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MATTHEW, GOSPEL OF

The first of the NT Gospels in canonical order. It was composed during the last decades of the 1st century, when Jews and Christians alike were faced with the task of rearticulating their self-understanding in light of the destruction of the temple and the holy city, Jerusalem. Regardless of where the Gospel was written (Syrian Antioch or one of the larger settlements in Galilee are the two settings most often proposed), the story of Jesus that Matthew tells seems well suited to clarify the identity, vocation, and practices of a community in transition and distress. Matthew uses tension and surprise, in both form and content, to address this situation, while affirming that Jesus Christ, “God with us,” is the defining figure around which the community’s self-understanding, imagination, and social relations are to be formed.

The ascription of this Gospel to Matthew is traditional; the earliest manuscripts are anonymous. Some scholars today argue that Matthew was the first Gospel to be written. The majority of scholars, however, hold to the priority of Mark and believe that Matthew probably used two other sources in addition to Mark, one that was shared with Luke (commonly designated “Q”), and one source that was used independently by Matthew. While earlier generations of scholars held that many of the repetitions found in Matthew were due to careless use of these sources, more recent studies affirm that Matthew employs repetition intentionally as a means to develop characters and advance the plot. Matthew also relies on citations from and allusions to the OT to guide the reader through the story and provide interpretive frameworks for the narrated events. Most prominent among these are the “fulfillment quotations” (Matt. 1:22-23; 2:15, 17-18, 23; 4:14-16; 8:17; 12:17-21; 13:35; 21:4-5; 27:9-10), which would appeal to audiences familiar with the OT, especially the prophecies concerning the Messiah. As often as one finds appeals to Jewish expectations, however, one also finds elements in this story that would have surprised readers familiar with the OT and stretched their notions about both the Messiah and God. Jesus’ description of a “scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven” as one who “brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (13:52) describes well this Evangelist’s own work.

Matthew’s manipulation of the conventions of genre also generates tension and surprise. The Gospel incorporates elements that would have led ancient audiences to associate it both with biographies of leading philosophers and kings and with Jewish historiography. Thus on the one hand, Matthew’s story is about Jesus the teacher and healer, whose actions and teachings, including his death and resurrection, form a coherent, congruent, and compelling whole, worthy of emulation by faithful disciples even amidst disconcerting circumstances. In this way it functions like ancient biography. On the other hand, Matthew’s story is about Jesus the messiah of Israel, whose vocation and ministry, including his death and resurrection, sum up and bring to fruition the whole history of God and the people of Israel. In this way the Gospel appears to build on and complete the historical books found in the OT. By combining biography with history, the Gospel transcends the expectations of both. The reader perceives that Jesus is a figure whose life and teachings are important in their own right, but also one whose story sums up and alters history.

Matthew also holds multiple, overlapping structural patterns in tension. The most prominent of these organizational patterns is the alternation of narrative and discourse. Five times Matthew uses the formula “and when Jesus had finished saying these things,” always at the transition from one of Jesus’ five major speeches to a section of narrative recording his deeds (7:28-29; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1). Some scholars detect in the rough correspondence of themes and motifs amidst these segments of narrative and discourse an overarching chiastic arrangement (i.e., an inverted, concentric parallelism, hinging on the parables in ch. 13).

Twice Matthew uses the formula “from that time Jesus began to,” each time suggesting an important shift in the narrative: at 4:17 Jesus begins his ministry and preaching in Galilee, and at 16:21 he turns toward Jerusalem, where his suffering, death, and resurrection will occur. According to this scheme, Matthew is organized into three panels, each representing a different geographical and, especially, christological aspect of the story.

More recently scholars have turned their attention to the development of the plot in Matthew, and have offered a variety of proposals regarding the Gospel’s structure based on “kernels,” the turning points that determine the chains of causality around which the narrative flows. This approach typically yields a six-part structure, approximately as follows: 1) the coming of the Messiah, 1:1–4:16 (kernel: 1:18-25); 2) the Messiah’s ministry to Israel, 4:17–11:1 (kernel: 4:17-25); 3) conflict and crisis in the Messiah’s ministry, 11:2–16:20 (kernel: 11:2-6); 4) the Messiah’s journey to Jerusalem, 16:21–20:34 (kernel: 16:21-28); 5) the Messiah’s final rejection and crucifixion, 21:1–27:66 (kernel: 21:1-27); and 6) resurrection of the Messiah and commissioning of the disciples, 28:1-20 (kernel: 28:1-10).

Readers should resist the temptation to pick and choose among these alternatives, since they are developed on the basis of differing but not necessarily exclusive criteria. Readings that ignore the complex intersecting and overlapping structural patterns at work in this Gospel are likely to be reductionistic. Moreover, the Evangelist sometimes establishes patterns and expectations, only to shatter them. For example, in the genealogy that opens the Gospel (and that thereby shapes the readers’ generic expectations), Matthew lays out Jesus’ ancestry according to a three-part structuring of Israel’s history, leading from Abraham to the establishment of the Davidic kingdom, from Solomon to the Babylonian Exile, and from the return from exile to the Christ. Matthew then tells the reader explicitly that each of these three portions of Israel’s history has 14 generations. A careful counting, however, yields only 13 generations in the last segment. Did Matthew make a mistake? Are we to count Jesus twice? Does the Holy Spirit count as one generation? Matthew does not resolve these questions, but leaves the readers to sort through the mystery and tension of a carefully constructed and (apparently) intentionally broken structure.

The sense of tension and surprise generated by Matthew’s use of structure is matched by the thematic tensions that run throughout this Gospel. The most evident of these, and the most troubling for scholars, has been the problem posed by Matthew’s relation to Judaism. Matthew is one of the most explicitly Jewish documents in the NT but also one of the most critical of Jewish leadership. Matthew seems to affirm the ongoing validity of the Law (e.g., 5:17-20), while also limiting some of its authority (e.g., 12:1-14). Does this reflect a now largely gentile community that has (perhaps long ago) left its Jewish roots behind, but not bothered to cover over the tracks of its origins? Does it reflect a predominantly Jewish community only recently emerged from a painful and definitive break with competing Jewish factions? Or is Matthew representative of a Christian (or “Christian Jewish”) community that, even in its engagement in mission to the nations, understands itself as a legitimate heir and faithful embodiment of Israel’s vocation and traditions, and therefore in competition with alternative expressions of Jewish identity and leadership? During recent decades most of the discussion has focused on the latter alternatives, with a growing number of voices affirming the last of these proposals.

This line of questioning, in any case, has its roots in Matthew’s apparent resolve to locate Jesus’ story within Israel’s story or, more precisely, to establish Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel’s story, while also affirming that the Messiah is the beginning of something new. In other words, Matthew affirms both continuity and discontinuity between Jesus and the vocation and traditions of Israel. Thus, Jesus both fulfills and abrogates (and radicalizes) the Law. He represents for Israel, as well as for the nations, both judgment and mercy. He is both the Davidic messiah-king (e.g., 12:23) and the humble, broken servant in whom the nations will hope (12:18-21). Matthew gives this tensive, paradoxical depiction of Jesus an almost comical expression in the story of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (21:1-11), where Jesus apparently rides not one, but two animals — a donkey, which the kings of the OT traditionally rode to their coronation, and the colt of a pack animal, the beast of burden that symbolizes Jesus’ identity as servant.

From the outset of the Gospel, Matthew uses a variety of titles and images to describe Jesus. Jesus is not only Messiah and Son of David, but Son of God, Son of Man, and the one who will save his people from their sins (1:21). In each case, Matthew twists the expectations associated with each title in order to say something new about Jesus. Matthew also explicitly names Jesus as Emmanuel, “God with us,” both at the beginning and the end of the Gospel (1:23; 28:20). By “bookending” the Gospel with this identification, Matthew suggests that the whole story may be read as an explication of what this designation means. “God with us” is present in human form, in meekness (12:18-21) as well as with power (7:29; 9:8; 21:23ff.; 28:18). Jesus’ actions and teachings as “God with us” blur the boundaries between the human and the divine (e.g., 9:1-8; 14:22-33), and between heaven and earth (6:10; 16:19; 18:18; 38:20). The effect of this constant redefinition of expectations and confusion of boundaries is a constant stretching of the disciples’ imagination and practices, as well as the readers’.

As Matthew’s story of Jesus unfolds, readers are surprised by the intrigue and violence that attend his person and ministry, from Herod’s attempts to kill the baby (2:1-23) to the spasms of violence that climax in his crucifixion. According to Matthew, God’s presence in the world in Jesus is met with confusion, disbelief, and rejection. Matthew depicts this response with greatest clarity with reference to the religious and political leaders, who perceive that Jesus possesses transforming power but find his ministry threatening to their own carefully cultivated power, as well as to their piety. In a key series of exchanges, Jesus traps the leaders in Jerusalem in self-condemnation (21:23-46); they articulate their own condemnation and judgment (21:31-32, 40-41). The Kingdom will be taken from them and given to others. The surprise is that the pious and powerful are not necessarily God’s chosen ones.

In the course of Jesus’ interactions with the Jewish leaders, Matthew makes clear that a primary issue at stake is the nature of authority. The Jewish leaders possess political, economic, and social authority, which they exercise at the expense of those whom they deem less righteous. Their power is used for self-interest and to preserve social and economic boundaries. This kind of power, according to Matthew, is human rather than coming from God. Jesus’ power, by contrast, breaks down the barriers imposed by class, wealth, and piety. Jesus uses this authority to demonstrate God’s mercy. The leaders’ decision finally to have Jesus put to death makes it clear that their power takes life, while God’s power restores it. Matthew thus uses the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion to highlight the question of who truly represents and manifests God’s authority. Here again the reader may be surprised: God’s power is not manifested in the threat of death, but in the restoration of life.

Throughout Matthew only those with faith, the little ones and least ones, the children and women disciples — in other words, those whose stake in the present order is minimal — are able to discern Jesus’ true identity, even if only partially. With the Crucifixion the full meaning and power of Jesus’ vocation are finally manifested. His death marks the apocalyptic culmination of history. The earth is shaken, rocks broken, tombs opened, and the dead raised. The surprise is not only that God vindicates Jesus’ overturning the deadly will of the leaders, but that Jesus’ death and resurrection is the turning point of history.

Yet another tension in Matthew revolves around the implications of Jesus’ death for the Jewish people. It is clear in Matthew that the mission to the Gentiles is dependent on the completion of Jesus’ mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But does the mission to the Gentiles come about because of the failure of the mission to Israel? Has God now turned away from Israel and toward the nations (i.e., to a gentile Church)? Or is the death of Jesus the means of salvation even for those who rejected and executed Jesus? Matthew does not answer these questions directly, but leaves the reader to discern the answers in the paths of discipleship (28:16-20).

Matthew’s literary artistry yields a story that repays careful, attentive reading, and that stretches our imagination and deepens our insight with each new reading. Matthew points would-be disciples toward a Messiah who both fulfills hopes and surpasses expectations, and who promises to be present on the journey through difficult and confusing times, not unlike our own.

Bibliography. D. C. Allison, Jr., The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis, 1993); D. L. Balch, ed., Social History of the Matthean Community (Minneapolis, 1991); D. R. Bauer and M. A. Powell, eds., Treasures New and Old: Recent Contributions to Matthean Studies. SBL Symposium Series 1 (Atlanta, 1996); M. H. Crosby, House of Disciples: Church, Economics, and Justice in Matthew (Maryknoll, 1988); A. J. Saldarini, Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community (Chicago, 1994); G. N. Stanton, A Gospel for New People: Studies in Matthew (Louisville, 1993)

Stanley P. Saunders

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

MATTHEW, GOSPEL OF

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)