.1.12; Diod. Sic. 10.5.1; Aul. Gel. 7.10.1; Socrates Ep. 20); inattentive students could warrant public rebukes (Aul. Gel. 8.3). Although this practice could introduce error over a number of generations, the first generations should have preserved the teacher’s message accurately. Greco-Roman education as a whole emphasized memorization (Quint. Inst. Or. 1.3.1; 2.4.15; Isoc. Demon. 18, Or. 1; Seneca Controversies 1.pref., 2; Plut. Educ. 13, Mor. 9E; Koester 1982: 1:93; Ferguson 1987: 84), and Jewish education⁸⁴ was no exception (Jos. Life 8; m. ʾAbot 6:6; Gerhardsson 1961: 124-25; Riesner 1982a: 51-64).⁸⁵ Given the breadth of evidence, it is highly unlikely that the basic models of transmission later attested in rabbinic sources arose only in a later period (Hagner 1993: xlix).

At least by the second century and probably earlier, rabbis expected disciples to memorize their teachings through repeated practice (e.g., Sifre Deut. 48.1.1-4; 48.2.3; 306.19.3; Goodman 1983: 79). Although over the passage of generations disciples undoubtedly conflated and confused some sayings, rabbis highly valued careful transmission (t. Yebam. 3:1; Mek. Pisha 1.135-36; ARN 24 A). Of course, students regularly paraphrased sayings of teachers; paraphrase was in fact a standard school exercise in Greco-Roman education (Theon Progymn. 1.93-171; cf. Gerhardsson 1961: 136-48), and it was the “gist” rather than the verbatim precision that ancients valued (Small 1995). Scholars from across the theological spectrum thus acknowledge that Jewish and Christian sources alike both preserved and adapted earlier tradition (Davies 1967b: 156; Draper 1984: 269-87).

Some scholars argue that ancient writers may have modified written texts more often than oral traditions; hence Matthew may have adapted Mark more freely than the whole process of oral tradition modified Jesus’ sayings (Gundry 1974: 102; Witherington 1990: 22; cf. Diog. Laert. 1.48). This is one reason that redaction criticism (examining how the Gospel writers adapted earlier sources) can help us examine historical tradition as well as a specific Gospel writer’s emphases.

The burden of proof thus rests with New Testament scholars who betray an unduly skeptical bias toward the Gospel accounts (on the question of the burden of proof, cf. Goetz and Blomberg 1981: 39-63); such scholars must imply that disciples who considered Jesus Lord were far more careless with his words in the earliest generations of Christianity than first- and second-generation students of most other ancient teachers were (see Davies 1966a: 115-16; Benoit 1973/1974: 1:33). Especially given how much of Jesus’ teaching was disseminated in public during his lifetime, the sort of “radical amnesia” this skepticism requires of Jesus’ first followers (Witherington 1990: 14) is certainly not typical of schools of other early sages.

Some Form-Critical Issues

Form critics earlier in the century established some criteria that remain helpful today, although form criticism’s serious weaknesses have rendered most contemporary scholars skeptical about the degree to which it remains valuable (e.g., Hill 1972: 58; Stuhlmacher 1991b: 2-12; more forcefully, Theissen 1991: 5).⁸⁶ One criterion, that of dissimilarity, has fallen on hard times; used to exclude Jesus tradition, the criterion excludes the likelihood of Jesus having a high degree of continuity with his Jewish contemporaries and the likelihood of his disciples’ having a high degree of continuity with his teachings. From what we know of ancient schools, the reverse is far more likely; hence the criterion is useful only in its positive role: what later Christians would not have invented is authentic tradition (this resembles what scholars currently call the criterion of embarrassment). Further, the criterion of Palestinian Jewish environment makes far more sense than the criterion of dissimilarity and frequently cancels it out.⁸⁷ In recent years scholars have thus seriously critiqued the negative use of this criterion and urged special caution (see, e.g., Meier 1991a: 173; Brown 1994: 19; Stanton 1995a: 143; Young 1995: 257; cf. Mealand 1978a; Mack 1993: 193).⁸⁸

Aramaic figures of speech also tend to suggest authentic Jesus material (Witherington 1990: 11; cf. Barrett 1967: 6), especially if the first translators into Greek frequently sought word-for-word fidelity, as some suggest (Young 1989: 180). Aramaic was probably the first language of most Galileans outside the urban centers, even in Lower Galilee (see Horsley 1995: 247-49). Greek was nevertheless quite widespread in the land (e.g., Mussies 1983; cf. p. Soṭa 7:1, §4); even in Jewish Palestine, as many as two-thirds of known funerary inscriptions are in Greek (van der Horst 1992; cf. Leon 1960: 75), though more in some areas and later periods.⁸⁹ Semitic remains prevail primarily in part of heavily traditional Upper Galilee (cf. Meyers 1988: 74), but Aramaic inscriptions are common around villages of Jesus’ Lower Galilee as well (Horsley 1995: 249). Despite its use as a holy language (e.g., Jub. 12:25-27), and hence its significance in developed scribal settings (attested in the Mishnah and many Qumran scrolls) and its value for nationalistic fervor (attested in the Bar Kokhba materials — Carmon 1973: 73), Hebrew was probably not a primary spoken language among the common people (pace Safrai 1991ab; Ep. Arist. 11, 30, 38; Sifre Deut. 46.1.2); epigraphic data and coins indicate that, as a common language, Aramaic had long before begun to supplant it (Neh 13:24; Bright 1981: 411).

Because most of Jesus’ teachings in the Synoptics appear to have been delivered to Galilean villagers, they probably reflect Aramaic (Meier 1991a: 267-68; Deissmann 1978: 64; Black 1957: 305; Jeremias 1971: 4) rather than Greek originals. Because he also taught in urban Jerusalem, the scholars who suggest that he sometimes taught in Greek (Porter 1993; cf. Argyle 1956; pace Draper 1956) are also likely correct.⁹⁰

It is quite true that the earliest church, like Jesus, often spoke Aramaic; the bilingual milieu of the Syrian and Palestinian churches undoubtedly facilitated the ready translation on a popular level of Jesus’ sayings from Aramaic to Greek, sometimes in diverse forms (Dibelius 1949: 25). Some might therefore charge that the earliest Christians could have invented some sayings attributed to Jesus in this period (Meier 1991a: 178-80). But given all we know of Jewish and (for that matter) Greco-Roman traditioning and the growth of legends (see discussion above), this would be the least likely period in which sayings or stories would be invented.⁹¹ (Paul attests two of the leading eyewitnesses — Peter and John — plus Jesus’ brother in positions of leadership in the Jerusalem church — Gal 2:9; cf. 1 Cor 15:7.) At the same time, the early Christians wrote our Gospels and probably their direct sources in Greek, and just as Matthew frequently adjusts Mark’s Greek, his sources may also have adapted earlier language. So Aramaisms suggest traditions stemming from the earliest (hence most reliable) community; but (pace Burkitt 1910: 20) good Greek is not a mark against the reliability of the traditions (especially if most Palestinian Jews were bilingual, as is probably the case; see Meier 1991a: 255-68; cf. Argyle 1973).⁹²

Conclusions regarding the Sayings Material

Matthew’s method may be, if anything, more conservative than that of many of his predecessors in preserving what he believes to be the substance of Jesus’ teaching, although he freely rearranges and midrashically adapts that teaching. As E. P. Sanders observes (1993: 193):

The gospel writers did not wildly invent material. They developed it, shaped it and directed it in the ways they wished. But even Matthew did not create a sizeable body of material in favour of the Gentile mission, though he seems to have enhanced what he had.

One need only read afresh Jesus’ sayings in many Matthean discourses to see that they represent collections of isolated sayings or groups of sayings that Matthew has arranged as topically as possible, often even without literarily adequate explanatory transitions. Had Matthew wished to create teaching material for Jesus (apart from minor transitions), the importance of his work’s literary unity would have provided him plenty of incentive to do so. But the evidence of Matthew’s text suggests not merely his freedom to rearrange sayings but also his conservatism in reporting rather than inventing them.

How Accurate Are Matthew’s Narratives?

Ancient biographers generally felt that a record of the subject’s deeds and words revealed the person’s character far better than editorial comments might (Stanton 1995a: 139). Jewish disciples cared about their teacher’s lifestyle, which they normally sought to imitate (Jos. Life 11; among later rabbis, cf., e.g., b. Ber. 62a; Kirschner 1986), and which later might even function as legal precedent (t. Piska 2:15-16; Sifre Deut 221.1.1; p. B. Meṣ. 2:11, §1; Nid. 1:4, §2; Sanh. 7:2, §4; Yebam. 4:11, §8). Jewish children learned by practice and imitation as well as by memorization (Jos. Apion 2.171, 173-74, 204).⁹³ In Greek as well as Jewish culture, students were eager to preserve the deeds and character of their masters as well as their teachings (cf. Liefeld 1967: 223; Robbins 1992: 64). Although the early Christians undoubtedly retold the stories in a variety of ways, the most common form of Synoptic pericopes suggests that the early Christians adopted the sort of short narratives typically used to recount the deeds and deed-related sayings of famous teachers.

Form-Critical Considerations

Although we have our present Gospels as finished literary works intended to be read as such, they still reflect some of the process of oral tradition that stands behind their sources. For instance, many of our stories in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are brief accounts of events in Jesus’ ministry, often with a minimum of chronological links to their context. On average these Synoptic accounts resemble chreiai, brief examples (often of heroes of history) recounted, memorized, and paraphrased in regular school exercises in the ancient Mediterranean world.⁹⁴ (The length and form of chreiai admittedly varied — cf. Robbins 1988: 3; Mack and Robbins 1989: 196-97. Jewish forms of transmitting tradition often closely resembled broader Greco-Roman patterns.) It was natural for Jesus’ disciples and their first hearers to remember stories about Jesus in the same way they were accustomed to remember stories about other important figures. The combination of such narratives with anecdotes, teaching material (sayings and speeches), and an extended account of the protagonist’s end characterizes ancient biography in general (Burridge 1992: 203).

In the first half of the twentieth century form critics pointed out some particular patterns in the Synoptic Gospels’ accounts about Jesus. Some form critics called one recurrent pattern “controversy narratives,” paragraphs in which Jesus debates with his opponents and proves his case. Although we may guess that the social repercussions of these debates continued long after the recorded narratives end, such narratives typically close with a rejoinder or quip from Jesus (what contemporary North Americans would call a “slam”) that silences and shames his opponents. Some form critics called narratives concluding with Jesus’ witty retorts “pronouncement stories.” Such stories about teachers were common in antiquity,⁹⁵ suggesting that Jesus shamed his opponents in a way understood by his disciples from their culture.⁹⁶ The use of such accounts also suggests why the disciples would have transmitted the stories as they did. Occasions on which restraint is shown in describing miracles (e.g., Mk 9:26) suggest controls on these traditions similar to those on the sayings traditions (e.g., Gundry 1975: 190).

Because Jesus authored the sayings material but not the narratives about him, his disciples presumably transmitted the sayings more carefully and the narratives more in their own words (e.g., Witherington 1990: 28-29; Pesch 1991: 107; Theissen 1991: 60); hence Aramaisms predominate in the former. Other ancient writers also seem to have adapted narratives with some degree of freedom. Like historians today, ancient historians could abridge accounts; one Jewish document claims to be a careful abridgment of another five-volume work, observing that the writer followed the “rules” of abridgment (2 Macc 2:24-25, 28). But in antiquity one could “expand” accounts as well; Theon advised students to “expand” or “condense” fables by elaborating speeches or descriptive details (Progymn. 4.37-42, 80-82). One could of course edit historical stories interfering with historical details less than one might render fables. While he may add details known from other sources and add some description that is either implicit in the narrative or inherently probable in itself, Theon’s example for expanding a chreia does not change its basic meaning much (Progymn. 3.224-40; cf. 2.115-23; Longinus On the Sublime 11.1). Similarly, while Matthew often abridges Markan accounts, possibly for the sake of space, and sometimes adds what fits his theological interests (Stanton 1991: 259-71), expansion was more characteristic of the apocryphal Gospels (although some later accounts also abridge the early Gospels; cf. Carmignac 1980: 411-15; Blomberg 1984: 195).

Did the Earliest Christians Reject Narrative?

Some contemporary scholars, however, are highly suspicious of early Christian narrative. They have questioned whether the Gospel narratives and sayings are compatible, as well as whether the eschatological and wisdom sayings are compatible (e.g., Crossan 1991a: 265-306).⁹⁷ In both matters, they employ forced-choice logic. On the latter, for instance, the Similitudes of Enoch freely mixes wisdom and apocalyptic thought; no necessary boundary in antiquity rendered these categories mutually exclusive (Witherington 1990: 243; on 4Q300, see Schiffman 1993).⁹⁸ Although most modern scholars recognize the apocalyptic eschatological element in Jesus’ teaching, a few scholars, eager to eliminate that element, have tried to read second-century Gnosticism back into Palestinian Judaism and make Jesus the precursor of Gnostic teachers.

The same move supports the suspicion of narrative. Noting that the second-century Gnostic Gospels are mainly sayings traditions, such scholars have also suggested that some Gospels, such as the Gnostic Gospels, represent the original Gospels, and that the first Gospels (which were “antinarrative”) included only sayings. This idea, however, goes against all the extant evidence.⁹⁹ While sayings collections, like narratives, could be either early or late, both the Gnostic texts and the more “orthodox” apocryphal Gospels are clearly later, expansive, and considerably farther removed from the Palestinian Jesus tradition than the canonical Gospels are, as the mainstream of New Testament scholarship cur- rently recognizes (see Meier 1991a: 114-39; Sanders 1993: 64; Stanton 1995a: 77-95).¹⁰⁰ It is, moreover, clear that, excepting some Jewish-Christian Gospels (Nazarenes, Ebionites, and Hebrews), sayings “gospels” and infancy “gospels” do not even represent the basic biographical genre of the canonical Gospels, rendering comparisons strained (Burridge 1992: 249-50).

Further, though his disciples probably remembered some of Jesus’ teachings in collections of short, pithy sayings like Proverbs and Pirqe ʾAbot (Vermes 1973: 27),¹⁰¹ the earliest Christian “sayings collections” were not opposed to the inclusion of narrative; they regularly included some. The very early Gospel source Q was probably not, as many have argued, purely a collection of Jesus’ sayings and nothing else; although it emphasizes sayings, the material Matthew and Luke share in sequence includes some narrative (e.g., Mt 3:1-12; 4:1-11; 8:5-13; 11:1-19//Lk 3:3-18; 4:1-13; 7:1-10; 7:18-35). (Eliminating narrative in Q to preserve the hypothesis that Q lacked narrative is not an argument; it is assuming what one hopes to prove.)

Rather than regarding sayings and narrative as mutually opposed, biographers like Diogenes Laertius typically included both kinds of sources in their biographies. Ancient writers regularly reported sayings and narrative separately or combined them at will: although teachers of rhetoric formally distinguished sayings chreiai and action chreiai, they also formally recognized mixed chreiai, which included both (Theon Progymn. 3.22-23); sayings chreiai could also include both statement and response (Progymn. 3.27-28). Biographers regularly reported sayings from separate sources after narrating a “life,” without implying that the two genres were contradictory (e.g., Plut. Timoleon 15.1); Ahiqar’s wisdom sayings and narrative were probably already combined more than half a millennium before the Gospels were written.

Outside of sayings collections, sayings were often transmitted apart from one another (e.g., Aune 1987: 34). Ancient readers considered inserting sayings from sayings collections into narratives, or from narratives into sayings, a matter of arrangement, not of fabrication (Theon Progymn. 4.73-79; cf. 5.388-441). The alternative to such combined narratives was simply to relate narratives in episodic fashion, as Mark sometimes does; although this practice did not conform to established literary tastes, most readers found it acceptable alongside the more approved method (Drury 1976: 30).

Structure, Authorship, Provenance, and Date

Whereas we have focused on general observations based on literary type and traditions, questions about structure are more difficult, and specific questions concerning authorship, provenance, and date may never be resolved with certainty unless excavations bring unexpected new evidence to light.

Structure

Matthew’s arrangement coheres with basic principles of ancient rhetoric and biography (cf. Kennedy 1984: 101-2).¹⁰² As noted above, many biographers arranged their material topically;¹⁰³ Matthew arranges even many sayings thematically (see Davies and Allison 1988: 87-88). In part because various outlines of Matthew abound¹⁰⁴ and in part because his favorite points recur, some are reticent to outline this Gospel (Gundry 1982: 10; cf. Davies and Allison 1988: 61; Guthrie 1990: 43).¹⁰⁵ Yet we should not despair of structural clues altogether; later rabbis whose thought-world may be similar to Matthew’s repeatedly emphasized their points, though their edited literature betrays substantial structural forethought (cf. Daube 1973: 64-65).

This Gospel may divide chronologically into three sections (Kingsbury 1975: 7-25);¹⁰⁶ the teaching material divides topically into five. Whereas Luke provides (or preserves) settings for more of his teaching material from Q, as was common in biographies, Matthew gathers it primarily in topical sections (Burridge 1992: 196-97). Most scholars identify five discourses by the closing formula “when he had finished speaking” in 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1.¹⁰⁷ Although some scholars object that chapter 23 is a discourse distinct from that in chapters 24–25 (Kingsbury 1975: 4-5; Senior 1983: 21),¹⁰⁸ their theme of judgment on the religious establishment binds them together (see my comments loc. cit.). Others object by citing 11:7-30 as another section of Matthew with extended discourse (Senior 1983: 21), but this passage is much shorter than the others, especially when one accounts for Jesus’ sayings directly connected with the preceding narrative about the Baptist. Some narrative critics have claimed that Matthew is only a plot and reject the older division by discourse sections. Yet if Matthew is only a story, “it is a rather dull one for several long stretches, where the disciples basically sit around while Jesus talks.” Hence we should take note of the discourse sections in addition to the broader narrative structure that provides their final context (Smith 1997: 541). One need not choose between these two most common alternatives; the threefold chronological narrative structure and the fivefold discourse structure are not incompatible (Senior 1983: 26-27; Blomberg 1992a: 24-25). Ultimately, a more detailed confluence of structural elements is probably unnecessary, especially if Matthew intended his Gospel for oral performance in shorter sections (Justin 1 Apol. 67; Stanton 1993: 75).

Some scholars have compared Matthew’s five discourse sections to the five books of the Pentateuch (e.g., F. F. Bruce 1980a: 41; F. F. Bruce 1972a: 62-63; Ellis 1974: 10; Sandmel 1978a: 51), a view that originated with Papias in the early second century and was revived by B. W. Bacon early in the twentieth (Davies 1966b: 6). Most contemporary scholars who recognize five discourse sections nevertheless remain skeptical about an implied parallel with the Pentateuch (e.g., Davies and Allison 1988: 61; Hagner 1993: li). Some ancient works did have five divisions (Psalms; Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; Megilloth; the prototype of 2 Maccabees; 1 Enoch;¹⁰⁹ 2 Enoch; Pirqe ʾAbot; cf. Strack 1969: 53; Charlesworth 1981: 104); but it is not clear how many of their editors consciously modeled this number after the number of books in the Pentateuch (cf. Davies 1966b: 6; Dimant 1983).¹¹⁰ Because only Matthew’s discourse sections (not the Gospel as a whole) divide into five parts and because no correspondence with specific Pentateuchal books is obvious, one must either dismiss the theory (so Kingsbury 1975: 5) or, more likely, accept it as correct but not particularly useful in the interpretation of Matthew’s structure. Even if Matthew views himself as passing down Jesus’ words as a sort of “oral law” (which is possible, but scholars currently debate how early that phrase appears in early Judaism), he may have arranged the sayings into five sections simply to emphasize that point, without assuming any correspondence between his discourses and particular books of the Pentateuch. While some reject the traditional Jewish image of the new Moses in Matthew (Filson 1960: 29; Albright and Mann 1971: 49 et passim), some examples of this possibly related motif do appear (e.g., 2:16; 4:2; cf. 5:1; see especially Allison 1993b).

Authorship

Like modern critics, ancient writers often questioned traditional attributions of various works (e.g., Jos. Apion 1.221; Arrian Alex. 5.6.5). The minority of scholars favoring Matthean authorship have marshaled important arguments and provided answers to those more skeptical that Matthew wrote this Gospel (Gundry 1982: 609-22; cf. Guthrie 1990: 43-53). Yet while Matthew is the best individual named candidate offered, the lack of evidence for any other particular suggestion does not necessarily make the limited evidence for Matthean authorship compelling. In favor of Matthean authorship, the titles of the Gospels were unanimously accepted over a large geographical region in the second century (see Hengel 1985: 81-82). Papias in the very early second century preferred oral tradition, but reported attributions for the Gospels he believed accurate (Hengel 1991: 232-38). Because travelers networked early Christian assemblies throughout the Empire and word traveled quickly among them (cf., e.g., Aune 1983: 215-16),¹¹¹ early traditions concerning the authors of popular Christian works’ are probably generally correct.

External evidence (church tradition) stemming from Papias in the early second century and confirmed by the unanimous title (added after early Christians identified the extant Gospels as one genre, though possibly before they were collected)¹¹² supports Matthean authorship.¹¹³ But these arguments depend on early church tradition, not on the earliest text of the Gospel itself; and in this instance, the argument from tradition may be suspect. If Papias is wrong that Matthew wrote in Hebrew or Aramaic (the most natural way to take his words; cf. Hagner 1993: xliv-xlv)¹¹⁴ and wrong that Matthew wrote before Mark did,¹¹⁵ he may also be mistaken that Matthew wrote the extant Gospel of Matthew (though he could be mistaken about one while correct about the other). Even if Matthew wrote at one stage of the tradition (say, an early version of Q—the version behind Matthew and Luke was probably already in Greek—Tuckett 1996: 84; for the Aramaic original, see Polag 1991: 99), we have no guarantee that the finished product is largely from Matthew’s hand. Matthew’s use of Mark also may speak against the author’s having been a firsthand witness of the events he describes (Luz 1989: 94), as much as the church would have liked him to have been (where we can check him, the writer of the Fourth Gospel, who claims eyewitness information, is not as dependent on sources like Mark as Matthew appears to be).¹¹⁶ This point may make Matthew’s claim to authorship on any level the weakest among the four canonical Gospels, a claim which I at one time therefore dismissed without further consideration.

Still, Papias’s tradition probably dates to within half a century of Matthew’s publication, and no one in the years surrounding Papias’s testimony challenged Matthean authorship; nor was Matthew the most obvious name to attach to the Gospel (apostles like Peter, Andrew, and perhaps even Thomas might commend themselves with greater authority; cf. Carson 1984b: 17-19; Blomberg 1992a: 44; Hagner 1993: lxxvi).¹¹⁷ Many thus accept a Matthean tradition edited among a community of Matthew’s disciples or by one of his disciples (e.g., Hagner 1993: lxxvii; cf. Hill 1972: 55).¹¹⁸

In contrast to my earlier opinion (1993: 43), and as a result of reevaluating the earliest patristic materials that depend most heavily on apostolic Christianity, I am currently inclined to give more weight to the voice of early Christian tradition than I did previously. The break between the first and second century, or between “apostolic” and “subapostolic,” was not complete; oral tradition, in some circles still frequently reliable, remained important in the late first (Jn 21:25) and into the second century (Hengel 1991: 213). Confusion might reign on a number of issues in the tradition, but authorship would be the last point forgotten. Further, that this Gospel originally circulated without oral knowledge of its author is unlikely; as an anonymous work it would not have quickly commanded wide acceptance, and authors of biographies of this length normally were named (though persecution could have demanded a special case of anonymity here).¹¹⁹ The early second-century church cited the “Gospels” alongside traditional Jewish Scripture, and Matthew was the most popular of the Gospels in circulation by this period (Stanton 1995a: 98).

I am therefore presently inclined to accept the possibility of Matthean authorship on some level, although with admitted uncertainty. Perhaps the most probable scenario that incorporates the best of all the currently available evidence is the presence of at least a significant deposit of Matthean tradition in this Gospel, edited by the sort of Matthean school scholars have often suggested (though I believe the final product is the work of a single author, not a “committee”).

Yet the discussion of this Gospel’s authorship ultimately involves neither the authority nor accuracy of the Gospel, because it does not name its author (the titles were added to all four Gospels later). Thus even most of the more conservative scholarly commentators, while varying in their views of Matthean authorship or influence, acknowledge that the matter is uncertain (Carson 1984b: 19; France 1985: 34; Blomberg 1992a: 43-44; McKnight 1992: 528). Likewise, some scholars who reject Matthean authorship are troubled by the antiquity of the Gospel titles and the tradition of authorship; Luz complains that too many scholars simply ignore these difficulties (1989: 94-95).

Yet what we do conclude about the author does affect our understanding of the Gospel. Matthew is clearly Jewish, in dialogue with contemporary Jewish thought, and skilled in traditional Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament (Iren. Fr. 29).¹²⁰ Matthew also knows the context of his citations much better than many modern readers have supposed (Gundry 1975; Ellis 1974: 22), and he demonstrates familiarity with a variety of text-types (see above).¹²¹

Location of Origin

Scholars have proposed a variety of places of writing for the first Gospel. Brandon’s suggestion of Alexandria (1967: 290-91) runs counter to our evidence for the character of Jewish thought in first-century Alexandria. Osborne argues for the relatively obscure Edessa based on various Eastern parallels (Osborne 1973), but Palestinian Jewish parallels seem far stronger. Most scholars, however, accept a Syrian provenance for Matthew, most commonly (but not exclusively) Antioch,¹²² in part due to Matthew’s influence on Ignatius and the Didache in that region. Matthew emphasizes locations in Syria (4:24-25), background that may fit only Syria (17:24-27), and advocates a Gentile mission that the Syrian Jewish church had first embraced (Gundry 1982: 609; Theissen 1991: 250, 258). Apostolic tradition would naturally center in and a published Gospel naturally spread most rapidly from an urban center like Antioch; possibly the church in Antioch would also have preserved data about Peter such as we find in Matthew that is not included in Mark (Hengel 1980: 98).¹²³ In contrast to Alexandria, Antioch recognized the citizenship of its Jewish population (Jos. Apion 2.39); the largest concentration of Jewish people outside Palestine was also in Syria, especially in Antioch (Jos. War 7.43; cf. Levinskaya 1996: 128-32).

Other scholars prefer a provenance in rural rather than urban Syria, perhaps nearer Galilee or the Decapolis; after all, Antioch had embraced the Gentile mission from the start (Theissen 1991: 251, also comparing the water shortage of Did. 7:2-3). Some have suggested that Matthew wrote this Gospel in Palestine (Viviano 1979; Hengel 1974a: 1:105); Overman 1996: 16-19 is among recent authors making a sound case for Galilee (which the Gospel certainly does emphasize); he favors especially Sepphoris or Tiberias or their outskirts (18).

In view of all the evidence (which is admittedly more meager than we would like, as Luz 1989: 90-91 notes), I would prefer an urban center in Syro-Palestine that spoke Greek, included a sizeable Jewish community residentially segregated from Gentiles, probably remained bitter against the Romans for the recent massacres of 66-70, and remained in touch with rising currents in Judea. Although any proposal ultimately remains a guess, a community in Antioch appears more likely than the alternatives if, despite its heritage in the Gentile mission, it has recently shifted toward embracing more conservative Jewish-Christian traditions in the wake of the bitter Jewish-Roman war of 66-73.¹²⁴ But no evidence limits the provenance specifically to Antioch, and wherever Matthew’s specific provenance, he was probably within range of the emerging sphere of rabbinic or rabbinic-like scribal influence, hence probably somewhere in Syro-Palestine.

Date

Although some scholars have made a good case that Matthew could precede A.D. 70,¹²⁵ the contents of the book may suggest a date after 70, perhaps as late as the 80s¹²⁶ (though a date after the end of the first century is untenable).¹²⁷ As noted above, this does not imply that Matthew is inaccurate; he depends on earlier traditions. But like preachers today, Matthew emphasized those features of his tradition that best addressed the pastoral situation of his readers. Especially the following evidence seems to favor a date after A.D. 70:

(1) More than Mark or Luke (but much less exclusively than John, who writes in the 90s), Matthew particularly engages Pharisaism, which became a dominant element in early Syro-Palestinian Christians’ primary opposition mainly after 70. Indeed, Pharisees may have been much less hostile toward law-keeping Jewish Christians in the 60s (cf. Acts 23:6-9; Jos. Ant. 20.200-3).¹²⁸

(2) Matthew reflects a Jewish worldview closer to that of the rabbis than any other writer in the New Testament (although many other parts of the New Testament are equally Jewish). But the rabbinic movement began achieving prominence only after 70 (and even then, most common Galileans seem to have remained unaware of most of its views).

(3) Matthew and Luke both probably depend on Mark, which probably derives from the mid-60s and may have addressed the church in Rome. The early church was well networked, so Mark may have circulated and become a standard work among many (cf. Lk 1:1) quickly; nevertheless, Matthew must have read and assimilated Mark, then invested a great deal of time arranging, drafting, and polishing his own Gospel. All this evidence suggests a date sometime after 70.¹²⁹ (This argument of course falters if, with many conservative scholars, one dates Mark before the 60s. Contrary to accepted scholarly tradition, we lack definite reason to date it to the 60s or early 70s, and our assumption of a date for Mark no earlier than the mid-60s largely represents deference to consensus. Evidence for dating Mark before the 60s, however, seems to me no more definite.)

(4) Matthew more clearly separates the disciples’ questions about the temple’s destruction and the world’s end for his readers than Mark does (Mt 24:3//Mk 13:2-4), even though Matthew’s Jewish readers would have been more familiar with the traditional prophetic perspective that arranged events according to their kind rather than according to their timing.

Other supporting evidence, such as the fire of Matthew 22:7, offers some support but is not as critical to the discussion. Those who argue for an earlier date dispute each of the above points. They also provide counterarguments, such as early Christian tradition, or suppose that practices related to the temple are less relevant after A.D. 70 (e.g., 5:23-24; 23:16-17), although one might reply that Matthew preserves many other authentic Jesus traditions whose details remained local or outdated when the principles remained valid. That Matthew’s own redaction seems to announce Jesus’ return “immediately” after the temple’s destruction (24:29) may also strongly support a pre-70 date (Hagner 1995: 712), unless (as I think) Matthew merely echoes a recent expectation that caused confusion in the first years after 70, a confusion he has sought to counter in 24:2-3. Within the present space constraints I can offer only a tentative case consistent with my reading of the Gospel as a whole.

The weight of some of the strongest arguments, including the situation the Gospel addresses, initially suggested to me a date as late as the mid-80s, making it (in my opinion) later than both Mark and Luke, but with a polemic less developed (and with opponents less powerful and less targeted) than in the Fourth Gospel in the 90s. Yet because I believe some post-70 bitterness toward Gentiles informs the need for stressing the Gentile mission (especially for those who would place this Gospel or its author in Antioch, a home of that mission),¹³⁰ and because I believe other recollections of the trauma of 70 remain quite relevant to the church (including perhaps false teachers claiming a false parousia during the war),¹³¹ I am inclined to lower the date by perhaps half a decade and guess that Matthew was written in the late 70s.¹³² (In addition, one should not place the Gospel too late in the first century, for example, around 90, since by the early second century Matthew already appears as the favorite Gospel.)¹³³

Again, I have chosen to favor internal evidence (in a case where the available external evidence is inadequate to be decisive) over second-century tradition (that the apostle Matthew wrote before Mark), a move some more conservative scholars would dispute. But I readily concede that arguments for a pre-70 date merit more consideration than they have often received. And as R. T. France, a British scholar who tentatively advances a pre-70 date, rightly warns, our proposed dates “depend on the relative dating of various writings and events … there are few fixed points.” Thus, “any ‘publication date’ can be advanced only very tentatively” (1985: 30), whether that date is “early” or “late.” Despite our best attempts to pinpoint a precise date, Luke Timothy Johnson is correct when he observes, “The dating of the four canonical Gospels is entirely a matter of scholarly deduction based on arguments concerning literary dependence” (1996: 90). Uncertainty about the date also affects the degree of precision to which our attempts to reconstruct the historical situation addressed can be successful.

The Situation Matthew Addresses

A recent collection of essays argues that the canonical Gospels were written for the whole of ancient Mediterranean Christianity rather than for specific communities (see Bauckham 1998b). As biographers, the Gospel writers most likely sought wider circulation than letter-writers normally did (Burridge 1998: 113-45). Gospels are more “open texts,” requiring less locally specific information for correct understanding by implied readers, than are epistles (Bauckham 1998a: 48). Their written publication extended their audience beyond the previous oral setting (Alexander 1998: 90). This view is a helpful and necessary corrective to previous reconstructions of hypothetical communities, many of which piled guess upon guess about specific matters for which no data remain. Certainly Luke writes for an audience that is specific yet also knows many circulated gospels (Lk 1:1).

Nevertheless, at least some Gospel writers seem to have addressed primarily a particular range of ideal audience within the ancient Mediterranean world; even the necessity of understanding Greek would restrict the Gospels’ immediate accessibility in some parts of the Roman empire. Matthew includes recurrent emphases (e.g., the Gentile mission) and appears to presuppose a largely Jewish ideal audience who will understand many of his allusions. But looking for Gospel audiences and their locations is not the same as reconstructing detailed “communities” (Barton 1998: 194); seeking to ascertain Matthew’s ideal audience is more like “our modern concept of ‘target audience’ or ‘market niche’” than traditional redactional assumptions (Burridge 1998: 143). When we use the traditional language of “community,” we mean not a single house-church nor even a movement within a particular city; even if we suspected a narrower audience, we could in any case infer only the broadest judgments about the author’s ideal audience based on the gospel itself. But whoever else was invited to listen in, Matthew probably addressed most fully and deliberately those parts of the church he knew best.

Although Matthew’s dependence on earlier tradition prevents him from adapting everything in his Gospel to his readers’ situation, enough of his emphases remain and fit what we know of the issues of his day.¹³⁴ Matthew’s plot, like that of the other Gospels, focuses on conflict (Kingsbury 1992). While conflict could simply imply a good story, if anything can be clear from the issues Matthew addresses in his Gospel, then Matthew is engaged in some sort of polemic against the Jewish authorities, as scholars commonly contend.¹³⁵ Jesus’ popularity with the masses in Matthew, uncommitted as they may prove to be either for or against him, weighs against the possibility that the main source of opposition his Jewish Christian communities faced was on the popular level; more than likely it stemmed instead primarily from the minority that wielded more intellectual influence in the community.

As noted above, Matthew’s special target appears to be the successors of the scribes and Pharisees, the founders of the rabbinic movement at Jamnia and whatever Jewish leaders throughout Syro-Palestine may have been aligned with or influenced by them.¹³⁶ Like his teacher Jesus, Matthew agrees with some of these Pharisees’ teaching (23:2-3), but he resents their behavior and opposition to the truth of Jesus and his followers (23:29-37; note Bornkamm 1963a: 31; Barth 1963: 89, but contrast Barth 1963: 103). Probably the Jerusalem Christians and the Pharisees were getting along reasonably well in the 60s (Acts 15:5; cf. Acts 23:6) when, led by James, the Jerusalem church was known for its piety in the law (Acts 21:20). Given Josephus’s regular association of the Pharisees with observance of the law, those who most firmly protested James’s unjust execution as a transgressor of the law (Jos. Ant. 20.200-201) may also have been Pharisees (traditionally known for leniency in any case — Ant. 13.294). But when most of the Jerusalem Christians abandoned Jerusalem (cf. 24:15-16), willing to flee if necessary even on the Sabbath (24:20), they may have incurred more suspicion. And if, as is likely, aristocratic elements dominated the new coalition of leadership at Jamnia, class issues may have joined competition and the new leadership’s attempts to consolidate influence to foster a difficult breach between the Jamnian alliance (probably dominated in some measure by well-to-do Pharisees) and Jewish Christians.

The current consensus is that the first generations of rabbis exercised little direct power in Palestine (e.g., Horsley 1995: 98, 103-5). Yet evidence within Matthew itself suggests a specifically Pharisaic component of some sort in the community’s opposition, likely competing with the early Christians for influence over popular thought.¹³⁷ The conflict Matthew addresses need not involve the oft-cited Birkath ha-Minim, the curse against schismatics (e.g., Ellis 1974: 5; Burridge 1994: 91),¹³⁸ usually dated ca. 85, although that probably provides one extant illustration of the tensions characterizing the period.¹³⁹ Even if the curse had been quickly disseminated among many synagogues outside Judea (which is unlikely),¹⁴⁰ the polemic of the First Gospel can be accounted for easily enough in broader tensions already building in the years after 70.¹⁴¹ (Indeed, the conflicts had begun well before 70 and continued long after it could be remembered as only one conflict among many.)¹⁴² Previous generations of scholars overestimated rabbinic power and underestimated Judaism’s diversity in late first-century Palestine. I suspect that contemporary scholarship, in evaluating Jewish and Christian texts from diverse communities, underestimates the oral networks of frequent travelers connecting these communities, as well as these communities’ knowledge of one another.¹⁴³ I also suspect that the status of the emerging leadership coalition in Judea may have been analogous to the role of the scribes and Pharisees before 70 and many prominent social groups today: widely known and respected in Judea (and perhaps Galilee) on those occasions when people thought of them, even though most of the common people did not know or attend to the intricacies of their scribal conclusions.

Some scholars have regarded Matthew as anti-Jewish (Cook 1983; cf. van Tilborg 1972b: 96-97), but their position needs to be qualified or rejected.¹⁴⁴ One need survey only some of the genuine anti-Judaism of Matthew’s Gentile contemporaries (e.g., claims recorded in Jos. Apion 2.145: Moses was a deceiver and Jewish laws promoted immorality) to recognize the difference. Matthew writes as a Jewish Christian critiquing other Jews, especially the leadership, just as Israel’s prophets critiqued Israel from within. Amy-Jill Levine’s observations are apropos (1988: 99):

… to claim that the entire Jewish world has aligned itself against Jesus and his church is incorrect. The Jewish leaders are most accurately to be compared not with coreligionists such as the sinners, prostitutes, and lepers lacking full or equal participation in the cultus but with members of other elite, exploitive groups: the Roman rulers, those who attempt to control the church through domination rather than those who guide through service, even the disciples of Jesus and of John who on occasion perceive themselves to be better than those more distanced from the prophetic figures.

Matthew provides positive historical precedents for the Gentile mission in Jesus’ life and ministry, but rarely at the expense of his own people’s identity. Matthew may emphasize divine judgment on Jerusalem, but this no more constitutes a repudiation of Israel or of his own Jewish heritage than the same theme in 4 Ezra or 2 Baruch does (Davies and Allison 1997: 202).

A majority of commentators believe that Matthew’s audience had already decisively broken with the synagogue when the Gospel was written, although the Gospel preserves traces of earlier conflict.¹⁴⁵ Yet an increasing number of scholars doubt that Matthew’s audience had completely ruptured with the synagogues¹⁴⁶ or question whether the evidence is decisive in either direction.¹⁴⁷ Some differences between the two positions may be semantic; the Matthean Christians clearly held their own structures distinguishable from the synagogue communities (Stanton 1993: 130); but this concession to the majority view need in no way suggest that they had broken with their own ethnic heritage.

Concurring with the perspectives of what is still probably the minority view, I find in the Gospel an author and audience intensely committed to their heritage in Judaism while struggling with those they believe to be its illegitimate spokespersons.¹⁴⁸ On this reading, Matthew writes to Jewish Christians who, in addition to being part of their assemblies as believers in Jesus, are fighting to remain part of their local synagogue communities.¹⁴⁹ Even if local authorities or Judean leaders with influence in the local situation have sought to expel them, they have not yet (and perhaps never did) ceased to regard themselves as Jewish by culture and faith. Nor is it easily conceivable (except to later Gentile Christians) that first- or second-generation Jewish Christians would have abandoned ethnic ties merely in reaction to those whom they considered illegitimate guardians of their heritage.¹⁵⁰ As Davies and Allison complain (1997: 695),

Modern scholars sometimes leave the impression that a Jewish believer in Jesus could leave Judaism as easily as a person can today leave, let us say, the Methodist Church for the Episcopalian.… But … to leave Judaism meant … to move from one society to another: it involved the painful severing not only of family and cultic ties but being cut off from the whole life of a community upon which one was socially and economically dependent.

Thus I concur with Overman’s claim (1996: 10): Matthew does not represent a conflict between Jews and “Christians” as mutually exclusive groups, but “details the tensions and issues that existed between different Judaisms at the close of the first century C.E. in Palestine.”

Claiming that Matthew’s primary audience is essentially Jewish Christian does not imply that it excluded Gentile converts;¹⁵¹ it suggests only that those Gentile converts recognized that in converting to Christianity they were adopting a Jewish faith and with it some elements of the Jewish culture that had brought it to them.¹⁵² As far apart as Jewish Christians and many non-Christian synagogue leaders may have felt themselves, to outsiders a sect that claimed the one God of Israel and Israel’s Bible and that originated in a messianic matrix on Jewish soil could not have appeared far from Judaism. That sort of distinction could take place only after Gentile Christianity became a sufficiently dominant force to influence public perceptions and discourse concerning it.¹⁵³ Further, even in most Diaspora cities where Jews and Gentiles shared the same city, Jews (like other ethnic minorities) most often congregated in their own parts of the city. House churches within walking distance for most members would therefore most often involve their own ethnic community (although exceptions in some cities, like Corinth, are likely).

Of all four Gospels, the language and method of Matthew most closely resemble those of the part of Pharisaic scribalism growing into the emerging rabbinic movement.¹⁵⁴ Noting the similarities, Overman even sees early rabbinic Judaism and Matthean Christianity as “fraternal twins” (1990b: 160). Whether Matthew reflects some “rabbinic” thought or simply more popular Jewish scribal currents also found in early rabbinic traditions, the parallels are noteworthy. Some scholars have rightly pointed out the evidence of Christian scribes in Matthew (13:52; 23:34; see Stendahl 1968; Cope 1976), people ready to make disciples of the Gentiles (28:19; cf. Harrington 1980: 96). Probably Matthew responds to Jewish charges that Christians oppose the law, a charge his Gospel therefore emphatically denies (5:17-20; cf. Smalley 1977: 185).¹⁵⁵ Thus as early as the sixteenth century Sebastian Münster called Matthew a “new Torah” (Lapide 1984: 55).

Of course, Matthew’s readers are not so fortunate as to be facing only one problem (cf. also Stanton 1993: 3). Scholars who suggest that false teachers provide a threat to his community are undoubtedly also correct (cf. Thompson 1970: 258-64). One may note that condemnations of the scribes and Pharisees (3:7-10; 12:24, 33-34) coalesce with warnings regarding false charismatic prophets (7:15-23; 24:24). Likewise, judgments against the false religious leaders of Jesus’ day (23:13-29) serve as a warning to religious leaders of the end-time generations (24:45-51).¹⁵⁶ But most of all, Matthew probably functions as a discipling manual, a “handbook” of Jesus’ basic life and teaching, relevant to a Jewish-Christian community engaged in the Gentile mission and deadlocked in scriptural polemic with their local synagogue communities.

Matthew and “Historical Jesus” Research

A central character’s “great deeds” generally comprise the bulk of an ancient biographical narrative, and the Gospels fit this prediction (Burridge 1992: 208). In other words, biographies were about someone in particular. Aside from the 42.5 percent of Matthew’s verbs that appear directly in Jesus’ teaching, Jesus himself is the subject of 17.2 percent of Matthew’s verbs; the disciples, 8.8 percent; those to whom Jesus ministers, 4.4 percent; and the religious establishment, 4.4 percent. Even in his absence he often remains the subject of others’ discussions (14:1-2; 26:3-5). Thus, as was common in ancient biographies (and no other genre), at least half of Matthew’s verbs involve the central figure’s “words and deeds” (Burridge 1992: 196-97, 202). The entire point of using this genre is that it focuses on Jesus himself, not simply on early Christian experience (Burridge 1992: 256-58).¹⁵⁷ Thus it is consonant with Matthew’s purpose to inquire, to the extent the extant evidence will allow, into the degree to which his portrait of Jesus coheres with historical data.

Nevertheless, the available data for such an inquiry lend themselves to a variety of interpretations, depending on one’s interpretive grid. History has passed a negative verdict on most of the past two centuries of “historical Jesus” research.¹⁵⁸ While quests for the historical Jesus have started with the reasonable assumption that later orthodox Christology should not be read into our earliest accounts of Jesus, they have almost invariably read Jesus in light of too narrow a background (e.g., a revolutionary, a teacher, a prophet, or otherwise, but rarely more than one at a time) or as a reflection of their own values.¹⁵⁹ Unfortunately, some quests have also ignored basic historical constraints — such as the radically eschatological predecessor (John the Baptist) and followers of Jesus who make a noneschatological Jesus highly improbable (Johnson 1996: 25). Although scholars after Schweitzer for a time gave up the picture of Jesus as a comfortable, noneschatological sage, some have returned to this position, prompting one critic to remark, “There is something disturbingly familiar about a mildly reforming, sagacious teacher, who … does not use language and imagery that promises the reversal of the rulers of the world” (Overman 1990a: 195). As Meier complains (1991a: 177):

A tweady poetaster who spent his time spinning out parables and Japanese koans, a literary aesthete who toyed with 1st-century deconstructionism, or a bland Jesus who simply told people to look at the lilies of the field — such a Jesus would threaten no one, just as the university professors who create him threaten no one.

It is hard to explain how the harmless, noneschatological sage of the Jesus Seminar, Crossan, Mack, and others, like that of the nineteenth-century lives of Jesus, would get himself crucified (cf. Meier 1991a: 177; Stanton 1995a: 177).¹⁶⁰ Admittedly, the historical method can give us only a partial picture of the Jesus who lived in history (Meier 1991a: 21-31); but the broader the base of evidence, the fuller the picture we can likely construct.

Because the commentary proper cannot provide as much background as I would like for recurrent themes every time they occur, I will provide a brief treatment of some of Matthew’s primary christological motifs here. Further, because the commentary must focus especially on social-historical interpretation rather than investigating the historical reliability of Matthew’s traditions (though I will not neglect that investigation entirely), I will address the historical roots of Matthew’s christological motifs most fully here.

I am working from two basic methodological assumptions. First, much evidence suggests that Palestinian Judaism was very hellenized, although the Greco-Roman world on the whole was far less Judaized (e.g., Hengel 1974a; Lieberman 1962). Second, and consequently, a confluence of Jewish and hellenistic motifs is Jewish, and cannot be purely hellenistic with no regard for traditional Jewish components. Thus I reject the view that Jesus, though Jewish by birth, was more “hellenistic” in his behavior (Mack 1988: 87n.7).

Jesus as a Teacher and Prophet

Jesus as a Teacher

Matthew portrays Jesus in a variety of ways that neither he nor his audience would have regarded as mutually exclusive. First, he portrays Jesus as a teacher, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount; others, including Jesus’ enemies, also recognized that he filled this role, inadequate as it was to describe him fully (9:11; 12:38; 17:24; 22:16, 24, 36).¹⁶¹ Perhaps because Matthew heavily emphasizes teaching, “understanding” also becomes a central motif in his Gospel (9:13; 12:7; 13:14-15, 23, 51; 15:10, 16; 16:9, 11-12; 17:13; 22:29; 24:15, 39). Matthew could simply have derived this motif from Mark, who also emphasizes it (Mk 4:12-13, 33-34; 6:52; 7:14, 18; 8:17, 21; 9:31),¹⁶² but he sometimes adds it to Mark or develops it (e.g., Mt 13:23, 51).¹⁶³

The available evidence clearly indicates (and few would dispute) that Matthew is historically correct: Jesus was a teacher. Although scribes in the ancient Mediterranean world in general were executors of legal documents (e.g., CPJ 1:12, 18, 21, 70, etc.; Goodman 1983: 59), a position that sometimes included high status (e.g., B.G.U. 1256.1-2; P. Tebt. 39.1), a more significant role traditionally befell some Jewish scribes in Palestine (cf. Ezra 7:6; 1 Macc 5:42; 1 Enoch 12:4; 92:1; Test. Abr. 11 B). Many scribes in Jewish Palestine also educated local children in the law, and the most skilled would have trained disciples to become scribes as well (Keener 1991a: 23, 145-46; cf. Stambaugh and Balch 1986: 99). Given their economic situation and religious education, probably a disproportionate number of priests became scribes (Sanders 1992: 170-71). Although a wide gap exists between prototypical sages of traditional wisdom like Joshua ben Sira on the one hand and local legal experts on the other (many, like Witherington 1994: 345-46, rank Jesus among the former), many people apparently expected popular teachers to straddle the continuum, and many teachers accommodated such expectations (see, e.g., m. ʾAbot 1–3).

Some scholars, emphasizing that Jesus was a charismatic leader of some sort, are reticent to call Jesus a teacher of the law.¹⁶⁴ It is true that Jesus was not part of what later became the rabbinic movement, nor was he merely a Jewish scribe or ancient Near Eastern wisdom sage.¹⁶⁵ But many early sages traveled,¹⁶⁶ and it is unlikely that most Galilean Jews who saw themselves as faithful to God’s law would have sharply contrasted charismatic teachers from other teachers of the law as if the former lacked legal wisdom (cf. Meeks 1986: 117; Hengel 1981b: 55-56). Although others besides scribes undoubtedly expounded Scripture in first-century synagogues,¹⁶⁷ Jesus’ frequent teaching in synagogues suggests that many viewed him as an authoritative teacher, though not an ordained rabbi in the later sense (Hill 1979: 50). Most scholars note that many characteristics of Jesus’ ministry fit expectations for sages and scribes, and whatever else Jesus may have been, he was clearly a Jewish teacher of one or both types as well.¹⁶⁸

Each teacher had some unique or characteristic elements in his style (e.g., Tarfon’s “May I bury my sons,” t. Ḥag. 3:33; Shab. 13:5; Sifra V. D. Deho. par. 4.7.3.2; b. Shab. 16b-17a; 116a), and many scholars have commented on specific characteristics of Jesus’ teaching style, some unique to him and others common to ancient Jewish teachers in general (see Jeremias 1971: 22-37; Stein 1978: 13-32; Tannehill 1975). For instance, few if any other teachers sometimes prefaced their words with, “Amen [Truly], I tell you.”¹⁶⁹

By contrast, other elements of Jesus’ style are characteristic of his contemporaries in general. Most rhetorical forms in biblical wisdom literature, such as proverbs and riddles, continued among sages of Jesus’ day (cf. Gottlieb 1990). Jewish teachers typically employed the rhetorical techniques of hyperbole and rhetorical overstatement (e.g., m. ʾAbot 2:8; ARN 36 A); Greek and Roman readers were also comfortable with such figures of speech (cf. Rhet. ad Herenn. 4.33.44; Quint. Inst. Or. 8.6.73-76; Arist. Rhet. 3.11.15; Demetrius On Style 2.124-27; 3.161), a rhetoric disseminated perhaps most commonly in the marketplace (cf., e.g., PGM 36.69, 134, 211-12, 320). Jesus employed the same method, in each teaching seeking to evoke specific responses rather than provide direct proof-texts for subsequent theological systems (cf. Stein 1978: 8-12). It is particularly important for modern interpreters to remember this characteristic of Jesus’ teaching, or we will find contradictions among his teachings precisely because we have not read his teachings carefully enough to learn to understand them as catchy figures of Jewish speech rather than developed doctrinal pronouncements. Like other sages, Jesus employed riddles, parables, and other figures of speech as evocative language forcing the hearer to contemplate his message (Witherington 1994: 3).

Jesus as a Prophet

Second, and closely connected with Jesus’ teaching role, Matthew presents Jesus as a prophet like Jeremiah (Mt 16:14; 21:12; 23:29-32; cf. Zucker 1990: 292) and especially a prophet-healer like Elijah and Elisha (e.g., the healings of Mt 8–9; Mark especially develops this signs-prophet Christology).¹⁷⁰ That a follower of John should have been considered a prophet is hardly surprising (cf. Vermes 1993: 73-74). The Gospel tradition identifies John as the expected Elijah at various points (e.g., 17:10-13; Mk 1:6; Lk 1:17), elsewhere reserving this image, alongside that of the new Moses, for Jesus (e.g., Lk 4:24-27; 9:8, 30-35, 61-62; Jn 1:21; 6:14-15; cf. Robbins 1992: 54).¹⁷¹ Unlike the Baptist, Jesus apparently claimed that his ministry was actually introducing (not merely presaging) the kingdom, and all strata of Gospel tradition confirm that Jesus performed miracles like those of Elijah and Elisha (cf. Meier 1994: 1044-45).¹⁷²

Those who insist that because Jesus was a sage he was not a prophet (e.g., Mack 1988: 57, 87n.7; cf. idem 1993: 31-32) assume exclusive modern categories that would not have held among Jesus’ contemporaries. Some popular charismatic teachers looked more like prophets, and despite more scribal teachers’ objections, the line between popular teachers and prophets may have remained thin for the masses. Some scholars have proposed that Jesus resembled an ancient magician (Smith 1978); this proposal falters because it ignores the lack of techiques that normally characterized magicians, whereas what Jesus shared with magicians he also shared with other categories of wonder workers.¹⁷³ More popular was the comparison of Jesus with hellenistic “divine men.” Because the disparate details of the latter portrait paralleling Jesus were assembled only long after the Gospels, however, the latter view has fallen from favor.¹⁷⁴

One need not look to purely Greek sources for charismatic healers; Palestinian Judaism had more orthodox healers, like Hanina ben Dosa. While Vermes may go too far in thinking that Galileans of Jesus’ era listened to holy men like Hanina ben Dosa more than to priests or scribes, he rightly emphasizes that many people would have followed such charismatic leaders (cf. Vermes 1984: 5; cf. Hengel 1981b).¹⁷⁵ Although scholars increasingly concur that the historical Jesus was a “charismatic leader” in some sense, they dispute whether he was “(with Vermes) a charismatic healer like Hanina ben Dosa and Honi the Circle-Drawer or (with Hengel, Theissen and others) a charismatic prophet” (Sanders 1990: 3).¹⁷⁶ Given the fluidity of such distinctions in antiquity and the Gospel portrayal of Jesus as a legal teacher, healer, and prophet, one must ask why we are forced to choose among these options. Observers probably approached him in terms of whichever role they needed him to fill, although this probably meant in practice that most people approached him as a charismatic signs-prophet (cf. Mt 4:24-25; 16:14; 21:11, 46; Lk 24:19).¹⁷⁷

Excursus: Early Disciples as Wandering Prophets?

Theissen creates and overemphasizes the type of early Christian “wandering prophets” (cf. Theissen 1978: 8-16; Gager 1979: 176).¹⁷⁸ Wandering charismatics may appear at times in early Christianity, such as in Acts 11:27-28;¹⁷⁹ the Didache;¹⁸⁰ and, if the prophetic element is dominant enough, in the activities of both Paul and some of his opponents (2 Cor 11:22-27). Elsewhere in antiquity, wandering prophets often traveled outside their land, preserving collections of oracles (Collins 1972: 6). But itinerancy marked teachers at least as much as prophets (cf. Dio Chrys. passim, e.g., Or. 3; 4; 80; Socrates Ep. 2 to Xenophon; Diog. Laert. Lives 2.22; Sent. Sext. 18-19; Liefeld 1967: 26-133; Bowers 1980: 318-19), and the landless commonly wandered as well (Goodman 1983: 39). In other words, mobility characterized first-century Roman society in general, rather than merely prophets in particular (Aune 1983: 211-12; cf. Boyd 1995: 122-23).¹⁸¹

The Jesus tradition, while charismatic, provides no evidence that specifically links him or his disciples with the wandering prophets proposed by Theissen (cf. Boring 1982: 59-61; Fiorenza 1983: 74). Paul himself provides our best concrete evidence for the lifestyle commitment commanded in the Gospels (e.g., 1 Cor 4:9-13),¹⁸² and he is as much a teacher as a prophet. The travels of Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha indeed provide the strongest Palestinian models for Jesus’ itinerancy, but these otherwise dominant models in the Jesus tradition make the lack of clear evidence for groups of itinerant followers of Jesus after the resurrection all the more striking.

Further, one should not exclude all signs-prophets from being viewed as messianic (hence in some sense end-time) figures as well. First-century Jewish Palestine’s most popular figures were probably the prophets of deliverance, leading messianic movements and modeling their ministries after Moses and Joshua.¹⁸³ These were signs-prophets like Theudas, who tried to part the Jordan, and the Egyptian false prophet who expected Jerusalem’s walls to collapse before him, both seeking to anticipate eschatological deliverance by working Moses- or Joshua-like miracles.¹⁸⁴ Some of these signs-prophets may have envisioned themselves as possible messiahs; Josephus, who tells us of them, had good reasons to play down messianic claims (although he does fail to brand them “brigands” as he normally does revolutionaries).¹⁸⁵ Some of their followers undoubtedly understood them in such terms, and they could not help but recognize that their followers did so.¹⁸⁶

Modern scholars who insist that if Jesus were a sage he could not be an eschatological figure ignore the intensely eschatological orientation of Palestinian Judaism as a whole in Jesus’ day (cf. Horsley and Hanson 1985: 25); nor can teachers and revolutionaries always be distinguished (cf. Horsley and Hanson 1985: 119). Most of this forced-choice logic represents the strict imposition of modern categories on much more fluid concepts of charismatic leaders held by people in first-century Jewish Palestine.¹⁸⁷

Excursus: “Zealots” and Revolutionaries

Evidence seems to tell against a unified revolutionary movement in first-century Palestine.¹⁸⁸ The term “Zealots” applies strictly only to some rather than to most early Jewish revolutionaries; Josephus seems to reserve the title for a limited group.¹⁸⁹ Horsley and Hanson 1985: 220-41 see the Zealots as peasant brigands in contrast to more educated groups of resisters (cf. Crossan 1991a: 217).

Josephus portrays the revolutionaries as “brigands,” endeavoring to marginalize them from the mainstream Jewish population. Some modern scholars view the brigands before the Jewish revolt in the light of modern studies of social bandits.¹⁹⁰ The revolutionaries and bandits of Jesus’ day may have had some support from Galilean villagers; at least Cumanus thought so (Jos. War 2.228-29; note, however, that the villagers could not have caught everyone — cf. Deut 21:1). But it is not clear to what extent Galilean peasants really supported the goals of such bandits, especially in the Lower Galilee from which Jesus came (see comment on 26:69);¹⁹¹ one should also allow for the impact of a certain degree of urban unrest (cf. Donaldson 1990). Nevertheless, many bandits may have circulated among the peasantry (cf. Horsley and Hanson 1985: 77-85).

Much of this brigandage before the first revolt may have been “prepolitical” rather than aimed at an overthrow of Roman domination, as the objective became toward the beginning of the Jewish War.¹⁹² Brigandage was common in antiquity and inevitably warranted execution if the brigands were captured (Lewis 1983: 204). Yet revolution was always a possibility. Many dissatisfied persons opted to work within the system, but many likewise hoped for its overthrow, eschatologically or otherwise (Sanders 1992: 35-43). Even Josephus informs us that some of these fancied themselves kings (Jos. Ant. 17.285), suggesting that the authorities could view the line between revolutionary and messianic sentiment as thin (see Mt 27:11-14, 37).

Although some Pharisees may have opposed the Zealot ideal (Davies 1967a), the Zealots, while distinct from other Pharisees, seem to have carried out a basic Pharisaic ideology in a more militant manner (Simon 1967: 44; cf. Neusner 1984: 26-27; see especially Jos. Ant. 18.4, 23-25).¹⁹³ Sanders (1992: 13-14; cf. pp. 280-84, 408-11) is surely right that the “Fourth Philosophy” was “largely Pharisaic in opinion, but whose members would accept no master but God (Antiq. 18.23; War 2.118).”¹⁹⁴ Most of their ideas were probably widespread in early Judaism (Horsley and Hanson 1985: xv), and eschatological expectation probably fueled all levels of Jewish resistance (cf. Horsley and Hanson 1985: 19, 76). Both resentment against Rome (Horsley and Hanson 1985: xv; Borg 1984: 36-47) and confidence that God would defend those loyal to him (Sanders 1992: 241) were also widespread. Josephus disparages “brigands” of all sorts except in the one case in which he need not do so, the speech he creates for Eleazar (Sanders 1992: 6-7).

Witherington 1990: 83 points out that some Pharisees did “basic training” (Jos. Life 11–21) and that revolutionary leaders could send Pharisees in charge of military contingents (Jos. Life 197).¹⁹⁵ In the earlier Wars, when the material is still sensitive, Josephus plays down both Pharisaic involvement in the revolt and Jewish involvement more generally, but in the later Antiquities a revolt as early as A.D. 6 appears to be part of a larger movement toward the revolution (Jos. Ant. 18.9-10, 23-25; Acts 5:34-35). Menahem of the revolt of 66-70 was descended from Judas the Galilean of the earlier revolt (Jos. War 2.433), and Josephus admits the revolutionaries’ theological commitments (Jos. Ant. 18.4-5, 23); the evidence may not entirely support the early use of the title “Zealot,” but it does support the continuing existence of simmering revolutionary sentiments through the early first century (Wright 1992: 179-80; Witherington 1990: 84-87, against Horsley and Hanson).

Was Jesus a revolutionary? Against Brandon (e.g., 1967: 283),¹⁹⁶ little evidence connects Jesus with insurrectionary activity; one can unfortunately argue almost any case when one rejects as unreliable the only historical evidence we have (cf. Harvey 1982: 14-15). Nevertheless, it is not difficult to see how some would have understood his popular appeal to the masses and open challenges to social customs as potential political threats. Yet Jesus comes closer to another paradigm of his day, namely, the paradigm that depended on God to intervene supernaturally to bring history to a close. Sanders 1993: 262 cites the repeated expectation in some strands of early Jewish literature that God would bring down a new temple (1 Enoch 90:28-29; 11QTemple 29:8-10) or fight for Israel and bring in the kingdom by his own power (1QM; Ps. Sol. 17:33-34). Some scholars think that Jesus went to the cross as a deluded visionary, hoping to provoke God’s hand; Christian scholars more often affirm instead that he accomplished exactly what he intended.

Jesus as Messiah/King

More important than his portrayals of Jesus as a teacher and prophet, Matthew hails Jesus as the true king of Israel (2:2; 21:5-9; 25:34; 27:11, 29, 42; of God in 22:2), that is, the Messiah (Christ; 16:16-20). Jesus’ teachings have such special authority for Matthew’s Jewish-Christian audience precisely because he is God’s appointed king. (Witherington 1990: 180 provides sufficient evidence for the overlap of messianic and sage categories in early Judaism.)

Messianic Categories in Early Judaism

Israel’s prophets had promised a final king and/or dynasty descended from David (e.g., Is 9:7; Jer 23:5), a theme that continued in early Judaism (e.g., Ps. Sol. 17:21; Fitzmyer 1974: 113-26). Because the king was the “anointed one,” Jewish people often labeled this ultimate king “the anointed one,” or “the Messiah,” which the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible regularly renders “the Christ.” The timing of Daniel 9:24-27 had probably increased messianic expectation in the decades immediately preceding Jesus’ ministry (see Beckwith 1981: 521-42).

Later Christians and Jews outside Palestine were far less interested in a “Messiah” than the Gospels were, which indicates how unlikely it would have been for the Gospel writers simply to have invented the tradition of Jesus’ Messiahship (pace Mack 1993: 4-5). (That Greek Christians seem to have used “Christ” as Jesus’ surname certainly suggests that the title did not originate among them!) Of course, the Gospels may simplify matters for their readers when they provide the impression that Palestinian Jews in general understood the term “Messiah” and expected his coming. Although most Jews who read the Old Testament believed in a Messiah, not all Jews had the same ideas concerning what he would be like.¹⁹⁷

The Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, may report a priestly community’s expectations of two “anointed ones, a Davidic ruler and a priest rivaling his prestige (both priests and kings were anointed for office). The Zadokite priests who founded the Qumran community rejected the Hasmonean combination of priesthood and kingship in the same person (1 Macc 14:41-42; 1QpHab 8.8-10; 9.4-7; 11.5-6; 12.5); like some others, they anticipated a future priest (cf. Test. Reub. 6:8; Test. Jud. 21:1-2; Zech 4:14; 6:13). In time, some scholars contend, these sectarians believed in two or three Messiahs (e.g., Aune 1983: 123),¹⁹⁸ though others hold that they accepted one Messiah (Higgins 1953: 333),¹⁹⁹ that Qumran sectarians varied among themselves (Smith 1959), or that the documents in question represent different stages in the community’s development of thought (Longenecker 1981: 114).²⁰⁰ The texts probably do imply diverse views (e.g., 1QS 9.11; CD 12.23–13.1; 14.19; 20.1; 1QM 11.7-8), but once we recognize that “anointed one” can mean anyone anointed for a leading office, the apparent conflict diminishes (LaSor 1956: 429; Gaster 1976: 392). The two “anointed ones” refer to “the anointed high priest” (in contrast to the wicked one in the temple) and “the anointed king of Israel” (cf. Silberman 1955: 82). Still, the Qumran emphasis on the anointed priest shows how a sectarian community could come up with very different ideas of the messianic era.

Probably more relevant on the popular level were deliverance movements surrounding prophetic messiahs (Horsley 1993b). Some of Josephus’s “false prophets” must have been would-be messiahs of various sorts, though Josephus carefully avoids talk that would sound revolutionary to his Roman readers.²⁰¹ After the failed Bar Kochba revolt of A.D. 132-35 and the execution of rabbis who had supported him, rabbis, too, grew more cautious in their messianic expectations (Moore 1971: 2:346), though they still maintained messianic hopes afterward (e.g., Sifre Deut. 34.4.3; p. Ketub. 12:3, §13). In a first-century environment, however, the masses would surely interpret messianically one who promised an imminent kingdom and the meek inheriting the land, as well as implied a central role for himself in its inauguration (Witherington 1990: 272-73; cf. Marshall 1990: 54-56).

The pseudepigraphic Psalms of Solomon, which may be Pharisaic but probably reflect popular Jewish thought, expected a Davidic warrior Messiah (17:21-25, 32) similar to the one expected by the disciples in the Gospels. This view of a warrior Messiah was surely one of the most popular among the masses (cf. 1QM for a related picture). The very concept of the Messiah normally at least connoted a divinely ordained future ruler with political (not merely spiritual) rule (a criterion that many Jewish people felt Jesus had failed to satisfy).²⁰²

Evidence for Jesus’ Messianic Claim

Even the earliest strands of Gospel tradition, however, indicate that Jesus taught that his disciples would have a role in the messianic kingdom, which would naturally imply that he attributed to himself the role of Israel’s king (Sanders 1985: 234). Despite the subsequent course of events (not conforming to any contemporary pattern for the Messiah’s career), his disciples claimed that he was the Messiah, and his execution as king indicates that others believed that he considered himself king, despite his reticence to employ the title “Messiah” publicly.²⁰³ One might add to this case other factors such as the Palestinian features of the Triumphal Entry narrative (such as the Hallel) that suggest the authenticity of the Entry, when Jesus approached Jerusalem as a king (cf. Sanders 1993: 242), especially because Mark does not explicitly cite Zechariah 9:9, which Jesus may have consciously fulfilled (see comment on Mt 21:1-9). E. P. Sanders thus thinks that many scholars have been too cautious about assuming that Jesus believed he was a king (1985: 307):

Jesus taught about the kingdom; he was executed as would-be king; and his disciples, after his death, espected him to return to establish the kingdom. These points are indisputable. Almost equally indisputable is the fact that the disciples thought that they would have some role in the kingdom. We should, I think, accept the obvious: Jesus taught his disciples that he himself would play the principal role in the kingdom.

Sanders allows a potential distinction between the image of king here and the traditional title of Messiah, but only to elevate the claim still further (1993: 242).

Yet the Gospels provide ample reason why Jesus would limit public testimony to his messiahship.²⁰⁴ Contemporary messianic figures usually avoided claiming their own messiahship, depending instead on others to acclaim them (Witherington 1990: 265-67). Also significant from a theological standpoint, his mission redefined the meaning of the term (cf. Marshall 1990: 89-90). Perhaps equally significant on a practical level, deferring messianic acclamation could delay the political consequences of such an acclamation — and hence control the timing of his own execution (on the “messianic secret,” see further comment on 8:4). After examining evidence for Jesus’ Messiahship (1994: 473-80), Brown concludes (1994: 480):

… I judge it plausible that during Jesus’ lifetime some of his followers thought him to be the Messiah, i.e., the expected anointed king of the House of David who would rule over God’s people. Jesus, confronted with this identification, responded ambivalently because associated with that role were features that he rejected, and also because God had yet to define the role that he would play in the kingdom beyond what he was already doing. Such an indefinite and ambivalent answer could have constituted the basis on which his enemies gave him over to the Romans as would-be king.

At least very soon after his death, his disciples understood his kingdom in a manner quite different from typical messianic expectations of their contemporaries. Pilate had Jesus executed as a would-be king, but the messianic movement that followed him did not pursue military or political power; Jesus had planted in them an expectation for a messiahship “not of this world” (Sanders 1985: 294).²⁰⁵

Son of God

Matthew also frequently employs the expression “Son of God,” which he regards as virtually interchangeable with “Christ” (cf. 16:16 with Mk 8:29). Kingsbury may very well be correct that this represents Matthew’s primary christological title (1975: 40-83; cf. Thiemann 1989: 322-38), although others have challenged this contention (Hill 1980 thinks that “servant” defines Sonship, and Meier 1979: 218-19 thinks that Son of Man is as prominent as Son of God). At any rate, it represents an important title expressing Jesus’ authority under the Father. The Aramaic expression in Mark 14:36 indicates that Jesus historically did call God his Father, but people employed the expression “son of God” in various ways.

How might the first disciples have understood the term? Various people in the Greek world employed the expression loosely for heroes (e.g., Grant 1986: 68-69), sorcerers (Smith 1978: 101; but cf. Blackburn 1986: 189), philosophers (e.g., Epict. Disc. 1.9.6), or reigning emperors (e.g., Sherk 1988: passim). But no less a scholar of hellenistic antiquity than Arthur Darby Nock long ago demonstrated that the early Christian usage of “God’s Son” has little in common with hellenistic usage; the closest parallels function only by way of contrast (1964a: 45). Early Christian usage bears this out: Paul emphasized Christ’s Lordship far more than his Sonship, perhaps to avoid specifically hellenistic associations of the term (Hengel 1976: 7). Further, not only does every known stratum of Gospel tradition and redaction portray Jesus as God’s “Son” at least occasionally; the title occurs in one saying of Jesus that is nearly impossible to attribute to early Christianity (Mk 13:30). Matthew stresses it more than Mark and Luke do, and John, who stresses it most, is just as Jewish as Matthew (see Longenecker 1981: 98). Further, in extant Gospel tradition, Jesus is not merely a son of God, but the Son of God, his beloved and unique Son (see Hengel 1976: 24).

The Old Testament and Jewish tradition apply the title to the righteous (Vermes 1973: 195-97), those who belong to God (Hengel 1976: 21-23), and especially to Israel (see Longenecker 1981: 97); but Matthew’s identification of Jesus with Israel is not thoroughgoing enough to account for this title in his Gospel, and the Jesus of our sources is again not merely one son of God among many. While other figurative nuances of sonship like obedience, intimacy, and delegated authority (all natural aspects of the metaphor in a Jewish context) also apply, the ultimate Old Testament example of a special son of God was the Davidic dynasty (e.g., 2 Sam 7:14; 1 Chron 22:10; Ps 2:7), and at least some Jews still used the title this way in Jesus’ day (4QFlor 1.10-11; 1QSa 2.11-12; perhaps 4Q246; in Longenecker 1981: 95; Stanton 1989a: 225; idem 1995: 154-55; Collins 1993; but on 4Q246 cf. Fabry 1993; Fitzmyer 1993). But our Gospel evidence does indicate that, at the earliest stage, Jesus allowed others to voice the claim rather than embracing the title for himself (Vermes 1993: 168), fitting the “messianic secret” noted above.

Other Christological Issues

Son of Man

“Son of Man” represents another important christological term for Matthew, although he borrows it from sources like Mark, who develops an eschatological Christology related to the son of man in Daniel 7 (cf. Manson 1961: 72-73; Longenecker 1981: 82-92).²⁰⁶ Because “son of man” can mean a “human being” (and perhaps occasionally function as “I”), some scholars reject its eschatological sense in the Gospels.²⁰⁷ Most, however, recognize that at least some of the “Son of Man” sayings use the title eschatologically, whether they derive the title’s background from Daniel or, less likely, from the uncertainly dated Similitudes of 1 Enoch (Burkitt 1910: 66-68),²⁰⁸ a usage perhaps also reflected in 4 Ezra (cf. 13:1-56; Boring 1995: 143; J. Collins 1992). When the Pharisees think that Jesus “blasphemes” because he forgives sins, Jesus demonstrates the “Son of Man’s authority on earth” (Mt 9:6; Mk 2:10); he likewise claims authority for the Son of Man as “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mt 12:8; Mk 2:28). But Jesus’ allusion to Daniel 7:13-14 becomes most explicit in Matthew 24:30//Mark 13:26 (to Jesus’ disciples) and in Matthew 26:64//Mark 14:62 (to Jesus’ opponents, ending Mark’s “messianic secret”).

Although some scholars have argued that the later church created many or all of Jesus’ “Son of Man” sayings,²⁰⁹ “Son of Man” in early Christian texts appears almost exclusively on Jesus’ lips. The proper, positive use of the criterion of dissimilarity thus would suggest that if any title of Jesus is authentic, this one is.²¹⁰ Although many scholars agree that Jesus used the title, they dispute the authenticity of one or more groups of sayings in which the title is used (especially the future “Son of Man” sayings). Yet if the title is authentic and barely used by anyone except Jesus, one should not a priori exclude any of the uses; and if Jesus proclaimed a kingdom and implied his Messiahship, one especially need not exclude the eschatological sayings. If the Gospels provide any indication at all, Jesus apparently defined his mission — both its suffering and exaltation — in terms of the son of man of Daniel 7:13-14.²¹¹ For Matthew’s source Mark, the Son of Man who suffered before his exaltation is the forerunner of the community of faith, his readers, now suffering great tribulation at the hands of hostile world-rulers (cf. Dan 7:21-22, 25-27). Matthew likewise interprets the title in view of Daniel 7 (see Davies and Allison 1991: 50-52). Yet because of its more common idiomatic associations, “Son of Man” retains an ambiguity that “Son of God” as a title for a specific person would lack. Thus Kingsbury suggests that “Son of God” reveals Jesus’ identity in Matthew, whereas “Son of Man” is his public title, emphasizing how Jesus must relate to a world that rejects him as God’s Son: “conflict” and “vindication” (Kingsbury 1984: 31-32; though contrast Hill 1984: 50-51).

Judge, Lord, and Mediator of the Divine Presence

In the Q traditions Jesus portrays himself not as a mere human teacher but as judge in the day of judgment who will be addressed as “Lord, Lord” (Mt 7:21//Lk 13:25; Mt 7:24-27//Lk 6:46-49; Tuckett 1996: 209-82 focuses on Jesus as Son of Man and Wisdom’s suffering envoy in Q). Even John the Baptist recognizes the Coming One as greater than a merely human, natural messiah or teacher. He presents Jesus as one whose sandals he is unworthy to unloose or carry (Mt 3:11; Lk 3:16) — that is, as one whose servant he is unworthy to be (see comment on Mt 3:11). This supernatural figure would not baptize in mere water, but in the Spirit of God (for the righteous) and fire (for the wicked); he would likewise perform the divine role of judge, separating the righteous for eternal life and the wicked for damnation (Mt 3:11-12; Lk 3:16-17). If Matthew and Luke believed Jesus to be a merely natural messiah, they both did an inexplicably sloppy job of editing Q. One may dispute the witness of Q and other early evidence for a “high” Christology, but one should be clear about what one is doing: dismissing early parts of the evidence that do not fit traditional critical theories and then reconstructing a more favorable portrait with what remains.

Early Christian writers preferred to make their case through a variety of images rather than to focus on answering a small number of precise christological questions no one was yet asking in their century; but their images from the start include a superhuman role subordinate to the authority of the Father (e.g., Mt 25:31-34). Later Christian vocabulary has tended to follow the language of the creeds, but the Gospel writers had much more creative liberty and drew from a vast reservoir of biblical images for God and God’s agents in history. A degree of subtlety and connection with prior biblical history and established Jewish categories of divine leadership may also reflect the apologetic context of early Christianity: whereas the masses were probably uncomfortable with the Jesus movement’s portrait of a divine Christ, like the “crowds” in the Gospels they undoubtedly thought very highly of the signs-prophet and teacher from Nazareth. Thus the Synoptic writers, less concerned with lower-Christology schismatics than the Johannine community encountered, may have preferred to recount stories of a prophet-teacher who only occasionally revealed his higher identity. In this the Gospels likely follow their tradition; one may suspect that if the prophet-teacher from Nazareth thought himself to be more than a prophet-teacher, he might have followed the same strategy for communicating it in such a public context.

Matthew, like John, represents a strain of Jewish Christianity less hellenized than that of Mark or Luke; and like John, Matthew emphasizes Jesus’ deity to monotheistic readers.²¹² Whereas John uses especially the image of Wisdom to develop his Christology, however, Matthew also focuses on the Shekinah. Although Matthew elsewhere articulates Wisdom Christology (cf. Suggs 1970; Deutsch 1990; Johnson 1986: 189-90), he frames his Gospel with the portrait of Jesus as the present, saving God. Jesus is not only God present with his people (1:23), after his exaltation as Son of Man (28:18) equal to the Father and divine Spirit (28:19) and virtually omnipresent (28:20); Jesus is God’s presence among his people (18:20), fulfilling a function Jewish teachers ascribed to the Shekinah, God’s presence.

Yet for all this “high” Christology, it is hardly Matthew’s emphasis (cf. Pregeant 1996); Matthew devotes far more space to Jesus as authoritative teacher, Messiah (rightful King of Israel), the fulfillment of ancient Israel’s history and prophecies, and so forth (on Matthew’s Christology, see especially Kingsbury 1975). One of the most prominent characteristics of Matthew’s Jesus is how he fulfills Scripture, sometimes literally and sometimes as the embodiment of Israel’s history (passim below). Matthew is clear that Jesus is the goal of the law and prophets, hence anyone faithful to the heritage and Bible of Israel must recognize and follow him.

The Kingdom of Heaven

With but four exceptions, Matthew employs the phrase “kingdom of heaven” rather than the phrase “kingdom of God” found elsewhere in the New Testament, including all other material from the Gospel tradition. Some other Jewish texts use “kingdom of heaven” as a periphrasis for “kingdom of God” (e.g., Sifra Qed. pq. 9.207.2.13; p. Qidd. 1:2, §24).²¹³ Matthew, preferring a usage that would communicate better in the Pharisaic-type circles he was engaging, naturally preferred this synonymous expression (Goulder 1974: 63; Jeremias 1971: 97; contrast Guelich 1982: 77).

The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek terms here translated “kingdom” usually signify the concept “reign” or “authority” or “rule.”²¹⁴ Like the Old Testament (e.g., Is 6:5), Jewish teachers could speak of God’s present rule (especially among the people who obeyed his law; see, e.g., m. Ber. 2:2; Sifra A.M. pq. 13.194.2.1; Sifre Deut. 313.1.3; 323.1.2; see Bonsirven 1964: 176; cf. Ps 145:2; 146:10). But the Jewish people also looked for the kingdom as God’s future rule, when he would reign unchallenged (e.g., Is 9:6-7; 24:23; 52:7; Zech 14:9; Wis 5:16; Jub. 1:28; Mek. Shir. 10.42-45; Sifra Behuq. pq. 8.269.2.3),²¹⁵ as attested in regular Jewish prayers (see, e.g., Oesterley 1925: 65, 70). Jesus’ picture of the kingdom, as well as of the Son of Man, may derive especially from Daniel 7, a passage less frequently mined by Jesus’ followers (Witherington 1990: 242).

Because virtually every stratum of Gospel tradition testifies that Jesus regularly announced the kingdom, there should be no doubt that this was a characteristic emphasis of Jesus’ teaching (Sanders 1985: 139-40). Scholars have sometimes debated whether Jesus emphasized a present or future kingdom, however. More clear evidence seems to favor Jesus announcing a future (impending) kingdom.²¹⁶ Yet many have noted an emphasis on the presence of the kingdom in the Gospels, especially in the kingdom parables and sayings like the one about entering the kingdom as a child.²¹⁷ If one examines the total picture of the Gospels, the kingdom is both present and future, as is widely recognized today.²¹⁸ It was only natural for Jesus and his first followers, once they recognized that Jesus would need to come again to establish his kingdom fully, to recognize that the anticipated kingdom would arrive in two stages corresponding to Jesus’ first and second comings. If one does not arbitrarily exclude either set of evidence by virtue of posing a contradiction that the first generations of disciples would not have seen as a contradiction, both sets of evidence fit together adequately. As noted above, in the Gospel tradition Jesus implied his Messiahship, spoke of a Son of Man, and was introduced by John’s prophecy of the Coming One; we may thus assume that when he announced the kingdom, he undoubtedly announced God’s imminent rule in the final sense (rather than simply God’s providential rule over creation or over Israel through the law, as above). But in his own person, the kingdom was present in a hidden, obscure way, just as the anticipated destiny of a mustard bush was implicitly present in a mustard seed (Mt 13:32).

Early Christians (most notably in the Pauline circle) continued the present and future tension in eschatology required by a Messiah who had not yet visibly completed Israel’s eschatological hopes. As Jesus’ resurrection is the first installment on the future resurrection of the righteous, guaranteeing that it will occur (1 Cor 15:20), so Jesus’ demonstrations of God’s rule at his first coming foreshadow the completed revelation of his rule when he returns. In the interim, according to the distinctive perspective probably shared by most early Christians, believers enjoy the Spirit as the “down payment” of their future hope (Rom 8:23; 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; Eph 1:13-14; Heb 6:4-5). In short, the present significance of the future kingdom in early Christian teaching was thus that God’s people in the present age were citizens of the coming age, people whose identity was determined by what Jesus had done and what they would be, not by what they had been or by their status in the world.

Some scholars, who maintain that Jesus’ future kingdom is an unrealistic hope for modern people, label the kingdom a myth and translate it into existential language more appropriate for their own academic circles of thought.²¹⁹ But their position presupposes modern contempt for apocalyptic thought rather than a detailed historical argument (see Sanders 1985: 7, 27, 125-27; cf. also Meier 1994: 242). Further, the future kingdom is hardly irrelevant to the persecuted and oppressed, who nurture hope that God’s justice will ultimately triumph and vindicate them (cf. also Thompson 1985: 95; Thurman 1981: 20-27).²²⁰

Conclusion

Matthew’s portrait of Jesus recognizes Jesus’ role as the supreme teacher (23:8-10), for whose teachings his disciples must make more disciples (28:19). But Jesus’ teaching is supremely authoritative precisely because he is the rightful ruler of Israel, God’s Son the Messiah (16:16-17), who will return to judge the world (3:12; 25:31-32). Matthew derives each aspect of his portrait of Jesus from earlier, substantially accurate historical traditions, but emphasizes these particular aspects to address the concrete situation of his audience.

Internal evidence from Matthew and John supports the notion that Jesus remained a popular figure, and Jewish Christians maintained a measure of respect among many of their Galilean siblings; the threat to them is not yet a populist one. But Matthew and John both focus on the threat from the leadership, particularly the Pharisees (a tendency even clearer in John, perhaps a decade or more later than Matthew). After A.D. 70, one relatively small group of Pharisees and some allies in many synagogues may have become a dominant influence in Syro-Palestinian Judaism. According to the emerging consensus from archaeological sources, it appears unlikely that this group had yet achieved much influence on the popular level, but internal evidence from both Matthew and John, alongside exaggerated later views of the rabbis, suggests the possibility that this group maintained enough influence with the intelligentsia — the minority who would ultimately wield the most social power — to make the more popular Jewish Christians feel threatened.

This group of predominantly Pharisaic scribes and some synagogue leaders allied with their agendas may have set out to define Judaism according to their traditions, bringing them into direct conflict with the mission of the more numerous but less socially powerful Jewish Christians. Matthew writes to equip his readers in their responses to the Jewish legal scholars who challenged them, and also to call them to look beyond the horizons of Israel to another mission that had to be completed before Israel as a whole would come to repentance, that is, the mission to the Gentiles (24:14; 28:19). The Christians faced persecution (10:17; 24:9), counterfeit prophets (7:22; 24:11, 24), apostasy (13:21-22; 24:10, 12), and an incurable need for more laborers with Jesus’ heart (9:37) — in short, the hostility of their society and the apparent inadequacy of their church to transform the situation for good.

Matthew counters these challenges with the call of Jesus to radical discipleship (8:20-22; 16:24-27; 24:13), Jesus’ demand for obedient and holy living (chs. 5–7), and Jesus’ promise of ultimate success in their mission (24:14; 28:19-20), albeit probably at the cost of most of their lives (10:17-39). But above all the teaching towers the figure of Jesus himself: King, Messiah, Son of Man, the rightful Lord of Israel whom their people would one day acknowledge (1:21; 23:39). The final judge, the true revelation of the Father (11:27), was the meek and lowly One who had walked among the first disciples and died for his people (11:29; 20:28; 21:5), the One who would also empower Matthew’s readers to fulfill the task he had given them (10:19-20; 11:28-30).

1. Although narrative criticism rightly emphasizes intrinsic information, narratives generally assume rather than state some information shared by the implied author and implied audience (see, e.g., Powell 1993; Bauer 1996: 132). For important comments about the need for extrinsic methodology in NT scholarship, see Hengel 1994; idem 1996, both based on his 1993 SNTS presidential address.

2. Cf. Kingsbury 1991: 260, 262; Johnson 1996: 91; also the correct if overstated warning of Patte 1987: 13.

3. Although I here adopt the usual expression “Matthean community,” Stanton 1992a; idem 1993: 50-51 is correct that Matthew must intend a wider circulation than a single house church of fifty or so members. How wide an audience Matthew intended is unclear, but within a few decades after publication his Gospel became a favorite in the Eastern churches.

4. Thus Dion. Hal. 7.1.6 permits prior historians a few years’ latitude in their citation of dates but is quite annoyed with a historian who is two or more generations off due to failure to check his sources (7.1.4-6). Even the most accurate historians usually made some mistakes on details; e.g., Herodian 3.4.3; 3.9.3; likewise Dio Cassius R.H. 48.26.2 contradicts the earlier Jos. Ant. 14.13.9-10; War 1.13.9-11 and Dio Cassius himself in R.H. ch. 41 and 49.22.6 (see Dio Cassius LCL 5:272-73 n.1); historians also were normally ready to reveal errors once they were discovered (Diod. Sic. 4.56.7-8). Yet ancients could also affirm that histories that are true (Jos. Apion 1.15), like the Scriptures (Apion 1.37-38), should not contradict one another.

5. Cf. Wright 1992a: 106: modern scholarly constructions often proceed on the basis of hypotheses, but the Gospel writers had access to much more of the firsthand data.

6. On recent Matthean scholarship, see especially Stanton 1995b.

7. To accomplish this purpose in the face of the ever-increasing number of secondary resources, I have made use of abstracts where necessary on numerous points not central to my examination, just as many commentaries list more works in their segmented bibliographies than they actually cite in their text. Although it is no longer possible to be exhaustive, my purpose here is to provide the reader with a brief idea of other resources she or he may pursue further.

8. See, e.g., Aune 1987: 36; cf. Lyons 1985: 29-32; Feldman 1993b; Dihle 1991: 367-73. Sometimes writers explicitly stated these morals in narrative “asides” (e.g., Dio Cassius 1.5.4; Dion. Hal. 7.65.2-3; Arrian Alex. 4.10.8; Corn. Nep. 16 [Pelopidas], 3.1; as noted below, Matthew’s explicit narrative asides are mainly fulfillment quotations).

9. Such moral examples regularly appeared in historically based exhortation (Sir 44:16; 4 Macc 1:7-8; 13:9; 2 Bar. 18:1; 1 Clem. 16–19; cf. Rhet. ad Herenn. 4.2.2; Plut. Educ. 14, Mor. 10BE; Theseus 11.1; Epict. Disc. 1.2.22; Diog. Laert. 7.1.10-11; Herodian 3.13.3; Gray 1987), in speeches (e.g., Isoc. Demon. 51, Or. 1; Dion. Hal. 6.80.1; cf. Kennedy 1980: 70), or to set precedent for case law (e.g., p. Yebam. 4:11, §8). One should imitate the virtuous rather than the wicked (Isoc. To Nic. 26, Or. 2; Nic./Cypr. 37, Or. 3.34; Nic./Cypr. 61, Or. 3.39; Demon. 9, 11, 36, Or. 1; Sen. Dial. 10.15.2; Epict. Encheir. 51.3; Marc. Aur. Med. 1.9; Socratics Ep. 28; Athenaeus Deipn. 13.611c; Ep. Arist. 280; Ps-Phocyl. 77; Test. Benj. 3:1; 4:1) or proficient (Cic. De Oratore 2.21.89–22.90; Plut. Lectures 6, Mor. 40B; Quint. 10.2.14; Theon Progymn. 1.81-83; 2.138-43; Kennedy 1980: 116-19); some moralists invited imitation of themselves (1 Cor 4:16; 11:1; Epict. Disc. 4.8.31; contrast Sen. Dial. 7.18.1). Classical Greek theories of artistic imitation of reality and appropriate limits (cf., e.g., Verdenius 1949: 17-18; Lodge 1953: 167-91; Warry 1962: 100-118) are more distantly related.

10. See, e.g., Burridge 1992: 68-69, comparing Plutarch’s Pompey and Cato, sporting many morals, with Caesar, which emphasizes few.

11. Careful narrative criticism also points to Jesus as the primary model for discipleship in this Gospel (Howell 1990: 249-59). Because it possesses the omniscient narrator’s commentary, the implied audience is superior to, though linked with, the narrative’s disciples (Howell 1990: 248).

12. Cf. Burridge 1992: 125: “… the purpose of the author is essential to any concept of genre as a set of expectations or contract between the author and the reader or audience.”

13. This approach would be even more to the point if Matthew’s implied reader is not a specific late-first-century community but rather any disciple (Kingsbury 1988b), though even this premise (if accepted) would not obviate the need to understand the implied author’s and audience’s own social-historical location, which, intentionally or unintentionally, will inform the environment in which the Gospel is best understood.

14. Scholars who tend to favor some sources over others and criticize the use of other sources should note that if I am able to cite a variety of sources, I am also cognizant which of those sources are primarily Jewish, which are probably pre-Christian (e.g., the Scrolls and Josephus versus the rabbis), which are closer to the NT era (Tannaim versus Amoraim, earlier versus later collections), and so forth. But I choose to cite a greater amount of data that are possibly relevant, though preferring the data that are most relevant, rather than citing only the assured minimum of sources (which is sometimes not substantial). That is, because I differ methodologically from some other scholars does not imply that I am unaware of critical issues in the use of such sources.

15. I do not think, however, that their date lays most of them open to a great deal of Christian influence, except in plainly apologetic texts. Provided “we allow for the difference in social location and cultural background” (Horsley 1995: 198), I do not agree with those who wish to bracket rabbinic literature from consideration altogether (convenient as that omission would be for many NT scholars, given the special difficulties inherent in interpreting rabbinic texts).

16. E.g., the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and Sibylline Oracles include Christian interpolations; with less consensus, the Testament of Job and Joseph and Aseneth may also betray some Christian influence. Such sources nevertheless reflect a general cultural-philosophical milieu that is helpful for reconstructing early Jewish Christianity.

17. For a helpful and more detailed list of possibilities, see Boring 1995: 23-32.

18. For the same reason, I do not provide a running textual commentary on Matthew, although I will note the most important variants. As Stanton 1995a: 33-48 observes, the Gospels contain many textual variants, but we retain essentially the right text. A one-volume commentary on Matthew may explore only the larger issues, leaving the details to more detailed projects.

19. Some prefer to cite only the most relevant sources; I prefer to cite even less relevant sources but to leave conclusions more tentative when these constitute the only available evidence, except where parallels with NT tradition are very strong yet early Christianity is unlikely to have furnished the source of the tradition. Earlier rabbinic collections (Mishnah, Tosefta, and then Tannaitic Midrashim) reflect our earliest rabbinic sources; then baraitot, then citations attributed to Tannaim in Amoraic sources, and lastly Amoraic sources. Because this is a commentary on Matthew, however, reproducing all attributions in Amoraic sources (or exploring other issues in my cited texts) would drive this work to inordinate length, so I provide the late citations as secondary rather than central corroboration, for those who have space to explore them in greater detail.

20. For the history of interpretation of Matthew, see presently especially Luz 1989; idem 1994; for the earliest period, Massaux 1990-1993; in more detail, watch for the forthcoming project published by InterVarsity and edited by Thomas Oden.

21. For more detailed discussion, see, e.g., Duling and Perrin 1994: 11-16; France 1985: 34-38; Carson, Moo, and Morris 1992: 26-38; Stein 1992c.

22. Cf. Longstaff 1977: 218; Murray 1984. For proto-Matthew see Lowe and Flusser 1983; some have also contended for something like Lukan priority (e.g., Lindsey 1990: 84; Young 1989: 129-63; cf. Lindsey 1992-93), though this thesis has so far gained few adherents outside modern Israel (cf. Ådna 1992-93).

23. The abbreviation is, however, less often theologically motivated than supposed in the heyday of redaction criticism (e.g., Held 1963: 169; on expansion, 193-206).

24. Sometimes he follows the MT sequence but the LXX wording (e.g., in 19:18-19; cf. Hagner 1995: 557). Gundry 1975: 174-85 also argued that the eclectic text-types behind citations found in all three Gospels fit only the trilingual milieu of first-century Palestine; while I would contend for common oral tradition in the earliest community on this point, Gundry suggests that this material goes back to Matthew the tax collector’s notes (xii). Rabbis also used eclectic text-types (see Goulder 1974: 27); they are most obvious where Matthew’s redactional hand is clearest (see Soares Prabhu 1976: 63-106; cf. Cope 1976: 121-22). For a survey of views regarding the source of Matthew’s quotations, see Hagner 1993: lvi.

25. Apart from many members of the “Q Seminar,” this skepticism probably characterizes the majority of Gospels scholarship; see, e.g., Stanton 1974: 5; idem 1995: 73-74; Keck 1974: 448; Over-man 1990a: 193; Theissen 1991: 204; Catchpole 1993: 6; Meier 1994: 177-80; Johnson 1996: 52-53.

26. A significant number of scholars, e.g., Drury 1976: xi, 121; Farrer 1956b: 247-48; Goulder 1978: 234; Gundry 1982: 5; Abogunrin 1987; Sanders and Davies 1989: 91, 112. Linnemann 1996: 7-11 provides a recent challenge to the Q hypothesis.

27. Cf. also the well-argued case against any literary dependence among the Gospels by Linnemann 1990; idem 1992. Nevertheless, I remain confident that the Synoptics share too much common ground with Mark, while simultaneously reflecting a far broader knowledge of abundant tradition outside Mark (cf. also Jn 21:25) to deny some measure of interdependence.

28. Commonalities between John and the Synoptic tradition besides Mark and Q also support the existence of oral traditions (see Stein 1992b). If the “M” material is oral, Matthew may be able to adapt it more freely, however (cf. Brooks 1987).

29. Cf. Johnston 1992, who even compares it to a manual produced by a committee; and Jones 1995: 36, who uses the dominance of tradition to question the current biographical, literary, wholistic approach to the Gospels. Jones 1995: 52-54 emphasizes Matthew’s conservatism with his sources and failure to rewrite them, challenging traditional redaction-critical assumptions.

30. Diod. Sic. 1.37.4, 6; Dion. Hal. 1.6.1-3 explicitly note that they provide additional information from different sources that some previous historians lacked. Technical historians sometimes cite sources by name (e.g., Dion. Hal. 1.6.1); more popular-level Jewish sources generally do not, however, so from Matthew’s silence we can infer nothing about Mark’s or “Q’s” anonymity.

31. See Hill 1972: 31-34; Davies and Allison 1988: 124-25; Luz 1989: 48; Brown 1994: 59-61.

32. The oral development of sources does not challenge the existence of written sources. Against the idea that an apocalyptic community like the earliest Christians would not care about writings (hence all written Gospel sources must be late), one need simply compare the early Qumran texts (cf. Boyd 1995: 125). Concern for history also makes sense in a Jewish covenant context in which people believed God had revealed himself in history (Wright 1992a: 426).

33. I will address some of the traditional criteria in more detail below, when asking how reliable Matthew and his traditions are.

34. For surveys, see, e.g., Duling and Perrin 1994: 20-23; Spivey and Smith 1982: 64-65; Carson, Moo, and Morris 1992: 38-45; Osborne 1992; Blomberg 1987: 35-43. In view of redaction criticism, a commentary might wish to speak of “Matthew’s Jesus” rather than simply of “Jesus,” but to avoid the cumbersome nature of that expression, I have followed the latter wording and trust readers to keep in mind the larger redactional framework I articulate elsewhere.

35. Dio Cassius R.H. 1.1.1-2 explicitly affirms the contrary. Thus, e.g., Matthew’s account of Judas’s death is so Matthean that Gundry 1982: 553 admits that one might think it Matthew’s “wholesale creation” — were it not for Acts 1:15-20. For specific characteristics of Matthean style (useful for redaction criticism) see, e.g., Davies and Allison 1988: 74-96; but on the dangers of inaccurate use of style criteria, see Jones 1995: 12.

36. Jones introduces further complications: What if Matthew’s version of Mark is an oral tradition based on but differing from our text of Mark (1995: 29-30, 39)?

37. Cf. Theon Progymn. 1.46-52; 2.79-81; 8.2-3; Arist. Poetics 15.4-6, 1454a; in a history, see, e.g., Dio Cassius R.H. 62.11.3-4.

38. Note further the Semitic parallelism pervading Jesus’ sayings, probably more emphatic in Matthew (cf. Hagner 1993: xlviii). Held 1963: 242 argued that Matthew adapted healing stories to the form of scholastic controversy dialogues; Gundry 1982: 2 emphasizes the biblicizing style. Cf., e.g., the frequently Semitic “behold” (1:20, 23; 2:1, 9, 13; 3:16; 4:11; 8:2, 24, 29; 9:2; 10:18; 11:8, 19; 12:2, 10, 18, 41, 46, 47 MS, 49; 13:3; 15:22; 17:2; 19:16, 27; 20:18, 30; 21:5; 22:4; 23:38; 24:23; 25:6; 26:45, 51; 27:51; 28:2).

39. For other complaints about older redaction critics’ assumption of transparency and failure “to distinguish sufficiently between the ‘act of reading or hearing’ and the ‘act of historical reconstruction,’” between story world and real world, and between implied reader and intended reader, see especially Kingsbury 1988b: 458. On the limits of redaction criticism, see also Carter 1996: 275-76.

40. Perhaps the most thorough examination of repetition in Matthew’s Gospel, including recent perspectives on narrative development, is Anderson 1994.

41. See, e.g., Patte 1976; Barton 1984: 104-39, 180-97; Tompkins 1980; see also Osborne 1991: 153-73, 366-96. When used as a descriptive tool, reader-response criticism can prove very valuable in reconstructing how various historical communities have understood texts (on a semi-popular level, cf., e.g., Usry and Keener 1996: 98-109).

42. In personal conversation, my associates David Fraser in sociology and Marla Frederick in anthropology, both cognizant of some trends in biblical scholarship, have emphasized this contemporary approach. For a specific example of questions concerning some applications (while remaining largely favorable), see my review (Keener 1996b: 226).

43. It is unlikely that “gospel” in 24:14 and 26:13 identifies Matthew’s genre (pace Stanton 1993: 16); although Mark may have applied the term to his document (Mk 1:1; cf. perhaps 14:9) as a title indicating that his task is proclamation, Matthew and Luke may have received this title simply by later association with Mark (see Gundry 1996). Some have argued that the language of “gospel” derives from LXX Is 52:7; 61:1-2 and Jesus’ consequent “gospel of the kingdom,” perhaps even in light of Is 52:13–53:12 (see Stuhlmacher 1991a; 1991b: 19-25; Betz 1991; cf. Hengel 1991: 244-48; Guelich 1991: 194-96).

44. For a complete history of the question, see Burridge 1992: 3-25.

45. See Aune 1987: 46-76; Stanton 1974: 117-36; idem 1992b; idem 1993: 64; Shuler 1982; Sanders and Davies 1989: 252-58; Burridge 1992; Robbins 1992: 2-3; Blomberg 1992a: 46-47; Hagner 1993: lvii.

46. Contrast Mack 1988: 322-23, who views Mark as fiction; for sound critiques of the novelistic genre as applied to earliest Christian historiography, see Burridge 1992: 245; Hengel 1991: 212, and (in this instance the Book of Acts), Bauckham 1993; Porter 1994: 548-58; cf. Palmer 1993, especially 3, 29 (though elements modern readers would consider fictitious elaborations could occur in some forms of biographies; cf. Chance 1991; cf. especially works about much earlier characters — e.g., Lefkowitz 1996: 82). Scholars debate the character of Matthean biography, however: Shuler 1982 finds laudatory biography (but most biography was by its nature epideictic in some sense, whether Tacitus’s Agricola, Plutarch’s Lives, or Josephus’s Life [see Neyrey 1994], though some focused more on encomium and others on moral instruction; see Burridge 1992: 88); Robbins 1992: 10 focuses on biographies that addressed teachers and disciples. Modern research probably cannot assign a more specific category than “biography” (Stanton 1993: 64-65). The apomnēmoneumata with which early Christians compared the Gospels (Justin Apol. 66.3; 67.3; Dial. 103.8; 106.3) probably recall Xenophon’s Memorabilia, his “life” of Socrates (Stanton 1993: 62-63; cf. Robbins 1992: 63-67); pace some recent proposals, these “memoirs” of the apostles clearly refer to our Gospels (see Abramowski 1991).

47. See further Sanders 1969: 19, 46-189, 272; Stein 1980: 238-40. The better historians opposed excessive amplification, however (e.g., Polyb. R.R.E. 15.33-34); thus the second-century rhetorician Lucian also objected to those historical writers who amplified and omitted merely for literary or encomiastic purposes (i.e., to make the character look better; Shuler 1982: 11-12). A writer could cite witnesses to support his accuracy while admitting that his account was incomplete (Jos. Life 365-67); early Christians also recognized the differences in sequence among their Gospels as inconsequential (Augustine Harmony of Gospels 21.51, ACCS 25).

48. Matthew probably abridges Mark less for theological reasons (contrast Held 1963: 168-92) than to keep his account concise and to fit all his narratives on one scroll! Greco-Roman readers may have appreciated conciseness (Theon Progymn. 5.39-43, 52-53); the Gospels and most ancient “lives” also fit the standard length for scrolls to be read in one “sitting” (Burridge 1998: 141).

49. See, e.g., Dion. Hal. 7.66.5; 11.1.1-6. There apparently were bad historians and biographers who made up stories, but they became objects of criticism for violating accepted standards (cf. Lucian History 12, 24-25).

50. Various genres, including biography and history, overlapped considerably in antiquity (see Burridge 1992: 63-69). Nevertheless, the Gospels are too brief to represent nonbiographical history (pace Dihle 1991: 379), and Suetonius did not originate historical biography (pace Dihle 1991: 383-84), as the value of Tacitus’s Agricola from the same period indicates.

51. For further detail on this point see Momigliano 1977: 71-73; Mason 1992: 60-71, 77-81; Lyons 1985: 29-32; Robbins 1992: 110-11. For ancient historians suggesting inspired interpretation of the historical data, see especially Hall 1986: 13-46, particularly on Josephus.

52. On this point see Dio Cassius R.H. 1.1.1-2; Vermes 1984: 19-20; Lyons 1985: 66; cf. Davies 1966a: 115. Thus, e.g., Diodorus Siculus teaches morals in his history by reporting good, bad, and mixed characters (15.1.1; 37.4.1), yet tries to get them right; he elsewhere criticizes a historian who allowed “personal enmity” to distort his perspective (21.17.1, LCL 11:30-31; cf. Jos. Life 356). Dionysius of Halicarnassus teaches morals about divine activity (8.56.1), but criticizes historians who investigate their data inadequately (7.1.4).

53. Ancient historians recognized that they were less accurate in reporting the less documented, more distant past (Diod. Sic. 1.6.2; 1.9.2; 4.1.1; Dion. Hal. 1.12.3), and that the best one could sometimes do with the prehistoric past was write edifying fiction (Diod. Sic. 4.8.3-5).

54. Thus many historians were not shy about criticizing their predecessors’ accounts of particular events, sometimes merely due to intrinsic improbabilities (Dion. Hal. 4.6.1; 9.22.1-5; Paus. 9.31.7; Arrian Alex. 6.28.2; Appian R.H. 11.7.41; Aul. Gel. 10.12.8-10; Plut. Isis 8, Mor. 353F) or that a tradition appealed only to local pride (Paus. 2.1.1), in other cases charging that they preferred flowery rhetoric to facts (Jos. Apion 1.24-25; Herodian 1.1.1-2). Most exposed predecessors’ inadequacies (e.g., Diod. Sic. 1.3.1-2; Jos. Life 336-39, 359, 361; Sallust War with Catiline 3.2); others tactfully warned that they were not criticizing their predecessors (Dion. Hal. 1.1.1; 1.8.1; cf. Diod. Sic. 1.37.4, 6; Jos. Life 339).

55. Although more apt to creativity in summary statements (e.g., Ant. 6.390-91), Josephus usually stays close to the biblical text he retells, e.g., in the David story (Ant. 6.156-392), even in recounting David’s sin with Bathsheba (Ant. 7.130-31) and Uriah’s murder (7.131-46), though he adds details and perspectives and modifies for encomiastic or apologetic purposes (cf., e.g., Begg 1988; 1993ab; 1994; 1995a-h; Levison 1991).

56. On the range of permissible rhetorical liberties, see, e.g., Diod. Sic. 20.1.1–2.2. Cf., e.g., Theissen 1991: 149, comparing Jos. Ant. 18.289-309 and Philo Leg. Gai. 261-336, although the primary problem on detail here may be, as Theissen suspects, an exaggerated Herodian source.

57. E.g., Demetrius the Chronographer, Fr. 5 (Euseb. P.E. 9.29.16); Jub. 4:1, 9; 12:14; 13:11; 27:1, 4-5 (Esau and Jacob vs. Isaac and Jacob); p. Ketub. 12:4, §8. Sometimes details are added for literary purposes, to make a better story (Jub. 11:14-15, 13:18, 22); this includes names (Jub. 11:14-15; Lives of the Prophets 19 [Joad]; §30 in Schermann’s Greek text; Jos. Ant. 8.231; Ps-Philo 40:1; in Ps-Philo in general, cf. Bauckham 1983: 67).

58. 2 Macc 2:1-8 (expanding Jeremiah’s mission); Jub. 29:14-20 (rhetorically contrasts Jacob’s respect for his parents with Esau’s disrespect); Test. Job 9-15 (see OTP 1:832); Test. Jos. 3:1.

59. Pesiq. Rab Kah. 4:3 (“the rabbis” on Solomon); cf. Artapanus on Pharaoh’s behavior toward Moses in light of 1 Sam 18:17, 21-25 (Euseb. P.E. 9.27.7). Genre conventions could also dictate amplifications; Joseph and Aseneth, a hellenistic romance, incorporates features ideal in such romances.

60. Ps-Philo 12:2-3 (Aaron’s sin with the golden calf). Test. Job 39:12-13 (OTP)/39:9-10 (Kraft); 40:3/4 seems concerned to soften God’s letting Job’s children die for his test. Cf. Freund 1991.

61. Jub. 13:17-18 (conflict between Lot’s and Abram’s servants), 14:21–16:22 (omitting Sarah’s problems with Hagar, though they surface in 17:4-14), 29:13 (omits Jacob’s fear); Test. Zeb. 1:5-7 (Zebulun did not act against Joseph). In Jubilees (e.g., Abram passing off his sister as his wife), see Wintermute 1985: 35-36; Josephus, cf. Aune 1987: 108; in Greco-Roman literature, see Shuler 1982: 50 (following Cic. De Partitione Oratoria 22). The same tendency of tradition may be noted in the Chronicler’s omission not only of David’s but also Solomon’s sins reported in Samuel-Kings (cf., e.g., Williamson 1982: 236).

62. CD 4.20–5.3 (David’s polygamy); Jub. 19:15-16 (Rebekah, in light of current morality), 27:6-7 (how Jacob could leave his father), 28:6-7 (Jacob’s sororal polygyny), 30:2-17 (Simeon and Levi), 41 (Judah and Tamar both made more innocent, though Tamar’s deed is interpreted as deathworthy); 1QapGen 20.10-11 (Sarah rather than Abraham proposes the pretense that she is his sister); Jos. and Asen. 23 (Levi and Simeon); Test. Jud. 8–12 (whitewashing Judah, and to a lesser extent Tamar, though Judah confesses it as a lesser sin); Test. Iss. 3:1 (cf. Gen 49:15).

63. See Veldhuizen 1985; Silver 1973; Rajak 1978; Feldman 1982; Feldman 1985; cf. Runnalls 1983; Amaru 1988; Feldman 1988ab; 1989b; 1992a-h; 1993a; Begg 1989b.

64. Different perspectives on history were not necessarily mutually exclusive regarding the data; thus Dion. Hal. 5.56.1 proposes to investigate the causes (hence meaning) of events rather than merely the facts; cf. the ancient Christian dictum that John was a “spiritual” Gospel.

65. E.g., Jones 1995: 41 points out that Goulder’s midrashic expansion thesis fails the test in the parables.

66. Goulder, who regards Matthew as a midrash on Mark (1974: 32-34), also puts forth the hypothesis that Matthew is arranged around lectionary readings (1974: 171-201; cf. 202-473); but this suggestion falters still more on inadequate evidence and undue speculation (cf. Aune 1987: 26; Talbert 1977: 15).

67. Pointing out that one was appealing to facts already known to one’s hearers was an effective rhetorical technique (Dion. Hal. 7.43.2); Josephus explicitly appeals to public knowledge shared by all the people (Apion 2.107) and to witnesses who could have been consulted (Apion 1.50-52); he regards history dependent on public records as more reliable (Apion 1.20, 23, 28-29).

68. For a comparable claim of extensive investigation see Diod. Sic. 1.4.1; 1.4.4-5, though his geography, unlike Luke’s in Acts, may suggest that he overstated his case, especially with regard to Mesopotamia; cf. also Appian R.H., pref. 12; Herodian 1.1.3. For criticism of inadequate travel research, see Arrian Indica 7.1.

69. “We” appears in fictitious narratives (Dibelius 1956: 202-3), but fiction customarily used the same vocabulary as history did, and hundreds of other words are shared by both, too. “We” appears in historical narratives no less, and only historical works, not novels, had historical prologues like that of Luke (Aune 1987: 124). Further, the “we” leaves off in one city as Paul moves on (Acts 16:12-18), and picks up there again after Paul returns (Acts 20:1-6; Philippi was in Macedonia), which seems to me more difficult to explain as a literary device. On a more common view, Luke is simply using someone else’s earlier travel journal (e.g., Foakes Jackson and Lake 1979b: 158-59; Morton and MacGregor 1964: 41; Cadbury 1968: 60-61). The travel journal itself is extremely precise: the number of days he reports from one port to the next is exactly the number of days it would take for a boat in his time to make those ports under the weather conditions he describes, and the titles of local officials, which in his day varied from city to city and decade to decade, are exactly correct. Clearly the travel narrative is reliable, and reflects the experience of someone who traveled with Paul as he was planting churches (and everyone agrees the churches got there somehow). That Luke employs a meticulous travel journal is likely, but that it was not his own is not likely: Luke writes some of the most polished Greek in the NT, and he puts his sources in Acts into his own words so thoroughly that we cannot distinguish different sources there. If this is the case in the rest of Acts, it would be remarkable if he left the “we” of someone else’s travel journal in without changing it to “they.”

70. Few scholars today agree with the older views of published proto-Gospels (Streeter 1925: 199-222; Taylor 1935: 6), but knowing how ancient narratives were written may suggest that such documents existed at least temporarily! Josephus secured help editing his materials after first taking notes and then arranging them (Apion 1.49-50).

71. See Aune 1987: 65, 139; cf. Downing 1988a; idem 1991; Burridge 1992: 204-5; Meier 1979: 7. For traditions and arguments for Mark’s use of Petrine material, see ACCS, xxi-xxviii; Hengel 1991: 238-43; cf. Feldmeier 1991: 252-56.

72. Thus Luke, Acts, and Matthew are about the same length; John is close to three-quarters of this length, and Mark is about half that length (Morton and MacGregor 1964: 16; Metzger 1968: 5-6; cf. F. F. Bruce 1963: 12; Palmer 1993: 5). For scroll length forcing abbreviation, see, e.g., Jos. Apion 1.320; Corn. Nep. 15 (Epaminondas), 4.6; for length determining genre, see Arist. Poetics 24.4, 1459b.

73. Pace Mack 1993: 198, “speeches-in-character” would not be relevant to Synoptic composition (although one might consider them for Johannine tradition and speeches in Acts); prosopopoeia normally applies to composing discourses, not to the transmission of individual sayings (Theon Progymn. 1.46-52; 2.79-81; 8.2-3; cf. Isoc. Nic./Cypr., Or. 3; Diog. Laert. Lives 3.62). Even with most speeches, however (possibly excepting Josephus — Gempf 1993: 289-90; Rajak 1983: 80-82), there were limits (see Gempf 1993: passim, especially 264, 272, 283-84).

74. Cf., e.g., repeated citations of earlier rabbis in halakic texts; less randomly, Pirqe ʾAbot or Arrian’s Encheiridion of Epictetus.

75. It may be true in Matthew that Pharisees and strangers rather than Jesus’ disciples except Judas call him “teacher,” and that Matthew prefers for Jesus the divine title “Lord” (Bornkamm 1963a: 41-43). But this preference is because Matthew views Jesus as more than a teacher, not less than a teacher.

76. They also avoided harmonizing their portrayal of early Christianity. As Wright 1992a: 454 notes, after recounting Luke’s recital of Ananias and Sapphira, church divisions, and the separation of Paul and Barnabas, the mythical claim to early Christian uniformity was the invention of Eusebius, not of first-century Christians still close to the events.

77. Davids 1980: 89-90; France 1986: 100-101; cf. Blomberg 1995: 22; pace Koester 1990; idem 1994. Ancients also regarded eyewitnesses as generally more reliable (e.g., Jos. Life 357; War 1.2-3; Apion 1.46-49; Arrian Alex. 6.11.8; Indica 15.7; Corn. Nep. 23 [Hannibal], 13.3; 25 [Atticus], 13.7; 17.1), especially if they knew both sides of the story (Jos. Apion 1.49, 56).

78. Pace Beare 1967: 181; Bultmann 1968: 163; Boring 1972: 501-2; Boring 1982; Miller 1988. Boring 1982: 77 thinks that prophets contributed to the Jesus tradition because they valued it; yet the opposite is far more likely: they valued it enough to retain it as a distinct standard for evaluating prophecies. Boring 1982: 110 may be less far afield when he contends that early Christian prophets often adapted rather than simply created Jesus material (cf. Hill 1979: 163); but lack of adequate formal criteria undercuts his attempts to argue that Christian prophets transmitted and adapted Jesus material. As he himself concedes, some prophetic material must stem from Jesus the prophet (1982: 138-39).

79. See Aune 1983; Hill 1979; Hill 1974; Bauckham 1976-77; Dunn 1978a. See Sanders 1993: 62-63 for the view that it occurred occasionally but rarely. This position sounds more conservative than the language in Sanders 1969: 27-28.

80. The prejudice against anonymous oracles also counts against the prophetic generation of Synoptic Jesus material, as does the relative scarceness of material attributed to Jesus outside the Gospels (Stanton 1989a: 159). Given his prophetic activity, could not Jesus himself be responsible for genuinely prophetic material in the tradition (cf. Hill 1979: 180-81)?

81. Greek writers like Pausanias might even depend on a tradition circulated purely orally for half a millennium (Paus. 1.23.2); in such cases skepticism might be more warranted. Ancients themselves recognized that centuries of oral transmission could introduce variants (Jos. Apion 1.12 and Diog. Laert. 9.12.113 on Homer; cf. Gen. Rab. 49:7), though Jewish people insisted they were meticulously careful with their own Scriptures (Jos. Apion 1.28-36; p. Sanh. 2:6, §3; Gen. Rab. 36:8).

82. Cf., e.g., Jos. Ant. 4.211; m. ʾAbot 5:12. If this was purely propaganda, it proved more effective than most; despite prevalent anti-Judaism, many Greeks viewed the Jews as a “nation of philosophers” (Gager 1983: 39; Stern 1974: 8-11, 46, 50; cf. Mayer 1972: 125-26). The view that the Greeks borrowed from the Jews (e.g., Aristobulus, Fr. 3-4 in Euseb. P.E. 13.12.1-8; Ep. Arist. 312-16; Justin 1 Apol. 59; Stern 1974: 93-96) was more often mere propaganda, although Thales and Pythagoras may have had geographic links with Syro-Palestine (Green 1991-92). The specific examples of Jewish education undoubtedly apply best to the educated class (Horsley 1995: 246), but the evidence seems to imply greater facility in the national traditions than was common in most ancient cultures. Although scholars debate whether Jewish disciples in this period would treat the traditions of their sages as equivalent to Scripture, disciples who came to acknowledge their teacher as “Messiah” and “Lord” surely might do so.

83. The original data can also be understood in a much more positive direction; see Blomberg 1987: 28-31; Boyd 1995: 122.

84. Despite Philo’s Aristotelian language concerning memory (Boccaccini 1991: 192-94), he draws on Jewish tradition such as the Epistle of Aristeas (194-98), recalling God’s acts in history (197).

85. Riesner 1984a has refined and corrected Gerhardsson’s overstatements, especially by drawing on nonrabbinic sources (cf. Boyd 1995: 121-22); indeed, if understood as simply making an analogy between early Christian and later rabbinic transmission, Gerhardsson’s views are now becoming mainstream (see Neusner 1998). As against Bultmann’s informal uncontrolled tradition and Gerhardsson’s formal controlled tradition, Bailey 1991 makes a good case for informal controlled tradition, noting that most elements preserved in the Synoptic tradition were those most apt to be transmitted orally.

86. Recent scholars have critiqued even the criterion of coherence (e.g., Johnson 1996: 130), though it was used even by ancients (Arrian Alex. 7.14.4-6). Although less warranted than criticism of the dissimilarity criterion, the critique is at least somewhat deserved, given the unsystematic and sagelike character of Jesus’ teaching.

87. Ancient historians could also test a report’s probability according to coherency with known customs of the report’s day (e.g., Dion. Hal. 9.22.1-5).

88. The older liberal view that the earliest Christology evolved from a Palestinian Jewish apocalyptist to a hellenistic divine man does not fit all the evidence, but it certainly fits better than the contemporary “Jesus Seminar’s” reversal of the sequence, which contends that later Christians Judaized Jesus (Blomberg 1995: 22), a thesis that makes no sense in view of Roman anti-Judaism and the growing influence of Diaspora Christianity as years passed. Paul shares an apocalyptic worldview with much of Palestinian Judaism as much as two decades before Mark (Overman 1990a: 194).

89. Claims about Greek use based on the hellenized cities, however, should not be extrapolated to all Palestine, as Schwank 1987 does.

90. A Semiticist as early as Dalman already recognized the use of Greek in Jerusalem (1929:3). For discussion of Jesus’ language through Dalman, see Schweitzer 1968: 270-78.

91. More adaptation might occur in the “translation” into Greek (although Josephus claims in Apion 1.1 that he “translated” his Antiquities from the Hebrew Bible, he clearly exercised stylistic and apologetic freedom where he felt necessary; the degree of “translation” is not quite clear — e.g., Jos. War 1.3; cf. Ant. 1.7; 20.263-64; see Townsend 1971: 148; Hata 1975).

92. Horsley’s case (Horsley 1989: 5-40) against Nigel Turner’s “Jewish Greek” (Turner 1964: 46-47; cf. Nock 1933b: 138-39; Malherbe 1983: 35-36) does not dispute the presence of Semitisms or other features of bilingualism, but that a separate dialect is in view (6, 40). Most bilinguals are less fluent in their second language, which may be the culture’s dominant language (Horsley 1989: 23-24).

93. To a lesser degree, cf. the broader Greco-Roman principle of imitation among disciples (Quint. 1.2.26; Philost. V.A. 5, §21) and children (Isoc. Nic./Cypr. 57, Or. 3.37; Quint. 1.1.5; 1.3.1-3; 1 Cor 4:16). For the importance of imitating virtuous fathers or elder brothers in Judaism, see, e.g., Ps-Philo 20:6; 4 Macc 9:23.

94. Disciples could readily adapt both the Jesus tradition and Cynic tradition, both highly critical of the social establishment, to fit this form (cf. Theissen 1991: 115; Wright 1992a: 427-35), but this does not imply that chreiai represent a strictly Cynic form or that the stories were composed under Cynic influence. Synoptic pericopes fit both Greco-Roman and Jewish forms (Theissen 1991: 120-22, especially 120n.143; cf. Guenther 1989, though Greek rhetorical forms may have prevailed less in first-century Palestine than he thinks); the specifically Cynic position of Mack 1988: 179, 186-87 is thus too narrow, as is his attribution of Q to “Cynic-like” circles (1988: 69, 84; cf. Downing 1988b; idem 1991; but also the critique in Overman 1990a: 193; Tuckett 1988; Witherington 1990: 184; Blomberg 1995: 21; Boyd 1995: 160).

95. See, e.g., Plut. Agesilaus 21.4-5; Alsup 1981; Robbins 1981; Poulos 1981; Barrett 1981: 119-26; in Jewish contexts, cf., e.g., 1 Kings 3:16-28; 10:3; t. ʿAbod. Zar. 6:7; Sanh. 13:5.

96. These seem to have been substantially more rare in strictly Jewish works, perhaps due to the genres involved; cf. VanderKam 1981 (19 examples, mainly in Test. Job and Ahiqar); Greenspoon 1981; and especially Porton 1981, who alone deals with the Jewish equivalent of “sage” narratives found in the Greek parallels. Yet Porton may underestimate the value of the rabbinic texts, which cite Scripture as in the Gospel narratives (see Theissen 1991: 120n.143). These do admittedly become dominant, especially in the Amoraic period, however, probably due to the primarily halakic character of Tannaitic texts preserved. In rabbinic controversy-dialogues (e.g., b. Rosh. Hash. 32b), the rabbis debate pagan interlocutors in general (e.g., b. Bek. 8b; Sanh. 39a; p. Meg. 1:11, §3; 3:2, §3; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 1:2; 4:7; Num. Rab. 4:9; 9:48; Qoh. Rab. 2:8, §2) and pagan philosophers (t. ʿAbod. Zar. 6:7; b. ʿAbod. Zar. 54b, bar.; Bek. 8b-9a; cf. b. Sanh. 39a), including “Epicureans” (possibly used in its general denigrating sense of those who denied divine providence and judgment; t. Sanh. 13:5; p. Sanh. 10:1, §7; cf. m. ʾAbot 2:14, expounded in b. Sanh. 38b), Sadducees (b. ʿErub. 101a), Samaritans (p. Yebam. 1:6, §1), and minim (schismatics) in general (b. Sanh. 38b, 39a; 43a; b. Ḥul. 84a; perhaps b. Yoma 56b-57a; Herford 1966: 226-27 also lists Qoh. Rab. 30:9, 53cd; b. Ḥul. 87a; Shab. 152b; Sukk. 48b; cf. Bagatti 1971: 98ff.

97. Perhaps especially by way of protest oracles, hellenism probably exerted significant influence on Jewish eschatological thought (cf. Glasson 1961, though overstated); Roman yearning for a new golden era in Augustan propaganda may have also contributed (Virg. Ecl. 4.4-25; 8.27-28). Nevertheless, the Egyptian Potter’s Oracle and prior Egyptian and Asian models for apocalyptic suggest that the influence moved more from east to west (cf. also Baker 1963). In our period, eschatological material would reflect more a definite Jewish than a purely hellenistic milieu.

98. Pace Crossan 1991a: 288-91, who cites only extremely hellenized sources. Crossan likewise contrasts Paul’s apocalyptic Jesus with the Corinthians’ sapiential one (228-30), but Paul hardly rejects the sapiential (1 Cor 1:30; 8:5-6); nor does Jesus’ beginning a ministry distinct from that of John the Baptist support Crossan’s conclusion that Jesus must have rejected John’s apocalypticism (230-38). Even Koester allows that Jesus’ message probably contained eschatological elements (see 1992).

99. In more detail, see Keener 1995.

100. For most reconstructions this includes the Gospel of Thomas (e.g., Meier 1991a: 139; Wright 1992: 437-43; Blomberg 1995: 23-24; Stanton 1995a: 84-93; Johnson 1996: 89 on the evidence and current consensus), but especially the Secret Gospel of Mark (Brown 1994: 297; Stanton 1995a: 93-95) and the Gospel of Peter (Meier 1991a: 117; Brown 1994: 1317-49; Stanton 1995a: 78-81), against current uses by Crossan, Koester, and others. Some even regard Secret Mark as a scholarly forgery (Neusner 1998: xxvii, calling it a “scholarly fraud”). Ancient fiction writers sometimes pretended that they were translating “ancient writings that no one but themselves had seen” (Lefkowitz 1996: 111). Preserved agrapha appear of such varying quality as to underline the comparative value of our written Gospels as more dependable sources for Jesus’ teaching (see Hofius 1991).

101. Similar sayings of the wise appear, e.g., in Ben Sira. In a Roman context, one may compare, e.g., the poetry of Publilius Syrus, which greatly resembles wisdom sayings of the Egyptian and Israelite traditions.

102. Kennedy thinks that 1:1-17 function as the proem, chs. 1–4 as the narration, and the Sermon on the Mount as the proposition, with the examples in chs. 1–4 providing the basis for chs. 5–7 (1984: 103-4). Matthew may not have thought in these precise terms, but his neat division of material lends itself to such observations.

103. Among the rabbis, whose literature includes little biography, one notes the penchant for arrangement, even into tractates, by the time of the Mishnah (cf. Goulder 1974: 27). Still, Josephus is concerned lest some stricter Jews misunderstand his reason for rearranging some of Moses’laws (Ant. 4.197).

104. For a full survey of views, see Bauer 1988: 21-55. Bauer’s own outline arises from internal features, particularly various forms of repetition developed throughout the Gospel (see especially 57-128).

105. Some others overzealously locate structural clues, e.g., the overstated evidence for inclusio in Ellis 1974: 98 (this “rabbinic habit” is also less common in Matthew than Goulder 1974: 27 supposes).

106. Cf. Plummer 1910: xviii, using “from then on” in 4:17; 16:21; 26:16; but cf. the warning of Neirynck 1988 on the inadequacy of this common expression for a structuring schema. Strecker’s threefold schema for Matthean salvation history (1995) is probably overdependent on Conzelmann’s schema for Luke (see Stanton 1995b: 9).

107. See, e.g., Gundry 1982: 10; Aune 1987: 19, 49; Kee 1980: 141; Jeremias 1963: 13-14; Argyle 1963: 64; Beare 1981: 200; Thompson 1970: 1; Luz 1989: 43-44. For such a completion formula accompanying divine revelations in the OT, cf. Gen 17:22; 18:33; Ex 31:18; but the particular LXX wording differs and the phrase is idiomatic Hebrew.

108. Keegan 1982 finds five discourses but omits ch. 23 on the basis of “key” introductory words, but the words he finds characteristic of Matthean speech introductions are too typical of Matthew’s narratives in general to count for much. Guelich finds five closing formulas but six discourses, counting ch. 23 separately from chs. 24–25 (1982: 55).

109. The structure may follow Enoch’s biography in Jub. 4:16-25 rather than the Pentateuch (Dimant 1983), but the fivefold division may remain significant (Milik preserves it though substituting the Book of Giants for the Similitudes).

110. Rabbis did sometimes read “five” as symbolic for the Pentateuch (e.g., Gen. Rab. 64:8).

111. On this networking, see, e.g., Stuhlmacher 1991b: 16; Bauckham 1998a: 33-36 (for letters and messengers between churches, see 37-44; for the network implied in Ignatius’s letters, see 40-42); and especially Thompson 1998: 49-70. Travelers regularly networked the Pauline churches (e.g., 1 Cor 1:11; 11:16; 14:33; 16:12, 19; 2 Cor 9:2), and any Pauline scholar approaching Gospels research will be astounded at the lack of networking Gospels scholars sometimes assume among the early churches. Pauline scholars in this case work with a much more solid base of explicit data than Gospels scholars do.

112. Sanders 1993: 64 does not believe the Gospels were titled before our first clear evidence for their titles ca. 180, but one wonders whether second-century Christians (less organized than their immediate descendants) would have achieved unanimity over a wide geographical area so quickly without prior tradition. Stanton 1995a: 16-18 provides evidence for four-Gospel codices, hence the use of collections containing exactly four Gospels, by the end of the second century.

113. Papias in Euseb. H.E. 3.39; probably followed by Iren. Haer. 3.1.1, also cited in Euseb. 5.8.2 (Davies and Allison 1988: 8). The variants Davies and Allison mention in Matthew’s title (1988: 7-8) are irrelevant to the issue of authorship.

114. Our current Gospel of Matthew was clearly written in Greek (see Horbury 1997 against an early dating of Shem Tob’s Hebrew Matthew, though cf. Shedinger 1997), but I intend this as an evaluation of Papias’s claim, not an argument against Matthean authorship based on the quality of the Greek. On Josephus’s fluency in Greek (on a more sophisticated level), see Rajak 1983: 46-64. Some also read Papias’s “Hebrew dialect” as “with Jewish rhetorical forms” (Stanton 1993: 116, following Kürzinger 1963).

115. It is also possible that Papias’s tradition, or Papias himself before being distorted by later tradition, may have meant simply that Matthew wrote the logia of Q, as many hold (e.g., Hill 1972: 23-27, 53; F. F. Bruce 1980a: 40; Hagner 1993: xliv cites also F. Schleiermacher, T. W. Manson, M. Black, and B. de Solages); Papias does, however, elsewhere apply logia to Markan narrative as well as sayings (Stanton 1993: 117n.1). Cf. similarly the suggestion of Matthew’s “notes” as “the basis for the apostolic gospel tradition” (Gundry 1975: 182, following A. T. Robertson and E. J. Goodspeed).

116. The usual reply in favor of Matthean authorship is that Matthew was supplying a catechetical manual for new disciples already aware of Mark and other early traditions (e.g., Mounce 1985: xiv). This reply functions as a better argument than suggesting that Mark may have depended on Peter’s dependence on Matthew’s notes anyway (Gundry 1975: 184), which, if true, might make Matthew’s dependence on Mark more difficult to fathom.

117. A pun on the disciple’s name with the similar Greek term for “disciple” is not impossible, fitting the way a haggadist might have solved the Gospel’s anonymity, but it does not commend itself as the most probable origin of the Gospel’s title.

118. Nepper-Christensen 1991 is even willing to look for elements of the apostle Matthew’s original Hebrew Gospel in our current First Gospel.

119. Sanders 1993: 66 seeks to turn anonymity to advantage, but this would have been the exception among ancient historical works rather than the rule, unless we are to accept the Gospels as purely cultic aretalogies (which is unlikely; against the aretalogy proposal, see Burridge 1992: 18-19).

120. Many scholars concur here, in the 1970s (e.g., Hill 1972: 39, 43; Ellis 1974: 3), 1980s (Carson 1984b: 18; Davies and Allison 1988: 17-58; Senior 1983: 11-12; Luz 1989: 79-82), and 1990s (Kingsbury 1991: 264; Stanton 1993: 131-39); yet von Dobschütz suggested Matthew as a rabbi as early as 1928 (reprinted 1995); see further below. We thus disagree with Nepper-Christensen 1958; Meier 1979: 17-25; idem 1980: xi; cf. Van Tilborg 1972b: 96-97. Schoedel 1991 is concerned how Ignatius’s Gentile-Christian community could make such heavy use of Matthew, suggesting that he also employed M traditions; Meier 1991b argues that Ignatius probably just used the Gospel.

121. For his precision in his use of various fulfillment formulas, see Soares Prabhu 1976: 48-58. See also the extensive treatment of OT citations in Matthew in Stendahl 1968 (who sees a scribal community at work); Cope 1976: 11-83 (on what he views as key texts placed in the middle of sections); cf. Jn 12:38.

122. E.g., Goppelt 1962: 198; Hill 1972: 50-52; Ellis 1974: 6; Zumstein 1980; Hengel 1980: 98; Senior 1983: 12-14; Meier in Brown and Meier 1983: 15-27; Mounce 1985: xiv; Davies and Allison 1988: 138-47; Blomberg 1992a: 37; cf. Hagner 1993: lxxv; Schweizer 1995: 149-50.

123. Cf. Gal 2:11-14 and the uncertain but interesting thesis of Brown and Meier 1983, that Petrine tradition was used to “domesticate” the Pauline tradition, bringing it more in line with traditional Jewish Christianity.

124. Hagner 1996 explains the tension between ethnic particularism and universalism (29-32) in terms of tension between the early Christians and Judaism (32-45), but he may postulate a more severe break than we might suspect in this period.

125. E.g., Gundry 1982: 599-608; Robinson 1977: 76-78; France 1986: 121; cf. tentatively France 1989: 82-91; Blomberg 1992a: 41-42; Hagner 1993: lxxiv.

126. E.g., Ellis 1974: 5; F. F. Bruce 1980a: 40; Senior 1983: 13-14; Mounce 1985: xv; Davies and Allison 1988: 127-38; Duling and Perrin 1994: 333.

127. A date after the end of the first century is untenable; pace Koester, the second-century citations clearly represent our extant First Gospel (Davies and Allison 1988: 130). Even a suggestion of the 90s is probably too late (White 1991: 241 dates it between 70 and 132, but thinks that the period near Agrippa II’s death, ca. 92-93, most likely; but his evidence is hardly compelling by itself, and other evidence for an earlier date, plus a situation less advanced than in the Fourth Gospel, outweighs it).

128. Overman 1996: 12-13, 15 rightly notes that the Gospel portrays the “Pharisees” and “scribes” as Jesus’ primary opponents, and that elements of these groups achieved considerable influence in the post-70 “leadership coalition.”

129. Hagner objects that Mark need have been in circulation only a short time before Matthew could use it (1993: lxxiv), but with all the other traditions Matthew had and presumably other Gospels in circulation (Lk 1:1), it is doubtful that Matthew would have depended so heavily on Mark unless Mark had become a standard in the church. Even if the early church was well networked by travelers (which I regard as almost certain based on Paul and on analogous Jewish material), if Mark derives from Syria (which is possible) and if he had a wealthy patron with many scribes functioning as an ancient equivalent of a “printing press” (which is less likely), Mark’s popularity presupposes a number of years after its initial publication, perhaps as much as a decade.

130. Given the frequency of Gentile adherents in Mediterranean Jewish communities, Over-man 1996: 33 is skeptical about the significance of Gentiles for an implied “Gentile mission” in Matthew; but the issue was certainly central in the church earlier (e.g., Acts 11:18; 15:28-29; Rom 15:7-29) and can only have been intensified in the wake of A.D. 70.

131. Matthew’s “apocalyptic eschatology” also fits this situation (see Sim 1996), though there is no reason to limit such eschatology to this situation or period.

132. Despite Matthew’s emphasis on the Gentile mission, judgment on the Judean religious establishment takes precedence where the two themes might compete (cf. Mt 21:13 with Mk 11:17). This also suggests fresh hostility with Judean religious leaders and exultation over the temple’s ruin, but a Syrian Jewish Christian community could have faced such situations anywhere in the 70s or 80s.

133. Not only mainstream Jewish and Gentile Christians but also Gnostics apparently made early use of this Gospel (Stanton 1993: 256-77). By contrast, it is possible that John’s relative lateness (along with its adoption by some Gnostics) may have delayed its widespread acceptance among the orthodox as belonging to the same category as the Synoptics.

134. Patte 1987: 13 is more skeptical about historical reconstruction than necessary, though caution is needed; Stanton 1993: 45 strikes the right balance.

135. This view was already widespread in the 1970s (e.g., Van Tilborg 1972b; Ellis 1974: 4-6; Cope 1976: 126), and continued in the 1980s (e.g., Meeks 1986: 137; Harrington 1980: 97; Senior 1983: 6-10) and 1990s (e.g., Segal 1991: 35-37; White 1991: 240; Duling and Perrin 1994: 335). Yet as Stanton 1993: 26 observes, this common current view was earlier and independently advanced by A. Schlatter (Der Evangelist Matthäus, Stuttgart: Calwer, 1929).

136. For more details, see the discussion in Overman 1990b: 35-71.

137. As far as particular sects are concerned, the Pharisees would remain the primary competition after A.D. 70 (Schiffman 1985: 52). Matthew exhibits far less concern regarding the Sadducees, a group that had ceased to provide much of a threat after A.D. 70 (cf. Van Tilborg 1972b: 2); nor is Matthew’s Jewish world of thought primarily that of the Qumran sectarians (Ito 1992). Bultmann 1968: 52 may be correct that even Mark emphasizes particularly Pharisaic and scribal opposition.

138. Some doubt that the Christians are primarily in view (Stemberger 1977; Finkel 1981). But Jewish Christians seem to have understood the malediction as aimed at them: Justin, a Gentile Christian raised in Palestine, half a century later seems to take the same curse (the Amida was the only thrice-daily prayer — Schiffman 1981: 151) as specifically anti-Christian (Horbury 1982: 19; Barnard 1964: 400; idem 1967: 44-45; Shotwell 1965: 83-84; Williams 1930: xxxii; pace Kimelman 1981: 235-38). Schäfer suggests that the primary point of the malediction is deliverance from political oppression; while it would also have terminated the unpopular schismatics’ participation in the divine service, this was not its primary goal (1975: 61). But its title suggests a different emphasis, a secondary emphasis would have been an emphasis nonetheless, and even had its framers intended no harm against the sectarians (which is unlikely), the sectarians would have suspected malicious intent (cf. Whitacre 1982: 8). Nozrim may have been added to minim later (so Urbach 1981: 288; Jocz 1979: 54-57; Flusser 1988: 638; Marmorstein 1923: 389; pace Schoeps 1961a: 55-56; Moore 1911: 111-12), but the numerous Jewish Christians probably provided the primary original object of the minim.

139. With Davies and Allison 1988: 136. Stanton 1993: 142-44, 281 allows that although the curse may have been a factor in the separation and Matthew probably contended with the Jamnian academy’s agendas, “we cannot say more.” Evidence for a unified prayer liturgy throughout the synagogues is disputed even in Palestine; its pervasive use in the Diaspora by the end of the first century is highly questionable. For evidence that does not suggest a common liturgy, cf. Levine 1986: 19-20; Cohen 1986: 175; Sanders 1992: 205-7; for evidence that could favor some common Jewish liturgy, cf. Schiffman 1986; Goodman 1983: 86. (Jos. Life 277, 290-295 probably reflects a more common custom of synagogue prayers, but not necessarily common recitation.) Some common prayer probably did exist at least in Palestine, however; cf. purportedly Tannaitic traditions in b. Ber. 28b, 29a and Herford’s possible case regarding Samuel haKaton (1966: 129-32).

140. In my commentary on John (with Hendrickson Publishers) scheduled for publication shortly after this one, I allow for more tradition flowing from the conflict with Jamnia, both because of the later date and because of internal evidence in the Fourth Gospel; but even there the Birkath probably functions more as an example of conflict than its cause.

141. The Birkath would not itself accomplish a formal excommunication (Katz 1984: 46-49), though early evidence seems to exist for the full ḥerem: see Horbury 1985: 13-38; cf. R. Eliezer in p. Moʿed Qat. 3:1, §6. (In later times, rabbinic grounds for excommunication could include casting doubt on a ruling of the sages, even if one did so on the basis of the sages’ words — p. Moʿed Qat. 3:1, §§7, 9.) The nature of any attempts to drive schismatics from synagogues would also have varied from place to place in the early period (see also Overman 1990b: 53). But such a curse would have made most “schismatics” feel unwelcome (Katz 1984: 51; Hare 1967: 56).

142. Hagner 1996: 41-42, 64 cites, e.g., Hebrews and material in Dunn 1983: 10; see also France 1989: 101.

143. See Stuhlmacher 1991b: 16; Bauckham 1998a: 33-36, for early Christians. Davies and Allison 1997: 700 complain that modern scholars underestimate the impact of larger changes on local communities, noting that first-century couriers could get a letter from Rome to London in a week; the seventeenth-century doctrine of Sabbatai Zevi spread throughout all Europe in less than three years; and the Reformation’s most significant impact spread through much of Europe in five years.

144. As many scholars recognize; see Stanton 1984; idem 1993: 146-68; cf. Harrington 1980: 13, 95-97; idem 1989a; Niedner 1989. This is not to deny Matthew’s later exploitation by anti-Semites (e.g., Hare 1979: 27).

145. E.g., Strecker 1966; Meier 1979: 15-17; Meier in Brown and Meier 1983: 49; Meeks 1986: 137; Gundry 1991; Stanton 1993: 6-7, 124-31.

146. E.g., Hummel 1963; Saldarini 1991; idem 1994; White 1991: 217; cf. Kingsbury 1991:265.

147. Cf. Hagner 1993: lxviii. Overman 1989: 338 thinks that the Matthean community view themselves as a persecuted minority withdrawing from the world (for the Gospel’s providing cohesion for a persecuted sectarian group cf. also Stanton 1992a; idem 1993: 91-98). Various scholars also point to “their” synagogues in 4:23; 9:35; 13:54, as distinct perhaps from “ours”; but this argument’s weight is questionable, since one cannot explain Mk 1:39’s identical phrase on the basis of Mark’s “sectarian” Judaism. On “Q” Christians still seeing themselves as part of Judaism, see Tuckett 1993.

148. Boccaccini 1991: 16-19 views early Christianity as a whole as a form of early Judaism, a thesis that accurately reflects earliest Christianity’s self-perception.

149. By “synagogue communities” I mean the social ties within the local communities, rather than only Sabbath prayer services. But even in the case of Sabbath gatherings, if Jewish Christians met early on Sunday mornings (cf. Acts 20:7) they would remain free to attend Sabbath services in the synagogues. It is highly doubtful that early Jewish Christians, unlike later Gentile Christians, believed the Sabbath had been changed to Sunday (a change lacking in first-century attestation). (Minim emphasize the holiness of Sunday in b. Taʿan. 27b, but this is the third century, and it is doubtful that most Jewish Christians would have accepted an eighth-day Sabbath based on the Epistle of Barnabas.)

150. Horsley may well be right that a Galilean Christianity external to Judaism does not predate Constantine (1995: 105-6).

151. Schnackenburg 1985: 10 contends that Matthew’s audience includes Gentile as well as Jewish Christians, but that Matthew himself is more at home in Jewish views and modes of expression.

152. As Overman 1996: 229 notes, other early Diaspora Christians (e.g., Acts 15:1-20; Rom 9:25-30) and Jews (Philo Mos. 2.43; Spec. 1.97; 2.165-67; Praem. 114) also discussed how Gentiles could become part of their Jewish communities. That Matthew does so less than some others (Over-man 1996: 230-31) stems from his scope as a biographer of Jesus, for Luke may emphasize it less than Matthew, yet Luke authored Acts. The Pauline position that such Jewish culture was not normative for Gentile converts is more nuanced, but if that debate had ever been part of the Matthean communities (as one would expect if they grew near Antioch), it does not clearly register in Matthew’s Gospel. Perhaps some compromise position was deemed acceptable, as in Acts 15:20 or as in the case of Gentile God-fearers in the synagogues, except that they would be accepted as full members. Gentiles could have converted as they normally would to Judaism, but had these been the circles of Matthew’s Gospel, it would be more difficult to explain its Gentile mission and especially its early acceptance by catholic Gentile Christendom.

153. Thus Schiffman dates the separation of Jewish Christians from Judaism to the Bar Kochba period and the major influx of Gentile Christians into Palestine (1985: 75-78). Even then, I suspect that many Jewish Christians marginalized from Gentile Christianity remained faithful to their heritage in Judaism.

154. Compare also Goulder 1974; Bonnard 1963; Ellis 1974: 3; Gundry 1982: 606; cf. Vermes 1993: 73.

155. Matthew is not reacting against Paul (cf. Davies 1967a: 27-28).

156. Matthew’s own community was probably more susceptible to false charismatics precisely because he and his community were charismatic, not because they were anticharismatic (cf. 5:12; 23:34; Michaels 1976: 309-10).

157. Ancient biographies included both “flat” and “round” characters (Burridge 1992: 182-84); rather than directly analyzing character, ancient biographers more often displayed “character through deeds and words” (Burridge 1992: 205, 208; e.g., Mt 8:27; 9:36). Lucian criticizes historians who merely praise their own leaders and slander the enemy (History 7-8). Although some characters were wholly good (like Matthew’s Jesus; cf. Josephus’s Moses or Josiah, Feldman 1992f; 1993d) or bad (like Matthew’s religious leaders; cf. Josephus’s Jeroboam, Feldman 1993c), ancient biographers and historians reported various character traits (Corn. Nep. 4 [Pausanias], 1.1; 11 [Iphicrates], 3.2) and often rounded characters on both sides of a conflict (e.g., Dion. Hal. 9.39.1-6; Feldman 1994c), including their heroes (Dion. Hal. 8.60.1-2; 8.61.1-3; Arrian Alex. 3.18.12; 4.7.4; 4.8.1–4.9.6; Lavery 1994). Reporting fears and motives on both sides in a conflict of the distant past increases suspense and praise for the victor, while augmenting the enemy’s nobility deepens tragic pathos (e.g., the Al-bans in Dion. Hal. bk. 3).

158. Crossan 1991a: xxvii-xxviii puts the matter quite well (cf. similarly Meier 1991a: 3), but he then proposes a methodology to circumvent the impasse (xxviii-xxix) that in my opinion fails for lack of adequate attention to the Jewish and, despite his claim, Greco-Roman context.

159. Since Schweitzer 1968, scholars have periodically remarked on how frequently presuppositions shape one’s conclusions in Jesus research (e.g., Stanton 1995a: 145), a practice to which even the Jesus Seminar objects in principle (Funk 1993: 5). For summaries of the first quest, see Schweitzer 1968; for the first and second quests, Thompson 1985: 90-111; for all three, briefly Wright 1992b: 1-18; for the third quest, see especially Witherington 1995.

160. Johnson 1996: 41 challenges the Jesus Seminar’s claim to be representative of mainstream Gospels scholarship in its skepticism concerning Jesus’ eschatology. For a full refutation of those who doubt Jesus’ eschatological orientation, see Allison 1998: 95-130.

161. Developing and perhaps more fully re-Judaizing Mark, who also presents Jesus as a teacher (on which see Robbins 1992: 82).

162. Robbins 1992: 167-68 finds in “understanding” a typically Greek pattern of thought, but many of his points here (e.g., rejection of the protagonist by authorities; cf. Jer 7:27; 11:18-23; 15:10, 21; 18:18-23; 20:2, 10; 29:26-27; 36:5-26; 37:1–38:13) could as easily be explained on Jewish grounds.

163. Cf. Luz 1995: 119, who suggests that Matthew reduces the Markan disciples’ misunderstanding.

164. E.g., Freyne 1988: 249-50; Hengel 1981b: 42-50; Smith 1978: 22-23.

165. E.g., Jeremias 1971: 77; Vermes 1984: 30-31; cf. Borg 1987: 97-124. Vermes 1993: 54 doubts that Jesus would have used implicit quotations, opining that few Galileans would have been educated enough to catch them. Yet this misrepresents the educational status of the Galileans (perhaps acceding to Judean propaganda in early rabbinic sources), and Jesus’ contemporaries did not shun such allusions aimed at those who would catch them (cf. Jos. Apion 2.178; Philo Leg. Gai. 115, 210, cited by Vermes himself, 1993: 186); further, can we suppose that later Gentile Christians added the allusions? Yet even Vermes would differ from Mack 1988: 64, who (exhibiting little feeling for first-century Palestinian Judaism) suggests that Jesus employed only wisdom thought and may have been as conversant in the Cynic thought of Meleager as in the Bible. Wright 1992a: 104n.41 correctly notes Mack’s book as one “modern example of a hypothesis which constantly dismembers the evidence in the interests of a broad overall scheme.”

166. Safrai 1974/76a: 965; cf. 1974/76b: 762; Sifre Deut. 43.3.7; 48.2.4, 6; Liefeld 1967: 89-133. Cf. the related Greek tradition of traveling philosophers (see Diog. Laert. Lives 2.22; Liefeld 1967: 26-59). Liefeld uncovers little evidence for itinerant rabbis before A.D. 70 (119), but this is hardly surprising given the scarcity of evidence for rabbis before A.D. 70 in general. Georgi sought Diaspora Jewish parallels for Cynic-Stoic itinerancy and various ancient missionary religions (1986: 99-101, 111-12).

167. Although elders and synagogue “rulers” undoubtedly welcomed scribal exposition when available (cf. Acts 13:15), in Galilee probably these leaders were frequently simply the village equivalent of municipal aristocracies, the most respected community leaders (see comment on synagogue “rulers” [9:23-26]).

168. See Davies 1964: 422-25; Davies 1966: 134; Stein 1978: 1-3; Carlston 1980; Meeks 1986: 117; Cohen 1987: 122; Vermes 1993: 50-70, 76-119.

169. Scholars often comment on the meaning of this distinctive trait; see Jeremias 1971: 35-36; cf. Hill 1979: 64-66; Aune 1983: 164-65; Witherington 1990: 186-88; Marshall 1990: 43-44.

170. On the new Moses motif, besides what appears briefly below under eschatological prophets, see especially Allison 1993b and comments on the relevant passages in the Gospel loc. cit.; in early Judaism, e.g., Knowles 1989; for greater detail see my forthcoming commentary on John (see also Glasson 1963a; Teeple 1957), though in that Gospel it is subordinate to divine Christology.

171. Nortjé 1989 may be correct in harmonizing these images by viewing Jesus as a John redivivus: John and Jesus may both have carried on functions of the eschatological Elijah. Roth 1992 may also be correct that Mark emphasizes Jesus as one greater than Elijah, whereas Matthew emphasizes the comparison with Moses. Comparison (synkrisis) was a standard rhetorical technique of the period (e.g., Demosthenes On the Embassy 174; Stanton 1993: 83).

172. See Jos. Ant. 18.63 (comparing the language for Elisha in Ant. 9.182) and (in a negative vein) the rabbinic sources also preserve this tradition of Jesus as miracle worker (Meier 1994: 621; Vermes 1993: 5), making it one of the best-attested features of Jesus’ ministry. In view of Q tradition (Mt 11:4-5//Lk 7:22), Jesus probably viewed his miracles as special eschatological signs fulfilling Scripture (especially Is 35; see, e.g., Witherington 1990: 171; Sanders 1993: 167-68).

173. See, e.g., Yamauchi 1986; Meier 1994: 537-52; Twelftree 1993: 190-207; Witherington 1990: 202, following Goergen 1986: 173-75. Few have followed Smith here, and some are scathing (Neusner 1998: xxvii).

174. See, e.g., Blackburn 1986; Tiede 1972; Holladay 1977; Pilgaard 1997; cf. Lown 1986.

175. Horsley 1995: 152-55 also suspects the Galileans’ loyalty to Torah. From a Pharisaic standpoint such suspicions would be justified, but most Galileans undoubtedly saw themselves as loyal to Torah as they understood it.

176. Borg 1987: 15 correctly acknowledges that Jesus was “a charismatic who was a healer, sage, prophet, and revitalization movement founder”; yet he denies that Jesus was an eschatological prophet (ibid., 14, but based primarily on a very selective poll — 20n.25). For a critique of Vermes and Borg on the “close” relevance of charismatic teachers like Hanina and Honi, see Witherington 1990: 153, 182-83; Chilton 1994: 45. On Jesus as a prophet, see, e.g., Jeremias 1971: 78-80; Hill 1979: 50-69; Aune 1983: 153-69; Borg 1987: 150-71; Harvey 1982: 36-65.

177. Thus, e.g., Sigal 1986: 154 sees Jesus as both a proto-rabbi and “a charismatic prophet-figure.”

178. Some evidence supports traveling Galilean teachers at this time, although it is probably exceptional rather than the norm (Vermes 1993: 46). For a critique of Theissen’s “wandering charismatic” thesis, see Witherington 1990: 249. Galilee was small enough that Jesus could have traveled without spending most nights away from home (Overman 1990a: 194). For further discussion, see comment on 4:18-22.

179. All three NT cases of traveling prophets represent a specific purpose, not aimless itinerancy, and probably the prophets returned to their sending communities when they finished their mission (Acts 11:27-28; 21:8-11; 15:32; Aune 1983: 212).

180. Aune 1983: 213, however, notes that visiting teachers (11.1-2; 13.2) and apostles (11.3-6) are more prominent in the Didache than are itinerant prophets (13.1); Harnack overstated the itinerant nature of early Christian prophecy (Aune 1983: 202, 211). NT itinerancy (Philip, John) more often resembles the apostolic model (Aune 1983: 215); some cultists of the mysteries were itinerant (Burkert 1987: 31); and Theissen himself (1978: 14-15) parallels Cynics in the Greek tradition.

181. Aune 1983: 214 is too generous; he regards Theissen as basically convincing, but after undercutting both the prophetic composition of sayings for Jesus and the idea that such sayings reflect the social reality of those among whom they circulated, he has dismantled the whole foundation for the thesis.

182. Many of Jesus’ radical sayings are hyperbolic (see Tannehill 1975: 73-76, 139-40), but even if they are to be taken literally, they may function as much as a critique of the community as a description of it (see Keck 1974: 450; Aune 1983: 243). Cf. the proposed competition of local and translocal traditions in Scroggs 1980: 172.

183. Besides popular Judaism, the Mosaic prophet was important to the Essenes (Villalón 1972: 62-63; cf. Teeple 1957: 51-52) and apparently to the Samaritans (F. F. Bruce 1978: 39; Simon 1958: 61, 73).

184. Cf. Sanders 1985: 138, 171; Meeks 1967: 163-64; Horsley 1985.

185. See Hill 1979: 28-29; cf. Betz 1968: 68. Crossan puts Josephus’s bias best (1991a: 93): “Nobody from the highest aristocracy on either side is guilty of anything.”

186. The portrayal of at least some of the apparent revolutionaries in first-century Palestine as “social bandits” has much to commend it (see below). Although general studies of peasant culture shed some light on Galilean agriculturalists (cf., e.g., Malina 1981: 71; Scott 1989: 85-86, 92; Oakman 1992: 117-18), however, the picture of Jesus as a “peasant” (e.g., Oakman 1992: 120-21) is not very nuanced, being dependent on a rather broad definition of “peasant” (cf. Vermes 1993: 6; Witherington 1990: 75). Particularly objectionable is Crossan’s characterization of Jesus as a “peasant Jewish Cynic” (1991a: 421-22; cf. 1991b), a type that one may claim with confidence never existed (Cynics were characteristically urban, while peasants in the strict sense were rural, and very few Jews adopted Cynicism).

187. Cf. Robbins 1992: 114; Sanders 1993: 153; Witherington 1994: 201.

188. Mason 1992: 206; Borg 1984: 27-28; idem 1987: 90; cf. Kingdon 1972.

189. Now widely held: Horsley and Hanson 1985: 214-17; cf. 190-243; Baumbach 1965; Smith 1971; Borg 1971; Sanders 1992: 281-83; Borg 1984: 35-36.

190. Horsley and Hanson 1985: 190 distinguish the Sicarii themselves from peasants and social bandits, relating them to a line of teachers of resistance (194-97). They suspect that Judas the Galilean may have advocated martyrdom rather than violence (197-98), but this is unclear.

191. Pace Crossan 1991a: 304-5; Horsley and Hanson 1985: 48-50, 69-70; Oakman 1992: 131. Horsley and Hanson 1985: 71 contend that the common people asked for justice against Herod when he killed the bandits, citing Jos. Ant. 14.168, but Josephus seems to refer to relatives. Villagers did protect bandits who robbed a servant of Caesar (72, citing Jos. Ant. 20.113-17; War 2.228-31), and War 2.253 may also be relevant, but Josephus himself does not indicate that the “inhabitants” ravaged by the brigands were nobles. The drowning of nobles is significant (War 1.314-16, 326; Ant. 14.431-33), but Ant. 20.255-56 does not explicitly differentiate “Jews” as gentry from the “masses.” Jos. War 2.235-38 may well be relevant, but one wonders whether the elders in Ant. 14.167 are peasants since the speaker is a Pharisee. The nuancing of Crossan 1991a: 170 (their social location between the powerful and powerless) may be helpful.

192. Horsley and Hanson 1985: xiii-xiv, 250-51; Crossan 1991a: 194; Horsley 1995: 259. Josephus’s sources regarding brigands appear weak for 6-44, though he reports some uprisings (cf. also Mk 15:27); but after 44 he supplies many reports of bandits with heavy followings (War 2.228, 235, 238, 253; Ant. 20.121, 124, 161; Horsley and Hanson 1985: 66-69).

193. Falk 1985: 57-58, 120-25 even decides (too narrowly) that the Zealots were Shammaites.

194. Hengel 1961 saw them as a religiously motivated movement; Giblet 1974 believes that they saw themselves as more religious than political. While assuming specific religious beliefs, the nationalists did not represent an organized religious group (Salomonsen 1964). Applebaum 1971 regarded the revolutionary movement as a natural response to the Roman situation. Evidence at Masada indicates the Sicarii’s religious commitment (Josephus 1982: 489, 499).

195. Josephus may have assumed command of many brigands himself; see the evidence in Horsley 1995: 266-67.

196. For the history of the revolutionary thesis, see Bammel 1984d: 11-68. For critiques of Brandon (and implicitly his first predecessor Reimarus), see, e.g., Cullmann 1956b: 8-49; Hengel 1969; Sweet 1984; Anderson 1976: 41-42; some even contend that the charge of sorcery was a greater issue (Horbury 1984: 183-95). Note also Stanton 1995a: 176 (Q’s “love your enemies” is probably authentic). Sanders 1985: 68 regards Brandon as adequately refuted; see his own case on 231-32.

197. Cf., e.g., Villiers 1978; Goldstein 1984-85; Glasson 1963b: 8-13.

198. Also Villalón 1972: 63; Burrows 1958: 297-311; de Jonge 1966: 141-42; Brown 1957: 54-66.

199. Also idem 1966-67: 215-19; Laurin 1963: 52; cf. possible conflation in García Martínez 1993.

200. Also Driver 1965: 468-69; Priest 1962: 55-61. Qumran may have developed the Chronicler’s dual leadership as well as reacting against the Hasmonean conflation of the two (Schniedewind 1994).

201. Cf. Kraeling 1951: 52; Freyne 1988: 194-95; Witherington 1990: 83; Josephus may have even toned down the biblical portrait of David for his Roman audience (Feldman 1989a). Peasants and slaves throughout the Mediterranean were especially open to enthroning prophets (Diod. Sic. 34/35.2.5-6; 34/35.2.22); leaders of such movements usually met swift retribution from the authorities (Diod. Sic. 34/35.2.22-23).

202. See Wächter 1976; Berger and Wyschogrod 1978: 18-19; Borowitz 1980: 21. Among some later rabbis, apparently any Davidic descendant who fulfilled the role properly could “become” the eschatological Messiah; cf. R. Joshua bar Levi concerning Hezekiah (Song Rab. 4:8, §3).

203. Sanders 1985: 307; cf. Chilton 1981: 168; Witherington 1990: 104; Stanton 1995a: 173-87. Fredriksen 1988: 123 regards as ambiguous evidence for whether Jesus claimed to be messiah, but notes that “he certainly died as if he had.”

204. This is not to deny that he may have also drawn on 2 Sam 7:4-17 and Is 61:1-4 (Davies and Allison 1991: 600). Despite brilliant aspects of Wrede’s thesis of Mark’s combination of messianic and nonmessianic traditions (Wrede 1971: 228), its internal inconsistencies have rendered it untenable (Wright 1992a: 104; Burkill 1972: 1-38).

205. Without immediate political repercussions, it is not surprising that the earliest Jesus movement does not spring quickly into the purview of Rome’s historians; even Herod the Great finds little space in Dio Cassius (49.22.6; 54.9.3). Josephus happily compares Herodotus’s neglect of Judea (Apion 1.60-65) with his neglect of Rome (Apion 1.66).

206. While the allusion in Mt 28:18-20 suggests the importance of the passage for Matthew, Ellis 1974: 24-25 probably goes too far in building the whole structure of Matthew around Dan 7:13-14. At the same time, Donahue is wrong to suppose that Matthew rejects Mark’s eschatological orientation (1973: 234-35).

207. Vermes 1973: 160-91; Leivestad 1972: 266-67; cf. Cullmann 1959: 138; Chilton 1994: 75-109. “That man” can function periphrastically (Pesiq. Rab Kah. 9:1; p. Ḥag. 2:1, §9; Ketub. 4:14, §1; Sukk. 5:1, §7; Taʿan. 1:4, §1; 4:5, §1).

208. Also, e.g., Tödt 1965; Ladd 1974b: 145-58; Lindars 1975; idem 1983: 99; Boccaccini 1991: 219. Glasson 1976 argues fully for an early date.

209. E.g., Higgins 1964; Borg 1987: 14; idem 1984: 221-27; Boring 1982: 239-50.

210. Many scholars have concluded this; cf., e.g., Bowman 1943: 125-42; Jeremias 1971: 260-76; Kümmel 1973: 106; Gerhardsson 1979: 57; Riesenfeld 1964: 94-95; Marshall 1966; idem 1990: 63-82; Davies and Allison 1991: 43-50; Witherington 1992: 170.

211. Cf. Stanton 1974: 160-61; Witherington 1990: 234-45; Brown 1994: 509-14; pace Crossan 1991a: 238-55.

212. On Jesus’ deity in Matthew, cf. comment on 1:23; Danker 1992. Witherington 1994: 336-37 rightly suggests that Matthew and John arose in the same sort of milieu, with Jewish Christian teachers “being trained in a school setting where sapiential thinking and Wisdom literature are important formative influences.” He is also undoubtedly right (201-8) that Jesus presented himself on some occasions as divine Wisdom, and (339-40) that the Wisdom Christology in Matthew and John may account for the increase in Father/Son language already present in earlier strata of the tradition. (John seems to develop his sources in light of this pervasive Wisdom theme more freely.) Others have also concluded that the early Christians worshiped Jesus from the start (Wright 1992: 362; cf. Pliny Ep. 10.96).

213. This is commonly pointed out, both by scholars of Judaism (e.g., Bonsirven 1964: 7; Marmorstein 1968b: 93; Moore 1971: 1:119) and of the NT (e.g., Goppelt 1981/82: 1:44).

214. Frequently acknowledged by scholars, e.g., Dodd 1961: 34; Perrin 1963: 24; Betz 1968: 33; Boring 1995: 54; but contrast Aalen 1962.

215. For further data, cf. Moore 1971: 1:423; 2:309; Bonsirven 1964:176-77; Laurin 1958; Young 1989: 193; Targ. Ezek 7:7, 10 in Boring 1995: 53.

216. So, e.g., Sanders 1985: 151-54, 231-32; Allison 1994; cf. Burkitt 1910: 69; Schweitzer 1968: 223-397.

217. So, e.g., Dodd 1961; Jeremias 1972; Young 1989: 221; Vermes 1993: 147-49.

218. E.g., Stein 1978: 60-79; Ladd 1974b: 70-80; Aune 1972: 3-4; Dunn 1975: 89; Harvey 1982: 91; Davies and Allison 1988: 389; Witherington 1992: 51-74; Blomberg 1992a: 74; Meier 1994: 10, 289-506. Sanders 1993: 177-78 grudgingly concedes this possibility, but he remains doubtful that any authentic passage clearly teaches the kingdom’s presence. But especially odd here is Mack 1993: 126, who thinks the authentic kingdom sayings in Q simply match the Cynic use of a philosopher reigning as king (in contrast to the LXX and other Jewish traditions of the reign of Israel’s one God!); pace Mack, though the kingdom is not dominant in early Jewish texts, it is quite frequent (see Meier 1994: 240-69; cf. Vermes 1993: 127-30).

219. E.g., Bultmann 1951: 1:24; Perrin 1963; Tannehill 1975: 56; Borg 1984: 248-63; cf. Bultmann 1984: 137-38.

220. Sim 1996 finds Matthew’s “apocalyptic eschatology” appropriate to a sectarian community in crisis and conflict after A.D. 70.

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