Welcome back to Sunday School! Class is officially in session. This week we will continue our chronological journey through the New Testament (NT) documents. This week I had to choose between two texts, because both were likely written in the 80s: Colossians and Matthew. Matthew won out. So, let’s get started.
Since the second century the Gospel of Matthew has been considered the most popular and well-known Gospel. While Mark was written first, we encounter Matthew first in the order of the canon. That is possibly due to the widespread preference for Matthew’s account of Jesus’s story.
Like Mark, we don’t know who the author of Matthew actually was. An early tradition connected this Gospel with Levi Matthew, the former tax collector who left his post to follow Jesus. He would also be listed one of the “Twelve.” While scholars find that tradition problematic, we will still use “Matthew” as the signifier for the unknown author of this text.
Matthew was written more than a decade after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, likely being composed at some point in the 80s, probably in Syrian Antioch, to the north of Palestine. As we’ve already seen, Matthew incorporated more than 90% of Mark into his narrative, making tweaks here and there in order to conform the material to his perspective and goals. This author wasn’t just a copy cat, however. Matthew’s Gospel offers several significant contributions to the early layers of the developing Jesus tradition.
Matthew is seen as the most Jewish Gospel. That comes through on practically every page of the text. A few examples:
Matthew wants us to see Jesus as grounded thoroughly in the Jewish tradition. He begins with a genealogy that draws a line through Abraham to David to Jesus. While many modern readers might find such a genealogy boring, Matthew’s is curated theologically to ensure that we see the story of Jesus as a continuation and climax of the story of Abraham.
Further, Matthew reinterprets and reimagines Scripture to show Jesus as its fulfillment. In my mind’s eye I picture him scouring the text looking for clues, and then lifting those texts out and wrapping them around the memory of Jesus. The point is that none of the texts he used were originally about predicting Jesus. It was the Jesus experience that caused Matthew to renegotiate his interpretation of Scripture to make space for that new reality.
Additionally, Matthew casts Jesus as retelling the story of Israel. The Holy Family flees to Egypt, then eventually returns to Israel. Jesus enters the waters of baptism and the heavens part, like the sea in the Exodus. Then Jesus goes into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days/nights, not succumbing like Israel in the wilderness during their 40 years of wandering. Jesus is Israel 2.0 for Matthew.
Matthew also sees Jesus as Moses 2.0. Traditionally, Moses is held to be the author of the first five books, also called the Torah or Pentateuch. Matthew organizes around five chunks of Jesus’s teaching, patterned after the Torah. One of those chunks, the Sermon on the Mount, shows Jesus offering interpretation of the Mosaic Law. Jesus, for Matthew, is a new liberator, a new Moses, leading a new Exodus.
Matthew also uses five dreams to drive the action in the early part of his story. Four involve Joseph, and one involves the Magi.
Nothing Matthew does is intended to show Jesus breaking with Judaism. He even has Jesus say as much in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says to his listeners, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17) Jesus isn’t nullifying the Law. Far from it. He’s fulfilling it. Fulfill here doesn’t mean checking it off, like a list of chores. It means to fill-up, or to make full. Jesus is offering commentary that calls for a deeper, more thoughtful engagement with the commands of Torah.
Matthew also made the following contributions to the developing traditions about Jesus:
Matthew introduces the idea of the virginal conception. Whether he created it or was the first to write it down, it is clear that Paul and Mark, who predate Matthew, were unaware of any such story.
He also introduces Joseph to the story.
The birthplace of Jesus is relocated from Nazareth to Bethlehem (for theological reasons).
In Matthew we are introduced to the Magi who come to honor the new born king of the Jews, which causes quite a panic in the palace of the king who was already doing the job.
Matthew also adds to/develops the story of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness.
Finally, it is in Matthew that we have the first appearance of the risen Jesus. The empty tomb narrative was introduced by Mark, but as we saw, Jesus never appears. The women at the tomb are told to tell the other disciples that he will meet them in Galilee, but we don’t get that experience narrated for us. In Matthew, the women meet Jesus after discovering the vacant tomb, but it is in Galilee on a mountain where Jesus meets and commissions his disciples after his resurrection.
Matthew ends with Jesus empowering his followers to create an inclusive community of disciples. This is often called “The Great Commission.”
One final thought. When we read Matthew it’s important to remember that he is writing a decade or more after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. For Mark it was a fresh experience, but for Matthew and his community, they had been learning to live on the other side of that cataclysm. How might that gap in time have shaped how Matthew told his story? How might it have shaped the way he used Mark? These are interesting questions to keep in mind while reading.
That’s a brief introduction and contextualization of Matthew’s Gospel, but it’s just barely scratching the surface. If you’d like to dig in further here are a couple of resources that might be helpful. As always feel free to leave questions in the comments or email me at josh@joshscott.online. Until next week!
Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical And Religious Reading by Warren Carter