"The English translation at the beginning of each section is France's own, designed to provide the basis for the commentary. This adept translation uses contemporary idioms and, where necessary, gives priority to clarity over literary elegance." -- BOOK JACKET.

This volume examines a multitude of characters in Matthew's gospel and provides an in-depth look at the different approaches currently employed by scholars working with literary and reader-oriented methods. Beginning with an introduction on 'the properties of character' and the several aspects involved in the creation of person, the contributors provide a close reading of numerous characters and character types in the Gospel of Matthew. Including Mary, King Herod, John the Baptist, Jesus the Preacher, Jesus the Teacher, God the Father, the Roman Centurion, Peter, Women, Gentiles, Scribes and Pharisees, and Romans. Such close studies aid the understanding of different issues in Matthean characterization, while also charting the development of hermeneutical vistas that have developed in contemporary scholarship, resulting in a collection of exegetical character studies that are self-consciously working from a literary, narrative-critical, reader-oriented, or related methodology.

In this meticulously researched study, David C. Sim reconstructs the Matthean community at the time the Gospel was written and traces its full history. Dr. Sim demonstrates that the Matthean community should be located in Antioch in the late first century, and he argues that the history of this community can only be understood in the context of the factionalism of the early Christian movement. He identifies two distinctive and opposing Christian perspectives: the first represented by the Jerusalem church and the Matthean community, which maintained that the Christian message must be preached within the context of Judaism; and the second represented by Paul and the Pauline communities, in which Christians were not expected to observe the Jewish law. Dr. Sim reconstructs not only the conflict between Matthew's Christian Jewish community and the Pauline churches, but also its further conflicts with the Jewish and Gentile worlds in the aftermath of the Jewish war.

This book, first published in 1995, introduces, retells and analyses the Gospel of Matthew.

For centuries the Jewish community in Europe possessed a copy of Matthew in the Hebrew language. The Jews' use of this document during the Middle Ages is imperfectly known. Occasionally excerpts from it appeared in polemical writings against Christianity.

"This study guide is the second in a new Paulist Press series - The Bible: Question by Question. It provides an interactive, dynamic, and more engaging way to study the Bible by inviting the reader to read the entire Gospel of Matthew in the context of certain fundamental recurring themes. This distinctive guide also helps readers and group-discussion leaders to relate the gospel text to their own Christian experience and to that of the contemporary Church." "This unique format, which was initially developed by William Miller in his commentary on the Book of Genesis, engages the reader in thoughtful interaction with the actual text. The introduction and conclusion in each chapter also provide material found in no other traditional commentaries." "This book, along with the entire Bible: Question by Question series, is ideal for use by adult bible-study groups, by introductory scripture courses in colleges, universities, and seminaries, as well as by individuals interested in personal study."--BOOK JACKET.

Standford Rives seeks to provide the best approximation of the original Gospel of Matthew based upon Hebrew sources. There is no disputing Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew. In about 400 AD, Jerome translated it from a copy at the Library of Caesarea. It was quoted dozens of times by the earliest church commentators. Jerome explained that our Greek version of Matthew came from this Hebrew version. Jerome noted a score of variants that were interesting. The Shem-Tob version of Matthew is the best candidate to reflect the original Hebrew Matthew. Standford Rives, a Christian attorney, tries to meticulously assemble what likely was the original Matthew from all these sources. It is hoped that this will be edifying to the faithful. This first of three volumes collects all viable earliest variants for Matthew overlaid on the framework of the American Standard Version of Matthew from 1901. These variants are color coded for easy identification. The variants are footnoted so the reader can read its source and weigh its strength and viability. The second volume will collect important scholarly material on the validity of the early variants and the significance of the changes to the traditional text. Topics covered in volume two include whether the virgin birth was originally present, whether Yahweh's name was originally used, and on the aid to apologetics which the original Matthew variants provides. The third volume is intended for devotional reading. It attempts to represent the best estimate of what the entire original Gospel of Matthew contained. There is no commentary. It is simply a smooth flowing text with the best variants reflected in the text using color coding to signify the source of each variant. The same color codes are used in volume three as used in volume one. They will tell the reader the general source of the variant, but to know the precise citation for the variant, one must refer back to Volume I. The first and third volumes are separated to keep customer purchase costs down. This allows the readers to choose whether to purchase just volume one or also volume three to know the contents of the Original Gospel of Matthew.

The Zechariah Tradition and the Gospel of Matthew is a comprehensive study of the ways Matthew utilizes Zechariah texts and traditions. Against the background of materials from Qumran, and apocryphal and deuterocanonical writings Matthew’s explicit citations of Zechariah are examined; the influence of Zechariah elsewhere in the First Gospel is identified; and the extent to which Matthew alludes to characteristic Zechariah themes, alone or in combination with other prophetic traditions, is explored. Zechariah traditions appear in Matthew’s distinctive materials, as well as in texts Matthew has transmitted, or altered, from Mark and Q. The impact of Zech 9-14 is not limited to the Passion Narrative but extends through Matthew’s Infancy and Galilean healing narratives, as well; important concepts from Zech 1-8 are also discerned in the Infancy and Passion Narratives. Moss works through the canonical order of Matthew; this enables readers to appreciate the cumulative effect of Zechariah’s influence at each stage of the Gospel story. Two appendices, one arranged according to Zechariah and the other to Matthew, list possible references to Zechariah in Matthew. This monograph is useful for Matthean studies and it is an insightful investigation of how one set of Old Testamental traditions are appropriated in one canonical Gospel and in the New Testament.

According to Eusebius (H. E. VI. 36) the Commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew were written about the same time as the Contra Celsum, when Origen was over sixty years of age, and may therefore be probably assigned to the period 246-248.

The Gospel of Matthew and Its Readers is a biblical commentary with a difference. Howard Clarke first establishes contemporary scholarship's mainstream view of Matthew's Gospel, and then presents a sampling of the ways this text has been read, understood, and applied through two millennia. By referring forward to Matthew's readers (rather than back to the text's composers), the book exploits the tensions between what contemporary scholars understand to be the intent of the author of Matthew and the quite different, indeed often eccentric and bizarre ways this text has been understood, assimilated, and applied over the years. The commentary is a testament to the ambiguities and elasticity of the text and a cogent reminder that interpretations are not fixed, nor texts immutably relevant. And unlike other commentaries, this one gives space to those who have questioned, rejected, or even ridiculed Matthew's messages, since Bible-bashing, like Bible-thumping, is a historically significant part of the experience of reading the Bible.