A New Look on Matthew

The current consensus on the raison d'être for the Gospel of Matthew is that it was written to reconcile Jewish-Christian relations. Having read Matthew a little closer, though, I've come to an entirely different conclusion on its formation and why it was written. Matthew is instead writing a (knowingly fictional) novella on Jesus Christ establishing him the new Moses for Christians. He also briefly dismisses the idea that Matthew is anti-Gentile, instead making it wholly Christian.

Matthew first introduces the idea of a Mosaic savior in 2.15 "και ην εκει εως της τελευτης Ηρωιδου ινα πληρωθηι το ρηθεν υπο κυριου δια τοθ προφητου λεγοντος 'Εξ Αιγυπτου εκαλεσα τον υιον μου.'"

"and was there until the death of Herod that it should be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying, 'Out of Egypt I have called my son.'"

The quote is used by Matthew as an allusion to Moses directly, since Israel, which was led by Moses, was the one called from Egypt. This in effect makes the followers of Jesus the Israelites, led by Moses, but together constitute the Israel. The significance of this shifts the function of Jesus from being the savior of mankind through the Law or Faith, as were the common Jewish and Christian thinkers of the time commenting on, but instead a later understanding of the freedom of Christians from slavery of Judaea, which Matthew paralled Egypt as.

Matthew also parallels the Egyptians in his "gospel" with the Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees. They become the slave-holders who are keeping the "true" people from reaching the Promised Land, which becomes the Kingdom of Heaven, a uniquely Matthaean construction opposed to the construction mostly found elsewhere as Kingdom of God. This charge is found explicitly in Matthew 23.13.

Even the Ten Commandments are paralleled in Matthew, as Jesus' teachings are broken into five large blocks of sayings, which Dr. Tabor summarises here:

Chapters 5-7 (7:28)

Chapter 10 (11:1)

Chapter 13 (13:53)

Chapter 18 (19:1)

Chapters 24b-25 (26:1)

There are two more obvious parallels to the story. The first is the massacre of the innocents. For the Exodus story, all the Hebrew children are killed so the Hebrews would not be able to overthrow the Egyptians one day. The same with Jesus, as all the little children in Jerusalem are killed to prevent the "King" from overthrowing the Herodian line. This passage is so uniquely Matthew that it's existence alone provides the hypothesis with the most evidence for it.

The second parallel is the signs of Moses to the Pharaoh and the signs of Jesus to the Pharisees. Jesus several times performs miracles to the doubters to show that he is coming from the true God, such as 9.6 and 12.22 (with a specific mentioning for whom Jesus works in 22.24-22.29), and he even went so far as to include the "hardening of his heart" parallel in 12.39, as even though the Pharisees and scribes just saw Jesus perform signs, they still ask for another one, yet he denies them that. If Matthew borrowed from Q, we can assign this passage to Q, since it is in Luke but not in Mark (at least the extensive wording on it), but if Luke borrowed from Matthew and there were no Q, then this is Matthew's extension, and should be viewed as even more evidence for Matthew's intent.

I'll have some more parallels coming soon, but before I leave, I want to issue a quick caveat - Matthew is a very complex document, and there is much more to it than merely a first century novella. Indeed, as Moses issued very complex and numerous commandments for the Hebrews, so too does Matthew expand and expound his theology for the new Christians. This is only a fraction of the whole gospel, and hopefully I'll be able to tie up some loose ends soon.