I am near the end of this thread on the Jewishness of Matthew’s Gospel. I have several more posts to go, so I’m not completely at the finish line; but it’s within sight. (I should stress that I am not intending to give an exhaustive analysis of the problem and all the relevant issues. That would take a very long book. In fact, scholars have indeed written significant books on the topic. One of my graduate students, Judy Siker, wrote her dissertation on one aspect of the issue. She's also the author of Who is Jesus? What a Difference a Lens Makes. I hope to close out the thread with posts on three related topics: this post and the next on whether Matthew was himself Jewish; the one after on whether Matthew – whether Jewish or not – was anti-Jewish (I hope to do that in just one post, but it may take more); and finally one on whether Matthew and the apostle Paul would have or could have seen eye-to-eye on the relationship of [...]

Given the importance of following the law for Matthew (especially as seen in 5:17-20 and in the Antithises), if we had no indication that Christianity spread among non-Jews soon after Jesus' death, we might simply assume that Matthew's community was comprised of Jews who continued to adhere to the law even if they disagreed with the Pharisees over how best to do so.  But Gentiles *were* joining the Christian church well before Matthew wrote his Gospel; indeed, at this time there were probably more Gentiles who claimed to be followers of Jesus than Jews.  Does Matthew think that these Gentiles Christians are to keep kosher, to observe the sabbath, and, if male, to be circumcised?  It is an intriguing question because, as we will see in a later post, the apostle Paul was adamant that they should *not*. It is unfortunate for us that Matthew does not address this issue directly.  In this Gospel Jesus does give numerous indications that Gentiles will become his followers and inherit the kingdom of heaven; but nowhere does he [...]

In the last post I tried to show that Matthew’s Jesus (remember: I’m not talking about the historical Jesus here; I’ve been referring to Jesus as he is presented in Matthew – a very different thing!) does indeed seem to think that his readers should follow not just the ethical aspects of the Jewish law, but the cultic aspects as well – keeping Sabbath, tithing, and so on.  At the same time, it appears that Jesus in Matthew thinks that his opponents are wrong in placing the highest priority on keeping these cultic requirements, rather than on emphasizing the commandment to love that lies at its core. This becomes especially clear in two stories that Matthew took over from Mark, but modified.  The first is Mark's account of the call of Levi the tax collector (Mark 2:13-17; in Matthew's account, it is the call of Matthew!).  When the Pharisees see Jesus eating in Levi's home with "tax collectors and sinners," they disparage him for mixing with such tainted company.  Evidently their own emphasis on ritual [...]

In previous posts I’ve talked about Matthew radicalizing the law – so that his followers were to adhere to it even more closely than the scribes and Pharisees. Most Christians today think the Jewish law is irrelevant (except maybe for the Ten Commandments) (well, nine of them anyway: most Christians don’t keep the Sabbath.) (For years, as a boy, raised in the Christian church, I thought “Sabbath” meant “Sunday.” I assume that’s typical. But even so, we had no qualms about doing just about anything we pleased even on Sunday….). But when Jesus speaks about the laws that his followers are to keep, they are always the ethical laws such as not murdering and not committing adultery,which presumably would have applied not just to Jews but also to gentiles. What about the laws of Scripture, though, that were widely recognized as making Jews a separate people from the non-Jews, for example, the laws that required Jews to circumcise their baby boys, and to keep the Sabbath day holy, and to observe certain dietary restrictions? We [...]