Thursday, July 10, 2008

Matthew and the OT (one more problem)

In my earlier post I missed the clearest case of an error on the part of Matthew.

Matthew 27:9-10 “Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: 'AND THEY TOOK THE THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER, THE PRICE OF THE ONE WHOSE PRICE HAD BEEN SET by the sons of Israel;
AND THEY GAVE THEM FOR THE POTTER'S FIELD, AS THE LORD DIRECTED ME.'”

The closest thing we have to this is in the OT is Jeremiah 11:12-13 “I said to them, 'If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!' So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. Then the LORD said to me, 'Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.' So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD.”

This is quite a loose quotation, and there is no reason to think that that it's a prophesy at all. But it does at least answer the question of what Matthew is talking about. The verses talk about thirty shekels of silver as being the price of the Lord, so it seems that the question of where it comes from is answered.

However, before this problem is declared solved, I should mention that I lied. The OT verses I quoted are not Jeremiah 11:12-13. They are Zechariah 11:12-13.

One proposed solution to other OT quotations that don't line up is the Holy Spirit. Perhaps He was telling Matthew insights into the meaning of the OT that were not necessarily clear in the OT alone. This verse makes it clear that Matthew was just wrong.

7 comments:

  1. Hey, I have already read up on this one and will get back to you on it. Overall though, we (you?) really don't give Matthew (or the other early Christians) enough credit. To assume that they didn't know this was Zechariah is ignorance on our part. Talk soon.

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  2. Right, anything to avoid the housework...

    Matthew 27:6-10

    Problems with this context and citation:
    (1) text seems to come from Zech 11:11-13 rather than Jeremiah
    (2) original context of Zech doesn't seem to relate to Judas's actions.

    Objection 1: Did Matthew get Zechariah and Jeremiah confused? V. unlikely because:
    (a) Matthew was a careful student of OT (Davies & Allison write of Matthew that he "was not above scattering items in his Greek text whose deeper meaning could only be appreciated by those with a knowledge of Hebrew. Indeed, it might even be that Matthew found authorial delight in hiding 'bonus points' for those willing and able to look a little beaneath the gospel's surface").
    (b) Even if you don't believe he didn't know the Scriptures well you can hardly imagine that he sat down to write this Gospel from memory one day?
    (c) There is evidence of careful attention here; Matthew even quotes directly from the Hebrew, indicating premediation and care.

    So, if it wasn't just a slip of the pen- what was Matthew talking about? It appears to be that Matthew was pointing his readers to a key passage (or theme) in Jeremiah, tied to the point he wished to make. (Similar to this is the way in which Mark quotes Isaiah and Malachi in succession in Mark 1:2b-3 but only mentions the more prominent prophet).

    Matthew quotes from different textual traditions in his quotations (ie sometimes from Septuagint and sometimes from Hebrew texts or Rabbinic interpretations- like the way a preacher might use the Message or the NIV or the KJV, depending on what point he's trying to demonstrate). In this case the word "potter" from Zech is translated in the Septuagint as "furnace" but Matthew deliberately uses the Masoretic text (Hebrew) to ensure the word "potter" is in the quotation in his gospel, demonstrating his attention to detail here. (He's writing in Greek, so it would have just been handier to use the Septuagint).

    So much for his carelessness then. The really interesting part is the reason why he refers to Jeremiah at all. You must remember that Matthew and his first readers were devout Jews who knew their Scriptures inside out. They would immediately have thought of Jeremiah 19:1-13, (which was fulfilled during Jeremiah's lifetime with Jerusalem destroyed by the Babylonians).
    And what would have struck them about Jeremiah 19?
    (a) Jeremiah bought a jar from a potter as part of his prophecy (linking it to Zech)
    (b) Why would God destroy Jerusalem? Jer 19:4- "they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent..." (echoed in Matt 27:4 with Judas's words- "I have betrayed innocent blood.")
    (c) After breaking the potter's jar, Jeremiah declares that "They will bury the dead in Topheth...", echoed in Matthew's recording that the potter's field in Matt 27 was used "as a burial place..." and so while Jeremiah's jar (representing Jerusalem) and Matthew's field had both been associated with potters, they now were given very similar names "Valley of Slaughter" (Jer 19:6) and "Field of Blood" (Matt 27:7)

    Overall, then, what is the point Matthew is making here? By mentioning Jeremiah but then quoting Zechariah, it was as if he was saying, (and I’m quoting Michael Brown here) “Remember the potter! Remember the blood guilt! Remember Jeremiah’s prophecy about the destruction of our city and Temple! It happened just as he said it would. And today there is even greater blood guilt with even greater consequences. We have betrayed God’s Son. We have given the Messiah over to death...”

    With respect, I think your objections here depend more on your own ignorance of the Old Testament scriptures than Matthew’s ignorance.

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  3. I think you have also missed some of what Matthew is trying to bring out from Zechariah. You believe it to be quoted only because it refers to the thirty pieces of silver. And you also question whether it is a prophecy at all.

    The latter first: Early Christians understood many parts of Zechariah in christological/messianic terms (see Zech 13:7; 12:10; 9:9) but they were not alone- Rabbinic Judaism also interpreted many texts in Zechariah in relation to a messianic time still to come, eg in the Targum and other Rabbinic traditions. So just because you don't see this to be a prophecy, clasical Rabbinic commentators do. (They just don't think it refers to Jesus).

    And finally, the fulfilment is more than just the thirty pieces of silver! It also includes the fact that it was the shepherd who was sold (reflected in Jesus being the Good Shepherd); and the 30 shekels of silver was used thrown "to the potter", echoed in Matthew where the money was used to buy a field owned by a potter.

    Now- back to the grindstone...!

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  4. >(He's writing in Greek, so it would have just been handier to use the Septuagint). So much for his carelessness then.

    It is possible for an article/book/blog post to be a mix of well-thought out arguments and careless mistakes. I've been an examples of carelessness myself it couple places. You quoted NT Wright as saying “Supposing, wider, that the reason nobody evoked the OT in the gospel accounts of the resurrection...” to which I responded by pointing out the places in the gospels' accounts of the resurrection in which the OT is mentioned (Luke 24:25, 27, 32, 45-47 and John 20:9). It's not like I'm assuming Wright is that dumb – I'm observing a problem in his argument, and the fact that the context of the argument is a scholarly 800-page book is not a rebuttal.

    Similarly, I'm judging the strength of Matthew's arguments based on the arguments, and not on what I think about his credentials. (Of course, you go on to defend the argument itself.)

    The similarities between Jeremiah 19 and Matthew 27 are so slight, that I would challenge it even if Matthew had cited book, chapter, and verse. Jeremiah deals with a pot, Zechariah with a potter, and Matthew with the potter's field.

    The topic of “innocent blood” is extremely broad – hardly enough to see a link without Matthew telling us where to look.

    On the similarity of “Valley of Slaughter” and “Field of Blood”, consider also Golgatha, “Place of the Skull.” No one suggests a relationship here simply because when two things have generic names, similarity suggests very little.

    Perhaps the closest parallel is that Jeremiah and Matthew both talk about places where the dead are buried. That's not much, but even Acts seems to disagree with this; Acts 1:18-19 suggests that the Field of Blood got its name because Judas killed himself there, not because it was purchased by Pharisees with the blood money and became a graveyard.

    This comes down to the problem of seeing the Gospels as sufficiently precise for the prophecies to be meaningful is a high enough level of precision for the apparent contradictions to be real contradictions.

    >Indeed, it might even be that Matthew found authorial delight in hiding 'bonus points' for those willing and able to look a little beneath the gospel's surface

    Even if I grant for the sake of argument that Matthew put this in as a puzzle, I have the same criticisms of Matthew's implicit argument as I have of your explicit argument. Had Matthew quoted both Jeremiah and Zechariah directly, it would still not “fulfill” a prophecy. Perhaps this is a case where more work is required to fully understand the nature of Matthew's mistake.

    >the fulfilment is more than just the thirty pieces of silver! It also includes the fact that it was the shepherd who was sold

    It's not at all clear that anyone was sold. Zech 11:12 refers to “wages” while verse 13 refers to “price.” In the context, it makes more sense for the 30 shekels to be payment for work rather than the selling price of a person. The way Matthew quotes it makes it look like Zechariah was talking about the price of a person, even though that conclusion could not be drawn out of Zechariah. I mentioned this as being the “price of the Lord” to defend the claim that Matthew was thinking about Zechariah, not to defend this thinking as correct.

    >(reflected in Jesus being the Good Shepherd);

    Jesus only calls himself the Good Shepherd in John, the Gospel which least precisely records Jesus' actual words.

    >and the 30 shekels of silver was thrown "to the potter", echoed in Matthew where the money was used to buy a field owned by a potter.

    Yes, there certainly is a parallel here. However, by the time Acts 1:18-19 clarifies which details of Matthew are strictly historical, the parallel between the prophecy and the actual historical events has vanished.

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  5. Original post- "This verse makes it clear that Matthew was just wrong."

    I think, despite your objections to the way that Matthew uses the OT prophecies, that you are wrong in your original premise about Matthew being wrong. He does not forget that the passage is from Zechariah, not Jeremiah. Which is the point you were making originally. I simply attempted to unpack how Matthew used prophecy. This is totally in keeping with how his contemporary Rabbis also used the Torah, although he was much less liberal with application of prophecy. I don't agree that this means that at other times people were less stringent with the truth. That is akin to saying that scientific truth is the only truth - which is simply not the case (and I'm speaking here as a scientist).

    I wish I had the time and mental energy to discuss all the issues you raise here and elsewhere. I'm not signing out of the debate indefinitely but I simply have not got the energy to thoroughly research every point you make. And I don't want to make simplistic points that insult the time and effort you have put into your research.

    At the moment I'm trying to put together a seminar for Christians about evolution/Genesis and write a paper on the topic too, which is absorbing most of my resources. I'm disappointed in your Christian friends in the real world for not responding to your blog as you make intelligent points that require investigation but maybe they discuss these things with you in person.

    Anyway, you may or may not hear from me again soon on this blog.

    Your tired friend,

    Claire

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  6. >I'm not signing out of the debate indefinitely but I simply have not got the energy to thoroughly research every point you make.

    I understand, and I know better than to equate not having time with not having reasons. There's an ID advocate on facebook whom I have not answered since March. (But his last posts are on my to-do list...)

    >I'm disappointed in your Christian friends in the real world for not responding to your blog

    Me too, but I should qualify that as it's not quite what it looks like. A long conversation with an ex-almost-girlfriend and a couple other shorter dialogues, both written and verbal, do not appear on this blog.

    To the others' credit, my non-internet friends didn't receive links until 7/11, and by then you had given pretty detailed responses to most of my posts. Many others, including some of my closer friends, have not yet received links. This is such an emotionally difficult topic of conversation that I simply couldn't tell everyone at once but had to spread it out to emotionally survive. (This is possible only because I'm away from home this summer.)

    Close friends are harder to tell than acquaintances and so you were among the first to hear. Also, your beliefs are much more similar to what I was the last time I was a stable Christian (fall '07) than the overwhelming majority of Christians I grew up with. Thus, I thought you would have a better chance than most of showing me why I'm wrong if I am. I don't mean that in a "declaring victory" kind of way - I didn't convince you either and I'm probably the sort of skeptic with the best chance.

    Also, I wanted our conversation to continue without a confusing ultra-fundamentalist/fundamentalist/conservative evangelical/moderate evangelical/emergent vs. skeptic debate. Partially for this reason, I delayed sending several friends links, although I'm sending quite a few links tonight.

    >At the moment I'm trying to put together a seminar for Christians about evolution/Genesis

    Good luck! It's been a good conversation, and I'm sorry to see you go, whether temporarily or indefinitely.

    Jeffrey

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  7. Don't worry, it's a temporary signing out till I get my head around Genesis and convince the Irish Christian world of the truth of evolution, simple!

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