Matthew: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist

Warren Carter, Hendrickson Publishers, 2004

For ten years, the well-received first edition of this introduction offered readers a way to look at scriptural texts that combines historical, narrative, and contemporary interests. Carter explores Matthew by approaching it from the perspective of the “authorial audience”–by identifying with and reading along with the audience imagined by the author. Now an updated second edition is available as part of a series focusing on each of the gospel writers as storyteller, interpreter, and evangelist.

This edition preserves the essential identity of the original material, while adding new insights from Carter’s more recent readings of Matthew’s gospel in relation to the Roman Imperial world.

Four of the seventeen chapters have been significantly revised, and most have had minor changes. There are also new endnotes directing readers to Carter’s more recent published work on Matthew. Scholars and pastors will use the full bibliography and appendix on redaction and narrative approaches, while lay readers will appreciate the clear and straightforward text.

Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/3NAGTKa

External Evidence

The first major extant writing to refer unambiguously to the gospel “according to Matthew” is by Irenaeus bishop of Lyons late in the second century.  Irenaeus provides the first evidence that this gospel was known as Matthew’s gospel, some one hundred years after the gospel’s likely time of writing (see further below). He seems to know the contents of the gospel well, explicitly attributing citations to it and alluding to other passages in it. However, the lateness of Irenaeus’s evidence for the link between Matthew’s name and the gospel raises questions about his claim that Matthew, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples, wrote it. Irenaeus’s purposes for making claims about the gospel’s origin also raise questions. The references appear in his work Against Heresies, written around 180– 190, a time of much controversy and diversity of thinking. Irenaeus was defending and strengthening the “mainstream” church against those whose thinking and lifestyles he considered to be outside its limits. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 26). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Clearly, Papias is not much help. As I have suggested above, it is unlikely that Papias considered the apostle Matthew the author of Matthew’s gospel. Nevertheless, early writers such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, and Augustine, seem to think that Papias’s view was that Matthew the apostle did write the First Gospel. The external evidence does not provide clear clues about the author of the Gospel of Matthew. Claims that a disciple of Jesus named Matthew wrote this gospel are undermined by the relatively late date of the evidence, its context of polemic against other groups, and its ambiguous content. Scholars turn to the gospel itself for clues about its author. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 29). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

A reading of the Gospel of Matthew reveals that at least one opinion held by ancient writers is mistaken. This is their claim that Matthew’s gospel was written in Hebrew. The gospel, as we have noted, is written in Greek, not Hebrew, and does not show signs of being a translation. The claim that it was written in Hebrew was probably driven by a larger theological agenda rather than based on historical information. It conveniently served to underline the antiquity of this gospel and link it to the apostles. Perhaps, since ancient writers were wrong about this point, they were also wrong in other respects (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 29). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Internal Evidence

In the parable of the king’s wedding feast (Matt 22:1-14), verse 7 records the king’s violent response to those who refuse his invitation. He sends troops to destroy them and burn their city. This verse interrupts the sequence of verses 6 and 8. It records a response that exceeds what the situation requires and is missing in Luke’s version of the parable (Luke 14:15-24). Scholars have suggested that the author has added it to the parable to provide a theological interpretation of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. If this is accurate,[ 49] it would indicate that the gospel was written some time after 70 C.E. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (pp. 34-35). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Matthew’s use of Mark has several consequences for the question of authorship and for understanding the role of the authorial audience. First it reinforces a post-70 date for the Gospel of Matthew. In turn, if the gospel was written in the 80s or 90s, some sixty years have passed since the time of Jesus. This time gap makes authorship by one of Jesus’ disciples most unlikely. Further, it would be improbable (though not impossible) for an eyewitness and disciple of Jesus to rely so heavily on another gospel as a source for his own account. These factors make it most unlikely that the apostle Matthew was the author of the gospel. Therefore the authorial audience is not reading an eyewitness account. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 35). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

I have discussed the claim that Matthew, the disciple of Jesus, was the gospel’s author. I have concluded that this claim is not convincing because it lacks both external and internal evidence. I suggest that the gospel was probably written by an unidentifiable, educated, Jewish Christian living in Syria, possibly in the city of Antioch, sometime in the 80s in the first-century C.E. I suggest that the name “Matthew” was later attached to the gospel because it denotes a respected and authoritative figure who may have been associated with the gospel’s traditions or a community addressed by the gospel. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 37). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition._

The author of Matthew’s gospel introduced diverse material and rearranged Mark’s narrative. The process of assembling pericopes or individual and somewhat self-contained units into a new, larger unit shapes and interprets the material, thereby impacting the audience’s comprehension. Decisions to include or omit material, to locate it at a particular point in the gospel, to juxtapose it with what precedes and follows, to use particular words and style, to add to or abbreviate a section or pericope, all influence the audience’s understanding. This process of composition or redaction (as it is commonly called) provides the gospel writers with the means to express their own theological agendas and to address the situations of their audiences. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 44). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Redaction critics assume that gospel writers make consistent changes to express their own theological convictions and to shape the audience’s understanding, identity, and lifestyle. Matthew emerges as a theologian in his own right, one who understands and presents the story of Jesus to express theological insights that differ from those of Mark and Luke..

Redaction critics contend that differences between gospels reflect not only the distinctive theological understandings of each gospel writer but also the different circumstances in the communities for whom the gospels were written. So gospel writers shaped their material to influence the lifestyle and address the needs and circumstances of their own community of faith. Examination of the author’s changes to the gospel material gives redaction critics a sense of the target community’s situation. This helps in understanding what is required of the audience. The gospel’s content and characters (for example, the disciples) reveal the social and religious situation of the writer’s community. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (pp. 44-45). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

A gospel writer as pastoral theologian differs significantly from a gospel writer as eyewitness recorder. The former has a key role in shaping the contents of the text. So Matthew was not an eyewitness apostle, but a pastoral theologian seeking to build up his community in its particular circumstances, probably late in first-century Antioch. Like any pastor, he presented stories about Jesus to meet the needs of his community. He thus strengthened their identity as disciples of Jesus and shaped their way of life. His gospel appears not primarily as a historical account of the life of Jesus but as a proclamation of the significance of Jesus for a particular community of believers. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 45). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Some of the earliest redaction work originates from Günther Bornkamm in a 1948 essay on Matt 8:23–27 titled “The Stilling of the Storm in Matthew.” Bornkamm’s work with this pericope offers an example of how the author presents material to shape the audience’s understanding and lifestyle… Mark presents a miracle story emphasizing Jesus’ power over nature. Matthew makes changes to “give it a new meaning” as a story about “the danger and glory” of discipleship in “the little ship of the church.” Matthew does not merely pass on the tradition but interprets it, directing the audience’s insight. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 45). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Much form and redaction work insists that the gospels were, because of their theological content and pastoral orientation, a unique genre in the ancient world. But other scholars have argued that their content, form of writing, and function as accounts about Jesus resemble an ancient biography (a bios). (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 49). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

It is no longer possible to see the gospel’s genre as an eyewitness account of the life of Jesus. Rather, Matthew is an ancient biography or story, which functions as a vehicle for proclamation about Jesus. Though it contains historically accurate material, this gospel proclaims the significance of Jesus for the purpose of shaping the identity and lifestyle of a particular community of faith… An unknown pastoral theologian shaped these traditions about Jesus to address the particular circumstances of his community or communities of faith, existing perhaps in the Syrian city of Antioch in the eighth decade of the first-century. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 51). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Matthew and Mark

Matthew includes all but approximately 55 verses of Mark’s 661 verses. He uses about 8,555 of Mark’s 11,078 words… Matthew transmits, reinterprets, and reformulates Mark in five ways: (1) omitting, (2) adding and expanding, (3) reordering, (4) abbreviating, and (5) improving style. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (pp. 53-54). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Omitting Material

• Omissions of References to Jesus’ Emotions and Limitations The Jesus of the Gospel of Mark experiences human emotions, weakness, and limitations in knowledge and actions. Matthew, however, removes many references to Jesus’ emotions, particularly “unfavorable” indications of Jesus’ impatience or frustration. (Mark 3:5 vs Matt 12:12, Mark 8:12 vs Matt 12:39 and Matt 16:2).
• Matthew generally omits references to Jesus’ inability to do something or to circumstances that seem to limit him. (Mark 6:4 vs Matt 13:58, Mark 6:48 vs Matt 14:25, Mark 8:23-25 vs omitted in Matt) 
• Mark’s Jesus displays ignorance by asking questions to elicit knowledge. Matthew omits these questions. He presents Jesus as already possessing knowledge or being sufficiently in control to have no need to know.(Mark 5:30, Mark 8:12, Mark 9:16) 
• Matthew’s changes to Mark’s material recast the audience’s knowledge. Matthew’s more exalted presentation of Jesus guides the audience to greater reverence for and trust in Jesus. It decreases his human qualities and emphasizes those which show his control of circumstances.)
• A further set of omissions reformulates the audience’s knowledge of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Matthew recasts the presentation of the disciples found in Mark. Mark’s disciples are frequently uncomprehending, self-seeking, and faithless. Matthew’s disciples, while not ideal figures, more often model the faithful, understanding, and obedient discipleship required of his audience. (Mark 4:13, Mark 9:6, Mark 10:35-37)
  • (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 55- 57). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition)

Adding and Expanding Material

Matthew includes five major sections of Jesus’ teaching (chs. 5– 7, 10, 13, 18, 23– 25). Several of these sections expand on Mark’s material (compare Matt 13 with Mark 4; Matt 23– 25 with Mark 13) while the others add to Mark’s narrative (Matt 5-7; 10; 18). This supplies the audience with important teaching about discipleship, the church, and the coming judgment (eschatology). In chapter 18, for instance, the first nine verses follow Mark 9: 33– 50, although with abbreviation (compare Matt 18: 6-9 with Mark 9:42-50), omission (Mark 9:38–40), and relocation (Mark 9:41 with Matt 10:42). At verse 10, however, Matthew departs from Mark to provide further instruction about relationships among disciples. The next twenty-five verses have no parallel in Mark. He picks up Mark 10 again in chapter 19. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 58). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5– 7) has no Markan parallel in form or content. Matthew creates this section by interrupting and reformulating Mark’s narrative at 1: 21: “.

 . . and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught” (lit.). 

Matthew changes the synagogue location to a mountain and replaces the synagogue audience with the newly-called disciples (Matt 5:1-2). Many have explained the change to a mountain as an explicit echo of Moses’ receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. The new setting enables the audience to understand Jesus as an authoritative figure who in the tradition of Moses reveals God’s will. After adding three chapters of teaching not found in Mark, Matthew picks up Mark 1:22 in Matt 7:28–29 to describe the response to Jesus’ teaching:

“The crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.” (RSV)

Matthew cites this verse word for word, except for two additions: (1) he adds “the crowds” to clarify Mark’s unspecified “they,” and (2) at the beginning of the verse he adds a clause, “When Jesus had finished these sayings” (Matt 7:28). He uses this same clause to close each of Jesus’ five major teaching blocks (see Matt 11:1; Matt 13:53; Matt 19:1; Matt 26:1). The last use, Matt 26:1, repeats the first use in Matt 7:28 word for word, except for the addition of the adjective “all” (“ when Jesus had finished all these sayings” [lit.]). For the audience, the repeated clause and added adjective connect the five teaching sections together and establish the close of Jesus’ teaching ministry before the passion. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (pp. 58-59). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Matthew strengthens instruction for the audience about discipleship with the added and expanded teaching discourses. He also makes numerous other smaller additions through adding key words like “little faith,” “hypocrite,” and “lawlessness.” These additions contribute to the presentation of the identity and expected lifestyle of disciples and indicate Matthew’s particular interest in ethical and faith-full behavior. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 61). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

One scholar has identified ninety-five words and phrases that are characteristic of Matthew (Davies and Allison (Matthew, 1.75– 76) list the ninety-five words from Hawkins, Horae Synopticae, 4– 8). Other scholars add over a hundred more to the list. (Davies and Allison (Matthew, 1.77– 79) add 143 words. For similar lists, see Luz, Matthew 1– 7, 52– 73; Gundry, Matthew, 1–5, 641– 49.) Not all of these terms are added to Mark’s material; some derive from Matthew’s other sources. But the number of such terms indicates Matthew’s extensive efforts to affirm and reconfigure the audience’s understanding. Davies and Allison note that Matthew’s characteristic language is evidence of the importance of christology, eschatology, ethics, ecclesiology, and the role of the Hebrew Bible in this gospel. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 61). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Reordering Material

Matthew reorganizes the order of scenes in Mark’s narrative. This reordering is particularly pronounced in Matt 3:1-13: 58 (Mark 1– 6). (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 61). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

To begin chapters 8– 9, Matthew rearranges Mark’s order in Mark 1:23-5 to give prominence to the story of the leper’s healing as the opening story in Matt 8:1-4 (Mark 1:40-45). To achieve this, he omits Mark 1:23-28 and Mark 1:35-39, placing Mark 1:40-45 ahead of the healing stories in Mark 1:29-31 and 32-34. The redaction critic D. J. Harrington sees several reasons for setting the story of the healing of the leper first. Jesus commands the healed leper to show himself to the priest (Matt 8:4) in accord with Leviticus 14. This command demonstrates Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (5:17-48) that he came to fulfill, not abolish, the law and the prophets. So his followers must do the same. Carter, Warren. Matthew (pp. 62-63). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Matt 8 and 9 do not collect miracle stories for the sake of displays of power. Rather, they express christological and ecclesiological (discipleship) concerns, reflecting the insights of the evangelist and his understanding of the needs and circumstances of his community. One important issue is the community’s relationship to Jewish traditions and heritage (Matt 8:4; Matt 9:13, Matt 9:14-17). The stories emphasize for the audience that this tradition continues, but as defined by Jesus. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 64). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Social and religious character of the audience

Matthew also presents Jesus as the one who brings the definitive interpretation of God’s will. In a section unique to Matthew (5:21-48), Jesus quotes Jewish traditions six times in order to present their definitive interpretation. The interpretations support the claim made in 5: 17 that Jesus has come not “to abolish the law and the prophets . . . but to fulfill [them].” Jesus interprets the scriptural traditions (found in the Septuagint) to indicate their “true” meaning (Matt 9:13; Matt 11:10; Matt 12:1-8; Matt 12: 9-14; Matt 13:14-17; Matt 15:1-20; Matt 19:3-12; Matt 22:34-40; Matt 22:41-46). The words of Moses, David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, properly understood in the light of Jesus’ interpretation, are presented as endorsements of his divine authority. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (p. 80). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Using redaction criticism to examine Matthew’s use of his sources, we have identified some likely aspects of the situation of Matthew’s community in later first-century Antioch: (1) it is a minority community in a large and diverse city within the Roman Empire; (2) a recent and bitter dispute with a synagogue has resulted in Matthew’s community’s separating from the synagogue; (3) in this situation of transition, the gospel seeks to secure the community’s identity and lifestyle with words of legitimation, explanation, and direction; and (4) the community has a marginal existence. Its ambivalent attitude toward society and the Roman imperial order involves being set apart (because of its commitment to Jesus) but being a participant in its daily life with a command to carry out missionary activity that enacts God’s transforming reign. It is an alternative, inclusive community reconciling its own divisions and repairing the damage and divisions of its society. The authorial audience is assumed to be familiar with these social and religious experiences as it reads or hears Matthew’s gospel. (Carter, Warren. Matthew (pp. 91-92). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)