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From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
Pharisees of course are mentioned throughout Matthew’s gospel. After Jesus’ scathing denunciation at the temple (Matthew 23), they disappear for most of the rest of the gospel. They appear one last time, along with the chief priests, asking for a seal on Jesus’ tomb (27:62).
It’s fitting: The last time we saw Pharisees Jesus was denouncing them for “building the tombs of the prophets and adorning the monuments of the righteous,” while confessing they are sons of those who murder prophets (23:29). They prove they are sons of prophet-murderers once again. They want to seal the tomb (taphos) of Jesus, proving that they are whited sepulchers (taphos) themselves (23:27).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 11:21 am
Joseph places Jesus’ body in a “new tomb.”
New wine cannot be contained in old wineskins. The new wine of the new covenant, the wine that Jesus will drink new in the Father’s kingdom, cannot be contained in old wineskins. So too, a new kind of body requires a new kind of tomb, and Jesus’ body is definitely a new sort of body. It’s not surprising that Matthew uses the word “tomb” (mnemeion) seven times, and the seventh instance of the word refers to an inverted tomb, a tomb opened from the inside.
And what does this do to memory? Tombs are “memorials,” mnemonic devices for the dead. But what of an empty tomb? How can you memorialize a tomb that’s been cleared out? We memorialize the resurrection, but that’s only to say we memorialize what has begun to happen but hasn’t been completed. We memorialize the future.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 10:19 am
Three women are mentioned in Matthew 27:56: Mary Magdalene, another Mary, identified as “the mother of Jakobos and Joses,” and the unnamed mother of James and John. Who is the second Mary?
Matthew 13:55 is the only other reference to these names, Jakobos and Joses, and their mother. There, the mother Mary is clearly Jesus’ mother: “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, Jakobos and J0ses and Simon and Judas?” We know from John 19:25 that Mary the mother of Jesus was at the cross. It’s likely that the other Mary (called “the other Mary” in Matthew 27:61 and 28:1) is Jesus’ mother. The woman who bore Him – the womb that gave Him birth and the breasts He sucked – are present at His death. Her presence gives a maternal spin to His resurrection; the tomb becomes His new womb.
Why then is she called “the mother of Jakobos and Joses” instead of the mother of Jesus?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 7:45 am
The women who come from Galilee minister to Jesus along the way (27:55). They take the place of angels, who minister to Jesus after the devil has tempted Him (4:11). They are daughters of Peter’s mother-in-law, who rises and ministers to Jesus and the disciples (8:15).
They are among the sheep, who see Jesus hungry, thirsty, naked, a stranger, imprisoned, and serve Him (25:44).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 7:06 am
The women of Matthew 27 are the only ones in Matthew’s gospel to behold (theoreo) anything (27:55 and 28:1 are the only uses of the verb).
Women theorists. What will Matthew think of next?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 7:01 am
Magdalene has plausibly been linked with Migdal-el (Joshua 19:38), one of the fortified cities in the tribal area of Naphtali. Migdal-el means “Fortress” of God. Mary from Magdala is a tower of God.
What does that mean? Perhaps many things, but it puts one in mind of the descriptions of the Bride in the Song of Songs (4:4; 7:4; 8:10).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 4:59 am
Where’d the Galilean women of Matthew 27:55 come from? The only other references to a group of women, the only uses of the plural of gune occur in Matthew 14:21 and 15:38. They are the women included among the 5000 and 4000 who are fed in the “desolate place” near the sea of Galilee. In both cases, the women are associated with children, and in both cases Matthew includes them as an apparent afterthought: “besides women and children.” He’s setting us up: The women are not an afterthought at all, but at the climax take a central place in the story.
The hint that the women began following Jesus since those meals is strengthened by Matthew’s reference to “Magadan” or “Magdala” in 15:39, the hometown of Mary.
What does this mean? Several things seem to be going on.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 4:52 am
A group of women from Galilee suddenly appears in Matthew 27:55. They are “beholding from a distance” (makrothen), having “followed” Jesus (eklouthesan).
This is precisely the description given of Peter in 26:58: When Jesus is arrested, he too “follows Him at a distance” (ekolouthe auto apo makrothen). The women have not only taken up the place of the disciples in general, but specifically of Peter, who had confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God.
In fact, the women are the ones who have been following Jesus throughout the gospel.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 4:38 am
The last sections of Matthew 27 link up with Matthew 28 to form a chiastic closure to the gospel:
A. Jesus’ burial, 27:55-61 (itself a chiasm, as I showed in a post last week)
B. Jews request a guard on the tomb to avoid deception, 27:62-66
C. Jesus rises from the dead, 28:1-10
B’. Jews perpetuate a deception about the resurrection, 28:11-15
A’. Jesus meets with His disciples in Galilee and commissions them, 28:16-20
Several notes on the structure:
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, March 15, 2010 at 5:30 am
INTRODUCTION
Along with Paul (1 Corinthians 15:4), we confess Jesus’ burial as an essential part of the gospel. What does the burial of Jesus add to His death and resurrection?
THE TEXT
“And many women who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to Him, were there looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons. . . .” (Matthew 27:55-66).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, March 15, 2010 at 5:16 am
Ezekiel stands in a valley of bones and prophesies. There’s a great noise, and a rattling of bones (called a seismos by the LXX, an “earthquake”). Soon an army is before him, but without breath (pneuma). So Ezekiel prophesies again and the wind (pneuma) stirs up until they come to life and have breath in them (37:8-10). So, Yahweh says, He will “open your graves” (anoigo humon ta mnemata) and cause Israel and Judah to emerge from exile (37:12).
Jesus is on the cross, on a mountain that is a “place of the skull.” He cries out in a loud voice, and gives up His Spirit (pneuma). There is an earthquake (he ge eseisthe) and graves open (ta mnemeia aneoxthesan) so that the dead can climb out and visit the holy city. Thus are Israel and Judah again called from exile.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 2:41 pm
The Jews mock Jesus for saying that He could destroy the temple in three days.
In fact, it hardly takes Him that long. Three hours is enough. Darkness falls, and three hours later Jesus speaks twice in a thunderous voice, and the veil of the temple tears. That’s the end of the temple, since there’s no use for temples without doors and boundaries to keep people out.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 11:56 am
It’s a stretch, but: Matthew uses the word pneuma 19 times, and uses the word with reference to the Holy Spirit 12 times (1:18, 20; 3:11, 16; 4:1; 10:20; 12:18, 28, 31, 32; 22:43; 28:19). That’s neat: A twelvefold Spirit for the twelve tribes of Israel.
But then there’s the ambiguous 27:50. When Jesus dies, He lets go of, sends out His pneuma. This could simply be a way of describing death, but in the presence of references to Elijah it seems plausible that Matthew intends more. The verb (aphiemi) might also suggest something more deliberate.
If so, then we’ve got 13 references to the Spirit, rather than 12. Number 12 is at 27:50, when Jesus dies as King of the Jews and releases His Spirit. Use number 13, which breaks out of the twelve tribes, is in the great commission, the command to disciple all the ethnoi in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, with the assurance that Jesus, who yielded His Spirit, is with them to the end of the age.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 11:48 am
Jesus cries out with a loud voice, and some say He calls for Elijah.
He cries out again with a loud voice (Matthew 27:50, and then Jesus gives up, or sends away, His spirit (Greek apheken to pneuma).
So too Elijah: At his sacrificial ascent in fire, he gives up his spirit to Elisha, as the Spirit of Jesus will clothe the disciples not many days after.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 11:24 am
Jesus cries out using the words of Psalm 22, and the people standing at the foot of the cross say He’s calling for Elijah. Why? They must be Jews, since they immediately associate “Eli” with “Elijah.” But if they are Jews, why don’t they recognize a quotation from one of the Psalms? Have they become so dull of hearing? Perhaps that’s Matthew’s point, since the Jews have clearly been incapable of noticing the fulfillments of Scripture that strew the ground all around Jesus’ cross – the very wording of the mockery, gambling for clothes, vinegar to drink, all of it is derived from the Scriptures but the Jews don’t recognize it.
Maybe. It’s a bit easier, though not easy, to determine why Matthew would have included the speculation concerning Elijah.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 11:17 am
“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” Jesus cries on the cross. He’s crying out for Elijah, someone says.
But the Greek eli is exactly the name of another Old Testament figure, the High Priest Eli, priest during the childhood of Samuel (1 Samuel 1-4). That allusion works: Eli was a weak priest during a time of apostasy, when his sons were committed abominations in the house of Yahweh, abominations that would bring desolation. That is the first-century setting as well, as Jesus has told us in Matthew 24.
More immediately to the context, Jesus goes to the cross as the living temple of God, to be torn down. That is precisely the story of 1 Samuel 1-4 – the dismantling of the tabernacle. The banner over Eli’s term as high priest carried the message “Ichabod,” the glory has departed, and on the cross God forsakes His living tent, though He returns when He raises up this tent as a glorious temple (cf. 2 Corinthians 5).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 8:24 am
A couple of disconnected notes on Matthew 27.
First, the death of Jesus responds to the mockery of passers-by and Jewish leaders. The passers-by mock Jesus for His claim to be able to destroy and rebuild the temple (v. 40), but at the death of Jesus the temple is essentially immobilized when the veil is torn (v. 51). Both passers-by and leaders mock Jesus for claiming to be Son of God (vv. 40, 43), but at His death the centurion and his men confess Jesus as Son of God (v. 54). Not only does Jesus’ death rebut both forms of mockery, but the rebuttal is given in the same order as the mockery – temple, then Son of God. Of course, Jesus proves to have power over the temple, and proves to be Son of God, precisely by rejecting the temptation of the mockers: He demonstrates His sonship by not coming down from the cross (vv. 40, 42).
Second, at Jesus’ death, the cosmos is shaken. Three zone are hit by the impact of His death: the temple (v. 51a), the earth with its rocks (v. 51b), and tombs (v. 52-53). That’s a variation on the three-story universe of Genesis 1. The temple is the earthly “heaven,” the earth is, well, the earth, and people are buried in tombs “under” the earth. Jesus’ death shakes the whole universe; light turns to darkness, the firmament-veil is torn, earth becomes mobile, Sheol coughs up the dead. Creation is being dismantled to prepare for a renewal of creation.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 5:14 am
Further thoughts on the structures of Matthew 27, focusing on verses 45-66.
Verses 45-54 can be seen either as a panel structure or as two chiasms. In the panel structure, each panel begins with Jesus crying out in a loud voice:
A. Jesus’ “cry of dereliction,” v 46
B. Reaction of hearers, v 47-49
A’. Jesus cries “again with a loud voice” and dies, v 50
B’. Reaction of earth and soldiers, vv 51-54
Alternatively, this section can be seen as two small chiasms:
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 5:55 am
Jesus’ death is earth-shattering, literally and figuratively.
In the OT, earthquakes are associated with the revelation of Yahweh’s glory (cf. Psalm 77:18) and His coming as the divine warrior to rescue His people.
But in Matthew, the earth quakes at Jesus’ death. It quakes when Jesus cries out and the spirit leaves Him.
That can only mean: Here Yahweh’s glory is revealed once and for all; here in the darkness of Golgotha, and in this beaten bloody corpse, Yahweh has come to fight His greatest enemy and win His greatest victory.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, March 8, 2010 at 6:41 am
INTRODUCTION
Orthodoxy claims that Jesus of Nazareth is God the Son in human flesh, but the test case of orthodox Christology has always been the crucifixion of Jesus. Especially here, we confront the mystery of the incarnation, for God the Son died on the cross just as surely as He was born, lived, hungered, suffered and sorrowed.
THE TEXT
“Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice. . . .” (Matthew 27:45-54).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, March 8, 2010 at 6:30 am
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