A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew

by Graham N. Stanton

This book thoroughly examines Matthew's gospel. It discusses appropriate methods for interpretation and considers in detail the gospel's origin, purpose, and social setting. Graham Stanton claims that Matthew wrote the Gospel following a period of prolonged bitter disputes with fellow Jews. With considerable literary, catechetical, and pastoral skill the evangelist composed a gospel for a new people (both Jews and Gentiles) in a cluster of Christian communities. Dividing his book into three sections, Stanton discusses redaction critical, literary critical, and social scientific approaches to the interpretation of Matthew; he confirms that Matthew's Gospel was shaped by the "parting of the ways" with Judaism; and he includes two essays on the Sermon on the Mount and one on Matthew's use of the Old Testament.

440 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1992

Reviews

[JonM · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s an important resource for matthean studies. It’s not an important resource for matthean exegesis, though. It’s highly speculative and theoretical while purporting to be fact-based and objective in its observations. I’m glad I studied it because it tries to imagine the present text of Matthew as one large puzzle board that has been dumped on our laps and needs to be pieced together through careful studies.
I have studied Matthew’s Gospel for over fifteen years, and there are only a handful of pericopes that I still find puzzling due to probable redaction. I think Source critical studies like this book by Stanton are far more puzzling than illuminating. Matthew’s Gospel is illuminating on its own, even with its puzzling parts.

[Laura Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Your interest in this book will be heavily dependent on how much you know about Matthew. For me the first two third felt like reading a really long introduction to a commentary. Last third is more topical and engaging.

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am really of two minds about this book. For a specialist, it is full of excellent and erudite discussions on sources, redaction criticism, literary criticism, and socio-historical evaluations. There is some effective exegesis, and although I do not agree with all of Stanton's conclusions, his reasons are sound and he engages well with large amount of scholarship.

However, this book is only for the specialist. As a PhD student, it was helpful to me in many ways, but I'm not sure I know a single person I could recommend this book to, and I know a lot of people. Is this a fair criticism? Maybe not. After all, the specialist is really the only audience Stanton intended.

The book also suffers from being so focused on certain redactive and social aims that it has nearly no discussion at all on things like orality, Jesus traditions, the potential of actual eye-witness testimony, etc. Maybe this also isn't fair, as those things became a greater focus after Stanton wrote this book. But even in his time, they should have been obvious factors, and he makes almost no use of any of these important issues.

Overall, for what Stanton was driving towards, I think the book is very effective. However, as it is limited in scope, it becomes limited in future use.