Fulfilment of Scripture and Jesus’ Teachings in Matthew

Abstract

One of the most intriguing aspects of the experience of reading the gospels, for both beginning students and those who have been at it for decades, is the growing awareness of how the gospels convey their message. Our attention is usually focused first on what the message is: the storyline, the plot, the climax or resolution, and its implications. As we continue to read and reread, we may find that we begin to grow interested in various features of the narrative, such as its organisation, collections of material (parables or miracle stories), repetitions, the ways characters are represented or the narrator’s comments. These are not incidental features of the gospel narrative. On the contrary, they are the elements with which it is constructed and that guide the reader’s experience of the narrative. In this article we will explore how Matthew leads its Jewish-Christian readers, sometime late in the 1st century and during theprocess of the separation of early believers from the synagogue, to accept Jesus’ teachings as a new teaching on righteousness and functionally at least a new Torah. Specifically, we will analyse the role of repetition and redundancy in Matthew’s narrative rhetoric in relation to this theme.Vervulling van die Skrif en Jesus se onderrig in Matteus. Een van die boeiendste aspekte wat beginnerstudente sowel as ervare lesers met die bestudering van die evangelies ondervind, is die groeiende bewustheid van hoe die boodskap oorgedra word. Normaalweg word die aandag eerstens op die boodskap gevestig: die storielyn, die verloop, die hoogtepunt en die ontknoping, en die implikasies daarvan. Met die lees en herlees daarvan word ’n groeiende belangstelling ondervind in die onderskeie kenmerke van die narratief soos die samestelling daarvan, die tipe gegewens (gelykenisse of wonderwerke), herhalings, die manier hoe die karakters voorgestel word en die verteller se kommentaar. Hierdie is nie toevallige kenmerke van die evangelie-narratief nie. Inteendeel, dit is die elemente waaruit dit saamgestel is en wat die leser se ervaring van die narratief begelei. In hierdie artikel word die wyse ondersoek waarop Matteus, in die eerste eeu na Christus en gedurende die skeidingsproses van die vroeë gelowiges uit die sinagoge, die Joodse-Christenlesers lei om Jesus se onderrig as ’n nuwe lering oor regverdigheid en, wat meer is, ’n nuwe Torah te aanvaar. ’n Spesifieke analise word gemaak oor die rol van herhaling en toutologie in Matteus se narratiewe retoriek wat verband hou met hierdie tema.