Twentieth-Century Approaches to the Matthean Community

Abstract

While extended research into the Matthean Community is a relatively recent phenomenon in NT scholarship, most twentieth-century scholars working on the Gospel of Matthew have had either an explicit or implicit understanding of the Matthean Community against which they interpret the Gospel. This might be characterized as their understanding of the historical matrix out of which the Gospel arose, and their interest in this matrix grows out of the importance attached to reading the Gospel against its historical background. This article will examine the various ways this historical matrix has been understood.