Friday, December 21, 2007

Matthew and Judeo-Christianity

Thanks to Craig Allert, I came across an interesting example of how the text of the Gospel of Matthew was handled by Judeo-Christian groups (I prefer this term to "Jewish Christian").
Mt. 8.4: "Go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."
In Tatian's Diatessaron, we find the same verse written as: "Go, show yourself to the priest and fulfill the law".
Does this provide evidnence of the text of Matthew being taken in a pro-Torah and pro-Jewish direction by elements within Judeo-Christianity in the secondary century? It certainly appears that way. Ironically, Matthew was a document that enabled and activated both pro (e.g. Mt. 15.24) and anti (e.g. Mt. 27.25) Jewish sentiments.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice post. Question though: Why do you prefer the moniker "Judeo-Christian"? How does it better solve the apparent weaknesses with the terminology? What do you really gain?