Matthew, Disciple and Scribe
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The Gospel of Matthew therefore sits at the climax of the wisdom tradition. It tells readers that wisdom has come—as the Hebrew Scriptures attest—through experience, observation, tradition, and correction.109 However, it ultimately comes by revelation—the revelation of the Son. Experience can be misunderstood, observation can be faulty, tradition can be corrupted, and correction is not always present. The son of David has brought the kingdom—the revelation of wisdom—in his person and fulfilled all righteousness.
The Alternate Scribal School
Matthew can thus be understood as the discipled scribe who learned from his teacher of wisdom how the new and the old come together. However, careful readers of the First Gospel will immediately think of the negative things Matthew has Jesus hurling at the scribes. Most notably is Matt. 23, where Jesus goes on a tirade against the scribes and Pharisees.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven! (23:13 NRSV)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. (23:15 NRSV)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. (23:27 NRSV)
It is true that most of the references to scribes in the First Gospel are pejorative. Chris Keith has rightly argued that Jesus as a teacher clashes with the scribal authorities.110 The scribes disagree with what Jesus teaches and how he teaches, and they say that he does not have the authority to be teaching in the first place. In Matt. 21:23 Jesus enters the temple, and the chief priests and the elders of the people ask him by what authority he does these things and who has given Jesus this authority? As Keener notes, “If Jesus taught some ideas that differed from those of some other teachers of the law, we would expect some disagreements.”111
But rather than pushing against my thesis, the conflict between Jesus and the scribal authorities actually strengthens it. Part of the way Jesus the sage-rabbi combats the scribal elite is through constructing his own scribal school.112 The clash of the schools, after all, is centered on Scripture and authority.113 In most of the controversy narratives, the debate revolves around the interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures. The scribal authorities challenge Jesus’s disciples for not washing their hands before eating (Matt. 15:2). The Pharisees ask about the Mosaic exceptions to divorce (19:7). The Sadducees attempt to trap Jesus concerning the resurrection (22:23–33). When Jesus goes into the temple (21:12–13), the religious leaders ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things?” (21:23). In sum, they differ on how the new relates to the old—or maybe more precisely, if there is such a thing as “the new.”
As Yieh notes, not only does Jesus combat Jewish hostility, but he also defines group identity and forms a new community.114 From the start of his ministry, Jesus gathers a group of disciples to follow him. He calls Simon, Andrew, James, and John, who are fishermen (Matt. 4:18–22), an anonymous person (8:21), and Matthew, who works at the tax booth (9:9). Jesus begins to teach them the ethics of the kingdom of heaven (5:1–7:29) and explains to them the secrets of the kingdom (13:11, 52). He gives authority to his disciples (10:1) yet also teaches them how to use the authority to serve, not to lord it over the people (20:25). His wish to recruit and train more disciples is clear when he commissions his disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (28:19). Matthew is one of those scribes who transmits his teaching to later generations.
Jesus may thus be using this term “scribe” in 13:52 to describe his disciples as authorized teachers for the kingdom of heaven in contrast with the Pharisaic scribes, who have failed to grasp the message.115 Jesus urges his disciples, through his example in Matt. 13, to be discipled in the ways of the kingdom so they too can bring out riches new and old and teach and instruct with the authority that has been given to Jesus. This view is supported by other texts in Matthew, where he subtly associates scribes and disciples. In Matt. 8:19 it says, “And a scribe came up and said to him, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go’” (emphasis added). Notice this scribe comes to his “teacher” (διδάσκαλος) and says, “I will follow [ἀκολουθέω] you.” The Greek word for “follow” is the dominant term Matthew uses for the disciples. This is confirmed when the text says in 8:21, “Another of his disciples said, ‘Lord, . . .’” According to Gundry’s analysis, the sequence implies that the two scribes are both labeled as disciples.116 Matthew elsewhere explicitly connects scribes/disciples to the title of teacher throughout his Gospel (in each case, emphasis added):
The Pharisees ask the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (9:11)
Jesus says, “A disciple is not above his teacher,” explicitly linking disciples with their teachers. (10:24–25)
The scribes and the Pharisees ask Jesus as the “teacher” for a sign. (12:38)
The tax collectors ask Peter (the disciple) if his teacher pays the tax. (17:24)
The disciples come to him and call him teacher. (22:16)
One final example correlates scribes and disciples. After Jesus castigates the scribes and Pharisees, he speaks in the present tense about sending “prophets and wise men and scribes” to the religious leaders (23:34). Interestingly, Jesus does not say that he sends them evangelists, apostles, or disciples; he uses this alternative triad now in a positive sense. He probably does so to contrast the “scribes” with whom he has just been speaking, those who sit on Moses’s seat. But the religious leaders only kill, crucify, flog, and persecute these new messengers. In the narrative, readers have already heard about Jesus sending out his disciples, but nothing more has been made of their mission since then. Here that mission picks up again, and Jesus describes his “sent ones” positively as wise men and scribes. These scribes will find themselves in opposition to the “scribes” of the day, and therefore they represent an alternative school that Jesus is forming.
Thus, in at least three places (8:19; 13:52; 23:34) Matthew correlates scribes and disciples. Although scribes are regularly perceived as the group of characters who oppose Jesus, Matthew speaks of the scribe in a positive sense and probably in contrast to those who oppose him, the trained scribe of the kingdom of heaven who wisely brings out treasures new and old.117 As Esther Juce contends, Matthew has two objectives in using wisdom imagery. First, to reveal Christ as the fulfillment of the Jewish tradition. Second, to contrast Christ with his opponents.118 In summary, three points substantiate that Matthew portrays Jesus as a teacher-sage-rabbi forming a new scribal school: (1) Jesus is presented as a teacher-sage, (2) Matthew has three unique and positive uses of scribes where he correlates them to disciples, and (3) he offers negative portraits of the Jerusalem scribal school.
The Purpose of the Scribe
The purpose of this scribal training and profession was the formation of a certain type of person “understood as a higher ‘humanity.’”119 In other words, they were to help form a new community under the rule of the king. In many Sumerian, Akkadian, and Egyptian texts, the scribes learned to copy the works and words of the king, who was viewed as the paradigmatic scribal scholar and embodied the ideal of humanity. On one Egyptian monument, a scribe wrote the following: “I was appointed to be the royal scribe at the palace, and moreover was introduced to the god’s book(s), saw the powers of Thoth and was equipped with their secrets. I opened up all their mysteries and my advice was sought concerning all their matters.”120
As we see in the Hebrew Scriptures, kings maintained order for the society and even the universe by following the Torah. The scribes would copy the king’s text to form a group with specialized knowledge and pass on this knowledge to the king’s subjects. The scribe thus functioned as an intermediary between the king and the people. The OT specifically names scribes at David’s court (Seraiah, 2 Sam. 8:17; Sheva, 2 Sam. 20
:25; Shisha, 1 Kings 4:3; Shavsha, 1 Chron. 18:16). They were the royal scribes, or scribes of the king, spreading the king’s wisdom.
When one lays this picture over the First Gospel, Matthew’s purpose as a scribe begins to come together. Matthew is not only the discipled scribe but also the sapiential scribe. He too has copied the works and words of the son of David to form a community. Possibly this is why Matthew is the only Gospel writer to refer to the ἐκκλησία (16:18; 18:17).121 By calling his disciples together and sending them into all nations, Jesus’s intention is to build a “church.” Matthew, as the royal and discipled scribe, stands as the intermediary who transmits the words of the king to shape and form the king’s subjects. Following and assisting his king, Matthew creates a new humanity, one in which justice, love, and mercy prevail.
Matthew thus serves as King Jesus’s envoy or representative as he transmits and carries the king’s message; he brings good news to the poor. The purpose of scribal training was not only literacy and learning but also the shaping of a kind of person. “The law of the wise is a fountain of life” (Prov. 13:14). Scribes were to follow the established order of the world and transmit the knowledge of past generations to future generations so that they too could live in harmony with divine order. In this way, scribes helped maintain the order established by the king and ultimately by the gods.
1. My argument in this book does not completely rest on Matthean authorship, though it will be assumed throughout. Certainly, Matthew as the author coheres with my thesis. Being a tax collector may imply he knew something of scribal techniques, though the amount of training is hard to know for sure (see Chris Keith’s Jesus’ Literacy for a literacy overview). It also fits to have someone who was an eyewitness of Jesus. Byrskog, Bauckham, and Hengel have all recently emphasized the role of eyewitnesses in their works. However, it could also be the case that the author was a disciple of a disciple of Jesus. If there is no relation to Jesus, then my argument is less convincing. For the sake of variety, I will use various ways of identifying the Gospel of Matthew, including some that imply Matthean authorship. Although the authorship of the First Gospel is disputed and the manuscript did not originally circulate with a formal title identifying who wrote it, very early in the church tradition this Gospel was associated with Matthew. On the basis of manuscript evidence from the second or early third century, Simon Gathercole (“Earliest Manuscript Title”) has argued for an earlier use of titles than most assume. However, also see van der Toorn’s chapter on authorship in antiquity, in van der Toorn, Scribal Culture.
2. The Tanak—the Hebrew Bible—has twenty-four books, which the OT of the Christian Bible counts as thirty-nine. The difference in number is because the Hebrew collection considers the twelve Minor Prophets as one book and does not divide some of the longer books into two parts.
3. Though this study largely examines Jewish backgrounds since this seems to fit the best with Matthew’s emphasis, it would be interesting to write a book in a similar vein focusing on Greco-Roman backgrounds as a companion to this one.
4. The new and the old could be understood simply as what some call biblical theology. Carson (“Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology”) asserts, “Everyone does that which is right in his or her own eyes and calls it biblical theology.” By biblical theology, I mean what Geerhardus Vos (“Idea of Biblical Theology,” 15) says when he describes it as “nothing else than the exhibition of the organic progress of supernatural revelation in its historic continuity and multiformity.” More specifically, I am looking at redemptive history through a literary and canonical approach. See Klink and Lockett, Understanding Biblical Theology. While their work is helpful, its categories are too tight.
5. Clowney, Church, 55. Though Clowney refers here to the old covenant in contrast to the new covenant in Hebrews, I am not claiming that the old covenant equals the OT.
6. I use the term figural here because it seems to be a mediating term between typology, allegory, and inner-biblical exegesis. See chapter 2, where I also use the term “shadow stories.”
7. Balthasar, Seeing the Form, 151.
8. The dative phrase τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν οὐρανῶν could be taken as sphere (in the kingdom of heaven), respect (concerning the kingdom of heaven), or dative of advantage (for the sake of the kingdom). I lean toward taking it as a dative of advantage or interest. Carson (“Matthew” [1984], 332), Orton (Understanding Scribe), and Luz (Matthew 8–20, 286) agree.
9. The verb employed in this verse is ἐκβάλλω, which more generally means expulsion: to “expel” or “send out” rather than “bring forth” or “bring out.” Modern translations stem from a conflation of Luke 6:45, which uses προφέρω. In his commentary on Matthew, Origen even changed the verb to Luke’s (Commentarium in evangelium Matthaei 10.15.1). Peter Phillips (“Casting Out the Treasure”) capitalizes on the “expulsion” meaning of ἐκβάλλω and reinterprets the verse to mean that the discipled scribe expels the new and old in their storeroom to make way for the kingdom of heaven. However, ἐκβάλλω can have the more sedate meaning of “bring out” (see BDAG 299; Matt. 12:20, 35), and this meaning more closely aligns with Luke 6:45 and Matt. 12:35.
10. Jesus compares himself to a “master of a house” (οἰκοδεσπότης) in Matt. 10:25. In the same text he calls himself a teacher, and his followers disciples. They are slaves to him the master. The next two verses also reflect the tradition of wisdom by speaking of things hidden, revealed, and proclaimed on the housetops (10:26–27). Interestingly, in Prov. 9:1–6 Lady Wisdom is both a householder and a teacher.
11. Spellman, “Scribe Who Has Become a Disciple,” 45.
12. Fuller, New Testament in Current Study, 83. Orton (Understanding Scribe, 166) says, “In any case, there is a great deal of evidence that the author has received a thorough training in Jewish exegesis and writing, the most tangible aspect of the traditional art of the scribe.”
13. Origen questions how the disciples can be scribes when Acts 4:13 says that they are unlearned and ignorant. His solution is that one becomes a scribe when one receives the teaching of Christ, but on a deeper level when one, having received elementary knowledge through the letter of the Scriptures, ascends to things spiritual. Commentary on Matthew 10.15 (ANF 10:423; GCS 10:9–10).
14. Bacon (Studies in Matthew) asserts Matthew modified Mark in order to show the chief duty of the Twelve was to be scribes made disciples for the kingdom of heaven. Stendahl (School of St. Matthew) famously argues from the eclectic quotations that this practice was the product of a Jewish-Christian scribal school that searched for prooftexts. My proposal is not the same as Stendahl’s, though there are some affinities.
15. Daniel Harrington (Gospel of Matthew, 208) comments that this “self-portrait of the evangelist” is a very widespread view, one might say almost the universal view. The majority view is that 13:52 describes Matthew, with many extending it to the disciples. See, e.g., Carson, “Matthew” (1984), 333; Blomberg, Matthew, 225; Morris, Gospel according to Matthew, 362; Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 570. Yet Byrskog (Jesus the Only Teacher, 241) says there is no conclusive evidence for this, and the context speaks against this view.
16. One could argue that the word βίβλος covers only the genealogy. However, βίβλος can mean either a “brief written message” (cf. Matt. 19:7) or a “long written composition” (cf. Mark 12:26; Luke 3:4; 20:42; Acts 1:20; 7:42; Rev 20:15). I think the case I present in this chapter supports the idea that it covers his entire work. Allison (“Matthew’s First Two Words”) discusses the use of βίβλος.
17. Discipleship in Matthew has been viewed usually under two lenses: redaction criticism or narrative criticism. See Bornkamm, Barth, and Held, Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew; Luz, “Disciples in the Gospel according to Matthew”; Sheridan, “Disciples and Discipleship in Matthew”; J. Brown, Disciples in Narrative Perspective; Wilkins, Discipleship in the Ancient World; Kingsbury, Matthew as Story; Edwar
ds, “Uncertain Faith”; Edwards, Matthew’s Narrative Portrait of Disciples. Many of them note that the disciples’ understanding functions to highlight Jesus as an effective teacher.
18. Wilkins (Discipleship in the Ancient World, 172) claims that Matthew has a special interest in the disciples as literary figures. “Matthew’s gospel is at a least in part a manual on discipleship. While all the major discourses directed at least in part to the μαθηταί, . . . and with the disciples called and trained and commissioned to carry out the climactic mandate to ‘make disciples’ in the conclusion of the gospel, Matthew has constructed a gospel that will equip the disciples in the making of disciples.”
19. Wilkins (Discipleship in the Ancient World, 43–91) explicitly ties discipleship into the notion of scribes and wise men.
20. Barth, “Matthew’s Understanding of the Law,” 106. My claim is not that the disciples in Matthew are portrayed only in a positive light—they certainly have conflicting traits. As Veresput (“Faith of the Reader”) notes, even at the end of the Gospel, Matthew speaks of their hesitation (28:17).
21. Though I am not convinced that this transfer can be substantiated, multiple scholars (Conzelmann, Byrskog) note the particular interest of Matthew in “understanding.” Nine times Matthew employs συνίημι, but none of them occur before chap. 13, and six of the nine occur in chap. 13 itself (13:13, 14, 15, 19, 23, 51; 15;10; 16:12; 17:13).
22. See Byrskog (Jesus the Only Teacher, 221) for a similar suggestion. Sirach claims, “Every understanding person knows wisdom. . . . Those who are understanding in words become wise themselves, and pour forth precise parables” (Sir. 18:28–29 AT).