Behind the Gospel of Matthew: Radical Pharisees in Post-War Galilee?(Essay‪)‬

Introduction: We need a body to locate a soul The reception of the Gospel of Matthew was very successful in the early centuries, at least judging from its popularity, its influence, and the variety of settings in which this text was read, heard, and interpreted. It comes as no surprise that Matthew is the first Gospel of the New Testament canon. further, the diverse interpretation of Matthew through the centuries up to our own days certainly reminds us that we arc not objective readers, neither were those who went before us. Studying reception history certainly helps us to put our own ideas about this Gospel in perspective. (1) What seems to us to be obvious interpretations of almost any passage of the Gospel are often shown to be heavily dependent on our own modern worldview and cultural context when we become aware of how the same passages were interpreted in previous centuries. This reminds us of the fact that we always read from a certain place and that nothing floats freely in time and space; we are anchored rather firmly in our own time. But, we may add, so were the Gospel writers, and this opens up for us the possibility of attempting to reach back in time to be enriched by their understandings of the Jesus event, even though our historical tools are not sharp enough to provide one hundred percent certainty that we always reach our goal in this regard. However willing we are--or are not--to recognize our historical ability, it quickly becomes clear as we undertake such labor aimed at first century understandings of the postmodern doctrine that, after its production, almost anything can happen to a text, is easily confirmed.