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particular local community. Interpreters regularly comment on the apparently
incompatible elements within this one gospel of a deeply-rooted Jewishness and
pride in their OT heritage alongside a sharp antipathy to the Jewish
establishment and a conviction that the future for the kingdom of heaven lies not
in the institutions of Judaism but in a newly constituted people of God focused
not on national origin but on allegiance to Jesus the Messiah. Elements of
continuity and of discontinuity are equally prominent in Matthew’s theology of
“fulfillment.” Such a gospel seems to me to be better explained not by a theory
of incompetent editing of conflicting sources but by the existential situation of
the author and his Jewish Christian community. They have come to recognize in
Jesus the true Messiah of Israel, and enthusiastically search the OT scriptures for
indications of how God’s purposes for his people have come to their culmination
in the prophet of Nazareth. But they have also recognized that the new covenant
he has established is no longer limited to the descendants of Abraham, and most
probably already include Gentiles within their membership. They are thus
inevitably becoming an increasingly distinct community from that of the
synagogue which has not recognized Jesus as Messiah. As Jewish Christians
(who might today be referred to as “messianic Jews”) there are senses in which
they are both “inside” and “outside” that community, and that ambivalent
relationship seems to me closely reflected in the love-hate relationship with
“Judaism” which we find in this gospel. If it seems to speak with two voices,
that is because its situation and its ideology contain these two apparently
competing strands. But I believe that the “contradictions” of Matthew’s gospel
arise primarily in the minds of interpreters who do not appreciate the distinction
he makes between on the one hand the values and ideals which derive from OT
Israel and its scriptures and on the other hand the (in his view failing and
obsolete) institutions of the current Jewish community with its scribal
establishment and its ideological focus on the temple and its rituals. Matthew
portrays a new community which is both faithful to its scriptural heritage and at
the same time open to the new directions demanded by Jesus’ proclamation of
the kingdom of heaven, and therefore necessarily expanding beyond the bounds
of the Jewish people. His contribution to an integrated Christian theology of
salvation and of the people of God is thus similar to that of the Letter to the
Hebrews, but with the added dimension of an explicit recognition that, as Paul
puts it in Romans 4, Abraham is now the father of many nations.³¹
C. Date
The current majority view that Matthew’s gospel was written in the fourth
quarter of the first century depends mainly on three arguments: (a) that its setting
reflects the period of final separation between church and synagogue, probably
around AD 85, (b) that it is written in the light of the experience of the Roman
capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple in AD 70, and (c) that it is
dependent on the gospel of Mark, which some scholars also date after AD 70,
others shortly before.
I have expressed my scepticism on the first point in the previous section. The
second depends on the assumption that neither Jesus nor Matthew would have
foreseen the events of the Roman war, so that the destruction of the temple could
only be mentioned after the event—though the substantial body of scholars who
date Mark before AD 70 have clearly found this argument unpersuasive, and
Matthew’s language about the fate of the temple is not significantly more precise
than that of Mark (see also below on 22:7 for the burning of the city, and p. 913
on the difficulty of identifying Matthew’s “devastating pollution” in the light of
known historical events). Moreover, there are a number of passages in the gospel
which presuppose that the temple is still standing (see below on 5:23–24; 17:24–
27; 23:16–22), and while it is of course possible that Matthew has preserved
such sayings even after they have ceased to be applicable, in at least one case
this would have been to risk significant misunderstanding by post-70 readers
(see below p. 668, n. 15).
Probably the most influential reason for dating Matthew toward the end of the
century is not a specific argument from the text of Matthew itself but a presumed
order of composition of the gospels combined with a relative dating scheme
which is widely adopted in current scholarship, but which has few if any fixed
points. I shall comment briefly on the literary relations of the Synoptic Gospels
in the next section. As for the wider dating scheme, I believe there are sound
reasons for questioning the consensus, and for exploring an alternative scheme
which takes its cue from the lack of reference in the Book of Acts to any events
later than AD 62, even though the Neronian persecution in Rome in AD 64/5
had such major implications for the church in Rome and was the probable cause
of the death of both Peter and Paul, the two key figures of the book. In my
commentary on Mark³² I have noted the patristic tradition that Mark’s gospel
was written while Peter was still alive, i.e. not later than the early sixties, and
while there is probably an element of guesswork in such traditions, such a dating
would tie in with the proposal³³ that the main period of the writing of the
Synoptic Gospels was in the sixties (a period when, incidentally, it is more likely
that the apostle Matthew would still be active than in the fourth quarter of the
century). A pre-70 date for Matthew remains a minority view, but one which has
been strongly supported,³⁴ and which is usually dismissed not so much by
specific arguments as on the basis of a preferred overall dating scheme. The
issue is not of great exegetical importance for most of the gospel, but it does
clearly affect one’s assessment of the anti-temple theme which is such a
prominent emphasis in Matthew. In the commentary that follows I shall favor the
possibility that the gospel was, as Irenaeus declared, written in the sixties, while
the temple was still standing.
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