The Synoptic Gospels

“This introduction to the interpretation of Matthew aims to encourage in-depth study of the text, and genuine grappling with the theological and historical questions raised, by providing a ‘map’ to the Gospel as a whole, and to key interpreters and interpretative debates. It draws on a range of methodological approaches (author-, text- and reader-centred), as complementary rather than mutually exclusive ways of interpreting the text. In particular, this new introduction reflects the growing scholarly attention to the reception history of biblical texts, increasingly viewed as a vital aspect of interpretation rather than an optional extra.” – SPCK

“In the search for Matthean theology, scholars overwhelmingly approach the Gospel of Matthew as “the most Jewish Gospel”. Studies of its Sitz im Leben focus on its relationship to Judaism, whether arguing from the perspective that Matthew wrote from a cloistered Jewish community or as the leader of a Gentile rebellion against such a Jewish community. While this is undoubtedly an important and necessary discussion for understanding the Gospel, it often assumes too much about the relationship between Judaism and Hellenism (via Martin Hengel). Scholars who so sharply focus on this question tend to neglect Matthew’s provenance in a thoroughly Greek culture and first-century Judaism’s thorough Hellenization.” – Mohr Siebeck

“Israel, Church, and the Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew addresses one of the central theological problems of Matthew’s Gospel: what are the relationships between Israel and the Church and between the mission to Israel and the mission to the Gentiles? To answer these questions, Matthias Konradt traces the surprising transition from the Israel-centered words and deeds of Jesus (and his disciples) before Easter to the universal mission of Jesus’ earliest followers after his resurrection. Through careful historical and narrative analysis, Konradt rejects the interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew that the Church replaced Israel in God’s purposes—that is, the interpretation that because Israel rejected Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, the Church replaced Israel in the role of God’s chosen people.” – Baylor University Press

“Today’s biblical scholars study the Gospel of Matthew with a wide variety of methods that yield diverse and exciting insights. Methods for Matthew offers a primer on six exegetical approaches that have proved to be especially useful and popular. In each case, a prominent scholar describes the principles and procedures of a particular approach and then demonstrates how that approach works in practice, applying it to a well-known text from Matthew’s Gospel. As an added bonus, each of the chosen texts is treated to three different interpretations so that the reader can easily compare the results obtained through one approach to those obtained through other approaches. The reader will learn a great deal about two stories from Matthew (‘the healing of a centurion’s servant’ and ‘the resurrection of Jesus’) and the reader will also learn enough about each of these six approaches to understand their function in biblical studies today.” – Cambridge University Press

“Over the course of his distinguished career, the late Graham Stanton, former Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, wrote extensively on New Testament and early Christian themes. This volume presents a collection of twenty-six essays, including one previously unpublished, and encompasses some of his most prominent contributions to scholarship. Stanton’s work as an interpreter of the Gospel of Matthew is well known, and thus Part I includes seven essays on Matthew. Part II (‘New Testament Studies’) collects twelve studies on various New Testament themes, ranging from the exegetical to the methodological and programmatic. Toward the end of his life, Stanton was engaged in writing a book on Justin Martyr in the context of early Christian and Jewish dialogue. Though he did not live to complete the project, he published a number of preliminary studies that are included in Part III, together with a previously unpublished paper investigating ‘Justin on Martyrdom and Suicide’.” – Mohr Siebeck

“These Studies in Matthew’s Gospel by Wim J.C. Weren are the result of scholarly work carried out using recent methods in Biblical exegesis such as structural analysis, text semantics and intertextuality.” – Brill

“In what sense does Matthew’s Gospel reflect the colonial situation in which the community found itself after the fall of Jerusalem and the subsequent humiliation of Jews across the Roman Empire? To what extent was Matthew seeking to oppose Rome’s claims to authority and sovereignty over the whole world, to set up alternative systems of power and society, to forge new senses of identity? If Matthew’s community felt itself to be living on the margins of society, where did it see the centre as lying? In Judaism or in Rome? And how did Matthew’s approach to such problems compare with that of Jews who were not followers of Jesus Christ and with that of others, Jews and Gentiles, who were followers?” – T&T Clark

“Matthew’s Gospel is the most significant Jewish-Christian document of the New Testament. Ulrich Luz both outlines and elucidates the story told in the Gospel, emphasizing its focal points: the Sermon on the Mount, the miracles, the renunciation of possessions, and particularly the theology of judgment by works, an idea that represents both a challenge, in its quest for a church set apart from non-Christians by deeds alone, and a burden, through its traumatic origin in the breach between Matthew’s community and the Israelite majority.” – Cambridge University Press