Rethinking Early Jewish—Christian Relations: Matthean Community History as Pharisaic Intragroup Conflict

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) Anyone interested in the religio-ethnic identity and social location of the community/communities that produced the Gospel of Matthew must contend not only with multilayered composition but also with the complex reception history of this text.1 While the Gospel was used by groups identifying themselves as Jewish, it also served the needs of people with a non-Jewish identity who actively opposed a understanding of religion.2 Interestingly, these two seemingly irreconcilable uses of the Gospel of Matthew are reflected in modern theories regarding the identity of the community behind the text: some scholars argue that Mattheans were well within the boundaries of (intra muros),3 that the author was a non-Jew writing for a community that had parted ways with the (extra muros).4 Within and between these two positions, there are numerous interpretations varying in both methodological approaches and conclusions.5 The purpose of the present study is to outline a social-scientific approach to the question of the nature and status of the group(s) that transmitted, redacted, and wrote down the traditions included in the Gospel. I shall begin by noting some problematic terms and categories that, in my opinion, confuse the discussion and may lead to inaccurate conclusions. After having identified the type of religion evidenced by the text and having related that religious type to the question of ethnic identity, I shall examine tensions between the Mattheans and society generally, on the one hand, and between Mattheans and Pharisees more specifically, on the other. In order to proceed, it will be necessary to reconstruct and analyze first-century institutions of importance to the Mattheans from a social-scientific perspective: we need a body to locate a soul.6 I will argue that, while Mattheans were initially part of the Pharisaic association, the community that authored the Gospel was in the process of leaving the larger collectivity after the war of 66-70 C.E. Tensions between the Mattheans and society generally seem to have been comparatively low, both before and after 70; relations between the Mattheans and other Pharisees, however, were more complex and negative, with tensions increasing drastically after 70 C.E. The final sections will provide detailed as well as more general arguments supporting this reconstruction of the Matthean community and its history. Essential to the present interpretation of the social location of the Mattheans is Ed Sanders's well-argued case for a common Judaism in first-century society, as well as his and others' insistence on the limited influence of the Pharisees in that society.7 I. THE RELIGIO-ETHNIC IDENTITY OF THE MATTHEAN COMMUNITY Theories regarding the religio-ethnic identity of the Mattheans are many and varied, from scholars who see their community as excluding non-Jews to those who argue for an exclusively non-Jewish community-and several positions in between.8 Since it is human to think in categories and concepts, and these tend to create boxes limiting our horizons, it is necessary to address the question of terminology in order to take the discussion further.9 Most often, Matthean scholars speak of Matthean identity in terms of binary opposites, whereby Jesus and the disciples/the Mattheans/Christianity/the church are at one end of the spectrum, and Jews/Israel/Judaism/the synagogue at the other.10 A close reading of the Gospel, however, suggests that such distinctions are not found in the text, but rather imposed on it from other ancient or modern sources. Once such false opposites are removed and authentic opposites mapped, many of the traditional conclusions about the relationship between Mattheans and others in the Gospel are proved problematic. Furthermore, the very terms Jewish Christianity and/or Jewish Christians must also be mentioned as problematic, since they tend to obscure what they intend to denote, namely, a belief in Jesus as the Messiah embodied in communities existing within the religious system of Judaism. …