Beginning of St Matthews Gospel

[abucs]

I was just reading the beginning of St. Matthew’s gospel yesterday which situates Jesus in the context of Jewish history.

14 generations between each of the focal points in Jewish history - Abraham, David, Exile of Jews, Jesus.

I was thinking that if Matthew wrote his gospel after A.D. 70, surely he would have listed the fall of the Jerusalem temple as one of those focal points in Jewish history and tied Jesus to that right at the beginning of his gospel.

That is, Jesus was the last generation before the destruction of the Jewish temple and homeland.

Because situating Jesus in Jewish history is clearly an important aspect of St. Matthew’s gospel, wouldn’t it have made his point much more strongly if he had referred to the destruction of the Temple and the brutal invasion by the Romans?

Why would Matthew not have used this in his writing as it clearly and strongly serves his purpose?

 

[RPRPsych]

I was just reading the beginning of St. Matthew’s gospel yesterday which situates Jesus in the context of Jewish history.

14 generations between each of the focal points in Jewish history - Abraham, David, Exile of Jews, Jesus.

I was thinking that if Matthew wrote his gospel after A.D. 70, surely he would have listed the fall of the Jerusalem temple as one of those focal points in Jewish history and tied Jesus to that right at the beginning of his gospel.

That is, Jesus was the last generation before the destruction of the Jewish temple and homeland.

Because situating Jesus in Jewish history is clearly an important aspect of St. Matthew’s gospel, wouldn’t it have made his point much more strongly if he had referred to the destruction of the Temple and the brutal invasion by the Romans?

Why would Matthew not have used this in his writing as it clearly and strongly serves his purpose?

Good point.

A similar argument has been successfully used to date the Epistle to the Hebrews well before 70 A.D.

Even modern scholars, such as the editors of the Bible de Jerusalem, date St. Matthew’s Gospel (the Aramaic or “Hebrew” version) to around 50 A.D., or so. The Greek translation may have been made later, but we have no way of knowing.

The late date (after 70 AD) is scholarly speculation, and does not fit the facts well, even if it is found in many recent Bible translations (the NAB and NAB-RE in particular.)

 

[Gorgias]

I was just reading the beginning of St. Matthew’s gospel yesterday which situates Jesus in the context of Jewish history.

Right. That’s because his audience was Christians of Jewish heritage, and to Matthew, it was important to situate Jesus within Jewish tradition – that’s why he stresses that Jesus is the “new Moses” in his Gospel.

I was thinking that if Matthew wrote his gospel after A.D. 70, surely he would have listed the fall of the Jerusalem temple as one of those focal points in Jewish history and tied Jesus to that right at the beginning of his gospel.

Except that the fall of the temple isn’t part of the prophetic tradition associated with the Messiah, is it? In other words, Jews of the first century A.D. were expecting a messiah who would liberate them and restore the kingdom of Israel. If you were talking to an audience who had held onto this understanding of the messiah, don’t you think that a story that included the destruction of the center of their life – the temple – would act as the clearest indication that Jesus wasn’t the messiah that they were hoping would come?

Now, it’s true that we look at Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the temple in Matthew 24 and say “see! He told them about it!”, but the destruction of the temple generally would have been viewed by the average person as evidence that the messiah was still far from coming, not that he had already been here and gone back!

Why would Matthew not have used this in his writing as it clearly and strongly serves his purpose?

I would assert that it doesn’t serve his purpose. Rather, it was the event that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, estranging Jewish Christians from Jews who didn’t believe in Jesus. The intended audience of Matthew’s Gospel had already broken from Judaism (e.g., in the story of the man with a withered hand, Mark and Luke say that Jesus went “into the synagogue”, while Matthew makes a point to say that Jesus went “into their synagogue”). The destruction of the temple was well within the living memory of the audience, and wouldn’t need to be recapitulated. For instance, if today you were telling the story of a person who predicted the destruction of the World Trade Center, would you need to retell the story of 9/11? Or wouldn’t you defer, knowing that your audience was well aware of that painful event?

 

[jwakja]

Have you checked out the DVD series on the Gospel of Matthew by Jeff Cravins. It’s very interesting and informative regarding how Jesus presence on earth wasn’t just a visit to suggest how we should live our lives. He ties the Old and the New Testament together and we see just how God’s plan for us unfolds. I highly recommend it.

 

[abucs]

Thanks jwakja i’ll look into it.

 

[abucs]

Except that the fall of the temple isn’t part of the prophetic tradition associated with the Messiah, is it?

Hi Gorgias and thanks.

Doesn’t Paul and Luke continually stress much of the post resurrection Christian message was trying to convince their Jewish hearers that Jesus was the promised Messiah in the Old Testament? Surely the gospel writers (and especially Matthew) continually link Jesus to the prophecy in Daniel as “the Son of man” and “anointed one” / messiah? My reading of Daniel is that he is talking of the anointed one being put to death and the temple then being destroyed.

I can’t see if Matthew (or any NT writer) was writing after A.D. 70 why he would not have pointed to the destruction of the temple in order to link Jesus to Daniel’s messiah since this is what Matthew appears to be wanting to do with his gospel and this is extended to all writers of the NT. With the absence of this obvious evidence for their case, I just can’t see a post A.D. 70 writing of the gospels making sense.

I also agree a lot with what the liberal Christian theologian A.T. Robinson wrote regarding this issue :

preteristarchive.com/Books/1976_robinson_redating-testament.html

 

[Gorgias]

Doesn’t Paul and Luke continually stress much of the post resurrection Christian message was trying to convince their Jewish hearers that Jesus was the promised Messiah in the Old Testament?

Certainly, the evangelists desire to demonstrate that Jesus was the Messiah.

Surely the gospel writers (and especially Matthew) continually link Jesus to the prophecy in Daniel as “the Son of man” and “anointed one” / messiah?

I’d have to go back and research it, but my recollection is that the “son of man” references aren’t exclusively messianic references; in the OT, that title is used in other ways as well. So, pointing out that Jesus calls himself “son of man” doesn’t conclusively establish him as the promised messiah, per se. I might consider asserting that conflating “son of man” with “messiah” is an anachronism; we’re using contemporary notions and imposing them (unreasonably?) on a 1st century A.D. Palestinan context.

My reading of Daniel is that he is talking of the anointed one being put to death and the temple then being destroyed.

Hmm… isn’t Daniel 9 talking about the rebuilding of the temple – that is, the initiation of the second temple period?

I can’t see if Matthew (or any NT writer) was writing after A.D. 70 why he would not have pointed to the destruction of the temple in order to link Jesus to Daniel’s messiah since this is what Matthew appears to be wanting to do with his gospel and this is extended to all writers of the NT.

Because they already saw Daniel as having predicted the return from exile and the reconstruction of the temple?

With the absence of this obvious evidence for their case, I just can’t see a post A.D. 70 writing of the gospels making sense.

I also agree a lot with what the liberal Christian theologian A.T. Robinson wrote regarding this issue

From the Robinson page you referenced:

none of Matthew’s changes affects the sense [of Mark: "In fact there is, as we said, wide agreement among scholars that Mark 13 **does

fit better before the destruction of the temple it purports to prophesy"] or makes the application more specific (in fact the neuter participle does the opposite). Again he does not mention the reference in Daniel to the cessation of the daily sacrifices. If Matthew intended the reader to ‘understand’ in the prediction events lying by then in the past he has certainly given him no help

So, Robinson seems to be at odds with your assertion that Matthew conflates the messiah of Daniel with Jesus, at least in the context of the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. …

(Just to be fair, though… it’s late, and I’m beat, but I wanted to be sure that I responded to your questions…!)

 

[abucs]

My reading of Daniel is that he is talking about the building of the Temple and then its future destruction in 7 times 70 years when the “Awful Horror” is placed where it should not be. Which happens as Daniel says right after when God’s special servant is killed.

Matthew and Mark both cite "The “Awful Horror” which is coming from Daniel in their predictions of the temple being destroyed.

If they are using Daniel’s “Awful Horror” where Daniel writes the temple will be destroyed after God’s special servant is killed why are they not both pointing to the fulfilment of that prophecy and deliberating about it for any length of time if they are writing after the temple’s destruction?

Surely since they are writing from Daniel this would be powerful argument for them?

another example of Matthew and Mark using Daniel is in the crucial period during the trial where the High Priest of the Sanhedrin asks Jesus who He is.

 

[steve53]

Something to consider is the Jewish mindset in those days.
Our society is riff with symbolic things, but the Jews did not allow graven images at all, as to make them would be thought of as an attempt to surpass God. More importantly, the Temple in Jerusalem was not symbolic. They actually thought that God “lived” in the most holy sanctuary room. He (she) was THERE.
So to have the temple destroyed was a big deal. It meant that God was destroying his own house, that the Jews had built for him. The covenant of Moses was over.

 

[Porknpie]

I was just reading the beginning of St. Matthew’s gospel yesterday which situates Jesus in the context of Jewish history.

14 generations between each of the focal points in Jewish history - Abraham, David, Exile of Jews, Jesus.

I was thinking that if Matthew wrote his gospel after A.D. 70, surely he would have listed the fall of the Jerusalem temple as one of those focal points in Jewish history and tied Jesus to that right at the beginning of his gospel.

That is, Jesus was the last generation before the destruction of the Jewish temple and homeland.

Because situating Jesus in Jewish history is clearly an important aspect of St. Matthew’s gospel, wouldn’t it have made his point much more strongly if he had referred to the destruction of the Temple and the brutal invasion by the Romans?

Why would Matthew not have used this in his writing as it clearly and strongly serves his purpose?

I was always taught Mark in the mid to late 50s and Matthew in the mid to late 60s. Still makes sense to me …

 

[patrick457]

I was always taught Mark in the mid to late 50s and Matthew in the mid to late 60s. Still makes sense to me …

Well, Mark, according to St. Irenaeus, had written his gospel during the ‘departure’ (or to be more literal, the ‘exodus’) of Peter and Paul. Just what the word ‘exodus’ means here is unclear: while it could mean simply “when Peter and Paul went someplace else,” the word also has been used in Christian parlance to refer to death: if we take this to be the case, Peter’s and Paul’s ‘exodus’ mean “when Peter and Paul died,” which could support a mid-to-late 60s-early 70s date (since both were supposed to have died in the latter part of Nero’s reign).

 

[Porknpie]

Well, Mark, according to St. Irenaeus, had written his gospel during the ‘departure’ (or to be more literal, the ‘exodus’) of Peter and Paul. Just what the word ‘exodus’ means here is unclear: while it could mean simply “when Peter and Paul went someplace else,” the word also has been used in Christian parlance to refer to death: if we take this to be the case, Peter’s and Paul’s ‘exodus’ mean “when Peter and Paul died,” which could support a mid-to-late 60s-early 70s date (since both were supposed to have died in the latter part of Nero’s reign).

Matthew refers to the Sadducees frequently, my guess six or seven times. Wouldn’t this point to Matthew being written prior to 70 AD?

 

[TimothyH]

The destruction of the temple may not have been mentioned because it was such a ubiquitous event. Jew would have known about it. It was one of the major events in Jewish history and any Jew who survived the destruction itself or escaped because they were outside of Judea at the time would have known about. Just like there was no need to explain about the collapse of the twin towers after 9-11, there simply wasn’t a need to explain the destruction of the temple.

Many scholars believe that Hebrews was written about 74AD, and that its explanation of Christ as the high priest, the temple of the Holy Spirit, etc., was predicated on the previous destruction of the temple. This is the position of Alan C. Mitchell, the author of the Sacra Pagina commentary on Hebrews.

-Tim-

 

[patrick457]

Matthew refers to the Sadducees frequently, my guess six or seven times. Wouldn’t this point to Matthew being written prior to 70 AD?

The Synoptics all refer to the Sadducees in the context of Jesus’ life, but IMHO this in itself is not an automatic guarantee of a pre-70 date, any more than Josephus’ references to them somehow would prove that he wrote before AD 70. It is true though that Matthew mentions them by name more (3:7; 16:1, 6, 11-12; 22:23-24) than Mark (12:18) or Luke (20:27).

 

[patrick457]

The destruction of the temple may not have been mentioned because it was such a ubiquitous event. Jew would have known about it. It was one of the major events in Jewish history and any Jew who survived the destruction itself or escaped because they were outside of Judea at the time would have known about. Just like there was no need to explain about the collapse of the twin towers after 9-11, there simply wasn’t a need to explain the destruction of the temple.

Besides, the gospels are not encyclopedias or even histories: they are, to put it in a way, ‘apologetic’ tools designed to tell the story of Jesus in such a way to confirm believers and convince unbelievers. Any material that might interest us now that people back then knew and took for granted anyway would have been seen as extraneous and unnecessary.

 

[patrick457]

Except that the fall of the temple isn’t part of the prophetic tradition associated with the Messiah, is it? In other words, Jews of the first century A.D. were expecting a messiah who would liberate them and restore the kingdom of Israel. If you were talking to an audience who had held onto this understanding of the messiah, don’t you think that a story that included the destruction of the center of their life – the temple – would act as the clearest indication that Jesus wasn’t the messiah that they were hoping would come?

No. This is a common misconception that Christians make (an idea that is fostered partly due to the gospels themselves), but in reality I don’t think we could summarize 1st century Jewish messianic expectation neatly along those lines.

First of all, you have to let go of the idea of a singular, monolithic ‘messianic expectation.’ If there is anything the available data tell us, it is that people simply had different ideas as to how the messiah (or messiahs) would be like, or whether there would be a messiah at all. While some did expect a kingly figure or warrior of sorts a la David (or not), others awaited a Moses-like prophet to come or even a priest. Others even expected an angelic, semi-divine figure to literally come down from heaven. You did not even have a consensus on how many messiahs would come (some say one, others two). There were even those who may not have expected a divinely-sent figure to come literally but just awaited ‘signs of deliverance’ from God Himself (miraculous portents, armies of angels, the reunion of the twelve tribes, take your pick) or at least for some courage to inspire them to make a better future, by their own hands.

It even seems that by the 1st century, not all Jews wanted an earthly kingdom at all. If there is anything that their history has taught them, it is that Samuel was right: human kings tend to be dictators. While some of them still talked about David, even then they seem to not have wanted his kind of kingdom. A lot of them actually preferred the system that has been in place since the line of the kings of Israel and Judah had failed centuries ago - a ‘theocracy’ (in reality, an oligarchy) wherein priests and other nobles rule the people in the name of God - because the priests usually did not force things down on them.

 

[TimothyH]

Besides, the gospels are not encyclopedias or even histories: they are, to put it in a way, ‘apologetic’ tools designed to tell the story of Jesus in such a way to confirm believers and convince unbelievers. Any material that might interest us now that people back then knew and took for granted anyway would have been seen as extraneous and unnecessary.

Or…

***Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation
DEI VERBUM
November 18, 1965

…since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation**. *

Not for the sake of historical accuracy… Not for the the sake of scientific accuracy… But for the sake of salvation.

-Tim-

 

[TimothyH]

No. This is a common misconception that Christians make (an idea that is fostered partly due to the gospels themselves), but in reality I don’t think we could summarize 1st century Jewish messianic expectation neatly along those lines.

First of all, you have to let go of the idea of a singular, monolithic ‘messianic expectation.’ If there is anything the available data tell us, it is that people simply had different ideas as to how the messiah (or messiahs) would be like, or whether there would be a messiah at all. While some did expect a kingly figure or warrior of sorts a la David (or not), others awaited a Moses-like prophet to come or even a priest. Others even expected an angelic, semi-divine figure to literally come down from heaven. You did not even have a consensus on how many messiahs would come (some say one, others two). There were even those who may not have expected a divinely-sent figure to come literally but just awaited ‘signs of deliverance’ from God Himself (miraculous portents, armies of angels, the reunion of the twelve tribes, take your pick) or at least for some courage to inspire them to make a better future, by their own hands.

It even seems that by the 1st century, not all Jews wanted an earthly kingdom at all. If there is anything that their history has taught them, it is that Samuel was right: human kings tend to be dictators. While some of them still talked about David, even then they seem to not have wanted his kind of kingdom. A lot of them actually preferred the system that has been in place since the line of the kings of Israel and Judah had failed centuries ago - a ‘theocracy’ (in reality, an oligarchy) wherein priests and other nobles rule the people in the name of God - because the priests usually did not force things down on them.

Patrick, would you care to quantify in your well respected opinion, how prevelant the belief was that the Messiah would be the new Moses?

I sense that it was a prevailing view, but I could be wrong. The mention of the “Exodus he was to acomplish” in Jerusalem in Lukes version of the transfiguration (Luke 9) comes to mind

I see hints of all that you say - Jesus as a new Elijiah, as a new Ezekiel, as a tranforming force, as a pre-davidic judge, as the high priest, or as restoring the pre-Sinai common priesthood of all men. Maybe I’m reading too much into scripture but I sense that the expectation of a a new Moses was common.

-Tim-

 

[Porknpie]

Or…

***Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation
DEI VERBUM
November 18, 1965

…since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation***.

Not for the sake of historical accuracy… Not for the the sake of scientific accuracy… But for the sake of salvation.

-Tim-

Agreed. Thank you for your reponse(s).

 

[Gorgias]

First of all, you have to let go of the idea of a singular, monolithic ‘messianic expectation.’ If there is anything the available data tell us, it is that people simply had different ideas as to how the messiah (or messiahs) would be like

Agreed. But the prevailing views held that the person (persons?) that was to come as messiah would be an authority of some type (military, kingly, priestly/prophetic) – and a military leader or king or priest who allowed the temple to be destroyed… well, that wouldn’t have fit any of the common expectations…

It even seems that by the 1st century, not all Jews wanted an earthly kingdom at all.

Perhaps. Are you claiming that this is a representative position, then?

A lot of them actually preferred the system that has been in place since the line of the kings of Israel and Judah had failed centuries ago - a ‘theocracy’ (in reality, an oligarchy) wherein priests and other nobles rule the people in the name of God - because the priests usually did not force things down on them.

What an interesting claim. At what point(s) in time, following the exiles, would you identify the existing structure as a ‘theocracy’?