Can We Still Believe the Bible?: An Evangelical Engagement with Contemporary Questions by Blomberg Craig

Author:Blomberg, Craig [Blomberg, Craig]
Language: deu
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: REL006080, Bible (evidences) (authority) (etc.)
ISBN: 9781441245649
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2014-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

New Testament Examples Matthew as Midrash?

The stakes seem higher when one turns to New Testament examples, and therefore a more thorough case study is in order. In the early 1980s, Robert Gundry published a detailed and learned commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, in which he identified the Gospel as akin to Jewish midrash.89 More specifically, he had in mind those kinds of midrash that are often called the rewritten Bible. For example, the intertestamental book of Jubilees retells much of the story of Genesis, but with numerous additional details. It is hard to know if these come from Jewish tradition or other ancient historical sources or are simply the embellishments of the author of Jubilees. Perhaps he was imaginatively adding details to help each story come alive the way many preachers today will flesh out biblical stories, adding scenery, local color, dialogue, motives, and the like. At any rate, as carefully as Jews memorized, recited, studied, and discussed the Torah, there is no question that when they read a book like Jubilees, they would recognize the parts that corresponded to their Bible and distinguish them from the later additions.

Gundry treated Matthew’s use of Mark and an expanded version of Q (see “Did Originals Originally Exist?” in chap. 1 above) exactly along these lines. Assuming that Matthew’s readers would have known the story of Jesus according to Mark and according to Q, which Gundry believed were historically accurate, he could then conclude that they would have recognized the potentially unhistorical elaboration that Matthew added and would not have viewed the redactional parts of Matthew’s Gospel the same way they did the traditional parts. Gundry composed an entire, detailed “theological postscript” that came at the end of his commentary, explaining why his view was consistent with inerrancy. On his view, Matthew tried to deceive no one, he employed an established Jewish genre of writing, and his audience would have understood exactly what he was doing, not imagining his embellishments to be making the same kinds of truth claims as his core material from Mark and Q.90

Because Gundry was a member of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), which requires its members annually to reaffirm belief in biblical inerrancy, a lively discussion began, leading to a variety of presentations and publications critiquing Gundry’s approach and assessing whether or not it truly was compatible with inerrancy.91 Norman Geisler spearheaded a movement to have Gundry ousted from the organization, believing his views to be incompatible with the doctrine. At an open forum on the topic at the annual convention of the ETS, the majority of the speakers spoke in favor of retaining Gundry’s membership, even while almost all of them disagreed with his specific approach to Matthew. They argued that it was not the role of the society to censure a member or try to censor his publications if he had made a good case for how his views could be consistent with inerrancy. Rather, scholars who disagreed with his approach to Matthew should present their arguments via all the normal academic outlets of papers and publications.

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