Metabiblical

(Matthew 1:22, ASV) Now all this came to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying … (2:5) .. for thus it is written through the prophet … (2:15) … that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying … (2:17) Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying … (2:23) … that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets … (3:3) For this is he that was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, saying … (4:14) … that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying … (8:17) … that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying … (12:17) … that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying …¹ (13:14) … And unto them is fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying … (13:35) … that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying … (21:4) Now this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying … (26:54, 56) How then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? … But all this is come to pass, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. (27:9) Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying …

According to Reventlow,² Matthew works from the same sort of assumption that informs the pesharim of the Qumran community: the idea that biblical prophecy is directed to the present. And since, for the early Christian movement, Jesus was the most important figure of the present time, it followed logically that the prophets must have quite a bit to say about him. And so Matthew, using his distinctive form of fulfillment citation, worked out the details.

This same term fulfill, appears in Matthew in the famous statement that Jesus came not to abolish but to fulfill the law. If Matthew is read as part of a larger inerrantist project which seems all of the New Testament as reflecting a single theology, it is possible to come up with some fairly counter-intuitive ideas about was fulfill and not abolish mean. On a critical-historical reading, however, which does not feel the need to harmonize Matthew with other books, one can instead believe that Matthew intended for Jesus to uphold the law in a more straightforward sense.

In general, both with Matthew and with other early Christian and Jewish writers, Reventlow is very tolerant of their tendency to interpret the text in creative ways, but notices that a few of Matthew’s citations must be seen as straightforward errors. Says Reventlow:

These errors are understandable if one recalls that this Gospel originated at the time when the Jewish Christian community had been driven out of the synagogue. The opposition of the Jews who did not recognize Jesus is reflected clearly in Matthew’s Gospel, and he thus no longer enjoys access to the scrolls of texts that were stored in the synagogue.

I am no expert on early Christianity, and so I cannot say that Reventlow is wrong here, but let me here record my doubts. I have some doubt that there was a definitive moment in the first century when the Jewish Christianity community, as a group, was expelled from the synagogue (all the synagogues of Judea? All the synagogues of the Roman Empire?). Then, supposing that something resembling such an event occurred. Can we date it and the writing of Matthew securely enough to know that Matthew was written after this event? Do we know that early Christian writers like Matthew had access to the Hebrew Bible only through synagogue collections? There seem to be a lot of things assumed here, although perhaps I am simply missing some background facts which would clear things up.

In any case, it was Matthew who set the tone for much of later Christian interpretation of prophecy. Reventlow tells us that Matthew was “the most frequently read Gospel of the early Church”, and a look at the indices to Schaff’s Ante-Nicene Fathers would seem to confirm this. You can look at that here. Even today, anyone who sets out to read the New Testament will find it beginning with Matthew, and there is no way to get through the book without picking up on Matthew’s claim that the events of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were providentially conformed to Old Testament prophecy.

Super-Academical Footnotes

1. For those who enjoy typos in printed books, as I do, Reventlow (p. 67) identifies this as 11:18. ↩︎
2. Reventlow, Henning Graf. History of Biblical Interpretation: Volume 1: From the Old Testament to Origen. His section on Matthew runs from p. 67-71. ↩︎