Studies in Matthew [Paperback]

This collection of 18 essays offers wide-ranging exegetical and hermeneutic material, authored over a period of 30 years, as Professor Ulrich Luz strove to develop, clarify or (retrospectively) summarize various issues and perspectives that bore on the multi-volume commentary on Matthew's Gospel that he was writing. (If some of the essays thus appear dated, Luz counters with, "I readily admit to not numbering myself with those who think exegesis needs to be reinvented every ten or twenty years.")

While he has a lot to say about the understanding and interpretation of texts past and present, he grounds his work in historical assumptions. Luz posits that the First Gospel reflects the experiences of the Matthean community, even as it records the events surrounding the ministry of Jesus. According to him, this Jewish Christian community developed under the influence of bearers of the Jesus sayings source known as Q. Its mission to Israel failed, and after the Jewish War of A.D. 70 the community met with rejection and persecution, was forced out of the synagogues, and moved to Syria. There it found theological inspiration in the Gospel of Mark, and eventually turned to a mission to the Gentiles. The Gospel of Matthew thus fuses Q and Mark, and is essentially a rewritten Gospel of Mark, in which Matthew tells a new story of Jesus - a story that both preserved the traditions about the historical Jesus and sought to give the community a new perspective "in the name of the exalted Lord" (11). Luz reads the First Gospel as a story on two levels, in which the conflicts of Jesus with unbelievers and his sufferings were "transparent" for the community's own trauma. "In this way Matthew's Gospel works through the history of the community and prepares it for reorientation" (14).

Although this historical sketch forms a backdrop to Luz's understanding of the origins and purpose of Matthew's Gospel, he is clear that the literal sense of the text in its original historical context does not determine its meaning in another time. Therefore, "Historical-critical exegesis is not competent to say whether [the] truth of a past age can claim to be truth today" (267). Understanding, he tells us, is the new understanding of a different people in a new context. "Every text and every tradition in the Bible harbors a potential for freedom which becomes productive in a new situation" (177). That is why the reception history of biblical texts is so important to Luz, as becomes evident when one reads several of the essays. The history of reception of biblical texts "is a history of application, repeatedly bringing new senses of the old texts to the fore" (167). Understanding is also holistic, involving aspects of human thinking and emotions, artistic expression, political activity, church activity, and so forth. Luz uses the interesting image of water to bring out his meaning: "[W]e can say that we fully 'understand' a spring when we drink from it or a river when we swim in it" (178). Expressed differently, understanding (new meaning) comes through encounter (277). In his various observations on hermeneutics, Luz acknowledges the influence of Hans-Georg Gadamar, though he does not necessarily agree with everything Gadamar says.

The bulk of the material on interpretation is in a group of six essays in the last section of the book, "Hermeneutics with Matthew in Mind." Before then, we find these ideas applied in a fine essay, "The Primacy Saying of Matthew 16:17-19 from the Perspective of Its Effective History", which is one of three essays grouped under "Ecclesiology". The remaining nine essays are grouped thematically in six sections: "Matthew's Story" (two essays), "Matthew and His Tradition" (two), "Christology" (two), "Ethics" (one), "Miracles" (one), and "Matthew and Israel" (one). Luz offers rich material for study. Much of the discussion is historical-critical in nature, despite the author's insistence elsewhere on the insufficiency of this method for present-day understanding. Perhaps Luz points to the explanation where he says, "I do not believe that the historical-critical method can be replaced by 'alternative' methods ... These can only supplement and develop it further in the direction of holistic understanding" (284). Inevitably, we come across some overlap among the essays - which can be helpful, in as much as recurring thoughts in different contexts shed more light on and reinforce the message. This volume is not for the casual reader, but it will reward those with some previous background who take the time to peruse it. Another interesting book by Ulrich Luz is The Theology of the Gospel of Matthew (New Testament Theology).

Not only did Luz wrote a commentary of the highest standard, he also wrote some verry helpfull tools on the gospel of Matthew. This 'Studies' is one of them. Luz leads you through Matthew the way only he can. Some verry important subjects: The Fulfillment of the Law in Matthew, and: The significance of the Church Fathers for Biblical Interpretation. Once you get the taste of this, you will get the commentary also!