The friendship of Matthew and Paul: A response to a recent trend in the interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The friendship of Matthew and Paul: A response to a recent trend in the interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel
 
Creator Willitts, Joel
 
Subject — Gospel of Matthew; Matthew’s Great Commission; Tübingen School; Paul’s Gentile mission; Jewish Christianity
Description David Sim has argued that Matthew’s so-called Great Commission (Mt 28:16–20) represents a direct anti-Pauline polemic. While this thesis may be theoretically possible and perhaps fi ts within the perspective of an earlier era in New Testament research, namely that of the Tübingen School, the evidence in both Matthew and the Pauline corpus does not support such a reading of early Christianity. In this paper, I argue that an antithetical relationship between Matthew’s Great Commission and Paul’s Gentile mission as reflected in his epistles is possible only (1) with a certain reading of Matthew and (2) with a caricature of Paul. In light of the most recent research on both Matthew’s Great Commission and the historical Paul, these two traditions can be seen as harmonious and not antithetical in spite of the recent arguments to the contrary. My argument provides a further corrective to the view of early Christianity, which posits a deep schism between so-called Jewish Christianity and Paul’s ostensibly Law-free mission to the Gentiles.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2009-07-24
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v65i1.151
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 65, No 1 (2009); 8 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/151/233
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2009 Joel Willitts https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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