The New Testament in Modern English [antikvár]

THE GOSPELS The Gospel of Matthew Early tradition ascribed this Gospel to the apostle Matthew, but scholars nowadays almost all reject this view. The author, whom we still can conveniently call Matthew, has plainly drawn on the mysterious "<2"i "vMch may have been a collection of oral traditions. He has used Mark* s Gospelfreely, though he has rearranged the order of events and has in several instances used different words for what is plainly the same story. The style is lucid, calm and "tidy". Matthew writes with a certain judiciousness as though he Mmself had carefully digested his material and is convinced not only of its truth but of the divine pattern that lies behind the historic facts. Matthew is quite plainly a Jew who has been convinced of Jesus* messianic claim. It is probable that he is writing primarily for fellow Jews. The frequent references to the Old Testament, the sense that Jesus* primary mission is to the "lost sheep" of the house of Israel and the implication that the Church, founded on the rock of Peter*s faith, is the new Israel, all bear the marks of a converted Jew writing for fellow Jews. He attempts to convey a logical conviction that the new teaching was not only prophesied in the old but does in fact supersede it in the divine plan. If Matthew wrote, as is now generally supposed, somewhere between the years 85 and 90, this Gospel*s value as a Christian document is emrmous. It is, so to speak, a second generation view of Jesus Christ the Son of God and the Son of Man. It is being written at that distance in time from the great event where sober reflection and sturdy conviction can perhaps give a better balanced portrait of God*s unique revelation of himself than could be given by those who were so close to the light that they were partly dazzled by it.