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Archive for the ‘Matthew’ Category


The Sermon on the Mount and Spiritual Exercises

In Brill, George Branch-Trevathan, Gospels, Matthew, Nathan Charles Ridlehoover, Philosophy on October 23, 2020 at 2:54 pm

2020.10.18 | George Branch-Trevathan. The Sermon on the Mount and Spiritual Exercises: The Making of the Matthean Self. NovTSup 178. Leiden: Brill, 2020. ISBN 978-90-04-42444-9.

Review by Charles Nathan Ridlehoover, Columbia International Seminary.

George Branch-Trevathan is Assistant Professor of Religion at Thiel College, Greenville, PA. As a recent graduate of Emory University (PhD), Branch-Trevathan presents in The Sermon on the Mount and Spiritual Exercises: The Making of the Matthean Self a revised version of his doctoral dissertation. The following monograph is an ambitious project. Although Branch-Trevathan begins with a simple enough question (and incidentally ends with the same question): how do people attain rigorous moral ideals? —the answer is much more complicated.

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Matthew, Disciple and Scribe

In Baker Academic, Ben Hussung, Biblical Theology, Intertextuality, Matthew, New Testament, Patrick Schreiner on January 30, 2020 at 4:00 pm

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2020.1.3 | Patrick Schreiner. Matthew, Disciple and Scribe: The First Gospel and Its Portrait of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019. ISBN: 9780801099489.

Review by Ben Hussung, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Patrick Schreiner serves as Assistant Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Western Seminary, and he has produced several compelling works early in his career. The latest of these is Matthew, Disciple and Scribe, in which he presents a thorough case for Matthew becoming “a teacher in the style of Jesus” (p. 2). More specifically, he argues, “Matthew expounds the wisdom of Jesus by becoming a scribe and teacher to future generations, mediating the instruction of his sage” (p. 2). Schreiner builds his arguments in two parts. In the first, he argues for Matthew’s identity as a scribe, outlining his convictions and methods, and in the second, he details Matthew’s scribal work, exploring Matthew’s presentation of Jesus in relation to David, Moses, Abraham, and Israel. Read the rest of this entry »


The Lord’s Prayer

In C. Clifton Black, Lord's Prayer, Matthew, Nathan Charles Ridlehoover, Westminster John Knox on November 27, 2019 at 4:00 pm

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2019.11.16 | C. Clifton Black. The Lord’s Prayer. Interpretation. Louisville: WJK, 2018. ISBN: 978-0664234898.

Review by Charles Nathan Ridlehoover, Columbia International Seminary.

C. Clifton Black has been the Otto A. Piper Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary since 1999. Black’s previous appointments include Southern Methodist University, the University of Rochester, and Duke University. Black’s treatment of the Lord’s Prayer is the newest volume in the Interpretation supplement series. These volumes are designed to supplement the regular commentaries by examining more specific texts that have played an important role in the faith and life of the Christian community.

In the following volume, Clifton Black provides a wealth of resources for the inquiring pray-er of the Lord’s Prayer. His volume has come about during a miniature renaissance of Lord’s Prayer studies. Read the rest of this entry »


Matthew’s New David at the End of Exile

In Brill, David (king of Israel), Intertextuality, Matthew, Max Botner, Messianism, Nicholas PIOTROWSKI, review, Scripture on May 31, 2017 at 2:00 pm

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2017.05.12 | Nicholas G. Piotrowski, Matthew’s New David at the End of Exile: A Socio-Rhetorical Study of Scriptural Quotations. NovTSup 170. Leiden: Brill, 2016. ISBN: 9789004326781

Reviewed by Max Botner, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main.

Matthew’s use of the Jewish scriptures—particularly his fulfillment citations—has long perplexed modern readers. Has the evangelist ransacked his scriptures in a contorted effort to justify his Christology? Or is there another principle guiding his selection of scriptural source material? In this revised version of his 2013 Wheaton College dissertation “Scripture and Community: The Socio-Rhetorical Effect of Matthew’s Prologue Quotations,” Nicholas Piotrowski mounts a fresh and compelling argument for the latter. His thesis is that “the prologue-quotations, individually and collectively, select a frame that evokes one pervasive OT subplot: «David/end-of-exile»” (p. 4). Read the rest of this entry »


Richard Hays, “Retrospective Reading: The Challenges of Gospel-Shaped Hermeneutics”

In Edinburgh, Gospel of Mark, Gospels, Gunning Lectures, HB/OT, Hermeneutics, Intertextuality, John, Kerry Lee, Luke-Acts, Matthew, New Testament, NT Theology, Richard HAYS, Scripture on February 8, 2012 at 10:41 am

A report on a paper given by Richard Hays (Dean and George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke University in Durham, NC), 26 January 2012. Professor Hays is delivering this year’s Gunning Lectures at New College, University of Edinburgh, on the topic “Israel’s Scripture Through the Eyes of the Gospel Writers.” I should note that Professor Hays has let me know that he is preparing a book for publication based upon these Gunning lectures.

RBECS is also on facebook, here.

The last of Richard Hays’ lectures in the 2012 Gunning series was part overview of the previous four lectures and part return to and exploration of the somewhat troubling assertion he made in his first lecture that modern hermeneutics (speaking, for the most part, in terms of the Christian church’s life and teaching) could and perhaps should imitate that of the Gospel writers. This assertion he expounded through nine proposals.

Rather than reporting on all of the first half of Hays’ lecture, let me refer the reader to the reports already posted on Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. However, there were a few comments in this half of the lecture which were new and noteworthy. Read the rest of this entry »


Richard Hays, “Torah Reconfigured: Reading Scripture with Matthew”

In Edinburgh, Gospels, Gunning Lectures, HB/OT, Hermeneutics, Intertextuality, Kerry Lee, Matthew, New Testament, NT Theology, Richard HAYS, Scripture, SEMINAR REPORTS, Septuagint on January 25, 2012 at 8:29 am

A report on a paper given by Richard Hays (Dean and George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke University in Durham, NC), 19 January 2012. Professor Hays is delivering this year’s Gunning Lectures at New College, University of Edinburgh, on the topic “Israel’s Scripture Through the Eyes of the Gospel Writers.”

RBECS is also on facebook, here

Professor Hays’ third lecture in the 2012 Gunning series focused on the Gospel of Matthew, whose use of the Old Testament has become a central feature of the scholarly characterisation of the New Testament’s overall appropriation of the Old Testament. Very often, the Gospel writers’ use of the Old Testament is understood as a series of proof-texts which show no concern for the meaning or context of the cited or alluded Old Testament reference. Professor Hays’ aim in these lectures, and especially in this one, is to challenge this view by closely reading the Gospels with special sensitivity to the unique narrative strategies of the individual writers.

The intertextual strategy of Matthew in many ways makes a striking contrast with that of Mark. Read the rest of this entry »


Andrew T. Lincoln, “Contested Paternity and Contested Readings: Jesus’ Conception in Matthew 1:18-25”

In Andrew T. LINCOLN, Dan Batovici, Matthew, SEMINAR REPORTS, St Andrews on October 30, 2010 at 1:22 am

This is a report on a paper presented by Andrew T. Lincoln, Portland Chair in New Testament Studies, University of Gloucestershire, in the Biblical Studies Seminar at the School of Divinity, St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews, 28 Oct 2010.

The article is now published in JSNT, here.

Andrew T. Lincoln’s paper revisited the arguments of two opposing readings of Matthew’s account of the conception of Jesus. The traditional view (exemplified in the paper by Brown, Davies/Allison, Luz) is to read in Mt 1:18-28 that Jesus’ conception is a virginal one, while the “revised” reading (Schaberg, Catchpole, Miller) sets out to argue that, at least in Matthew, a virginal conception is not necessarily implied.

Three indicators were presented in support of the traditional reading of the conception in Matthew: the conception by Holly Spirit in 1:18 and 20, the citation from LXX Isa. 7:14 in 1:23 where the παρθένος is mentioned, and, in 1:25, the lack of marital relations before Jesus’ birth. Jesus is then the “adopted” son of Joseph, and was conceived through the agency of the Holy Spirit. This happened not in a sexual manner, detail confirmed in 1:25 – no marital relations before the birth. Read the rest of this entry »