Redefining Ancient Borders: The Jewish Christian Framework of Matthew's Gospel. By Aaron M. Gale

Abstract

Pp. 197 , London , T&T Clark , 2005 , $144.00. Here is a doctoral thesis that grew from being a study of literacy in the community for which Matthew's gospel was written into an investigation of four major topics: what sort of community was it? Where was it located? What was its economic status? What was the educational level of its authors and its readers? The answer to the first is that it was very much a Jewish Christian community. It flourished in the years after the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and it had to survive at a time when the Jewish people had to come to a new understanding of itself as a people without a Temple. There were obvious tensions between those Jews who accepted Jesus as their Messiah and those who could not. Tradition and scholarly consensus usually locates this community at Antioch in Syria. Our author prefers to place it at Sepphoris in northern Galilee. Building especially on the results of archaeological investigation, he finds abundant evidence to argue that this city best fits the situation reflected in Matthew's gospel. It could boast of a lively, wealthy and conservative Jewish population that had kept clear of the conflict of Jerusalem with the Romans. The gospel of Matthew is a gospel which largely eliminates references to the poor which are found in Mark and in the source Q which it shares with Luke. It also contains more references to money than other gospels and the sums of money and the coinage are of higher value too. This is good evidence for high economic status of the community that produced the gospel. And gospels do not come cheap. Only prosperous people could bring out their own gospel. The text of the gospel reflects rabbinical skills in writing, in design and argument that are known to us from the abundant rabbinic literature that was to flourish in subsequent centuries. The use of irony, inclusio and chiasmus prove the high literary and educational status and abilities of those who produced the gospel and its first audience. The arguments are clearly stated, thoroughly argued and well documented. This work is learned and informed. But it remains true that we do not know enough to come to definite conclusions. One might question whether the author has done justice to the obvious interest of Matthew's gospel in Gentiles. Antioch in Syria is a city whose importance in the early years of Christianity is very obvious from its place in the New Testament record, whereas Sepphoris in Galilee is not mentioned once. The economic and educational world behind the gospel is convincingly described, even though one might wonder how far the author is correct is dismissing Fitzmyer's warning about using Jewish material dated some centuries later to comment on first century situations. This is an informative and intriguing work, introducing the reader not only to the first century world of Matthew but to the world of Matthaean scholarship at the beginning of the third millennium. It deserves a place in any library ambitious to keep up with Matthew's world.