Fr. Charles of Senior's book on Matthew

 A Review of What are the saying about Matthew?

In Donald Senior's book entitled What are they saying about Matthew? The revised and expanded edition printed through the Paulist Press in 1996, the author updates and explains studies of the Gospel of Matthew since World War II. In the book, the author reviews the various criticisms used in the past and during the post-WWII period to help the student draw greater insight into the ever evolving understanding of this Gospel. These criticisms include redaction, composition, historical, redaction, and narrative with their use depended upon the scholar's intent to give meaning to the Gospel. Senior points out that the post-WWII biblical scholarship used the social sciences, such as cultural anthropology, sociology, and economics to arrive at their interpretation of the Gospel (Senior, pg. 3).

Senior begins answering his question, "what are they saying about Matthew?" with a review of the community to which Matthew is attached. Then Senior moves the reader through the possible sources of Matthew's material, Matthew's theology and his views about salvation history, the Law, the Old Testament, Christology, and finally concluding with the theology of the Church. These categories were chosen by Senior because he saw them as the "most crucial, most comprehensive, and the ones that give the reader a sense of how contemporary scholarship views the gospel" (Senior, pg. 5).
Information and speculation about Matthew's community is derived primarily from the Gospel because to date there have been no other direct writings about Matthew's community for the scholar to gather information. However, the scholar can draw much information from a number of religious texts that were written during the period when the Matthew's community existed including rabbinical works, the writings of Josephus, Eusebius, and Papias. Each text can provide the student who carefully studies the gospel light into the makeup, thought process, and historical events experienced by the community. However, it is important to remember that the viewpoints expressed by some scholars about Matthew's community are not necessary accepted by all scholars and like every study, there are opposing viewpoints.

Senior writes that W.D. Davies, a Matthew scholar who wrote The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount, felt that the purpose of Matthew's gospel was to counter the writings of a group of rabbis who expelled Christian Jews from the synagogues for being heretics. It was most likely that the community of Matthew was made up of these Christian Jews who were Greek-speaking, urban, and prosperous, and, it was most likely for individuals that Matthew wrote his Gospel (Senior pg. 88). Although other scholars disagree and believe that the members of Matthew's community had not fully broken from the Jewish community, it still is plausible that these were the members to whom the gospel was written.

Moving away from the community of Matthew to the identification of Matthew, Senior presents several scholars' views on the subject. Some say that Matthew was a Jew while others maintained that he was a Gentle, so what is the conclusion of most scholars? There is no clear answer and division remains, however, it makes sense that if Matthew did not have a thorough understanding of the culture and customs of Judaism that he was a Gentle (Senior, pg 16).

Having established that there was a Jewish Christian Community, that Matthew had interaction with that community, and that Matthew was most likely a Gentile, then the question is begged why was the Gospel written and what was its purpose? Again, different scholars offer different viewpoints but the conclusions are summed up by Senior who wrote that the "primary purpose of the gospel is to encourage his readers to understand reality, past, present, and future, in the light of Jesus" (Senior, pg 20).
In Senior's chapter on the Sources and Structure of the Gospel he points out that scholars today believe in the two-source theory for the source of Matthew's material (Senior, pg. 22). Most likely the material came from Mark and from the "Q" source. The structure of the text is a more complicated issue. There have been a number of theories developed which explored the structure of the gospel, including the geological-chronological and topical structure of David Bauer, the Discourse Format of Benjamin Bacon, Chiastic format proposed by Peter F. Ellis, and the "From that time....." format studied by Jack Dean Kingsbury and others (Senior, pg 25-37). Although each theory contributes to a deeper understanding of how and why the writer structured the text, none of them can be exclusive in their conclusions but for me all can be woven together to make sense of how the writer of Matthew used his sources.

To understand Matthew's viewpoint on salvation, the reader needs to reflect back to what Senior wrote about the purpose of the Gospel, "to understand the reality, past, present, and future, in light of Jesus" (Senior, pg 20). In Matthew, salvation history has a past, present and a future with the past woven with historical events from the Old Testament that culminates in the death and resurrection of Christ.

Senior reviews George Strecker's three stages of Matthew's history which begins with the "time of preparation" to include the pre-Jesus history then moves to the "time of Jesus" and concludes with the "time of the Church" (Senior, pg 41-42). The pre-Jesus history is the historical events that occurred and were recorded in the Old Testament. The time of Jesus events are his life, teaching, death and resurrection and the time of the church is the period of time after Jesus resurrection when what Jesus taught was carried forth by his disciples and followers.

Jack Dean Kingsbury, according to Senior (Senior, pg 44) reduces the three stage theory into a two-stage their comprising pre-Jesus history and the time of Jesus history. Kingsbury used the pre-Jesus time as Strecker outlined but combined the time of Jesus to include his ministry, death and resurrection and the church after the resurrection.

Whether one accepts either theory or the theories proposed post-World War II works by David Howell or Amy-Jill Levine, the message does not change. For Matthew, salvation history has a beginning and it comes to fulfillment in the death and resurrection of Jesus with the purpose to foster support, provide encouragement during times of trial and tribulation, and to provide hope for the future.

As indicated above, Matthew's writing to his community frequently connects the events of Jesus to the historical events of the Old Testament (Senior, pg. 51). Matthew often uses references to stress that the Old was fulfilled with Jesus such as Matthew's reference to the star that the magi saw at Jesus' birth which was taken from the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament's (Nm 24,17). For Senior, "the Old Testament quotations in Matthew are not mere "‘proof texts' or embroideries on the gospel story but an integral part of the gospel's message, placing the story of Jesus in the broader context of Israel's history and underscoring the messianic authority of Jesus" (Senior, pg 61).

With regard to Matthew's view of the Law, Senior presents many viewpoints to consider. However together they draw to three issues, 1) the Law isn't adherence within and outside the community it is the basis of Matthew's message. 2) Matthew uses Jesus' authority as the Son of God and the messiah to challenge the traditional interpretations of the Law. 3) The inconsistency within the writings about the Law is part of Matthew's overall theological approach to the message being conveyed to the community (Senior, pg 73).

Senior explores the Christology in Matthew's gospel by exploring the titles Matthew has given Jesus, especially the title of Son of God and Healer. Senior points out that Matthew uses the title Son of God "in every major section of the gospel and correlates with essential features of Matthew's overall theology" (Senior, pg 75). Another important title, similar to the Son of God is the title Son of Man. This was such an important title that Matthew used it approximately thirty times throughout the gospel. Also, Matthew titles Jesus as healer in both the physical healing which Birger Gerhadsson describes as therapeutic healing stories and the non-therapeutic miracles which he points out are demonstrated in the narratives of the calming of the storm and Jesus walking on water (Senior, pg 85). According to Senior, it was important for Matthew to demonstrate that the authority of Jesus transcends any human ability (Senior, pg. 87).

In the final chapter of the book, Senior reviews the various thoughts concerning Matthew's view of discipleship and Church. He provides the reader with the following summary of Matthew's church when he writes, "Finally, belonging to Jesus' church does involve faith in Christ and obedience to the will of the Father as taught by Jesus" (Senior, pg 91). He further writes that the "church was an assembly of those who respond in faith and obedience to the invitation of the coming kingdom" (Senior, pg. 93). As for discipleship, Senior used Jean Zumstein's work to describe Matthew's portrayal of the disciples as having those qualities of the Christian experience (Senior, pg 91). From this point, Senior details the many sides and roles of Peter as the both leader and disciple.

In conclusion, Senior provided a more in depth view of Matthew than provided by Raymond E. Brown's analysis of the gospel. Granted, Brown had limited space in which to present his analysis and therefore in order to achieve a richer and fuller understanding of the gospel, Senior's book, "What are they saying about Matthew" was necessary to fill in gaps and provide more insight into Matthew's views of community, church, Christology, and discipleship.


Works Cited
Donald Senior, C.P. What are they saying about Matthew. NewYork/Mahway: Paulist Press, 1996.
The New American Bible. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1970