|
Article Information
|
Author:
Andries G. van Aarde1
Affiliation:
1Department of New Testament Studies, University of Pretoria,
South Africa
Note:
This article was initially presented as a paper at the International Meeting of the Context Group that was held on
02−05 August 2010 at the University of Pretoria,
South Africa.
Correspondence to:
Andries van Aarde
Email:
andries.vanaarde@up.ac.za
Postal address:
Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, Lynnwood Road, Hatfield 0183, Pretoria, South Africa
Dates:
Received: 10 Dec. 2010
Accepted: 10 Dec. 2010
Published: 03 Oct. 2011
How to cite this article:
Van Aarde, A.G., 2011, ‘Regeneration and resurrection in Matthew – Peasants in campo hearing time signals from
scribes’, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 67(3), Art. #1012, 7 pages.
doi:10.4102/hts.v67i3.1012
Copyright Notice:
© 2011. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS OpenJournals. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
ISSN: 0259-9422 (print)
ISSN: 2072-8050 (online)
|
|
|
|
Regeneration and resurrection in Matthew – Peasants in campo hearing time signals from scribes
|
|
In This Original Research...
|
Open Access
|
• Abstract
• Intent
• The Mediterranean conception of time as a social construct
• Social location
• The end as a new beginning
• References
• Footnotes
|
|
The article aimed to describe the distinctive element in the use of the motif of the resurrection in the Gospel of Matthew in comparison with Mark,
Luke and the Sayings Gospel Q. It argued that the distinctive element occurs where parallel texts in Luke 22:24–30, Matthew 19:27–29 and
Mark 10:28–31 converge. The distinctive element pertains particularly to the meaning of the Greek expression ‘en tē palingenesia’
in Matthew 19:28. By elaborating on time as a social construct, the article showed how Matthew deals with the conception of time differently than both Mark and
Luke. It illustrated that the Gospel of Matthew represents a storyline consisting of a circular movement between ‘genesis’ (Mt 1:1) and
‘palingenesia’ (Mt 19:28), where the word ‘palingenesia’ denotes the meaning ‘regeneration’ rather than
‘resurrection’. Matthew does not narrate an abrupt transition from linear time to clock time. Both co-existed in a world where illiterate
peasants and literate scribes scheduled their lives in terms of motifs pertaining to a linear and a punctual conception of time.
Matthew’s use of the motif of the resurrection differs from that of Mark and Luke. The distinctive element amongst the three synoptic
gospels converges in Luke 22:24–30//Matthew 19:27–29//Mark 10:28–31,1 and particularly with regard to the Greek expressions
en tē palingenesia (Mt 19:28), en tē basileia mou (Lk 22:29, 30), and en tō aiōni tō erchomenō
zōēn aiōnion (Mk 10:30).
The Revised Standard Version translates the passage in Matthew as follows:
Then Peter said in reply, ‘Lo, we have left everything and followed you. What then shall we have?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly,
I say to you, in the new world [en tē palingenesia], when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me
will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’. (Mt 28:27–28; translation: Revised Standard Version, in Aland
& Aland [1981] 1998:54)
Luke’s translational interpretation inserts kingdom, that is, ‘empire language’:
‘For the Son of man goes as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!’ …’You are those who
have continued with me in my trials and I assigned to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my
kingdom [en tē basileia mou], and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel’. (Lk 22:22, 28–30; translation:
Revised Standard Version, in Aland & Aland [1981] 1998:233–234)
In Mark, an eschatological projection into God’s ‘golden era’2 replaces both the concepts new world (Matthew)
and God’s kingdom (Luke):
Peter began to say to him: ‘Lo, we have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has
left house or brothers or sisters or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and
brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecution, and in the age to come eternal life [en tō aiōni tō
erchomenō zōēn aiōnion]’. (Mk 10:29–30; translation: Revised Standard Version, in Aland & Aland [1981] 1998:123–124)
Behind the versions of Luke and Matthew lies a common source, namely the Sayings Gospel Q. The elements in Matthew and Luke that probably originated with
Q are the references to ‘thrones’ and ‘twelve tribes of Israel’ (cf. Dupont 1964:361–362). These concepts lead to
Matthew’s reading3:
From that time [tote], Peter answered him, saying: ‘behold, we have left everything and followed you. What then shall be ours?’
However, Jesus said to them: ‘Amen, I tell you, in the renewal [at the regeneration; en tē palingenesia], when the Son of man sits
on his throne of glory, you who followed me, you also will sit on twelve thrones, obtaining justice for the twelve tribes of Israel’.
(Mt 19:27–29, [author’s own translation])4
This logion is a superb example of a conflation of sayings or elements in sayings in the Jesus tradition, where certain individual features5
originated with Q, others with Mark and yet others with Sondergut in either Luke or Matthew.6
In a historical-critical paradigm, an exegete would interpret Matthew in terms of Matthew’s sources – and in this case they are Q,
Mark, and Matthean Sondergut.
Mark’s context suggests transience, meaning ‘the age to come’. When Matthew transmits this notion, according to Wolfgang Schenk
(1987:18), he refers to Israel’s renewal. In other apocalyptic writings (e.g. 4 Ezr 7:30–32; 2 Baruch 32:6, 44:12, 57:2; 1 Enoch 72:1),
the word also has a transient connotation referring to recreation – the ‘time of the regeneration’, a connotation that is, according
to Francis W. Beare (1981), also present in Matthew’s reinterpretation of the Stoic theory about the ‘commencement of the next cycle of the
universe’ (Beare 1981:398). Regeneration ‘was not periodic, nor was it the commencement of a cycle essentially the same as the old’
(Beare 1981:398).
Davies and Allison ([1997] 2004:57) point out that ‘Matthew was not much interested in proffering the details of future cosmological states.’
Accordingto Davies and Allison (2004:58), the future was, above all, two things for Matthew: ‘Christ and Israel’. The palingenesia for
Matthew ‘meant the world in which Christ reigns, a world with a redeemed Israel’.
Trying to uncover the significance of the use of the Greek word palingenesia in Matthew 19:28, borrowed from Matthew’s Sondergut, is
important to better understand Matthew’s distinctive interpretation of the resurrection of Jesus. The implied meaning of the word palingenesia
for both Philo (De vita Mosis 2.65 – see Cohn & Wendland [1902] 1962: 119–268; cf. Sim 1993:4) and Josephus (Antiquitates
Judaicae 11.66 – see Niese 1955; cf. Sim 1993:4) was regeneration rather than merely resurrection. Philo used the word as a reference
to ‘restoration of human life or the regeneration of the world after the great flood’ and Josephus to ‘the reconstitution of the Jews after
the exile’.
It is common knowledge that the conception of the resurrection should be interpreted in terms of an ‘apocalyptic’
(i.e. in an ‘eschatological’) frame of reference – though I am convinced that the foundational myth behind the resurrection belief
in biblical writings could be described in terms of the notion [re-]creatio ex nihilo (see Van Aarde 2010a). Schnocks (2009) shares the
same opinion and puts it as follows:
Insgesamt ergeben sich also zwei Aspekte: Auferstehung is Neuschöpfung in dem Sinn, dass der Schöpfergott auch über die Macht verfügt,
Töte zu einem neuen Leben aufstehen zu lassen. Auferstehung kann aber auch Neuschöpfung in dem Sinn sein, dass das Ergebnis die erneuerten und
idealen menschen einer eschatologischen Heilszeit sind. (Schnocks 2009:253)
However, the question remains whether recreation denotes simply resurrection – or is there something else at stake?
It also has long been common knowledge that Mark provides the framework for Matthew’s narrative. Q provides the point of departure from which Matthew
develops his five extensive discourses. The influence of Mark and Q goes further that his alternated narrative sections and Jesus’ speeches. Elements
from both Mark and Q also occur in the speeches. The Matthean Sondergut appears in both the speeches and the narrative sections.
The aspect of the Sondergut of Matthew which is of significance in this essay is that Matthew describes his book as the ‘genesis
(biblos geneseōs – Mt 1:1) of Jesus Christ’. Mark describes his writing as ‘euangelion’ – Mk 1:1 and
Luke as a narration (diēgēsis – Lk 1:1). The superscription of Q could be described as ‘the sayings of [the Lord]
Jesus’ (logoi [tou kuriou] Iēsou – Polag 1979:28).
Thus, to follow Derrett (1984:51–58), or for that matter, Eusebius (H.E. 5.1.62–63), and also pursued by Jerome and Augustine amongst others
(see Davies & Allison 2004:57), seeing ‘regeneration’ as a mere synonym of ‘resurrection’ will not be of much support to describe
Matthean peculiarity. A social-scientific approach that supplements historical criticism could be a way out from an impasse – especially from the
perspective of time as a social construct.
The core of the matter is the distinctiveness of the words palingenesia (Matthew), aiōn (Mark), basileia (Luke), and what the
Sayings Gospel Q had contributed that Matthew ‘envisaged the twelve disciples entering “into God’s kingly power by themselves becoming
rulers” [Marcus 1988:671]’ (Davies & Allison 2004:56). Lucan scholars generally agree that the notion of basileia belongs to the
core of the theology of Luke (cf. Wolter 1995:541). However, the understanding of its referential meaning, swings between the ‘realization of the
divine plan of eschatological salvation’ (Del Agua 1999:639) and ‘Roman imperial theology’ (Crossan 2007:15ff; see Esler 2005:10–33).
Yet, Roman imperialism does not exclude the concept ‘eschatology’.7
With regard to the word aiōn – and specifically Mark’s way of putting it as ‘the coming of eternal age’ –
one can take the remarks of Philo Judaeus (De mutatione nominum 267 – Cohn & Wendland 1962:156–203) to heart, namely that:
this type of ‘time’ is not measured by the revolutions of son and moon, but something truly mysterious, strange and new, other than the realm of
sight and sense, having its place in the realm of the incorporeal and intelligible, and to it belongs the model and archetype of time, eternity and aeon. The
word aeon [Greek: aiōn] signifies the life of the world of thought, as time [Greek: chronos] is the life of the perceptible. (cited in
Neyrey & Rowe 2008:306, n.10)
Applied to Mark’s description of the life of Jesus, the ‘time of Jesus’ is presented in terms of the numeral seven, specifically seven days
that build up to a climax on the day of the resurrection. Borg and Crossan (2006:ix–x) describe this temporal scheduling as follows:
• Sunday: ‘When they were approaching Jerusalem’ (Mk 11:1)
• Monday: ‘On the following day’ (Mk 11:12)
• Tuesday: ‘In the morning’ (Mk 11:20)
• Wednesday: ‘It was two days before Passover’ (Mk 14:1)
• Thursday: ‘On the first day if the Unleavened Bread’ (Mk 14:12)
• Friday: ‘As soon as it was morning’ (Mk 15:1)
• Saturday: ‘The Sabbath’ (Mk 15:42, 16:1)
• Sunday: ‘Very early on the first day of the week’ (Mk 16:2).
Moreover, Mark alone also details ‘morning’ and ‘evening’ events for three of those days: Sunday (11:1, 11), Monday (11:12, 19)
and Thursday (14:12, 17). Finally, Mark alone also chronicles Friday’s events in careful three-hour intervals (as with Roman military watch times):
• 06:00 – ‘As soon as it was morning’ (15:1)
• 09:00 – ‘It was nine o’clock in the morning’ (15:25)
• 12:00 – ‘When it was noon’ (15:33)
• 15:00 – ‘At three o’clock’ (15:34)
• 18:00 – ‘When evening had come’ (15:42).
According to Borg and Crossan (2006:x), ‘Mark alone has taken considerable care to tell his story so that hearers or readers can follow events
day by day and eventually hour by hour.’ This does not happen in either Matthew or Luke. In other words, the Marcan numerical motif does not feature
in Luke’s and Matthew’s versions of the resurrection narrative. The Sondergut of Luke revolves around the account of the two witnesses
underway to Emmaus (Lk 24:13–35). In Matthew the narrator relates a ‘memorializing activity’ (Erinnerungsarbeit) (Kirk 2005:191–206).
Matthew deals with the conception of time differently than both Mark and Luke. Matthew completes a circular movement when his ‘genesis’
(1:1) at the beginning becomes ‘palingenesia’ (regeneration) towards the end (19:28) where this motif set in motion the
narratives of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
It seems that Mark’s more linear understanding of time comes from his idea that the community of Jesus followers transcended Israel as the people
of God. Israel is left behind and a new community is formed. Mark was copied by Luke in this regard and even more so with regard to the contradistinction
between the ecclesia and the sunagōgē. However, for Matthew the ekklēsia does not replace Israel. For him the
ekklēsia is part of the history of Israel
(see Van Aarde 2007:416–436). Matthew considers the fall of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem temple, on the one hand, and the seeing of the coming of the
Son of man, on the other hand, as being anticipated in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. He places these two events – death and the
resurrection and the Son of man sitting on his throne – within the course of his description of the history of Israel.
The key to Matthew’s understanding of time is to be found in the ‘eschatological’ episode in which Jesus’ resurrection (Mt 27:45)
is anticipated. In this episode (Mt 27:45–54)8 an earthquake is reported, the curtain of the temple in Jerusalem is torn in two and
darkness comes upon all the land of Israel from the sixth hour until the ninth hour (i.e. 12:00–15:00). At that time Jesus died, but ‘many
bodies were raised, coming out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection, going into the holy city (i.e. Jerusalem), and coming into the view of many
others. I referred to this episode as the turning of the tide (Van Aarde 1998:16–26) – an ‘end that has begun’
(Van Aarde 2010b).
To narrate Jesus’ resurrection (meta tēn egersin autou – Mt 27:53) before it eventually happened (in Mt 28:1ff) should not
disturb our logical minds. Matthew was not concerned with what could be reckoned by present-day readers as consequently logical or illogical. He shared
imageries that also occur in Ezekiel 37:7, 12, 13–14 and 1 Enoch 51:1–2. Resemblance of the tearing of the veil can be found in the lives of the
prophets (Hab 12:11–12 – see Garland 1995:260). The earthquake bears resemblance to Zechariah 14:4 and the ‘escorted and communal
resurrection’ (Crossan 1998:392) to the Gospel of Peter 10:1–5.9
According to David Sim (1996:104), these occurrences in Matthew are ‘cosmic signs’ that ‘act as the prelude to the arrival of the Son of
man.’ The ‘bodies’ who appear as ‘living dead’ to people in an imaginary Jerusalem are Erinnerungsfiguren
(Assmann 1992:52; cf. Kirk 2005:194). The kind of language we find here seems to be Erinnerungsarbeit, which Allan Kirk (2005) describes as
‘memorializing activity’, which:
becomes particularly pronounced … in the face of crisis and calamity, as the community urgently ransacks the archetypal past for images that might
explain and give meaning to the tragic, or otherwise deeply troubling, present. (Kirk 2005:194)
What Kirk (2005) illustrates with regard to Q 11:47–51,10 also applies to Matthew 27:45–54:
The oracle maps an analogy between Jesus’ violent death and the death of the prophets .... This conflation of the present, or recent past, with the
epic past t form a unified picture, is one of the most characteristic operations of social memory: ‘In the cultural memory of a group, these two
planes of the past are pushed together in a seamless manner’ (J. Assmann 1992:49–50). (Kirk 2005:197)
Seeing Matthew’s use of the word palingenesia in 19:28 as another example of ‘memorializing activity’ in which past, future and
present are conflated, the question remains: what could Matthew’s distinctive intent be by linking Jesus’ genesis (Mt 1:1) with Israel’s
palingenesia (Mt 19:28)?
|
The Mediterranean conception of time as a social construct
|
|
Bruce Malina ([1980] 1996) contributed a great deal to our understanding that the linear (‘procedure’) time of the Mediterranean world is
totally different from the punctual time (‘Swiss’ time) of modern Europeans. However, this simple distinction can tempt one to think that
Matthew, who departed from the numerical linear time of Mark, then also departed from that of the Mediterranean – and this is not possible. How
then does one explain the difference in the conception of time between Mark and Matthew? I address this problem by investigating the history of
‘social time’, asking: when and how did the conception of linear time change to the conception of punctual time?
The audiences of both Mark and Matthew did not read the text, but were hearers of a written text which was read to them. Specifically with regard to
the communication of Matthean parables, scholars refer to a ‘hearing-doing’ schema (Gerhardson 1972:16–37). Ivor Harold Jones (1995:306)
says that it is ‘abundantly evident that it [Matthew’s redaction] was concerned only with the “quality of the one who hears”’
and, according to Jacques Dupont (1968:408–418; cf. Jones 1995:300), ‘it is a matter of the hearer’s attitude.’ Because they
themselves could not read or write, they were reminded by signals when religious rites were to be fulfilled.
The first way of measuring time was by observing the flow of water, which indicated the changing of seasons (see Dohr-Van Rossum ([1992] 1996:21–22).
The death of one season and the rebirth of the next had religious implications. This is how the concept of dying and rising gods developed. Day and night
also had religious implications.11 Sundials measured the end of the day and the beginning of night, which differed from season to season. The
agricultural activities of peasants and their households led to day and night being divided in three-hour periods, from 06:00 to 09:00, 09:00 to 12:00,
12:00 to 15:00 and 15:00 to 18:00 (Dohr-Van Rossum 1996:30). The numerical way in which Mark narrates the death and resurrection of Jesus resembles the
duration of time in which days were divided into three-hourly events. The three-hour divisions were later divided into single hours and this led to the
development of mechanical clock with its punctual time. The oldest of such clocks were decorated with religious motifs with ritual significance. The very
oldest clock shows the magi who, at the birth of Jesus, venerate him by bringing gifts. The peasants in the fields (in campo)12
would hear the bells in the clock tower which indicated to them when to bring their produce to the market and to take part in the religious rituals
(Dohr-Van Rossum 1996:246).
During the Middle Ages, this custom of bell ringing to signal the time for religious activities was taken over by Benedictine monks to regulate their
worship schedule (Dohr-Van Rossum 1996:36). They modelled it after Psalm 119:164 (‘seven times a day I praise thee’) and Psalm 119:62
(‘at midnight I rise to give thee thanks’) (Dohr-Van Rossum 1996:35). In his book, History of the hour: Clocks and modern temporal orders,
Gehard Dohr-Van Rossum (1996) describes the time prior to the invention of mechanical clocks as follows:
In the Middle Ages, ‘clock’/’horologium’ was a generic term for al devices and aids of time-reckoning and time-indication, and
occasionally also for time-ordered conduct. Regardless of how it was conducted, a water clock could be called ‘horologium’, ‘horologium
aquatile’. The ancient word ‘clepsydra’ was seldom used in the Middle Ages to describe clocks. A sundial, too, was a
‘horologium.’ On rare occasions the expression is more specific (for example, ‘horologium solarium’) … Astronomical
instruments such as astrolabes and quadranes, but also simple looking tubes, were called ‘horologium’, since they could function also as
time-measuring devices. ‘Horologium’ was also the word for tables used to determine the time of day according to the duration of daylight
or the length of shadows. ‘Horologium’ described, moreover, the instruction for determining time by means of the length of shadows or the
position of the stars in relationship to certain parts of a building. In the Eastern Churches, the daily prayer sequences that were fixed in writing were
likewise called ‘horologium’. From the high Middle Ages on, bells or bell works, if they were used in some way as a time signal, were also
called ‘horologia’ ... While the transition to the mechanical clock was not reflected in the language, the appearance and diffusion of clocks
that struck the hours was regarded as an exciting novelty. As a result there was soon a host of differentiating descriptions for this type of clock …
(Dohr-Van Rossum 1996:53)
In other words, there was no abrupt transition from linear time to clock time. Both co-existed in a world where illiterate peasants and literate monks
scheduled their lives in terms of motifs from the linear and from the punctual conception of time.
In Matthew’s conception of time, ‘linear’ and ‘punctual’ are not alternative concepts. It does not reflect the numerical
linear time of Mark when describing the death and resurrection of Jesus. In order to understand this, a text contemporary to Matthew, the Syriac version
of 2 Baruch (there was probably a Greek original) may be useful (see Gürtner 2009:10). Both 2 Baruch and Matthew use apocalyptic motifs to portray
God’s messianic kingdom. Both are the product of scribes who help villagers to cope with the consequences of the destruction of Jerusalem and the
temple. As long as the temple is there, regulated rituals take place. The destruction of the temple disrupts this. With these writings, the scribes empower
them by explaining that God is still present even though the temple is no more. The disruption was interpreted positively, namely that it had triggered the
coming of the messiah.
Herman Waetjen (1976:46–53) indicates that the turning of the tide in Israel’s history is already narrated at the beginning of the Gospel of
Matthew in the composition of Jesus’ genealogical record as the Messiah of Israel. The Messiah-Apocalypse of 2 Baruch 53–74 also divides the
history of Israel into three epochs of fourteen seasons each (see Gürtner 2009:93–119) and this concurs with the genealogical record of the
Messiah in Matthew.13 In Matthew 1:17, both the periods of David and the Babylonian exile mark both the end of a previous epoch and the
commencement of the next one in the history of Israel.
Both of these transitions are related to the presence or absence of the temple in Jerusalem. In terms of these two epochs in the history of Israel, one
can expect that the period of the Messiah, like that of David and the Babylonian exile, is also related both to the end of a period, which concludes
with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, and to the commencement of a new Temple period. However, the third epoch, which marks the commencement
of the second Temple period, ends with the unlucky number thirteen, exactly at that point in history which Matthew refers to the birth of
ho Iēsous ho legomenos Christos. In other words, the unnamed fourteenth generation forms a gap (Leerstelle) in the
plot of the narrative which the hearer of Matthew must fill with information gained from internal material from the narrative itself or from external
material from intertexts related to Matthew. Matthew’s apocalyptic model of the history of Israel, which culminates in the messianic period, concurs
with the Messiah-Apocalypse of 2 Baruch 53–54 (see Gürtner 2009:93–119). In this Apocalypse, we also find three epochs of fourteen periods
each, which are portrayed in terms of the ‘procedure time’ of the rainy seasons. Here too, the presence or absence of the temple in Jerusalem is
an indication of good and bad periods in the history of Israel. The messianic empire forms the grand finale.
In 2 Baruch 53–74 the story of the disruption and the advent of the messianic kingdom is described by means of the image of flowing water in numerical
periods. There is the flow of dark water and the flow of clear water; dark water symbolises disruption and death, whilst clear water symbolises birth and
rebirth. According to Baruch, dark water moves in 12 periods. The thirteenth period is the worst, but also the turning point. From the fourteenth period the
water is clear, indicating that the disruption was replaced by renewal – the idea that the messianic kingdom is here.
The Matthew story of the genesis of Jesus is also divided into periods of 12, 13 and then 14 which is the renewal. The first cycle is from creation to the
destruction of creation. The renewal, the fourteenth, refers to the kingdom of the Davidic dynasty. In the second cycle the transition from period 12 to 13
refers to the destruction of the dynasty and Babylonian exile. The renewal, the fourteenth, is the returning from exile and the receiving of the land again.
In the third cycle the transition from period 12 to 13 refers to the destruction; shame is intensified, from which the fourteenth period emerges with the
birth of Jesus, who was called the Messiah.
By inference, one can say that Matthew describes the last period of Jesus’ life as betrayal and rejection, that is, the twelfth period. Jesus’
crucifixion pertains to the thirteenth period. With hindsight, the crucifixion of Jesus mirrors the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. However,
this intensified destruction resulted in the restoration of God’s empire (expressed in the Q Saying and referring to the 12 disciples wearing crowns
and ruling the world) and the ekklēsia experiences the palingēnesia, because the destruction of the temple represents the dark side.
The clear side is the resurrection, and through this linear and punctual time merge.
The transition from the thirteenth period to the not-mentioned fourteenth in this history refers to the ‘turning of the tide’. The thirteenth
period is concerned with the high point of the corruption of the Temple authorities which passes into of the final destruction of the Temple cult of
Jerusalem in the midst of cosmic catastrophes. The fourteenth is concerned with the construction of a Temple which is not built by human hands. Matthew
projects the death of the righteous Jesus, which he experiences as the result of extraordinary corruption of the Temple authorities in Jerusalem, into the
imaginary time of the vision of the coming of the Son of man. Looking back to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE, Matthew describes both the
death of the Messiah and the vision of the coming of the Son of man. This view of the history of Israel leads Matthew to a specific adaptation of the traditions
concerning the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus.14
Social location
During the ‘social time’ of the ‘horologium’, peasants in campo heard time signals from Matthew as village scribe,
by means of which they were ensured that Israel’s regeneration had become a reality on account of Jesus’ death and resurrection. How
could one picture this message?
In my opinion, Matthew did not originate in Antioch, but somewhere in northern Galilee and southern Syria after 70 CE (Galilaia tōn ethnôn
– Mt 4:15). The Gospel of Matthew was written by scribes and heard by peasants. There was conflict in this region between the ‘scribe’
(grammateus) ‘Matthew’ and the other village scribes, who were in the process of establishing the first phase of a Pharisaic rabbinate.
The Gospel of Matthew could, therefore, be seen as similar to the social location of Q, as a product of scribal activity within the context of the
revitalisation of villages, after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem (contra to, inter alia, Nolland 2005:16). The communities struggled
to come to terms with the loss of Jerusalem and the temple. Since the city of God no longer existed, they had to find God’s presence in a
‘conflictual’ environment of village communities.
After the temple was destroyed, the Pharisaic scribes and sages reorganised themselves in places such as Jamnia (in Judea), Galilee and Syria. There
they tried to duplicate the old value systems, especially those regulations concerning hierarchy in society and the purity ideology of the Jerusalem
temple, in the households of the villages. A similar attempt at revitalising the village communities was found amongst the Jesus groups. The value
system that they implemented was based on Jesus’ alternative understanding of the Torah. The difference in value systems and interests led to
conflict between the Pharisaic scribes and the scribes amongst the followers of Jesus. Amid Roman exploitation, the scribes could be seen to be engaged
in village restoration. There was conflict in the villages between the two groups of scribes: the followers of Jesus, who acknowledged him as Messiah,
and those Israelites who upheld a Messianic view. The conflict centred on the interpretation of the Torah: Jesus could either be seen as the new Moses
who fulfilled the Torah, or in terms of the traditional Mosaic view, as it was regulated by the Temple cult. Conceding the differences amongst scholars
as to the ‘Jewish setting’ of 1st-century Galilee, and subtle variations regarding even the most minute details, especially with respect to
the Galileans’ affiliation to the Jerusalem temple, I concur with John Kloppenborg’s (2000) ‘reading of Q in the Galilee’
(Kloppenborg 2000:87; cf. Arnal 2001:151–152).
The end as a new beginning
Matthew’s story ends with a dim view of the disciples. Their defect is that they could not fully internalise the significance of the resurrection
and could not fulfil their commission to make followers for Jesus. They prostrate themselves before the resurrected Jesus, the Son of man, but they doubt
(Mt 28:17).
However, in a similar scene in Revelation 4:10 the twelve remove their crowns and prostrate themselves before the Son of man who sits at the right hand of
God in heaven. In Matthew (similar to the Sayings Gospel Q) we find ‘a synergistic connection that exists between commemorative and instructional
activities.’ (Kirk 2005:2001). Kirk (2005) puts it as follows:
A community’s ritualized activities commemorating martyrs, accordingly become opportunities not just for narrative recitations of the martyr’s
life and death, but also for instructional artifacts and activities aimed at inculcating and securing commitment to those emblematic norms. (Kirk 2005:201)
Revelation seems to be the writing in the New Testament that is most closely related to the way in which Matthew uses this motif. In Revelation, the church is
instructed by the words: ‘let she/he who has an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches’ (Rv 2:7, 11, 17, 29, 3:6, 3:13, 3:22,
[author’s own translation]). Similarly, in Matthew’s narrative world, the intended readers are like peasants in the field (in campo),
hearing time signals about the realisation of the kingdom of heaven on earth. It is as if the author as scribe constructs words and sentences which become bells,
signalling that Israel’s regeneration has begun. Therefore, according to this scribe who has become a disciple in God’s kingdom of heaven (Mt 13:52),
‘he/she who has ears should hear’ [ho echōn hōta akouetō!] (Mt 13:9)!
Ackroyd, P., 2004, Kingdom of the dead: Voyages through time, Dorling Kindersley Limited, London.
Aland, B. & Aland K. (eds.), [1981] 1998, Greek-English New Testament: Greektext Novum Testamentum Graece, in the tradition of
Eberhard Nestle and Erwin Nestle, 8th rev. edn., 2nd printing, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
Arnal, W.E., 2001, Jesus and the village scribes: Galilean conflicts and the setting of Q, Fortress Press, MN.
Assmann, J., 1992, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, Beck, Munich.
Beare, F.W., 1981, The Gospel according to Matthew, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Borg, M.J. & Crossan, J.D., 2006, The last week: The day-by-day account of Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem, HarperSanFrancisco, NY.
Boshoff, C. & Van Aarde, A.G., 2005, ‘Grieks-Romeinse apokaliptiek en die Christelike kerugma’, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological
Studies 61(4), 1132−1148.
Burnett, F.W., 1983, ‘Palingenesia in Matt. 19:28: A window on the Matthean community’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 17, 60−72.
Cohn, L, & Wendland, P. (eds.), [1902] 1962, Philonis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt, vol. 4, pp. 156–203, De Gruyter, Berlin.
Crossan, J.D., 1988, The cross that spoke: The origins of the Passion narrative, Harper & Row, CA.
Crossan, J.D. 2007, God and empire: Jesus against Rome, then and now, HarperSanFrancisco, NY.
Davies, W.D. & Allison, D.C., [1997] 2004, The Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. III, Matthew 19–28,
International Critical Commentary, T&T Clark, London.
Del Agua, A., 1999, ‘The Lucan narrative of the “Evangelization of the kingdom of God”: A contribution to the unity of Luke-Acts’,
in J. Verheyden (ed.), The unity of Luke-Acts, pp. 639−661, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium CXLII, Leuven University
Press, Leuven.
Derrett, J.M., 1984, ‘PALINGENESIA (Matthew 19:28)’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 20, 51−58.
Dohrn-van Rossum, G., [1992] 1996, History of the hour: Clocks and modern orders, transl. T. Dunlap, The University of Chicago Press, IL.
Dupont, J., 1964, ‘Le Logion de douze trônes (Mt. 19, 28; Lc. 22, 28–30)’, Biblia 45, 361−362.
Dupont, J. 1968, ‘Les paraboles du trésor et de la perle’, New Testament Studies 14, 408−418.
Esler, P.F., 2005, ‘Rome in apocalyptic and rabbinic literature’, in J. Riches & D.C. Sim (eds.), The Gospel of Matthew in
its Roman context, pp. 10−33, Early Christianity in Context, Journal for the Study of the New Testament suppl. 276, T&T Clark, London.
Funk, R.W. & The Jesus Seminar, 1998, The acts of Jesus: The search for the authentic deeds of Jesus, A Polebridge Press Book,
HarperSanFrancisco, NY.
Garland, D.E. 1995, Reading Matthew: A literary and theological commentary on the First Gospel, Crossroad, NY.
Gerhardson, B., 1968, ‘The parable of the sower and its interpretation’, New Testament Studies 14, 168−193.
Gerhardson, B., 1972, ‘The seven parables in Matthew 13’, transl. J. Toy, New Testament Studies 19, 16−37.
Gürtner, D.M., 2009, Second Baruch: A critical edition of the Syriac text. With Greek and Latin fragments, English translation, introduction,
and concordances, Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies, T&T Clark, NY.
Jones, I.H., 1995, The Matthean parables: A literary and historical commentary, Supplements of Novum Testamentum LXXX, E.J. Brill, Leiden.
Hahn, F., 1974, ‘Methodologische Überlegungen zur Ruckfrage nach Jesus’, in K. Kertelge (ed.), Rückfrage nach Jesus: Zur
Methodik und Bedeutung der Frage nach dem historischen Jesus, pp. 11−77, 2nd edn., Herder Verlag, QD 63, Freiburg.
Horsley, R.A., 1991, ‘Q and Jesus: Assumptions, approaches and analyses’, Semeia 55, 175−209.
Koester, H., 1992, ‘Jesus the victim’, Journal of Biblical Literature 111(1), 3−5.
Kirk, A., 2005, ‘The memory of violence and the death of Jesus in Q’, in A. Kirk & T. Thatcher (eds.), Memory, tradition, and
text: Uses of the past in early Christianity, pp. 191−206, SBL Semeia Studies 52, Society of Biblical Literature, GA.
Kloppenborg, J.S., 1987, The formation of Q: Trajectories in ancient wisdom collections, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity, Fortress Press, PA.
Kloppenborg, J.S., 1988, Q parallels: Synopsis, critical notes & concordance, Foundations & Facets Reference Series, Polebridge Press, CA.
Kloppenborg, J.S., 2000, Excavating Q: The history and setting of the Sayings Gospel, Fortress Press, MN.
Kreuzer, J., 2005, ‘Zeit- und Geschichtsbild’, in J. Zangenberg (ed.), Neues Testament und Antike Kultur, vol. 3, Weltauffassung
– Kult – Ethos, pp. 110−114, Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn.
Malina, B.J., 1989, ‘Christ and time: Swiss or Mediterranean’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 51, 1−31. [Reprinted in Malina, B.J.,
1996, The social world of Jesus and the Gospels, pp. 179−214, Routledge, London.
Marcus, J., 1988, ‘Entering into the kingly power of God’, Journal of Biblical Literature 107, 663−675.
Neyrey, J.H. & Rowe, E., 2008, ‘Telling time in the Fourth Gospel’, HTS Theological Studies 64(1), 291−320.
Niese, B., 1955, Flavii Iosephi opera, Antiquitates Judaicae, vols. 1−4, Weidman, Berlin.
Nolland, J., 2005, The Gospel of Matthew: A commentary on the Greek text, New International Greek Testament Commentaries, Eerdmans,
Grand Rapids.
Polag, A., 1979, Fragmenta Q: Texthelft zur Logienquelle, Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchener-Vluyn.
Schenk, W., 1987, Die Sprache des Matthäus, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen.
Schnocks, J., 2009, Rettung und Neuschöpfung: Studien zur alttestamentlichen Grundlegung einer gesamtbiblischen Theologie der
Auferstehung, BBB 158, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen.
Sim, D.C., 1993, ‘The meaning of palingenesia in Matthew 19:28’, Journal of the Study for the New Testament 50, 2−12.
Sim, D.C., 1996, Apocalyptic eschatology in the Gospel of Matthew, SNTS Monograph Series, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Stewart, R.B. (ed.), 2006, The resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N.T. Wright in dialogue, Fortress Press, MN.
Van Aarde, A.G., 1998, ‘Matthew 27:45–53 and the turning of the tide in Israel’s history’, Biblical Theology Bulletin
28(1), 16−26.
Van Aarde, A.G., 2005, ‘IHSOUS – The Davidic messiah as political saviour in Matthew’s history’, in J.G. van der Watt
(ed.), Salvation in the New Testament: Perspectives on soteriology, pp. 7−31, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 121, Brill, Leiden.
Van Aarde, A.G., 2007, ‘Jesus’ mission to all of Israel emplotted in Matthew’s story’, Neotestamentica 43(2),
416−436.
Van Aarde, A.G., 2009, ‘”Foxes’ holes and birds’ nests” (Mt 8:20): A postcolonial reading for South Africans from the
perspective of Matthew’s anti-societal language’, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 65(1), Art. #318, 10 pages.
doi:10.4102/hts.v65i1.318
Van Aarde, A.G., 2010a, ‘Texts, co-texts, and con-texts of the empty tomb in the Jesus tradition’, in Festschrift Tjaart van der Walt,
In die Skriflig (Forthcoming) (original in Afrikaans).
Van Aarde, A.G., 2010b, ‘“On earth as it is in heaven”: Matthew’s eschatology as the kingdom of heaven that has come’,
in J. Frey & J.G. van der Watt (eds.), Eschatology in the New Testament, WUNT, Siebeck Mohr, Tübingen. (Forthcoming).
Waetjen, H.C., 1976, The origin and destiny of humanness: An interpretation of the Gospel according to Matthew, Crystal Press, San Rafael.
Wolter, M., 1995, ‘“Reich Gottes” bei Lukas’, New Testament Studies 41, 541−563.
|
|
Hide
Show all
Email this article (Login required)
