Matthew's Christology
Matthew’s Christology is one that emphasises to a Jewish audience the Jewishness of Jesus. It will be the purpose of this paper to argue that the raison d’etre of Matthew’s Christology is to portray Jesus as entirely compatible if not with the Judaism of his day then with ancient Judaic tradition, namely the Old Testament. Whilst there are numerous titles given to Jesus that are exclusive/predominant within the Matthean account, such as that of Son of God, it is the writer’s assertion that these merely complement Matthew’s central theses; this being the portrayal of Jesus as Messiah and so, as such, will not be investigated except where they promote this conclusion. This fulfilment of Judaic tradition will be investigated in three separate yet interrelated areas: Jesus as the fulfilment of Hebraic messianic expectation, Jesus’ role as a Jewish teacher and Jesus as inaugurator of God’s Kingdom.
Matthew is a Semitic gospel written as an encouragement to Jewish Christians and as an apologetic to unbelieving Jews. From the outset Matthew identifies Jesus as one of royal Davidic lineage and Abrahamic descent. Matthew immediately identifies with Judaic tradition portraying Jesus with the Immanuel figure of Isaiah 7:14 (1:23). This motif of the Jewishness of the gospel is especially prevalent in its depiction of Jesus’ role as the fulfilment of the Old Testament’s messianic hope (2:4, 26:63) as well as running throughout the text on varying levels. Perhaps one of the most interesting theories offered in detailing this continuation between testaments is Leske’s proposal that Jesus’ role and ministry is antecedent to the Isaianic literature, and, in particular, the Servant nation of Israel. Whilst a compr...
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E: This is all rather interesting, but what does the Gospel of Matthew of concerning Jesus’s lineage. In other words, how do they back up his “messiahship”?
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The Gospel of Matthew exhibits the plan of atonement and salvation for all people and the beginning of a new era. The Kingdom has come. Matthew’s Gospel is eschatological. Through the direct use of and allusions to the Hebrew scriptures, as well as fulfillment citations Matthew clearly connects Jesus’ life and ministry with Israel’s traditions and promised history.4...
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The book consists of three parts. The first part has five chapters of which focuses on explaining what the key questions are and why we find them difficult to answer. The second part has nine chapters explaining in detail what N.T. Wright considers Jesus’ public career and the approach he had in first century Palestine. The third part of the book, the last chapter, challenges readers to wrestle with the questions of Jesus’ life and ministry.
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The reason that the Gospel of Matthew is in the first place among the four Gospels is due to the early church tradition that Matthew was the earliest one who recorded Lord’s word and Jesus stories. In the fifth century, Augustine of Hippo claimed that "the canonical order of the four Gospels was the chronological order." In the late-eighteenth century, J. J. Griesbach stated that The Gospel of Mark was a short version of the combination of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. In the nineteenth century, German scholars concluded that the Gospel of Matthew was preceded by the Gospel of Mark and Matthew used the Gospel of Mark as his primary source. No matter which theory that most New Testament scholars accept, Matthew did not simply copy sources from other Gospels, but also included his own ideas and quoted verses from the Old Testament. So the question of readers should rise is "How strong relationship did the Gospel of Matthew have with the Old Testament?" or "How accurately did Matthew use the Old Testament?
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