Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

Herausgeber / Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich)

Mitherausgeber / Associate Editors (Oxford) James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala) Hans-Josef Klauck (Chicago, IL) Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg)

309 Prof. Graham Stanton (1940–2009) Graham Stanton Studies in Matthew and Early Christianity

Edited by Markus Bockmuehl and David Lincicum

Mohr Siebeck Graham Stanton (1940–2009); 1969 PhD from Cambridge; 1970–98 Professor at King’s Col‑ lege London; 1998–2009 Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity, and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College. Markus Bockmuehl, born 1961; 1987 PhD from Cambridge; since 2007 Professor of Biblical and Early Christian Studies, University of Oxford and Fellow of Keble College. David Lincicum, born 1979; 2009 DPhil from Oxford; since 2012 University Lecturer in , Oxford and Caird Fellow in Theology, Mansfield College.

e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-152544-5 ISBN 978-3-16-152543-8 ISSN 0512-1604 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament)

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

© 2013 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany. www.mohr.de This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproduc‑ tions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset by Martin Fischer in Tübingen using Times typeface, printed by Gulde- Druck in Tübingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany. Preface

This collection of some of Graham Stanton’s shorter writings has been under‑ taken by the editors on behalf of Esther Stanton, Graham Stanton’s widow and the literary executor of his estate. The assistance and enthusiastic support she rendered greatly facilitated the production of this volume. We are grateful to the publishers who offered their kind permission to reprint Stanton’s essays for this volume; full details of their original publication can be found in the ‘Acknowl‑ edgements’ at the end of the volume. Moreoever, we are indebted for practical help received from several quarters. Nick Ellis performed an invaluable work of supererogation in converting scans of the original publications into usable files. Benjamin Edsall undertook the laborious task of correcting the initial files and standardizing the formatting; his careful attention to detail has put both the editors and readers of this volume in his debt. Nick Moore conducted an impres‑ sively careful proof-reading of the manuscript and corrected numerous errors. The Leverhulme Trust and the Bethune Baker Fund kindly supplied funds that assisted in the production of this volume. Thanks are also due to Dr. Henning Ziebritzki of Mohr Siebeck, along with Prof. Jörg Frey and the co-editors of WUNT, for welcoming this volume into the present series. The production team at Mohr Siebeck were characteristically precise and helpful. Finally, we hope that this volume will be a small contribution to honouring the life and legacy of its author.

Oxford, Advent 2012 Markus Bockmuehl David Lincicum

Table of Contents

Preface ...... V

Introduction ...... 1

Part I Matthew

Chapter 1: The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s : Matthean Scholarship from 1945 to 1980 ...... 9 I. Recent Matthean Scholarship ...... 9 II. Matthew as Evangelist ...... 15 III. Matthew as Polemicist or Apologist ...... 27 IV. Matthew as Theologian ...... 43 V. The Origin of Matthew’s Gospel ...... 64 VI. Whither Matthean Scholarship? ...... 67 VII. Select Bibliography ...... 68

Chapter 2: Matthew’s Gospel: A Survey of Some Recent Commentaries ...... 77 Major Critical Commentaries ...... 78 Medium Length Commentaries ...... 81 Shorter Commentaries ...... 85 Concluding Observations ...... 85 Bibliography ...... 86

Chapter 3: Matthew: ΒΙΒΛΟΣ, ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ, or ΒΙΟΣ? ...... 89 1. Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (Matt 1,1) ...... 91 2. Matthew: the First to Refer to His Writing as a εὐαγγέλιον? . . . . 92 3. Matthew’s Gospel as a βίος ...... 97 VIII Table of Contents

Chapter 4: The Communities of Matthew ...... 105 I ...... 108 II ...... 112 III ...... 113 IV ...... 115

Chapter 5: Revisiting Matthew’s Communities ...... 119 I. Genre and Geography ...... 120 II. External Affairs ...... 123 III. Internal Affairs ...... 129

Chapter 6: Ministry in Matthean Christianity ...... 137 1. and the Disciples ...... 139 2. Ministry to the World ...... 142 3. Leadership Roles ...... 146

Chapter 7: The Early Reception of Matthew’s Gospel: New Evidence from Papyri? ...... 153 Early Papyri of Matthew’s Gospel ...... 155 The Origins of the Codex Format ...... 162

Part II New Testament Studies

Chapter 8: Presuppositions in New Testament Criticism ...... 173 I. Prejudices and Presuppositions ...... 174 II. The Effects of Presuppositions ...... 176 III. Presuppositionless Exegesis? ...... 179 IV. Pre-understanding and the Text ...... 181 V. Possible Safeguards ...... 183

Chapter 9: Form Criticism Revisited ...... 187

Chapter 10: The Gospel Traditions and Early Christological Reflection ...... 199 I ...... 200 II ...... 205 III ...... 206 Table of Contents IX

Chapter 11: On the Christology of Q  ...... 209

Chapter 12: Incarnational Christology in the New Testament . . . . . 223

Chapter 13: Messianism and Christology: Mark, Matthew, Luke and Acts ...... 237 1. Q Traditions ...... 239 2. Mark ...... 242 3. Matthew ...... 244 4. Luke and Acts ...... 247 5. Conclusions ...... 256 Bibliography ...... 257

Chapter 14: Rudolf Bultmann: Jesus and the Word ...... 261 I ...... 261 II ...... 262 III ...... 266

Chapter 15: Stephen in Lucan Perspective ...... 269

Chapter 16: Paul’s Gospel ...... 281 Paul and his Predecessors ...... 282 The Gospel as God’s Initiative Through His Son ...... 283 Christ Crucified and Raised for Our Salvation ...... 285 Justification ...... 286 Reconciliation ...... 288 The Gospel Came in Power, and in the Spirit ...... 289

Chapter 17: The Law of Moses and the Law of Christ: Galatians 3:1–6:2 ...... 293 I. Galatians 3:1–5: By Works of the Law or by Believing? . . . . . 297 II. Abraham: Galatians 3:6–9 and 15–18 and 4:21–51 ...... 300 III. The Curse of the Law: Galatians 3:10–12 ...... 303 IV. The Origin and Purpose of the Law: Galatians 3:19–25 and 4:1–10 305 V. The Law of Christ: 4:21b, 5:14, and 6:2 ...... 308

Chapter 18: What is the Law of Christ? ...... 311 The Law of Christ as the Teaching of Jesus ...... 313 The Law of Christ as the Norm or Principle of Love ...... 318 What is the Law of Christ? ...... 319

Chapter 19: Interpreting the New Testament Today ...... 323 X Table of Contents

Part III and Early Jewish-Christian Encounters

Chapter 20: The Two Parousias of Christ: Justin Martyr and Matthew ...... 339 I ...... 340 II ...... 344

Chapter 21: ‘God-Fearers’: Neglected Evidence in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho ...... 351 I Trypho’s Companions ...... 354 II Dialogue 23: ‘God-fearers’ ...... 355 III Dialogue 122–123: ‘Proselytes’ ...... 358 IV Concluding Observations ...... 359 Bibliography ...... 360

Chapter 22: Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho: Group Boundaries, ‘Proselytes’ and ‘God-fearers’ ...... 363 1. Trypho’s Companions ...... 364 2. Dialogue 8 and 9: Group Boundaries ...... 365 3. Dialogue 23: ‘Godfearers’ ...... 367 4. Dialogue 47: Tolerance and Intolerance ...... 370 5. Dialogue 122–3: ‘Proselytes’ ...... 372 6. Concluding Observations ...... 373 Bibliography ...... 374

Chapter 23: The Spirit in the Writings of Justin Martyr ...... 377 I. The Role of the Spirit in Justin’s Conversion ...... 378 II. The Prophetic Spirit ...... 381 III. Father, Logos-Son and Spirit ...... 384 IV. The Gifts of the Spirit ...... 387

Chapter 24: Justin on Martyrdom and Suicide ...... 391 1. A Triple Martyrdom in Rome: 2 Apology 1–2 (c. 155 c.e.) . . . . 393 2. Suicide and Martyrdom: 2 Apology 4 ...... 395 3. ‘Semen est sanguis Christianorum’ (Tertullian, Apol. 50.13) . . . 398 4. Socrates and Christ ...... 401 5. The Acts of Justin Martyr ...... 401 Conclusion ...... 403 Table of Contents XI

Chapter 25: Aspects of Early Christian and Jewish Worship: Pliny and the Kerygma Petrou ...... 405 Pliny ...... 406 The ‘Kerygma Petrou’ ...... 414 Conclusions ...... 417

Chapter 26: Jewish Christian Elements in the Pseudo-Clementine ­ Writings ...... 419 1. An Overview of the Extant Writings ...... 421 2. Towards a Tradition History ...... 423 3. The Letter of Peter (EpPet) and the Contestatio (C) ...... 427 4. Anti-Paul Traditions in the Homilies ...... 429 5. An Apologia for Jewish Believers in Jesus [Recognitions 1, parts of 27–71] ...... 432 6. Conclusions ...... 438

Appendix: Graham Stanton’s Publications ...... 441

Acknowledgements ...... 447

Index of Ancient Sources ...... 449 Index of Modern Authors ...... 471 Subject Index ...... 479

Introduction

Graham Stanton (1940–2009)

During his 21 years at King’s College London and nine years as Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, Graham Stanton (1940–2009) became one of the world’s best-known and warmly admired scholars of the New Testament. He exercised extensive influence on a generation of his graduate students, many of them now in positions of leadership from Singapore and Australia to Britain and the US, in whom he took a passionate and ever-encouraging interest. He rose to international leadership of the profession as President of the Society for New Testament Studies and long-term editor of its flagship journal New Testa- ment Studies and of the International Critical Commentary series (for which he oversaw the publication of a dozen volumes). In 2002 he led the University of Cambridge’s 500-year celebrations of its oldest chair – the Lady Margaret’s Professorship of Divinity. This is not the place to offer a full review of his scholarly work, let alone an intellectual biography (James D. G. Dunn and others have provided a start for both of these tasks in a series of well crafted and appreciative obituaries1). Leslie Houlden, at one stage his rival for the chair at King’s College London, in a review identified Graham as virtually “the leader of British New Testament scholars”.2 Although Stanton commanded an enviable competence across the full breadth of New Testament scholarship, his written work specialized with particular acuity and engagement on issues surrounding the origin and reception of the . After a published dissertation on Jesus in New Testament preaching,3 his most formative and influential work concerned the – an interest which in later years expanded to produce a number of significant contri‑ butions on the process of the writing, copying, distribution and reception of the

1 Note the obituaries of James D. G. Dunn (The Guardian, 13 Sept 2009), David M. Thomp‑ son (The Independent, 16 Oct 2009), Richard A. Burridge (The Church Times, 9 Sept 2009), and the unsigned obituaries in The Telegraph (10 Aug 2009) and The Times (21 July 2009). 2 Leslie C. Houlden, Review of Graham N. Stanton, Jesus and Gospel (Cambridge: Cam‑ bridge University Press, 2004), Theology 108 (2005), 208. 3 Jesus of Nazareth in New Testament Preaching (SNTSMS 27; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974; reissued in paperback, 2004). 2 Introduction

Gospels in the first and second centuries.4 Yet he was never merely a specialist, and it is a mark of his commitment to the wider outreach and public engagement of his scholarship that his best-known book is an introduction to Jesus and the Gospels that continues to be very widely used as an undergraduate university textbook (and is currently under consideration for a third, posthumously updated edition).5 Graham Stanton was widely admired as a man without guile or manipulation, of unwaveringly sunny and hopeful disposition even in the darkest times; he saw the best in everyone he met – not infrequently at considerable cost to himself – and he did not hesitate to express this goodwill in unnumbered references and endorsements for students and colleagues. This commitment to the advancement of others, together with his faithful editorial and institutional leadership, meant that during his academic career his literary output, although impressive, did not always live up to his own expecta‑ tions, at least in quantity. In this connection he laid plans for a monograph on Justin Martyr, which he hoped in his retirement to complete, and a commentary on Galatians for the International Critical Commentary series. As his final illness took its toll over several years, he realised with humility and some understand‑ able disappointment that these were among a number of tasks to be handed on to others. Only preliminary studies from both unfinished projects could be seen through to publication, just as a number of other projects throughout his career resulted in learned and significant articles that time did not permit him to gather into a sustained and longer argument.

Content and Purpose of this Volume

While friends and students have honoured Graham Stanton’s life and work in a Festschrift (2005)6 and a volume of essays in his memory (2011),7 it seemed appropriate to collect and group together some of his scattered smaller publica‑ tions under the heading of key themes that have characterized his scholarship. This volume, then, presents a collection of twenty-six of Stanton’s essays, all but one previously published. Rather than a comprehensive collection of all

4 A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992); Gospel Truth? New Light on Jesus and the Gospels (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995); Jesus and Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 5 The Gospels and Jesus (2nd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 6 Markus Bockmuehl and Donald A. Hagner, eds., The Written Gospel (Cambridge: Cam‑ bridge University Press, 2005). 7 Richard A. Burridge, Joel Willitts and Daniel M. Gurtner, eds., Jesus, Matthew’s Gospel and Early Christianity: Studies in Memory of Graham N. Stanton (LNTS 435; London: Con‑ tinuum, 2011). Introduction 3 previously published short writings,8 the intention here is to offer a coherent selection of writings on what are perhaps Graham Stanton’s most prominent con‑ tributions to scholarship: the Gospel of Matthew (Part I), other New Testament writings (Part II), and early Jewish-Christian encounters with a special focus on Justin Martyr (Part III).

Part I: Matthew

Stanton’s work as an interpreter of the Gospel of Matthew and the New Testa‑ ment is well known. Thus, Part I begins with two critical overviews of the field of Matthean studies by a recognized expert in the discipline. Chapter 1 (‘The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel: Matthean Scholarship from 1945 to 1980’) presents a wide-ranging survey of literature on Matthew, but one that presses beyond mere cataloguing of alternative views to insightful criticism. Here one observes Stanton articulating his own well-known position on Mat‑ thew’s stance toward Judaism as one of an extra muros debate, but also an authoritative presentation of many of the key issues in Matthean scholarship in the period under consideration. Given the ongoing pace of scholarship, this survey is understandably more useful as a guide to mid-20th century exegetical opinion than as a current status quaestionis, but the interpreter of Matthew will find much of lasting worth in Stanton’s judgements. Stanton ended his survey with the statement that new commentaries on Matthew were urgently needed; Chapter 2 (‘Matthew’s Gospel: A Survey of Some Recent Commentaries’), revisits the state of affairs fifteen years later in light of the many commentaries that did in fact appear since Stanton originally wrote those words. These two surveys of research are then followed by five individual studies on particular elements of Matthew’s Gospel. Chapter 3 (‘Matthew: ΒΙΒΛΟΣ, ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ, or ΒΙΟΣ?’) takes up the question of the genre of the Gospel. Arguing that Matthew did not intend 1:1 to be the title of the book, Stanton further suggests that it is Matthew (rather than Mark before him or Marcion after) who lays claim to the innovation of using the term εὐαγγέλιον to refer to a written narrative account of the story of Jesus. Moreover, conceding that he had not pressed his earlier (1974) observations about the biographical character of Matthew far enough, Stanton now agrees with Richard Burridge and others that

8 As the bibliography of Stanton’s works in the ‘Appendix’ below makes clear, several of Stanton’s essays had already been collected to form the substance of his own books. While some sections of one or two of these essays also found their way into his books, and occasionally the essays overlap with one another (e.g., Chapters 21 and 22 share some material), it seemed worthwhile to include the full text of all these original essays. Apart from a few minor cor‑ rections and a certain amount of standardization (though we have sought to exercise a ‘light touch’), the essays are here presented as originally published, indicating original page number‑ ing in double brackets for ease of reference. 4 Introduction

Matthew is best understood as a βίος, an ancient biography. Next are two essays that examine the nature of the Matthean community (or communities) and seek to extend Stanton’s earlier contention that the Gospel functions as a legitimizing document for a ‘new people’. In Chapter 4 (‘The Communities of Matthew’), Stanton argues that Matthew was composed as a ‘foundation document’ to legiti‑ mate a mixed community of Jewish and Gentile Christians who were still living in the wake of a painful separation from Judaism. The next chapter (‘Revisiting Matthew’s Communities’) continues the inquiry into the nature of Matthew’s communities, and addresses challenges leveled against Stanton’s own views on the matter, especially those by Anthony Saldarini. He interestingly now con‑ cedes, drawing on Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (and anticipating some of his later work), that attitudes toward Judaism in the community may have been more varied than he initially proposed. Part I is concluded by two further studies on Matthew. Chapter 6 (‘Ministry in Matthean Christianity’) examines the theme of Christian ministry in the Gospel. Acknowledging the propriety of bringing systematic-theological concerns to the New Testament, Stanton here first contends that the ministry of Jesus in Matthew is a model for his followers and that Matthew expects the people of God to minister to the world, before also examining the leadership structure of the communities addressed by the evange‑ list. Finally, in Chapter 7 (‘The Early Reception of Matthew’s Gospel: New Evi‑ dence from Papyri?’), Stanton examines recently published papyri of Matthew as a window on the use of the Gospel in the years after it was first composed.

Part II: New Testament Studies

Part II (‘New Testament Studies’) collects twelve studies on various New Tes‑ tament themes. The first two of these are methodological in nature. Chapter 8 (‘Presuppositions in New Testament Criticism’), in dialogue with Bultmann, Barth, Gadamer and others, critically reflects on the role of presuppositions in exegesis. The next chapter (‘Form Criticism Revisited’) addresses itself to the ‘stagnant discipline’ of form criticism, and asks probing questions about some (then) widely accepted form-critical axioms. While Stanton wants to refine rather than to discard the tool, his essay was one among a number of critiques that led to a certain fall from prominence for a method that dominated mid-20th century research on the Gospels. The next five chapters take up the question of early Christology, examining in turn early gospel traditions, the hypothetical Q source, the question of incar‑ nation in the New Testament, aspects of continuity and discontinuity between Jewish messianic hopes and early Christology, and an influential book by Ru‑ dolf Bultmann. In Chapter 10 (‘The Gospel Traditions and Early Christological Reflection’), Stanton makes a case for seeing the Gospels as concerned with the Introduction 5 past of Jesus, a position unfashionable in the early 1970s when the essay was first published, by re-evaluating the biographical elements in the Gospels and by proposing a Sitz im Leben for interest in the past of Jesus in the early church. The following chapter (‘On the Christology of Q’) suggests that Q is concerned with the identity of Jesus as an agent of God, but equally with the demands Jesus makes of his followers. Stanton also criticizes those who would draw a sharp line of division between Q and passion material, suggesting that the two could quite well exist alongside one another in a community. Chapter 12 (‘Incarnational Christology in the New Testament’), originally part of an assessment of the con‑ troversial book, The Myth of God Incarnate, takes up the theme and suggests that the authors of the New Testament often do, in fact, utilize what Stanton terms ‘incipiently incarnational language’ to describe Jesus. One of the most recent essays in the book follows (‘Messianism and Christology: Mark, Matthew, Luke and Acts’). Here Stanton ranges widely over Q, the synoptic Gospels and Acts, and suggests that the Christological reflections of each of these attest elements of both continuity and discontinuity with Jewish messianism. Chapter 14 (‘Rudolf Bultmann: Jesus and the Word’) presents Stanton’s short review essay of an oddly neglected book by Bultmann, that Stanton provocatively calls ‘one of the most important theological books of this [i.e., the 20th] century’. Several contributions then take up various New Testament themes. Luke’s portrait of Stephen in Acts 6 and 7 is treated in Chapter 15, ‘Stephen in Lucan Perspective’, in which Stanton offers a sustained reading of Stephen’s speech and seeks to demonstrate the coherence of the theology in it with the rest of Acts. Next, drawing on his extensive work on ‘gospel’ elsewhere, Stanton offers a brief but comprehensive investigation of this concept in Paul’s writings (Chap‑ ter 16, ‘Paul’s Gospel’). The following two essays investigate the ‘law of Christ’. In the first (Chapter 17, ‘The Law of Moses and the Law of Christ: Galatians 3:1–6:2’), Stanton, who had carried out some preliminary work for an unfinished commentary on Galatians in the International Critical Commentary series, as‑ sesses Paul’s stance toward the law in Galatians 3–6. He ranges broadly across those chapters, drawing on Justin Martyr for interesting comparative perspec‑ tives along the way. The second essay devoted to the theme (Chapter 18, ‘What Is the Law of Christ?’), in a more theologically constructive vein, takes Paul’s statement about fulfilling the law of Christ in Gal. 6:2 (once more, with help from Justin Martyr) as a means of penetrating to the heart of the ethical teaching of the New Testament. The final essay in Part II was originally Stanton’s inau‑ gural address as Professor at King’s College London, and offers a programmatic vision for New Testament study (Chapter 19, ‘Interpreting the New Testament Today’). Eschewing the rejection of the historical critical method on the one hand, and of theological concern on the other, Stanton’s essay contends for the necessity of both approaches and still makes for lively and worthwhile reading in the current climate of New Testament scholarship. 6 Introduction

Part III: Justin Martyr and Early Christian-Jewish Encounters

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 toward that end that are included in Part III, together with two related essays and one previously unpublished paper. The first essay in this section (Chapter 20, ‘The Two Parousias of Christ: Justin Martyr and Matthew’) bridges Stanton’s interests in Matthew and Justin with an examination of the development of the notion of two comings of Christ, the first in lowliness but the second in glory. He contends that Matthew and Justin develop the notion independently in response to Jewish polemic. The next two essays explore the evidence for ‘God-fearers’ and group boundaries in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho. Chapters 21 (‘“God- Fearers”: Neglected Evidence in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho’) and 22 (‘Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho: Group Boundaries, “Proselytes” and “God-fearers”’) draw attention to several places in the Dialogue where Justin may have Gentile sympathizers with the synagogue in view, even if Stanton is clear that these texts cannot be used straightforwardly to support a widespread hypothesis that the success of early Christianity is due to its ability to win ‘God-fearers’ through evangelism. In Chapter 23 (‘The Spirit in the Writings of Justin Martyr’), Stanton examines Justin’s famously obscure thought on the Spirit, suggesting that paying attention to the biblical roots of his thought rather than to later dogmatic formulations paves the way to greater understanding. A previously unpublished paper (Chapter 24, ‘Justin on Martyrdom and Suicide’) seeks to redress the neglect of Justin’s evidence in discussions of early Christian martyrdom and identity formation. In Chapter 25 (‘Aspects of Early Christian and Jewish Worship: Pliny and the Kerygma Petrou’), Stanton uses Pliny’s out‑ sider perspective together with the insider perspective of the Kerygma Petrou to argue that there were significant differences between early Christian and Jewish worship. While Christians clearly owed much to their Jewish roots, ‘much was simply abandoned’. The final essay in the volume (Chapter 26, ‘Jewish Christian Elements in the Pseudo-Clementine Writings’) comprises a re-examination of a perennial theme: the use of the Pseudo-Clementine literature as a witness to Jewish Christianity. With sensitivity to the challenges posed by the complexity of these writings, Stanton steers a course between those who follow F. C. Baur in maintaining the crucial importance of these texts for earliest Christianity on the one hand, and those who deny their relevance at all on the other. Finally, the Appendix ends the volume with a complete bibliography of Stan‑ ton’s major writings, thus superseding that included in the Festschrift published in his honour in 2005.9

9 Bockmuehl and Hagner, eds., The Written Gospel, 296–300. Part I Matthew

Chapter 1 The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel: Matthean Scholarship from 1945 to 1980

I. Recent Matthean Scholarship

[[1890]] Matthew’s gospel has frequently received a bad press. The evangelist’s use of the Old Testament, far from buttressing his presentation of Jesus, has been considered to be arbitrary and to underline just how far we are today from Mat‑ thew’s religious and cultural world. Matthew’s denunciations of Jewish leaders have been seen as the starting-point of the long sad line of Christian anti-Sem‑ itism. The alleged legalism of Matthew has often been attacked. Some scholars grudgingly express gratitude to the evangelist for preserving so fully the sayings and parables of Jesus, but hastily add disapproval of many of the modifications (or distortions, as they have sometimes been called) which Matthew has made to his sources. Some of the traditions found only in Matthew, such as Pilate’s wife’s dream and the account of the death of Judas, are felt by some not only to be legendary but also to be among the least significant parts of the four gospels. In sharp contrast, much of the material found only in Luke’s gospel is considered both by historians and by theologians to be of considerable value. Some of this deep-seated prejudice against Matthew’s gospel is based on serious misconceptions. And not all contemporary assessments of the value of the evangelist’s work are negative or hostile. K. Stendahl (1968, p. xiiif.),1 for example, concludes that Matthew “is a witness to a far smoother transition from Judaism to Christianity than we usually suppose. Luke is irenic by effort, as his Acts show. Matthew is comprehensive by circumstance, and that makes it a rich and wise book.” E. Käsemann (1960, p. 83) suggests that Matthew, who writes for Gentile Christians out of a wide knowledge of Jewish-Christian tradi‑ tion, may well be nearer, in the material peculiar to him, to primitive tradition than Mark or Luke. Attitudes to Matthew in the first centuries after its composition were rather less mixed than they are today. In spite of its ‘Jewishness’ it quickly became more widely used than the other three gospels and it deeply influenced the faith

1 Full details of literature cited in an abbreviated form may be found in the ‘Select Biblio­ graphy’ at the end of this article (pp. 1945 ff. [68–75 in this volume]). 10 1. The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel and life of both Jewish Christianity and almost the entire Gentile Church.2 The firm belief that, unlike Mark and Luke, Matthew was written by a disciple of Jesus partly accounts for its popularity, as does Matthew’s carefully ordered account of the life of Jesus. Perhaps the apparently contradictory emphases of the gospel, which fascinate and bewilder scholars today, were seen in the early church as part of its glory; certainly the canvas on which Matthew painted was wide and his colourings rich. Indeed, a century ago it was suggested that Mat‑ thew was the first harmony of the gospel traditions;3 this may be an exaggeration, but there is more than a grain of truth in it. [[1891]] For whom was the evangelist writing? What sources did he use and on what principles did he order and construct his gospel? Did the evangelist in‑ tend his lengthy discourses and his narratives to be read as a New Pentateuch (or Hexateuch) and that Jesus should be seen as the New Moses? How strongly was Matthew influenced by the opposition of contemporary Judaism to his Christian community? Does Matthew mark a retrogression from the teaching of Jesus or Paul? Does he have a distinctive understanding of the significance of Jesus? Is the evangelist rather more concerned with Christology than with ecclesiology? These are just some of the questions with which recent Matthean scholarship has been concerned. It will be apparent that they are of importance both to the Christian theologian and to the historian of first century Judaism and Christian‑ ity. As we shall see, Matthew’s gospel has received a very considerable amount of scholarly attention since 1945, even though major commentaries have been conspicuous by their absence. In the pages which follow more attention will be paid to literature which has appeared since 1965 than to the period from 1945 to 1965. This is partly because several thorough discussions of the earlier literature are available and partly in the interests of brevity. Even so, no attempt has been made to discuss every sin‑ gle book and article on Matthew which has been published; in the past 15 years there has been such a flood of scholarly literature that a comprehensive survey would become a mere catalogue.4 I have concentrated on the origin and purpose of the gospel and on some (but not all) of the evangelist’s distinctive emphases. I have attempted to set out the issues at stake and to interact critically with some of the more important scholarly contributions rather than to summarize every view which has been advanced.

2 See E. Massaux (1950) and G. N. Stanton (1977). 3 C. Weizsäcker, Untersuchungen über die evangelische Geschichte, ihre Quellen und den Gang ihrer Entwicklung, Tübingen-Leipzig, 1864, 2 ed. 1901, p. 129. I owe this reference to M. Devisch, p. 71 n. 1. 4 For details of all the scholarly literature on Matthew, the following reference works are invaluable: New Testament Abstracts, Cambridge, Mass., published three times per annum; Elenchus Bibliographicus Biblicus, Rome, published annually; Internationale Zeitschriften‑ schau für Bibelwissenschaft und Grenzgebiete, Düsseldorf, published annually; G. Wagner, An Exegetical Bibliography on the Gospel of Matthew, Rüschlikon-Zürich, 1974. 1. The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel 11

It is often hazardous to attempt to isolate turning points in scholarship but in the case of Matthew’s gospel the period immediately after 1945 is particularly important. In 1946 G. D. Kilpatrick published the first major study in English since Bacon (1930). In 1948 G. Bornkamm’s extremely influential essay ‘Die Sturmstillung im Matthäusevangelium’ first appeared. Whereas Kilpatrick considered the whole gospel and a wide range of issues, Bornkamm examined one pericope in detail in order to shed light on the evangelist’s method. Kilpatrick’s discussions of Matthean style, the relationship of Matthew to Judaism and the genre of Matthew influenced later scholarship considerably. In some parts of his book, Kilpatrick anticipated the later development of redac‑ tion criticism. It is Bornkamm’s essay, however, which marks the beginning of the thorough-going redaction critical approach, the method which has dominated Matthean scholarship for three decades. [[1892]] Bornkamm assumes that Matthew has used Mark’s account of the stilling of the storm and he pays close attention to the additions, modifications and omissions which Matthew has made, as well as to the different context in which the pericope has been placed. He concludes that Matthew is not merely handing on the Marcan story but is expounding its theological significance in his own way: Matthew is seen as the first exegete of the Marcan pericope. The period immediately after 1945 not only saw the development of redac‑ tion criticism but also the discovery of fresh evidence: the Dead Sea Scrolls.5 It was not until K. Stendahl’s pioneering work in 1954 that the new discoveries made a direct impact on Matthean scholarship. In my view the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for our understanding of the nature and purpose of Matthew’s gospel can easily be exaggerated. But the Scrolls have undoubtedly increased very considerably our knowledge of first century Judaism. Their discovery has stimulated interest in various aspects of Judaism in the period in which Matthew was written. Although I have singled out 1945 as marking a new phase of Matthean schol‑ arship and have stressed the importance of the development of redaction criti‑ cism it is worth noting that earlier scholars did anticipate redaction critical work on Matthew to a much greater extent than is usually appreciated. In 1930 Bacon entitled one chapter in his book ‘Traits of the Redactor’ and on p. 132 f. he wrote as follows: “Much can be determined concerning the general characteristics of our first canonical evangelist by the mere observation of the structure and salient traits of his compilation, and in particular his treatment of Mark … Our relatively late and wholly unknown evangelist is more than a skilful compiler

5 The Nag Hammadi documents may well turn out to be almost as important for Matthean scholarship as the Dead Sea Scrolls, but their significance is only now beginning to be ap‑ preciated. See Ε. Schweizer (1977) and G. N. Stanton (1977, pp. 79 ff.) and a forthcoming London Ph.D. dissertation on Petrine controversies in first and second century Christianity by one of my research students, T. V. Smith. 12 1. The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel and editor. He has blended diverse elements together into a unit, a whole which is more than a mosaic.” In the closing pages of his ‘Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition’ (2nd ed. 1931) R. Bultmann had discussed the methods used by the evangelists in their editing of the narrative material and the composition of the gospels; he emphasised the extent to which Matthew is much more the master of his material than is Mark. In his major commentary on Matthew, A. Schlatter (1929) anticipated some aspects of modern redaction critical work on Matthew. Schlatter saw the evangelist as an author in his own right and attempted to deduce from Matthew a picture of Matthew’s Church; he claims that a quite bitter enmity between the primitive Palestinian community and Judaism can be detected. Schlatter was able to adopt this approach to Matthew even though he rejected Marcan prior‑ ity and form criticism, both of which were to become axiomatic in all the early redaction critical work on Matthew.6 [[1893]] As we shall see in III, many redaction critics have discerned behind Matthew tensions or polemic among Christians and have attempted to locate the gospel within a particular understanding of the development of early Chris‑ tianity. Once again, there is earlier precedent: in the 1840’s F. C. Baur and his younger colleagues began to apply ‘Tendenzkritik’ to the gospels in a way which anticipates much recent scholarship.7 G. Volkmar, for example, accepted Marcan priority (unlike Baur who utilised the Griesbach hypothesis) and saw Mark as a representative of Pauline Christianity.8 Then came the conservative Petrine Jewish Christian reaction which Luke attempts to counter by showing that Paul is not inferior to Peter. And then came Matthew: he is seen as a Jewish Christian sympathetic to Paulinism; he accepts the Gentile mission but stresses the motif of the fulfilment of the Old Testament in the ministry of Jesus. There is a sense, then, in which the sudden rash of redaction critical studies of Matthew since 1945 can be seen as a natural development of earlier work.9 But even though some aspects of redaction criticism were anticipated long before Bornkamm’s 1948 essay, in retrospect this brilliant study of Matthew’s account of the stilling of the storm clearly marks a most important turning point in Matthean scholarship. This is borne out by contrasting with Bornkamm’s essay R. Bultmann’s comments on Matthew, written twenty years earlier:

6 See, for example, pp. 410, 501, 665, 672. 7 F. C. Baur, Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien, Tübingen, 1847. 8 G. Volkmar, Die Religion Jesu, Leipzig, 1857. For further details, see C. M. Tuckett, The Griesbach Hypothesis in the 19th Century, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 3 (1979), pp. 29–60; R. H. Fuller, Baur versus Hilgenfeld: A Forgotten Chapter in the Debate on the Synoptic Problem, New Testament Studies 24 (1978), pp. 355–370. 9 For further discussion of the precursors of redaction criticism, see J. Rohde (1968, pp. 31– 46), Unfortunately Rohde overlooks the work of P. Wernle, Die synoptische Frage, Freiburg 1899 and R. H. Lightfoot, History and Interpretation in the Gospels, London, 1935 and Idem, The Gospel Message of St. Mark, Oxford, 1950. 1. The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel 13

“The note of ecclesiastical piety which pervades the Gospel affects the arrange‑ ment too. Nevertheless Matthew’s portrayal is not so consciously motivated by the Christian church’s outlook as was Mark’s. It is much more an unconscious influence in Matthew, and that is why the literary form of his work is not to the same extent as Mark’s dependent on this outlook.”10 Bornkamm on the other hand, sees the Matthean reinterpretation of the Marcan account of the stilling of the storm as offering “proof of definite theological intentions” for it interpreted with reference to discipleship and to “the little ship of the church” (pp. 55 ff.). In the first two decades after 1945 a number of studies of Matthean themes or sections of the gospel appeared, all of which drew attention to Matthew’s distinctive theological viewpoint. The first redaction critics all simply assumed that the writer of the first gospel (whom we shall refer to as Matthew simply for convenience) used both Mark and Q; the main assumptions and conclusions of form criticism were also accepted without discussion. Matthew’s modifica‑ tions and re-arrangement of his sources were examined in detail; attempts were made to spell out his purposes in writing his gospel. The gospel is not simply an anthology of the teaching of Jesus: close scrutiny of the evangelist’s methods can shed light on [[1894]] the history, convictions and structure of the Christian community from which the gospel stems. I have already referred to the dangers of isolating turning points in the history of scholarship. Nonetheless, it does seem possible to distinguish two phases in Matthean scholarship from 1945 up to the present day. The first phase may be said to have ended about 1965. By then the pioneering redaction critical studies of G. Bornkamm (Herrenworte, 1954, and Enderwartung, 1956), Ε. Haenchen (1951), Ο. Michel (1950), H. Greeven (1955), N. A. Dahl (1955), W. Trill- ing (1959), G. Barth (1960), H. J. Held (I960), G. Strecker (1962) and R. Hummel (1963) had become widely-known. The essays by G. Bornkamm, G. Barth and H. J. Held which were first published together in 1960 as ‘Über‑ lieferung und Auslegung im Matthäusevangelium’ were particularly influential in the English-speaking world as a result of the translation which appeared in 1963. Although the scholars just mentioned were in disagreement at many points, their general approach and methods were strikingly similar. In this first phase of modern Matthean scholarship three books were published which are not, strictly speaking, redaction critical studies. K. Stendahl’s ‘The School of St. Matthew’ (1954) is primarily a detailed study of Old Testament quotations in Matthew. Although one section of W. D. Davies’s ‘The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount’ (1964) is concerned with Matthew’s theological in‑ tentions and although he proposes quite specific historical circumstances for the origin of chapters 5–7, the author paints on a much larger canvas than do most

10 I have quoted from the revised edition of the English translation (1972, p. 357). 14 1. The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel redaction critics.11 Davies stresses strongly that the Sermon on the Mount cannot be understood in isolation from the rest of the gospel, but his attention is focused very much on these three chapters, whose setting in first century Judaism and early Christianity is explored with learning and insight. Ε. P. Blair’s ‘Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew’ (1960) includes a survey of Matthean scholarship and a discussion of Matthean Christology; he suggests, rather implausibly, that the au‑ thor of Matthew may have belonged to the circle of Stephen and the Hellenists. Even though 1965 does not mark an important watershed in the history of Matthean scholarship, there are several reasons why it may be seen as the end of the first phase of research since 1945. First, several surveys and assessments of the pioneering redaction critical studies of Matthew were published shortly after 1965. J. Rohde’s thorough survey (1966) was published in English in 1968. The translation provided for the English-speaking world a clear exposition of the methods used by redaction critics and a useful critical survey of their results. The second edition of K. Stendahl’s ‘School’ (1968) included a short survey of Matthean scholarship. G. Strecker (2nd ed. 1966), R. Hummel (2nd ed. 1966) and W. Trilling (3rd ed. 1964) all published new editions of their mono‑ graphs which included discussions of one another’s work. In 1963 P. Bonnard published the first commentary to apply redaction criticism to the whole gospel. [[1895]] Secondly, in the period from 1945–1965 almost all redaction critical work on Matthew was done by German scholars. But since 1965 this basic ap‑ proach to the gospel has been adopted by scholars from many different countries; in recent years American scholars have been particularly prominent. Thirdly, in the first phase of modern Matthean scholarship Marcan priority and some form of the Q hypothesis were accepted as axiomatic. Since then, quite unexpectedly, the two-source hypothesis has been under attack from several different angles. As we shall see in II,2, attempts have been made to expound Matthew’s distinctive emphases without presupposing that Matthew used and reinterpreted both Mark and Q. Finally, whereas Kilpatrick (1946), Stendahl (1954), Blair (1960) and Davies (1964) all published important studies of Matthew which did not use redaction criticism, since 1965 all books and major articles on Matthew have adopted the assumptions and methods of redaction criticism. The gospel has been subjected to more and more intensive study and scholars have tended to fo‑ cus on shorter and shorter sections! The results have often been most impressive: since 1965 there have been many studies which offer considerable advances in our understanding of the gospel. But, as I shall suggest in II,1 and VI, the time has now come to take stock and to reconsider some of the premises on which

11 Davies does refer briefly to the work of the first redaction critics as “the turningof the tide in gospel criticism”. (p. 13 n. 1) In his preface he expresses regret that the work of G. Bornkamm, G. Barth, and H. J. Held (1960) and W. Trilling (1st ed. 1959) appeared too late for detailed use in the body of his book. (p. ix) 1. The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel 15 recent work has been based. Unless this is done, and unless other approaches to the gospel are explored, Matthean scholarship will quickly become stagnant.

II. Matthew as Evangelist

1. Redaction Criticism

The single most significant advance in scholarly study of the synoptic gospels has undoubtedly been redaction criticism. The preceding two decades were dominated by form critical studies which focussed attention not on the evange‑ lists but on the early communities which transmitted traditions about Jesus orally in small units and placed their own stamp upon them. With the development of redaction criticism the distinctive theological viewpoint of the evangelists has been appreciated much more keenly. The term ‘Redaktionsgeschichte’ and the customary but rather wooden Eng‑ lish translation ‘redaction criticism’ are used to refer to two methods of study which are quite distinct and which need not be used in harness. The first approach concentrates on the modifications made by the evangelists to their sources; the ‘redaction’, it is usually alleged, is consistent and reveals the evangelist’s own theological stance and his particular purpose in writing. The second method, which is sometimes referred to as ‘composition criticism’, considers the overall structure of the gospel, the structure of individual sections and subsections and the order in which the evangelist places the traditions at his disposal. This latter [[1896]] method is particularly appropriate where (as in Mark) sources can no longer be identified with precision. In most Matthean redaction critical scholarship these two methods have been combined. Recently, however, several scholars have urged that insufficient at‑ tention has been paid to the second method; the work of J. D. Kingsbury (1976) and D. E. Garland (1979), both of whom accept the two-source hypothesis, may be cited as examples. W. G. Thompson (1970 and 1971), who has been fol‑ lowed by P. F. Ellis (1974) and O. L. Cope (1976), places even more emphasis on composition criticism. These scholars have attempted to study Matthew with‑ out source critical presuppositions. While comparison of Matthew with Mark and Luke (which Thompson refers to as ‘horizontal analysis’) is not repudiated, they insist that Matthew must be read ‘in terms of Matthew’ (which is dubbed ‘vertical analysis’). Thompson notes that most redaction critics pre-suppose that Matthew depended directly on Mark, and emphasises that this pre-supposition greatly influences their methods and procedure. He claims that his own horizon‑ tal analysis of Matthew 18.1–9 has shown that the data is so complex that the mechanical and uncritical acceptance of the two-source theory does not seem 16 1. The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel justified. Each evangelist “may have worked from an unknown common source (Ur-Marcus, Aramaic Matthew) adapting it to meet the needs of his community. Because the question of sources must remain open, it seems unwise to make any one particular theory an absolute presupposition for determining Matthew’s re‑ dactional activity and distinctive interpretation of the gospel tradition.” (p. 151) Thompson’s reminder that preoccupation with close analysis of Matthew’s modifications of his sources can lead one to lose sight of the whole gospel is most welcome. But most scholars would agree that the attempt to make sense of the gospel as it stands without recourse to source critical hypotheses is rather like trying to play a violin or cello with one’s left hand tied behind one’s back: rather limited results are still possible, but that is all that can be said! To isolate changes Matthew makes to his sources and to concentrate our at‑ tention on them, as many redaction critics tend to do, is to do less than justice to Matthew. If we concentrate on the distinctive elements introduced by the evangelist, we fail to appreciate that he frequently uses his traditions with lit‑ tle or no modification simply because he accepts them and wishes to preserve them and make them part of his portrait of Jesus and of his message to his own Christian community. J. Rohde for example, claims that the material peculiar to the evangelist is particularly unsuitable for an investigation of the theological conceptions of the evangelist and the ‘Sitz im Leben’ of the gospel concerned (p. 91). This is surely a short-sighted approach: a careful study of Matthew’s infancy narratives will soon show just how closely they are related to the evange‑ list’s emphases elsewhere. A more balanced approach is offered by A. Kretzer (1971) who stresses that Matthew uses material from his tradition in service of his own major themes and ‘Tendenz’ (p. 303). If Mark and Luke were no longer extant, we should find that it would be very difficult indeed to isolate Matthew’s sources and to trace his redaction of them; we should be forced to take his gospel as it stands and pay closer atten‑ tion [[1897]] to all his material than we have been accustomed to do since the development of redaction criticism. Thorough exegesis of Matthew is impos‑ sible without a synopsis, but that indispensable tool of modern gospel criticism may lead us to direct our attention too rigidly to the modifications Matthew has made to Mark and to Q. A further serious weakness of much recent redaction criticism is the assump‑ tion that the differences between Matthew and Mark in a modern critical edition of the Greek text represent Matthean redaction at one particular time. There are several reasons for urging caution at this point. (i) It is often overlooked that there is sufficient continuing uncertainty about the text of both Matthew and Mark to call in question some forms of statistical analysis which are used to establish Matthean vocabulary and style. (ii) Is it not at least possible that the text of Matthew as we now have it in modern critical editions includes some redaction which took place after the gos‑ 1. The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel 17 pel left the hand of the individual or group primarily responsible for it? Many scholars concede that this may have happened to the Fourth Gospel, so why not to Matthew? While it is difficult to rule out this possibility a priori, it is not easy to see how one could hope to establish criteria by which later additions to the evangelist’s text could be spotted. There will rarely be sufficiently clear stylistic evidence, so a decision would need to be based on an alleged ‘awkwardness’ or ‘unMattheanism’ in the text – and that assumes that the evangelist must have been logical and consistent. (iii) How do we know that Matthew used Mark’s gospel as we now have it? The version of Mark used by Matthew may have undergone minor revision (or even major redaction) after it became available to Matthew or his community. Redaction critics often assume too readily that once Mark was written no further development of the Marcan tradition took place. But the transition from oral tradition to an exclusively written tradition may have been much more gradual than most students of the gospels have supposed.12 (iv) As several scholars have suggested, the sources on which Matthew drew may well have been modified or conflated prior to the compilation of the gospel. In his important study of Matthew’s passion narratives, N. A. Dahl concedes that this may have been so, but until quite recently few scholars took account of this possibility. E. Schweizer is an exception. In his commentary (1973) he suggests that the Q sayings contained in the Lucan sermon on the plain (Luke 6.20–49) were already supplemented in the Matthean community and altered for the purposes of catechism prior to the composition of the gospel. The three Q beatitudes may have been supplemented prior to the evangelist’s final redaction to form a group of seven: a pattern based on ‘seven’ appears to crop up occasion‑ ally in the pre-Matthean tradition. Many of the examples of pre-Matthean redaction which have been proposed are plausible. But it is difficult to establish criteria by which pre-Matthean redac‑ tion [[1898]] can be differentiated from the evangelist’s own work. To take one example: if we accept that the version of the Lord’s Prayer found in Matthew 6.9–13 is an expansion of an originally shorter version similar to Luke 11.2–4, when were the additional words and phrases added? Was Matthew 6.14 added to the Lord’s Prayer by the evangelist himself? If so, why did he fail to bring τὰ παραπτώματα into line with τὰ ὀφειλήματα in 6.12? Or was this Marcan logion associated with the prayer in pre-Matthean tradition? In spite of the difficulties just mentioned, there are good grounds for main‑ taining that the formation of Matthew’s gospel may have been the result of a

12 For a fuller discussion of this point, see G. N. Stanton, Form Criticism Revisited, in: What About the New Testament? Essays in Honour of Christopher Evans, eds. M. D. Hooker and C. J. A. Hickling, London, 1975, pp. 13–27 [187–198 in this volume].