Loading...I’ve begun a short thread dealing with how Matthew understood and interpreted and used Scripture. Here is a fuller exposition, the first part of which comes straight from my textbook on the NT and the second part straight from my noggin to the keyboard.
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What is perhaps most striking about Matthew’s account is that
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Bart.
Do you think Matthew’s inclusion of these dubious prophecies was due, in part, to a feeling that it was necessary to settle the nerves of Christians who knew that a long time had passed since Jesus’ death, with no sign of the promised Kingdom of God?
To put it another way: if Matthew had written his gospel 35 or 40 years earlier, would he have included them?
I”m not sure they resolve the problem of the imminent end not being so imminent, but they certainly are meant to cement the view that Jesus really was the messiah, no matter what anyone else says. I don’t think Xns 35-40 years earlier had the sophistication or breadth of knowledge yet to pull off what Matthew does. His text shows a pretty mature thinker who has pondered these things and is building on the views of others that have been around for a while, I would say.
No need to publish this comment – but Micah 5:2 predicts Bethlehem, not 2:6.
Arg. There I go just makin’ stuff up again. I’ll change it (for posterity) (and for my personal reputation…). Thanks!
In 2:23, we are told that the reason Joseph and Mary settle in Bethlehem, after their flight to Egypt with the boy Jesus, is to fulfill “what had been spoken through the prophets…: ‘He shall be called a Nazorean.’”
I assume you meant Nazareth, not Bethlehem.
Ouch. A rather serious scribal corruption of the text. I’ll change it. Thanks.
“In 2:23, we are told that the reason Joseph and Mary settle in Bethlehem, after their flight to Egypt…”
If I may be so bold, I think you mean Nazareth, not Bethlehem.
Ouch. A rather serious scribal corruption of the text. I’ll change it. Thanks.
I wonder how Matthew’s use of “fulfill” in these verses relates to his use, and more importantly reader’s interpretation of Matthew 5:17 (‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.’)
Is it the same word in Greek?
It seems to me that a lot of readers think this means he did away with law, despite him saying he didn’t abolish it.
Enjoy the blog! Thanks…
Yup, same word. It’s a positive word meaning to fill something up to the brim, not a negative term meaning to get rid of something because you’re done using it.
In Matthew, Mark and Luke, two disciples are sent on ahead to the next village.
In Matthew the two disciples collect the two donkeys and put their two coats on them.
In Mark/Luke the two disciples collect just one colt and put both their coats on it.
Isn’t it more likely that the two disciples were originally intended for the story of collecting two donkeys, and that Luke/Mark only have them as a carry-over to their story with one donkey, rather than the other way round?
I think we may as well stop having this kind of back and forth, since my response has been the same every time. I can simply tell you right now that every instance you come up with that seems to you to be commonsensically to have gone one direction appears to every expert I know (and everyone I”ve read probably for the past 20 years) to have gone the other direction, so there’s not much point continuing to ask about them. My answer will be the same each time. You certainly don’t have to agree with what the expert view is, but as I’ve said many times, finding individual instances where you yourself think it makes better sense that the change went the other direction is not going to affect the mountain of evidence for Markan priority.
Ok – though I think mountains of evidence are made up of individual instances. But I’ll stop asking about them – thanks
In the paragraph starting “In 2:23”, did you mean to write “Bethlehem”? Should it be “Nazareth”? Or have I completely misread something, which is not unknown 😊
Yup, my bad. I changed it.
I always thought that since the author of Matthew wrote in Greek he quotes the OT from the Greek Septuagint version. (As did all the other NT authors including Paul.) The passage of Zechariah 9:9 in the Septuagint seems to mistakenly translate from Hebrew the donkey into two animals in the Greek – “a donkey and a colt”. The author of Matthew could still be a Jew, but just didn’t know Hebrew, only Greek. He clearly uses the Greek translation and not the Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14 for his “virgin” prophesy too. I always thought is was ironic that all the NT authors used the Greek Septuagint for their references since it was never accepted as divine scripture by the Priests in Jerusalem. I’m sure Jesus would not have read from it either. What are your thoughts on this?
Zech 9:9 has both animals in the Hebrew, I believe. It’s just that it uses them as synonyms in the two lines of poetry, and Matthew assumes (even reading it from the Greek) that they are two animals instead of one. As to the NT Gospel writers, they wouldn’t have known anything about the priests in Jerusalem and in fact were writing after there weren’t any there. (And I’m not even sure any of them was Jewish)
So, do you think Matthew *was* Jewish? Or do we just not know?
I debate it inside my own head. There are good arguments on both sides, as I’ll be discussing later.
It seems to me that whoever wrote the book of Matthew picked and chose which verses of the Old Testament he wanted to apply to Jesus when they were clearly meant for Old Testament times. Rachel weeping/ Herods slaughter of the boys 2 yrs and younger. – “out of Egypt I called my son” referring to Israel.
“the virgin (young woman) will conceive (is with child) and they shall call him Emmanuel. Etc
All these passages refer to a specific time.
How do we know if these were actually prophetic predictions since we only have Matt’s gospel with these writings?
The way to see what they originally meant th ebest thing to do is to read them in their actual contexts in the Old Testament; just look up the reference and read, not just the verse, but hopefully the entire chapter it’s in, or better, the entire book!
It’s an interesting exercise. I have done it multiple times before.
You said: ” These fulfillment citations are not drawn from Mark; among all four Gospels, they occur only in Matthew.” But doesn’t John use fulfillment citations in 12:38, 13:18, 15:25, 17:12, 18:9 and 19:24?
I’m saying that Matthew did not get his citations from any other source, and the ones that he has are not found in any of the other Gospels. John’s are different from Matthew’s (so that Matthew’s only occur in Matthew)
Hi Bart, long time listener, first time caller. What is the possibility that some of these references are to Hebrew Scripture that was lost? I understand that some other verses in the NT refer to unknown sources or to apocrypha. Regardless, thanks for your scholarship, it has been very helpful to me personally.
The only one we can’t locate is “He shall be called a Nazarene.” It’s *possible* that Matthew had a form of the Greek OT that had the line in it, but it’s a bit hard to figure out where it would have been and it doesn’t seem likely…
Seems that the original name of Nazaret in Hebrew was Netzer, that’s why jews like Rashi referred to Yeshua as בן נֵצֶּר, a native from the city called Netzer, like בר כוכבא was a native from כּוֹכָב (Kochav).