Show description

26 My portrayal is predicated on the recognition that the Gentiles required Greek Gospels, since Jewish idioms were not fully understood by them. Older Hebrew/Aramaic traditions served as raw material out of which to fashion the new compositions. 27 This is most suitable where the Greek texts fail to do justice to the inherent logic required to understand the passage. In moving from the Hebrew/Aramaic to the Greek, more than language shifts; a simultaneous bias against the Jews creeps in. I offer Matt 12:11–12 as an illustration of this point.

35 In the following study, we base my reading of the Gospel of Matthew upon this image, connecting and/or image-reflecting understanding. ” Since Matthew and the rabbinic traditions sometimes depart from common early sources or derive from a shared understanding, I see no reason why these two traditions, in such cases, cannot be read together. Within each there is a common rhythm, as it were, that creates the harmonies or the constructs of the counterpoints found between them. My hope is that readers will not merely glance or skim this work, or even passively read it page after page.

116b. This source also preserves a Gospel text similar to Matt 5:17 in Aramaic. 20 General Introduction The canonical Gospels, in varying degrees, reflect this growing hostility. The Gospel we call Matthew has both Jewish and anti-Jewish layers brilliantly enmeshed within it. The Jewish material is thoroughly the Jewish mindset of the early missionaries; the anti-Jewish material is thoroughly the mindset of preachers who needed to drive a wedge between the two communities. I am well aware that other scholars see the development of the Gospel tradition and Christian split with Judaism in a radically different light than I do, and find reasons for dating the bifurcation, in many places, between Judaism and Christianity to the second century or later.