The Anti-Judaic Strand in Matthew: The Saga of the Jewish Followers of Jesus

Abstract

The emergence of Gentile forms of belief in Jesus did challenge the status of the descendants of Jesus’s disciples and first followers as the exclusive interpreters of his legacy. The Jesus movement was becoming an unprecedented mix of Jews and Gentiles that threatened the Judean ethnic and religious identity markers. By the end of the first century the descendants of Jesus’s disciples and first followers 1 may have become a minority in the Jesus movement and a problematic sect within Judaism. There is great urgency and an agonizing undertow in the Gospel according to Matthew. 2 Among the Synoptics, Matthew is simultaneously the most anti-Judaic and the most knowledgeable about Jewish traditions. 3 Its location at the beginning of the canon creates a potent anti-Jewish start. Many of Matthew’s stories stand on Mark. Variations from Mark may be indicative of setting and intent. In Matthew the attacks on the Judean authorities intensify. The chief priests and elders are in power (16:21; 21:23; 26:3, 47; 27:1, 3, 12, 20; 28:11–12). Scribes and Pharisees are associated with the synagogues and tend to be antagonists in disputes over the law (3:7; 5:20; 6:1–18; 15:1–20; 19:3; 21:33–46; 22:15; 23:13–33). 4 Matthew’s polemic is mostly aimed at the leadership, especially the Pharisees, but he also draws his opponents’ followers into his polemic (10:12–15, 20–24; 26:57; 27:24–25). The central role that the Pharisees play as the archenemies in Matthew contrasts sharply with the marginal role they play in Jewish literature and may be indicative of their being polemical proxies. An intriguing possibility is that the Pharisees stand in as proxies for the descendants of the founders in the Gentile quest to de-Judaize belief in Jesus and to demote the Jewish leadership. Overall, the emphasis is on increased anti-Jewish sentiment and on variation from Mark. 5 Matthew tends to bundle all “figures of authority” and insinuates a monolithic Jewish opposition to Jesus. Matthew also broadens the blame: “all the people” take the responsibility for condemning Jesus to death. There is increased and widened malevolence in Matthew’s picture (Judas’s 30 pieces of silver, the field of blood, Pilate’s wife dream, and most importantly—the first unequivocal articulation of Jewish collective responsibility).6 For Jewish readers large segments of Matthew (5, 6, and 23) are unacceptable, disconcerting, and distressing, if read literally. 7