Matthew and Mark across Perspectives: Essays in Honour of Stephen C. Barton and William R. Telford ed. by Kristian A. Bendoriatis and Nijay K. Gupta

Abstract

Reviewed by: Matthew and Mark across Perspectives: Essays in Honour of Stephen C. Barton and William R. Telford ed. by Kristian A. Bendoriatis and Nijay K. Gupta Bonnie Thurston kristian a. bendoriatis and nijay k. gupta (eds.), Matthew and Mark across Perspectives: Essays in Honour of Stephen C. Barton and William R. Telford (LNTS 538; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016). Pp. xxxix + 196. $112. Students of the first two Gospels will recognize those for whom this festschrift was prepared and be grateful these former students and colleagues contributed engaging essays. A collection by different authors presents challenges to a reviewer, and this book is no exception. My task was made easier since all these essays address the relationship between Mark and Matthew, framed by the opening question, Why did the early church retain Mark since Matthew incorporated so much of that Gospel? Nine essays follow appreciations and bibliographies of the honorees (by Walter [End Page 541] Moberly and Peter Francis) and an introduction (by Bendoriatis) that summarize the essays divided between traditional methods of interpretation (Francis Watson, "How Did Mark Survive?"; Helen K. Bond, "Paragon of Discipleship? Simon of Cyrene in the Markan Passion Narrative"; Craig A. Evans, "'He Laid Him in a Tomb' (Mark 15.46): Roman Law and the Burial of Jesus"; Donald A. Hagner, "The Newness of the Gospel in Mark and Matthew: Continuity and Discontinuity"; James D. G. Dunn, "Matthew—A Jewish Gospel for Jews and Gentiles"; Loren T. Stuckenbruck, "The 'Apocalyptic' Jewish Jesus and Contemporary Interpretation"); and more recent approaches (Daniel Frayer-Griggs, "'More than a Prophet': Echoes of Exorcism in Markan and Matthean Baptist Traditions"; Louise J. Lawrence, "Emotions of Protest in Mark 11–13: Responding to an Affective Turn in Social-Scientific Discourse"; Gupta, "The Spirituality of Faith in the Gospel of Matthew"). Essays are situated in the context of studies of the historical Jesus or investigation of the relationship between emerging Christianity and emerging rabbinic Judaism. Six essays are particularly strong. Watson argues that Mark survived because it was "too well established in the church's liturgical and catechetical life to be easily dislodged" (p. 10) and because "gospel plurality was becoming accepted as normal" (p. 17). Bond suggests that Simon of Cyrene is not a Marcan exemplar of discipleship but highlights Jesus' kingship. Evans on Mark 15:46 takes on the Jesus Seminar, proving that the "burial narrative we find in Mark 15 exhibits realism at every point" (p. 66). Discussing continuity and discontinuity between Mark and Matthew, Hagner finds discontinuity "more determinative" (p. 82). His note (70 n. 10) on the difficulty of negativity about Judaism is courageous, but absence of reference to the work of Amy-Jill Levine is surprising (e.g., The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus [San Francisco: HarperOne, 2007]). The social-scientific vocabulary of Lawrence's examination of Mark 11–13 is off-putting, but her reading of the text is enriching and nuanced. Dunn addresses what Matthew hoped to achieve in writing another Gospel, concluding that it was to make clearer the tradition to a "community made up primarily of Jews who believed in the Messiah Jesus" (p. 142). He demonstrates that Matthew's Jesus is not essentially different from Mark's. Stuckenbruck's essay concentrates on apocalyptic eschatology, evinces wide erudition and scholarship, but presumed of this reader more knowledge of Second Temple thought than she has. For Frayer-Griggs's essay on John the Baptist traditions to be convincing, more proof at the outset "of the polemical nature of Jn 10:41" (p. 39) and, at the close, of "the Fourth Evangelist's polemical stance against the Baptist" (p. 51) is required. Repeated use of the conditional "may" weakened the presentation. Gupta's treatment of pistis provided a fruitful approach to Matthew's spirituality, but the author omitted recent scholarship on the Canaanite woman, assumed "disciples" were all male, and neglected Sharyn Dowd's important work on the cursing of the fig tree. Nevertheless, Gupta is correct; in Matthew "pistis is a central way … humans ought to respond to Jesus and God" (p.123; see Sharon Echols Dowd, Prayer, Power, and the Problem of Suffering: Mark...