"I Will Give You Rest": The Rest Motif in the New Testament with Special Reference to Mt 11 and Heb 3-4

Abstract

Bell & Howell Information and Learning: Foreign text omitted Will Give You Rest: The Rest Motif in New Testament with Special Reference to Mt 11 and Heb 3-4, by Jon Laansma. WUNT Z198. Tubingen: Mohr-Siebeck 1997. Pp. xvi + 459. DM 128.00 (paper). Jon Laansma's lengthy dissertation, originally written under supervision of I Howard Marshall and Paul Ellingsworth and submitted to University of Aberdeen in 1995, can be read as two studies. The first study has as its goal a reevaluation of motif in Matthew 11; second focuses on scholarship about in Hebrews 3-4. A very short concluding chapter demonstrates futility of attempts to identify dependence in either direction. The book is more valuable when read as two studies because of different methodologies employed in each part. After brief histories of interpretation of Matt 11:28-30 and Hebrews 3-4, first study begins with an extensive exegetical consideration of rest motif in MT, concluding that rest tradition plays a significant role in Deuteronomic History, conceptually bound up with land, temple, and Davidic kingship, while serving to express sum of blessings YHWH has bestowed on people. The survey is thorough and includes analyses of scholarship. That lengthy discussion of rest tradition in MT is followed by a briefer discussion of rest tradition in LXX Laansma's perspective is so steeped in MT that some of nuances of LXX, on which both Matthew and Hebrews depend, are minimized; in my analysis, this shortening compromises his later conclusions. A review of rest motif in other Jewish and Christian literature follows survey of OT rest motif, providing perhaps most thorough English-language summary of various perspectives on rest in Judeo-Christian antiquity. He relies heavily on scholarship of Theissen, Hofius, and Helderman and, in general, documentation can be received with gratitude by academic community. At same time, Laansma's reliance on secondary literature becomes a weakness, especially in his analysis of Gnostic literature. He relies on Helderman for an understanding of rest and Gnostic mythology. Since Helderman presumes Gnostic ascent myth as matrix in which rest is to be defined, Laansma's results are similarly skewed. The extensive survey provides background for Laansma's discussion of Matthew 11-12. He begins with assumption that Matthew's approach to logion in Matt 11:28-30 does owe much to wisdom conceptions. He provides a thorough critique of wisdom argument for logion and concludes that Matt 11:25ff. is not wisdom, not Christological, but prophetic. The circular argument is suspect (i.e., assume @ prove -+ conclude); nevertheless, evidence and argument are generally sound and conclusions justifiable. Without denying influence on logion, Laansma concludes that the Logion originally found expression either by Jesus or church as an invitation to salvation, as a veiled hint at Jesus' identity vis-a-vis Wisdom (p. 200). Laansma explains Matthew 12 redaction of Isaiah text by reference to Matthew's Son of David Christology, concluding that Matthew is thinking in terms of OT rest traditions as primary background. …