Denver Journal - 9:0216 - Matthew

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Volume 9 - 2006
Editor: Richard S. Hess

Ben Witherington III. Matthew. Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2006. xxii + 568 pp. $
60.00 ISBN 9-781573-120760
The emerging Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary Series is perhaps the most attractive and user-friendly
commentary set yet to have been invented. Neither too long to bog down the average reader, nor too short so as to bypass
crucial questions consistently, these hardback volumes come with a nice quality of paper, sidebars that address all manner
of important issues in more detail, black-and-white pictures (many of them from the history of art) having to do with the
passage at hand, and a CD that reproduces the text, sidebars and pictures with various search and projection features. A
Connections section regularly punctuates the commentary, allowing the author to make contemporary applications, larger
biblical or systematic theological observations or reflections on the use of a passage throughout church history. The
authors reflect a spectrum of liberal evangelical to conservative or moderately liberal. Of the volumes to appear to date,
Ben Witherington may be the most conservative thus far, and he is well known for his prolific publishing, including
voluminous commentary writing, even while carrying on a ministry of teaching New Testament studies at Asbury Seminary
and regularly traveling and speaking around the country and world.
One might not expect a mid-range commentary to say anything particularly new about Matthew, with as many good
competitors in print. But Witherington defends the somewhat distinctive thesis that Matthew should be read as wisdom
literature from start to finish and that this Gospel presents Jesus as Wisdom incarnate as a dominant Christological
category. Many scholars have acknowledged this as at least a minor, distinctive theme in Matthew, but Witherington makes
it a major one, with sidebars for every pericope entitled A Sapiential Reading of . . . the text at hand. In addition to the
regularly cited passages such as the latter half of Matthew 11 or the inclusio around the Gospel involving Jesus as God
with us (Immanuel at the beginning; Lo I am with you always at the end), Witherington regularly sees the emphasis in
Matthew on Jesus ethical teaching as portraying him as a sage. The son of David motif which most see as stressing Jesus'
royal Messianic heritage can also link Jesus with Davids son, Solomon, as in one greater than Solomon is here, who of
course was given the gift of great wisdom in his day. When Jesus appears as a miracle-worker and particularly an exorcist,
we are to think of the intertestamental Jewish traditions of Solomon as exorcist, and the only one among characters from
previous biblical history. When Jesus functions like a prophet, we are reminded that the ministries of prophets and sages
often overlapped in the ancient world. (Indeed, two of Witheringtons previous books are on Jesus the Seer and Jesus the
Sage, respectively.) But whereas many today in the third quest would see Jesus more as a prophet (and even more than
a prophet) by subsuming the teaching of wisdom under the prophetic role, Witherington reverses the super- and
subordinate categories here.
With respect to introductory topics, while he does not think Matthew wrote the final form of this book, Witherington
suspects a lot of what source critics call M does come from Matthew, perhaps in Aramaic, accounting for the persistent
early Christian tradition that Matthew wrote the sayings of Jesus in a Semitic language. An apostle, Witherington thinks,
would not have used the work of a non-apostolic writer like Mark nearly so much, while the author of the final product he
believes is a Christian scribe not a converted tax collector. The provenance may be more likely Galilee than Syrian Antioch,
and we should not see the community as exclusively or even substantially Jewish-Christian, even if those concerns are
clearly present. Because Witherington dates Mark to the late 60s, he thinks Matthew must have appeared in the 70s or 80s.
As one has come to expect from Witheringtons books, this volume offers a gold mine full of nuggets of insight both
into the original meaning of the text and into its application, often phrased in memorable and preachable form. The story of
the virginal conception is not likely to have been made up, because for those who did not accept it the Holy Family was in
fact stigmatized with shame for life. The Magi are guided by general revelation only so far; special revelation must lead them
to the Christ childs exact location. Jesus role as a new Moses can easily be exaggerated, but he does do right what
Israel more generally did wrong, not least in the temptations in the wilderness. The Sermon on the Mount functioned for
Matthew much like a CD of Jesus Greatest Hits would in the twenty-first century. A better translation of the antithesis
about lust would be anyone who so looks on a woman that she becomes desirous has already led her astray into adultery
in his heart (p. 132). Lead us not into temptation in the Lords prayer means, as in the later Babylonian Talmud, Do not
bring me into the power of a sin, a temptation, a shame (b. Ber. 60b). Judge not in context refers to unfair critiques,
uncharitable evaluations and using standards that one would not apply to oneself. By the end of the Sermon, one has

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learned that one is not eternally secure until one is securely in eternity, and ones behavior as a disciple affects that final
outcome (p. 160).
Jesus was probably the first sage to have women as his followers. Physical healings also deal with problems of ritual
impurity, huge in Jesus world even if we seldom think about them today. Parables have one, two or three points of
comparison between their stories and the spiritual realities to which they point. The enigmatic 10:23 is best viewed as
referring to the perennially incomplete mission to the Jews before Christs return. Calling John the Baptist the greatest
person ever born suggests that Jesus is even greater and in a position to make such a declaration. Criticizing Jesus as a
human being is not an unforgivable sin, but criticizing the Holy Spirits work in and through Jesus, and thereby calling good
evil, is indeed blasphemy against God (p. 248). Jesus indirect, questioning, and step-by-step teaching style expected far
more of his less educated and in some cases illiterate followers than we tend to expect of our more highly educated
congregations. What is wrong with this picture? (p. 251).
Jesus and the Pharisees could be viewed as leading dueling holiness movements. Even in his harshest words, Jesus
never spoke ad hominem and always told the truth. In calling the Canaanite woman a dog, Jesus employs a diminutive of
contempt, prompting the woman to find a way to ask for pure grace. Jesus rebuking Peter with the words, Get behind me,
Satan means for Peter that he must take the place of a disciple, following [Jesus] and [his] example (p. 321). In telling
Peter to forgive 77 times, Jesus was assuming that the offenders repented; otherwise he would have been contradicting the
teaching on church discipline which he had just given. In our culture of narcissism and entitlement, we fight a huge uphill
battle to model and to instruct selfless surrender to others, including within the field of Christian counseling!
For Jesus there were two (but only two) equally valid callings in lifefidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness
for the sake of the Dominion [i.e., kingdom] (p. 365). Jesus words to the rich young ruler led Wesley to teach that if you do
not give as much of your money as possible away or for doing good to others, you may be a live person but you are a dead
Christian. The blind men Jesus heals are better models of discipleship than the Twelve, for the former simply want to follow
him and continue depending on his mercy, whereas the latter are arguing about the rewards they will receive in the future!
Election in the parable of the marriage feast is corporate not individual. God has not withdrawn his promises to Israel nor
transferred them to others but he has said that they are fulfilled in and through Jesus. Jesus death has cosmic
consequences but unlike at his baptism there is no heavenly voice, only Jesus dying cry. The Great Commission suggests
that the main way of making disciples is through teaching.
Only rarely does Witherington take exegetical positions to which one must strongly object. Nothing in Matthew 5 or 19
suggests that some marriages represent relationships that God has not joined together. If that were to become a legitimate
reason for divorce, there would be no person wanting out of a struggling relationship who could not appeal to such a
criterion! The parable of the wheat and the tares cannot support deliberately including nonbelievers with believers in church
membership because Jesus explicitly teaches that the field in the story is the world, not the church. While Witherington is
right that Matthew 17:27 may not have been intended literally, the idea that Jesus may have been joking is least likely of all.
Jesus never said that the earth was the Lords and the fullness thereof (p. 411); that quotation comes from Psalm 24:1! The
immediately of Matthew 24:29 cannot refer to after the Parousia but is said to refer to after the tribulation that precedes the
Parousia. Witherington is right that this includes the time of the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 and that it cannot be
limited to that time; the solution, however, is to recognize the entire period from then until Christs return as from one point
of view tribulation. And to say that Mark certainly did not end at v. 8 but that the real original ending (which Matthew
followed for part of chap. 28) has been lost is to drastically overstate a conclusion that remains in the minority, even if a
growing one.
Unfortunately, one has also come to expect, particularly in the last few years, manuscripts from Witherington that are
really not yet quite ready to turn into the publishers. This is, however, the first one where apparently no one at the publishing
house was able to turn the rough draft into a publicly presentable form. Sentences are poorly worded and concepts are
unnecessarily repeated, sometimes verbatim within just a few sentences of text. Just about any kind of typographic error
that spellcheckers alone do not catch appears somewhere in the book, even in large print subheadings. Chapter and verse
references have not been carefully checked. Transliterated foreign words, especially from Greek, are misspelled so often as
to call into question even the authors competence, especially with the determination of lexical forms of words. Endnotes
have not been rendered via any consistent form, especially short second references. Dates, places of publication, and
publishers, in both endnotes and bibliography, at times are just plain wrong. Endnote superscripts are wrong by one digit for
pages on end on two different occasions. Wrong fonts or colors of fonts now and then appear. In the text itself, it appears
that Witherington read and cited less and less secondary literature, particularly from recent scholarship, as his work on the
commentary progressed. While it is perfectly understandable that he should often refer to his own previously published
works (because he has written so many), where Matthew runs parallel to Mark not only did he frequently appeal just to what
he had written earlier in his commentary on Mark but also his endnotes too frequently referred solely to Markan rather than
Matthean studies.
Some sage once coined the proverb not to judge a book by its cover. In our high-tech age, we have to modify that into
something like dont judge a book by its cover, color, typescript, pictures, accompanying CDs, sidebars, spacious margins,

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and so on. This is a fantastic book in appearance. It had the potential for being outstanding in content and style as well.
But, in his goal to write commentaries on every book of the New Testament and then get on to even more major projects,
our author is working much too fast and/or not enlisting competent editorial help. This book deserves a revised edition that
corrects these numerous deficiencies.
Craig L. Blomberg, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of New Testament
Denver Seminary
November 2006

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