I’m late to the Bonhoeffer party, but now I see what everyone’s been talking about. What a guy. I’ve had his Discipleship before me as I’ve worked my way through the Sermon on the Mount (see here). I interacted with his thought at greater length here, wondering how he might read “turn the other cheek” in light of Russia’s occupation of Ukraine.
Fortress Press has sent me the above three volumes for review at Words on the Word. I will review them, in due time, but I’m posting now to say: on Tuesdays during Lent I’ll post something Bonhoeffer-related. It may be as short as a quotation, or it may be as long as a mini-essay in which I interact with some facet of his life or writing.
Tuesdays are my day off, so while Bonhoeffer has very much been informing my preaching on Matthew so far, what I post here in coming weeks will not necessarily relate to (my) preaching. One of his books I’ll interact with is his Collected Sermons, however.
If you scroll back up to the top of this post, to the right, just under the search bar, is a subscribe option you can select to receive notifications of new posts. Just type in your email address (it won’t get shared elsewhere) and then click Subscribe/Follow. You can also follow Words on the Word via Facebook here.
I’m looking forward to interacting with more Bonhoeffer in the coming weeks. Check back again tomorrow for the first Tuesday in Lent with Bonhoeffer.
UPDATE:Here is the first post, on Bonhoeffer on forgiveness.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.
I find myself thoroughly challenged by Jesus’ words (Matthew 5:38-48). I hear in “love your enemies” a call to individuals. I am sure that at least that much is there. I know that “pray for those who persecute you” needs to shape our lives. When we pray for and seek the good of our adversaries–any with whom we have conflict–we inhabit a new and better Kingdom reality.
But is this portion of the Sermon on the Mount merely a private text, as Martin Luther and other interpreters have said? Is this call of Jesus just for the interpersonal domain?
Or–as a long line of Anabaptist thinkers and others are convinced–is it true that there really is no private vs. public distinction with Jesus? Jesus certainly doesn’t say in the Sermon on the Mount that loving enemies works differently at a corporate or national level. Many faithful Christians have inferred a difference, on various grounds, but it’s not explicitly stated, at least not in this text.
So Russia moves into Ukraine and today we hear Jesus say, “Don’t retaliate. Love your enemies.”
Turn the other cheek. Do not resist an evildoer. Pray for those who persecute you.
CREDIT: REUTERS / Baz Ratner
How does a Ukrainian read this text today? There were presumably churches in Ukraine who heard Matthew 5:38-48 last week, when it was the Revised Common Lectionary reading. These words from the Sermon on the Mount are still ringing in their ears, even as the sound of Putin’s tanks and soldiers try to drown it out.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his Cost of Discipleship, adamantly defended this Gospel text in its fullness: he said it did not apply on a merely private level, but that it also applied at the level of those who hold office (i.e., corporately), because people are people, in whatever capacity they are acting…. If it’s wrong to retaliate with force in an interpersonal reaction, it’s wrong at a state level, too, Bonhoeffer argued. In an era in which Hitler had already come to power, Bonhoeffer would write in 1937:
The overcoming of others now occurs by allowing their evil to run its course. The evil does not find what it is seeking, namely, resistance and, therewith, new evil which will inflame it even more. Evil will become powerless when it finds no opposing object, no resistance, but, instead, is willingly borne and suffered….
And that sounds so good. I cling to that hope.
But Hitler, finding no opposing object, and no resistance, not even from much of the church in Germany, continued his rise to power. Evil became not “powerless,” but more powerful.
Bonhoeffer goes on:
There is no thinkable deed in which evil is so large and strong that it would require a different response from a Christian. The more terrible the evil, the more willing the disciple should be to suffer. Evil persons must be delivered to the hands of Jesus. Not I but Jesus must deal with them.
Which Bonhoeffer?
Critics were quick to call Bonhoeffer overly idealistic and impractical for this understanding of the Sermon on the Mount. But he was firm in his read of Jesus.
And then, something happened. Something happened in Bonhoeffer that led him to align himself with a group of folks who tried to overthrow Hitler, planning to use force if necessary. Bonhoeffer was arrested and imprisoned and implicated in a plot to kill Hitler. Bonhoeffer was hanged in 1945.
If we grant that “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies” have to do with both individual and corporate domains, which Bonhoeffer was right? The one who wrote, “The more terrible the evil, the more willing the disciple should be to suffer. …. Not I but Jesus must deal with them”?
Or was it the Bonhoeffer who tried to make a plan to “deal with” Hitler in perhaps more physical ways?
Perhaps Bonhoeffer saw a distinction between evil done to him and evil done to another. You can turn your own cheek, but when it’s the cheek of another, and you see them being struck, it’s all you can do to run over and move (maybe even push?) the oppressor out of the way.
So I leave this text with questions and tensions. What seems a fairly straightforward statement, “Love your enemy,” is difficult. What does it mean to love enemies? In what spheres must that take place, and how should it happen, especially in the presence of an inordinately powerful evil? How categorical is Jesus in his forbidding of force? Was he speaking to disciples, or to disciples and states?
But even with the questions, there are two places I find myself landing. First, the one purpose statement in this passage is this: “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”
That you may win them over? Hopefully, but not necessarily. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” so that they might be converted and join the Kingdom of Heaven, turning from their ways of oppression? Yeah, that would be awesome, but it’s not always going to happen. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” for by so doing, you are called children of your Father in heaven. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” They are children who do the things they see their God doing.
Which brings me to my second landing point, amid the questions I still have of this passage. Jesus, Philippians says,
made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
In the end, Jesus submitted himself to death. He humbled himself in the ultimate manifestation of turning the other cheek: “by becoming obedient to death–even death on a cross!”
And yet in that defeat was the very stuff of victory.
In that death was the very stuff of life.
In that humbling was the very stuff of exaltation.
Philippians goes on:
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
He knew full well what he was doing–he was going to that cross to die. He was accepting the unjust death penalty–even the torture–that had been set upon him. But he was also going to that cross to win. He was going to the cross to defeat death and evil. In the end he would rise again.
The Son of God endured suffering, and yet scorned its shame, unmasking the evil powers that put him on the cross, and razing them to the ground. Through death, through the cross, he made an offer of peace to even his enemies (including us!) so that we could love our enemies, too.
Jesus’ resistance to death was not violent, but neither was it passive. It was sure, deliberate, subversive, generous to all, and full of love, even to enemies.
There is power in Jesus’ going to the cross. It is the ultimate act of cheek-turning, self-giving love. The cross of Christ is an act of defiance that says:
No, suffering! You cannot warp me into a person I don’t want to be.
No, violence! You cannot seduce me to kill.
No, evil! You do not have the last word.
The above is adapted from the sermon I preached on Matthew 5:38-48 yesterday. Scripture quotations come from the NIV (1984 or 2011) or TNIV.
What distinguishes this series from other available resources is the detailed and comprehensive attention paid to the Greek text of the New Testament. Each handbook provides a convenient reference tool that explains the syntax of the biblical text, offers guidance for deciding between competing semantic analyses, deals with text-critical questions that have a significant bearing on how the text is understood, and addresses questions relating to the Greek text that are frequently overlooked or ignored by standard commentaries, all in a succinct and accessible manner.
The Luke volume is some 800 pages of lexical, grammatical, and syntactical detail. Language nerds will love it. The Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament series (BHGNT) “is designed to guide new readers and seasoned scholars alike through the intricacies of the Greek text.”
The Approach
Luke begins with a 15-page Introduction, with the following section headings:
Luke’s Style: “a mix of styles” and “higher on the literary scale than Matthew, Mark, or John”
Verbal Aspect: aorist tense verbs encode perfective aspect, generally used for mainline narrative events; imperfect tense verbs encode imperfective aspect, generally used for background events; present tense (imperfective aspect) is for quoted speech… but these are “tendencies only, not hard and fast linguistic rules”
The Use of Conjunctions at the Discourse Level: the authors focus here particularly on καί and δέ, which “serve distinct functions that assist readers in tracking the flow and status of information through large blocks of text”
Participles: primarily context (not just syntax) “drives the analysis” throughout the handbook
Word Order: the Greek verb defaults to a position at the start of a sentence; anything preceding it is “fronted” (which does not, the authors note, always imply emphasis)
Additionally, the Series Introduction addresses deponency, a label often given to middle/passive verbs with “active” meanings, but considered now by a number of scholars (and by the BHGNT series) to be an unhelpful concept “leading to imprecise readings of the text.” As a result,
users of the BHGNT will discover that verbs that are typically labeled “deponent,” including some with -θη- morphology, tend to be listed as “middle.”
The body of the handbook offers an English translation of each section of biblical text. Next there is the full Greek text of a given verse. Then follows a word-by-word (and/or phrase-by-phrase) analysis of the Greek text. One advantage to this structure is that, without having to have recourse to any other books, the user of this handbook has the full Greek and English texts of Luke in front of them.
There is also useful material at the back of the handbook: a glossary of nearly 50 grammatical terms and concepts, a bibliography, a grammar index (with grammatical concepts listed in English and words listed in Greek), and an author index. If I wanted to trace Luke’s use of the double accusative, for example, I’d see a list of verse references in the grammar index for further study.
An Example Passage: Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10
Luke 19:1-10 tells the well-known story of Zacchaeus’s encounter with Jesus. This handbook volume does comment on what a Greek phrase might “literally” mean, yet not (thankfully) to the point of making its English translation overly wooden, at least not on a regular basis. The translation is generally smooth, with additional comments on meaning throughout the notes.
Luke 19:1, for example, reads, “After entering Jericho, Jesus was passing through the city.” The handbook entry on that verse is as follows:
19:1 Καὶ εἰσελθὼν διήρχετο τὴν Ἰεριχώ.
Καὶ. The conjunction closely links this pericope with the preceding one, while the rest of the verse marks a shift in scene. εἰσελθὼν. Aor act ptc masc nom sg εἰσέρχομαι (temporal). διήρχετο. Impf mid ind 3rd sg διέρχομαι. The first three verses supply background information for the narrative that follows using imperfect verbs and equative clauses (διήρχετο; ἦν, v. 2; ἐζήτει, ἠδύνατο, v. 3). τὴν Ἰεριχώ. Accusative complement of διήρχετο. Lit. “entering, he was passing through Jericho.”
Sometimes the entries are not much more than parsing, with a brief description of function (as in εἰσελθὼν, above). Other times there is more detail, as in διήρχετο. This reflects a concern throughout the handbook with discourse analysis: the authors are regularly asking (and answering) the question, “Why did Luke choose these words here? Why this verb tense? Why this position? What does it do for the narrative and the reader-hearer’s experience of it?”
Though Luke is not meant to be a full-on commentary, the authors nonetheless interact with other literature (commentaries and grammars, especially). For example, on 19:3’s “he was short in stature” (Greek: τῇ ἡλικίᾳ μικρὸς ἦν), they have this note:
The meaning of the phrase is debated. It could refer to Zacchaeus’ age (Green, 669–70) or his physical stature (Fitzmyer, 2:1223). The phrase probably not only refers to Zacchaeus’ height, but also serves to characterize him in a negative fashion (see Parsons 2001, 50–57; 2006, 97–108).
Whether or not one agrees with the conclusion (that Luke is talking about height), Culy, Parsons, and Stigall present the options, give bibliographical information, and–most important–say what the function of this phrase is in Luke’s story. Similarly, the authors consider textual variants where they would impact the meaning of the text.
What Luke: A Handbook on the Greek Text Is Not
This is a specialized work and does not aim to situate each passage in its literary or historical context. For example, when I was preaching on the Parable of the “Good Samaritan”, I turned to that passage. There is no introductory comment that sets it up, neither there nor at the beginning of chapter 10. There is a note that ἰδοὺ “is sometimes used to introduce a major character in a narrative, as here,” but that’s it.
Since the commentary does not set out to provide literary context or structural outlines, it would be unfair to criticize it for not doing that. The reader should be aware that this book is really true to its series title: it’s a handbook (that at times feels like a collection of notes) on the Greek text. Given that even technical, Greek-oriented commentaries pass over some words and concepts in the Greek text, there is definitely a place for a book like this. Those who want to go in-depth with the Greek (word-by-word and phrase-by-phrase) will find many riches to appreciate here, as I have.
Even so, I was pleasantly surprised by some places (i.e., the difficult Luke 18:7) where Culy, Parsons, and Stigall did offer insight into how to understand a passage as a whole.
The handbook will not replace a good lexicon. Some words simply have parsing information given, with little to no elaboration on the word’s meaning. To be truly comprehensive in this regard would double the size of the book, so it’s an understandable decision. Just keep BDAG close by as you read. That said, in this handbook you will get detail even down to the level of Greek accents!
Concluding Evaluation
The series preface says:
Readers of traditional commentaries are sometimes dismayed by the fact that even those that are labeled “exegetical” or “critical” frequently have little to say about the mechanics of the Greek text, and all too often completely ignore the more perplexing grammatical issues.
I have definitely felt this way as a commentary reader and user (and wanna-be Greek nerd). To have a handbook (albeit one that requires large hands to hold!) devoted to the Greek and its grammar is a great aid to anyone wanting to maintain or deepen their use of biblical languages. The lexical analysis (with sensitivity to larger New Testament context), grammatical insights, and linguistic nuances make for a smart and challenging companion to the Greek text. I’m excited to see more coming from this series.
N.B.: I have also reviewed Malachi in the similar Baylor Handbook on the Hebrew Text series, in two parts: here and here.
Thanks to Baylor University Press for the review copy. You can find the book’s product page here. It is on Amazon (affiliate link) here, where you can also “look inside” the book.
The below is adapted from my full-length review of the print edition of NIGTC Matthew. Here I reproduce some of the content of that post, but with an eye toward the commentary’s presentation and use in Logos Bible Software.
Readers of this blog (and those with whom I worship on Sunday!) will know I’ve been preaching through Matthew this year. I have made profitable use of John Nolland’s commentary almost every week in my preparation.
This is what Nolland says about his commentary:
My central concern in this commentary is with the story Matthew has to tell and how he tells it. Though the reader will recognise that I have been influenced by some scholarly methods more than by others, my work is committedly eclectic.
Nolland comments on Matthew using redaction criticism, grammatical analysis, rhetorical criticism, and more. Though the NIGTC series does not seek to be devotional, per se, and though Nolland’s Matthew is not an application commentary, the author is consistently sensitive to the broader context of Matthew and his aims. (Nolland says he cares about “a close reading of the inner logic of the unfolding text.”)
Nolland’s Introduction to Matthew
The introduction includes the following sections (the bullet points below are all the author’s words):
authorship of the Gospel
the sources for the Gospel
the prehistory of the sources
the date and provenance of the Gospel
the kind of document the Gospel intends to be
the state of the Greek text of the Gospel
aspects of the author’s narrative technique
the Gospel’s use of the OT and of other Jewish tradition
and the theology of the Gospel of Matthew.
Here’s what it looks like in Logos on a PC. You can hide or show the table of contents at the left, and many of its sections have expand/collapse triangles (click or open in a new tab to enlarge the image below):
Introduction to Matthew
Any highlights or notes I add (which you can see above) automatically sync with any other devices that run the Logos app.
Like R.T. France, Nolland would rather elaborate on certain points in the body of the commentary itself, which makes the introduction accordingly shorter. I experienced this as a relief, because (a) I could get into the commentary proper more quickly and (b) when primarily coming to the commentary with a specific passage in mind, I found quite a bit of substance in the commentary proper, without having to go back to the introduction. Getting to a given passage via Logos is almost instantaneous.
Nolland on Matthew’s Use of the OT
There is more of note in the introduction, but “Matthew’s Use of the OT” is probably the most exceptional section (pictured above). It details both (a) what text forms Matthew might have had and (b) how he used them. Nolland lists 14 (!)“different approaches to the generation of the wording of the quotations.” And yet, amid the detail, he can conclude:
Though some of Matthew’s text forms come to him straight from the Gospel tradition, the overall impression is of a man who freshly scrutinises, at least on many occasions, the OT texts to which he appeals, and is able to do so in Greek, Hebrew (not always the Hebrew of the preserved MT), and occasionally in Aramaic. When it suits him to do so, he produces translations that reflect influence along more than one track of tradition.
Nolland then identifies eight different ways in which Matthew uses the OT. This section of the commentary alone is worth half the price of the commentary. A nearly 20-page “Annotated Structural Outline of Matthew” at the end of the introduction is quite impressive (and maybe even worth the other half of the price of the commentary).
The Author’s Translation of Matthew
Nolland admits that his translation of Matthew (located at the beginning of each section) “may at times be wooden,” and this woodenness is noticeable in a number passages. For example, the genealogy reads: “Abraham produced Isaac; Isaac produced Jacob….” Nolland acknowledges the “unfortunately impersonal and nonbiological” implications of that translation. Indeed, a better word is needed.
And for the Beatitudes (where the Greek μακάριος is admittedly difficult to translate), he has, “Good fortune now to….” I liked the “now” part of this (it carries an “implied sense of immediacy”), but the more traditional “blessed” still seems to leave room in English for the divine blesser, who should be kept in view here. “Good fortune now” seems to miss that.
The commentary (with original translation)
A more readable translation would not have compromised Nolland’s aims in producing a fairly literal rendering of the Greek. It wasn’t an enormous distraction from a well-written commentary, but it stood out, nonetheless.
The Commentary Proper
It would be impossible for Nolland to be comprehensive at every turn. There were some Greek words or passages of Matthew where I had hoped for more detail, but on the whole, Nolland is thorough.
For instance, in the narrative of the devil’s temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4, Nolland writes of verse 1:
The opening ‘then’, the role of the Spirit, and the Son of God language to come in vv. 2 and 6 create a strong link between 4:1–11 and 3:13–17.
and:
Because of the agency of the devil (and the specific temptations to come) πειρασθῆναι has been translated ‘to be tempted’, but there is in fact a play on the two senses of the πειραζ- root: ‘test’ or ‘tempt’.
This commentary matches literary sensitivity and Greek analysis with conclusions that can easily lead the reader to application. In the same passage: “[T]he devil suggests that sonship is a privilege to be exploited, that Jesus should use his opportunities to see to his own needs.”
Nolland often presents multiple scholarly interpretations of a given passage before offering his own–and even then, he does it humbly (though not unconvincingly). In the Beatitudes, for instance, he notes 11 different understandings of “poor” and four different understandings of “in spirit” for Matthew 5:3. One gets the sense that the author is just as interested in historical interpretation of given passages as he is with his own. This is a good thing.
In Logos, one can search the commentary using control+F (PC) or command+F (Mac):
Keyword searching NIGTC for “kingdom”
One cool thing about this is that if you are already in Matthew 6:25 of the commentary (as above), the search results start right where you are (instead of going back to the beginning of the commentary). This way one can research a given word or theme as it unfolds in Nolland’s writing.
Concluding Evaluation
Despite the technical nature of the commentary (which I appreciated), the writing style is engaging and accessible, even inspiring in places. I loved this:
Jesus proclaims the imminent arrival of the kingdom of heaven. God now intends to establish afresh his rule among his people. If people are to be ready for this development, then repentance is urgent. Only a fundamental change of life direction will match the needs of the moment.
The bibliographies are a gold mine. One wonders if there’s any journal article or monograph on Matthew that Nolland hasn’t examined. Even so, he says in his preface that he had to trim his listing to accommodate the requirements of the editors!
My critique of the author’s translation notwithstanding, Nolland’s Matthew is a magnificent work, probably even one of the very first places one should go when doing in-depth study of Matthew’s text. Nolland does not disappoint in his technical analysis of words and passages, and yet he somehow is able to keep the Gospel as a whole before him and the reader as he expounds on its component parts. The reader cannot help but be impressed throughout the commentary, both with Nolland, and with Matthew’s Gospel which he describes.
Thanks to Logos for the review copy of the NIGTC series. I will post more in the future about the series and its use in Logos.
The series preface to The New International Greek Testament Commentary (NIGTC) states:
At a time when the study of Greek is being curtailed in many schools of theology, we hope that the NIGTC will demonstrate the continuing value of studying the Greek New Testament and will be an impetus in the revival of such study.
This is a welcome series to those who want assistance in making good sense of the Greek text.
R.T. France’s volume in NIGTC (Mark) is not only one of my favorite commentaries of all time; it’s one of my favorite books. (I note it briefly here.) And Paul Ellingworth’s Hebrews volume greatly helped me through an exegesis course covering that epistle.
My central concern in this commentary is with the story Matthew has to tell and how he tells it. Though the reader will recognise that I have been influenced by some scholarly methods more than by others, my work is committedly eclectic.
In other words, Nolland looks at Matthew via redaction criticism, language, rhetorical criticism, and more. Though the series does not seek to be devotional, per se, and though NIGTC Matthew is not an application commentary, Nolland is consistently sensitive to the broader context of Matthew and his aims. (Nolland says he cares about “a close reading of the inner logic of the unfolding text.”)
Nolland’s Introduction to Matthew
The introduction includes the following sections (the bullet points below are all the author’s words):
authorship of the Gospel
the sources for the Gospel
the prehistory of the sources
the date and provenance of the Gospel
the kind of document the Gospel intends to be
the state of the Greek text of the Gospel
aspects of the author’s narrative technique
the Gospel’s use of the OT and of other Jewish tradition
and the theology of the Gospel of Matthew.
Like R.T. France, Nolland would rather elaborate on certain points in the body of the commentary itself, which makes the introduction accordingly shorter. I experienced this as a relief, because (a) I could get into the commentary itself sooner and (b) when primarily coming to the commentary with a specific passage in mind, I found quite a bit of substance in the commentary proper, without having to go back to the introduction.
That Matthew was actually the author of this Gospel seems to Nolland to be “most unlikely,” though I would have liked to see more support for Nolland’s conclusion. He doesn’t offer much. The “majority” (though not all) of sourcing for Matthew is attributed to “Mark and Q materials.” Refreshingly, Nolland has this to say about the idea of a historical Jesus:
These considerations do, however, suggest that we may have considerable confidence that the Jesus with whom the Gospels connect us is, and is in detail, the Jesus who actually operated in Palestine in the first century and not some mythical construct. The Gospel writers and those who supplied them their raw materials wanted people to get in touch with Jesus because of his potential significance for them, but they would feel no need to apologise for failing to meet all the needs of our historical curiosity.
Though aware of Gentiles, too, “Matthew writes for Jewish Christians who are very conscious of their Jewish identity.” Nolland writes, “Matthew seems to have understood himself to be creating a foundational text to which people would feel the need to return again and again.”
Nolland on Matthew’s Use of the OT
There is more of note in the introduction, but “Matthew’s Use of the OT” is probably the most exceptional section. It details both (a) what text forms Matthew might have had and (b) how he used them. Nolland lists 14 (!)“different approaches to the generation of the wording of the quotations.” And yet, amid the detail, he can conclude:
Though some of Matthew’s text forms come to him straight from the Gospel tradition, the overall impression is of a man who freshly scrutinises, at least on many occasions, the OT texts to which he appeals, and is able to do so in Greek, Hebrew (not always the Hebrew of the preserved MT), and occasionally in Aramaic. When it suits him to do so, he produces translations that reflect influence along more than one track of tradition.
Nolland then identifies eight different ways in which Matthew uses the OT. This section of the commentary alone is worth half the price of the commentary. A nearly 20-page “Annotated Structural Outline of Matthew” at the end of the introduction is quite impressive (and maybe even worth the other half of the price of the commentary).
The Author’s Translation of Matthew
Nolland admits that his translation of Matthew (located at the beginning of each section) “may at times be wooden,” and this woodenness is noticeable in a number passages. For example, the genealogy reads: “Abraham produced Isaac; Isaac produced Jacob….” Nolland acknowledges the “unfortunately impersonal and nonbiological” implications of that translation. Indeed, a better word is needed.
And for the Beatitudes (where the Greek μακάριος is admittedly difficult to translate), he has, “Good fortune now to….” I liked the “now” part of this (it carries an “implied sense of immediacy”), but the more traditional “blessed” still seems to leave room in English for the divine blesser, who should be kept in view here. “Good fortune now” seems to miss that.
Finally, the regular use of brackets in the translation made it read even less fluidly than it already did in places. As in: “It is no more fitting that people should light a lamp and put it under the peck measure; rather, [they put it] on the lampstand, and it shines out for all in the house.”
The above is all to say: a more readable translation would not have compromised Nolland’s aims in producing a fairly literal rendering of the Greek. It wasn’t an enormous distraction from a well-written commentary, but it stood out, nonetheless.
The Commentary Proper
It would be impossible for Nolland to be comprehensive at every turn. There were some Greek words or passages of Matthew where I had hoped for more detail, but on the whole, Nolland is thorough.
For instance, in the narrative of the devil’s temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4, Nolland writes of verse 1:
The opening ‘then’, the role of the Spirit, and the Son of God language to come in vv. 2 and 6 create a strong link between 4:1–11 and 3:13–17.
and:
Because of the agency of the devil (and the specific temptations to come) πειρασθῆναι has been translated ‘to be tempted’, but there is in fact a play on the two senses of the πειραζ- root: ‘test’ or ‘tempt’.
This commentary matches literary sensitivity and Greek analysis with conclusions that can easily lead the reader to application. In the same passage: “[T]he devil suggests that sonship is a privilege to be exploited, that Jesus should use his opportunities to see to his own needs.”
Nolland often presents multiple scholarly interpretations of a given passage before offering his own–and even then, he does it humbly (though not unconvincingly). In the Beatitudes, for instance, he notes 11 different understandings of “poor” and four different understandings of “in spirit” for Matthew 5:3. One gets the sense that the author is just as interested in historical interpretation of given passages as he is with his own. This is a good thing.
Concluding Evaluation
Despite the technical nature of the commentary (which I appreciated), the writing style is engaging and accessible, even inspiring in places. I loved this:
Jesus proclaims the imminent arrival of the kingdom of heaven. God now intends to establish afresh his rule among his people. If people are to be ready for this development, then repentance is urgent. Only a fundamental change of life direction will match the needs of the moment.
The bibliographies are a gold mine. One wonders if there’s any journal article or monograph on Matthew that Nolland hasn’t examined. Even so, he says in his preface that he had to trim his listing to accommodate the requirements of the editors!
My critique of the author’s translation notwithstanding, Nolland’s Matthew is a magnificent work, probably even one of the very first places one should go when doing in-depth study of Matthew’s text. Nolland does not disappoint in his technical analysis of words and passages, and yet he somehow is able to keep the Gospel as a whole before him and the reader as he expounds on its component parts. The reader cannot help but be impressed throughout the commentary, both with Nolland, and with Matthew’s Gospel which he describes.
Thanks to Eerdmans for the review copy. Nolland’s Gospel of Matthew is on Amazon here. Its product page is at Eerdmans’s site here.
One of the most important things anyone has ever said about Scripture is:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
–Jesus in Matthew 5:17
The careful reader of Matthew will hear “fulfill” in 5:17 and recall at least some of its previous uses already in the book.
Fulfillment is one of Matthew’s major themes. Calling the other uses of “fulfill” to mind gives Jesus’ claim even more impact.
Having established that Jesus’ birth was “to fulfill what was written…,” Matthew shows John baptizing an adult Jesus “to fulfill all righteousness.” Early in Jesus’ ministry, Matthew shows Jesus as the fulfilling light that the people walking in darkness have been waiting for.
Here is a one-page pdf listing the instances of fulfillment in the birth and early ministry of Jesus in Matthew 1-4.
With so much of his life a fulfillment of the Scriptures already, Matthew’s reader is now prepared to see how Jesus fulfills all of Scripture–down to the last letter–through his read and interpretation of it. In the rest of Matthew 5, Jesus will unpack just what he means by “fulfill [the Scriptures],” using six specific biblical examples, culminating at last in a call to the disciples to “be perfect.”
I learned my very first bit of Hebrew–the Sh’ma–from Gary Burge at Wheaton. His knowledge of cultural backgrounds of the Bible–and ability to communicate about it–is impressive. In Encounters with Jesus he explores the connections between “the ancient landscape,” encounters people in the first century had with Jesus, and how that can draw us into a deeper faith in Jesus today.
We have forgotten that we read the Bible as foreigners, as visitors who have traveled not only to a new geography but a new century. We are literary tourists who are deeply in need of a guide.
The goal of this series is to be such a guide….
Burge asks, “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to encounter Jesus personally?” In chapter 1 he sketches a picture of a teacher who “took time for people who generally assumed that they were invisible.” And yet as accustomed as we are to thinking of Jesus as present with the poor, the sick, the outcast, and the powerless, Burge notes that Jesus does not deliberately avoid the powerful, either. Case in point: the centurion in Capernaum (chapter 4).
A map from the book
You can read the story of the centurion’s encounter with Jesus and find much to appreciate and marvel at already. But as Burge unpacked what was behind that encounter, the improbability of such an interaction became increasingly clear. That chapter begins with important geographical information on Capernaum, and then notes that it was Jesus’ home, as well as the site of the Sermon on the Mount and the Feeding of the 5,000. (No wonder, Burge notes, that Jesus says woe to Capernaum in Matthew 11, when they won’t believe.)
Capernaum was an economically strategic trade center, and so the Roman occupiers had made a home there–hence the presence of the centurion. Burge explains the organization of the Roman army, a “highly disciplined, professional fighting force.” An easy-to-understand diagram shows the division of the army into legions, cohorts, and centuries (which consisted of one centurion overseeing 80 men).
It is against this backdrop that Burge then tells the story of Jesus’ encounter with the centurion, a man who “understands that Jesus is similarly empowered by God in a way that others are not.” Jesus takes “social risks” in responding to him. Burge similarly unpacks the four more encounters with Jesus in the Gospels.
Like the other books in the Ancient Context, Ancient Faith series, Encounters with Jesus is printed on thick, glossy paper (which you can still easily mark in pencil) and is full of high-quality, color photographs and maps. Both the selection and placement of the visuals is perfect. (This truly is the guidebook the author seeks to produce.) Here’s one photograph from the book:
There are endnotes at the back of the book, but as with another book in the series, there is no Subject or Place Names or Scripture index, which I experienced as a lack. That’s about the extent of what I found to critique, though.
Encounters with Jesus is something I love: a book of biblical studies that also draws the reader into the presence and praise of God. I began reading it because I wanted to learn more about the cultural and historical background of some of the Gospel stories, but by the time I had finished the first chapter, I moved to reading it deliberately as part of my personal devotions.
I highly recommend Encounters with Jesus. As I read I had a better sense of what was happening in the Gospel stories Burge recounts, and–more important–I found myself growing in admiration and awe of Jesus.
Thanks to Zondervan for the review copy. Encounters with Jesus is on Amazon here. Its product page is at Zondervan’s site here. A sample pdf is here.
Shane Claiborne is an author and activist who helped found The Simple Way, an intentional Christian community in Philadelphia. He loves Jesus and loves the poor, and has given his life on their behalf.
Shane Claiborne
Shane was lined up to speak at a youth worker’s national conference once, and to the surprise of the crowd and the organizers, when his keynote came, he stood up, read the Sermon on the Mount, and then sat down. His “talk” was done–a reading of Jesus’ sermon in Matthew 5-7.
When interviewed about it later, Claiborne said that as much as he loves that particular conference, the amount of noise and clutter and “Christian stuff” of that conference led him to the simplicity of the words of Jesus. He wanted to read them and let them stand on their own. Continue reading “What is the Good Life? Jesus’ Take”→
The Sermon on the Mount, by Gustave Doré (1832–1883)
Annie Dillard (whom we are reading for this Sunday’s Sunday School class) writes:
I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam.
And yet Jesus confidently tells his disciples (before they’ve even done much of anything):
You are the light of the world. …Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Those lines of Jesus are from the Sermon on the Mount, on which I’m preaching. Holding those two ideas about light in juxtaposition has made for interesting preparation for this Sunday! On the face of it, they seem to contradict, but I don’t think they really do…. I’ll try to post more here next week, as I continue to work it out.
I still wonder what language(s) Jesus spoke. I know, I know. Easy: Aramaic…right? And possibly also Hebrew when he quotes Scripture?
I’m becoming increasingly open to the idea, however, that Jesus–at least on occasion–taught in Greek. At any rate, it is true that the Gospel writers that quote Jesus do so in Greek. There is also the fascinating question of what text form(s) Jesus used when he quoted Scripture, which he did frequently.
As Moyise sees it, the task of studying Jesus’ use of Scripture is two-fold:
First, we must study what each Gospel writer has to say about Jesus’ use of Scripture and seek to determine his method and purpose.
To do this, Moyise briefly (yet substantively) surveys how each Gospel writer presents Jesus’ use of Scripture. For each of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Moyise analyzes Jesus’ quotations of “the law,” “the prophets,” and “the writings.” For John he treats “the four explicit quotations” and scriptural allusions.
Moyise goes on:
Second, if we are to understand Jesus’ use of Scripture we must engage in historical criticism to decide what Jesus must have said to give rise to the various accounts we find in the Gospels.
To this end Moyise looks at three categories of scholars:
Those with “minimalist views” on Jesus and history: Geza Vermes, John Dominic Crossan, and Marcus Borg. They more or less “do not regard Mark as an accurate record of what Jesus said and did, which has implications for the accuracy of Matthew and Luke.”
Those with “moderate views”: James Dunn and Tom (N.T.) Wright. The moderate view “accepts that real events lie behind the Gospel stories but believes that they have been embellished as each Gospel writer adapts the tradition to meet his readers’ needs.”
Those with “maximalist views”: Charles Kimball and Richard (R.T.) France.” Jesus must have said all of the sayings and … each Gospel has been selective in what it records. …its strategy for dealing with differences between the Gospels is to seek harmony.”
Moyise lays out the issues in the synoptic Gospels and John clearly and succinctly. He raises as many questions as he answers, but this is a good thing. Reading Jesus and Scripture made we want to delve deeper into the topic at hand.
An Evaluation
While the volume is accessible, it does not oversimplify complexities where they exist. For example, after saying that Jesus’ Aramaic sayings “were translated into Greek, including his quotations from Scripture,” Moyise highlights the existence already of a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (the LXX). He goes on:
The important question this raises is whether, when the translators recognized that Jesus was quoting Scripture, they translated his words for themselves or availed themselves of the translation already in circulation.
Gray shaded boxes throughout the book offer concise information about topics such as: “The text of the LXX known to Matthew,” “Hillel’s seven exegetical rules,” “Critical editions of Q,” and more.
Especially helpful for further study is Appendix 1: “Index of Jesus’ quotations in the Gospels,” which is listed in Old Testament book order. The select bibliography is short but a good starting point, too.
Of the three “views” he describes, Moyise writes about helping “readers decide for themselves which reconstruction they find the most convincing.” He excels here–phrases like “many scholars believe” are coupled with a fair spelling out of others’ views of Jesus and what he said. His even-handedness helps readers get the lay of the land in Jesus studies.
Phrases like “what Jesus actually said” got to be a bit tiresome to me after a while. Perhaps my maximalism shows through here, but I’m just not sure how productive or advisable a quest it is to try to ascertain what Jesus really said. (And if we did, wouldn’t we have to go back to retroverted Aramaic?) This is in part due to Moyise’s own “moderate views,” but he certainly does not push for them over France’s “maximalist views,” for example, which he describes charitably and even favorably. The reader can decide for herself or himself.
Jesus and Scripture would be perfect for a seminary course on the Gospels, or on the NT use of the OT. An advanced undergrad course would also do well to adopt this book. I’d also recommend it to a serious Bible reader–no biblical languages are needed here, and I found that even with my own knowledge gaps in historical Jesus studies, Moyise explained everything I needed to know.
Though this survey is short (less than 150 pages), Moyise gives plenty of sample passages and insights that have challenged me. I know this is a book I will come back to and want to read again in the future.
Thank you to Baker Academic for providing me with a review copy of the book. See its product page at Baker here. You can find it on Amazon here.
Words on the Word 