Criticism of Matthew

Studies in Matthew

Bacon, Benjamin Wisner, New York : H. Holt, 1930

Benjamin Wisner Bacon (1860 – 1932) was an American theologian. He was born in Litchfield, Connecticut and graduated from Yale College in 1881 and Yale Divinity School in 1884. After serving in pastorates at Old Lyme, Connecticut (1884–1889), and at Oswego, New York (1889–1896), he was made an instructor in New Testament Greek at Yale Divinity School and became in 1897 professor of New Testament criticism and exegesis. The degrees D.D., Litt.D., and LL.D. were conferred upon him.

Archive Book Link: https://archive.org/details/MN41459ucmf_0

“The scholar must indeed either renounce entirely the right to judge of ancient writings by their form and content, or else admit that Mt is not a translation from any other language, but originally composed in Greek.” (p. 9)

“In the earlier time, shortly after Josephus composed his Jewish War in Aramaic for the benefit of his fellow countrymen in Adiabene, Parthia, and Arabia, if Christianity had already made its way from Antioch eastward among the Greekspeaking Jewish synagogues, these doubtless followed the Jewish practice of oral “targuming” from such Greek gospels as reached them. ” (p. 17)

“The birthplace of Mt was undoubtedly in Syria, in some locality where Jewish traditions and even some remote influence from the Hebrew Old Testament still lingered. But, as McNeile correctly infers from the late and apocryphal character of N, these circles, though “Hebraic to the core,” were “not in close touch with Jerusalem” but “outside the range of the control which apostles or other eyewitnesses would have exercised.” (p. 20)

“Naturally among these Christians “of mixed speech” the practice of oral ” targuming ” would prevail until written Aramaic gospels based on the Greek came into circulation, to be replaced in turn by the Syriac.” (p. 21)