Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] What does it actually mean to fulfill scripture? By Bart D. Ehrman read by John Paul Middlesworth I've begun a short thread dealing with how Matthew understood and interpreted and used scripture. Here's a fuller exposition, the first part of which comes straight from my textbook on the NT and the second part straight from my noggin to the keyboard.
[00:00:25] What is perhaps most striking about Matthew's account is that it all happens according to divine plan. The Holy Spirit is responsible for Mary's pregnancy, and angel from heaven allays Joseph's fears. All this happens to fulfill a prophecy of the hebrew scriptures, Matthew 123. Indeed, so does everything else in the narrative. Jesus's birth in Bethlehem, chapter two, verse six, the family's flight to Egypt, 214 Herod's slaughter of the innocent children of Bethlehem 218 and the family's decision to relocate in Nazareth 223. These are stories that occur only in Matthew, and they are all said to be fulfillments of prophecy.
[00:01:09] Matthew's emphasis that Jesus fulfills the scripture does not only occur in his birth narrative, it pervades the entire book. On eleven separate occasions, including those I've just mentioned, Matthew uses a phrase that scholars have sometimes labeled a fulfillment citation. The formulae of these citations vary somewhat, but they typically run something like this. This occurred in order to fulfill what was spoken of by the prophet. In each instance, Matthew then cites the passage of scripture that he has in mind, showing that Jesus is the long expected messiah of the Jews. These fulfillment citations are not drawn from Mark among all four gospels, they occur only in Matthew, even more than his predecessor. Then, Matthew explicitly and emphatically stresses that Jesus is the fulfillment of the jewish scriptures.
[00:02:01] But how does Jesus fulfill the scripture? For Matthew, he appears to do so in two different ways, the first of which is relatively easy to grasp. The hebrew prophets occasionally made predictions about the future Messiah. According to Matthew, Jesus fulfills these predictions. For example, Jesus is born in Bethlehem because this is what was predicted by the prophet Micah, chapter two, verse six, and his mother is a virgin, because this is what was predicted by the prophet Isaiah 123. This way of fulfilling scripture for Matthew can make sense of the two rather more peculiar fulfillments that he cites, one at the beginning of his gospel and the other at the end. In 223, we are told that the reason Joseph and Mary settled in Bethlehem after their flight to Egypt with the boy Jesus is to fulfill quote what had been spoken through the prophets. He shall be called a nazarean, unquote. This is an od statement. It turns out there is no prophecy in the Hebrew Bible that he shall be called a nazarean. So what is Matthew talking about?
[00:03:12] There are lots of theories. You may have heard of some, but the reality is no one knows for sure. Probably the most widely held view among scholars is that Matthew is thinking of the messianic prophecy of Isaiah eleven one, which indicates that a son of David will arise. Quote a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, unquote. Jesse was the father of David, and this is predicting that a davidic king will arise. Quote the spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Unquote.
[00:03:55] But what does Isaiah eleven one have to do with Matthew's claim that he shall be called a nazarean? The answer involves the Hebrew of the verse when it says that a branch shall grow out of his roots. The hebrew word for branch is NZR. Remember, Hebrew did not have vowels, only consonants. These consonants, NZR, are the root of the word Nazareen. So maybe that's what Matthew is referring to. Jesus had to grow up in Nazareth so that he could be the branch the son of David referred to in the prophet Isaiah. Well, it's one theory.
[00:04:35] The prophecy near the end of Matthew that gets fulfilled in a rather strange way is when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey at the triumphal entry in chapter 21, verses one through ten. Or does he ride on a donkey? He does in the other gospels, but in Matthew we are given a fulfillment citation. Quote this took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, tell the daughter of Zion, look, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of a donkey, unquote. Anyone familiar with how hebrew poetry works would understand this passage from Isaiah 60 211 and Zechariah nine nine. The ot prophets usually wrote in poetic verse. In hebrew poetry, the two lines are given in relation to one another. They rhyme not in sound, but in sense. The second line can contrast with the first line, or it can fill out what was found in the first line, or it can repeat the sense of the first line in different words. This final kind of parallelism between the lines, called synonymous parallelism, is what is found in the Zechariah passage, so that the one coming is mounted on a donkey, that is a cult, the foal of a donkey. Matthew, for some very od reason, did not see that this was synonymous parallelism and took Zechariah literally, thinking that the prophecy must refer to two animals, a donkey and a cult. And so, in order that Jesus might literally fulfill what the prophet predicted, the disciples of Jesus acquire two animals, a donkey and a cult. They spread their cloaks on them, and Jesus rides into Jerusalem, straddling the two. It's a rather humorous sight.
[00:06:24] Some scholars have argued that Matthew's failure to understand how the hebrew poetry worked shows that he could not have been jewish. Any jew would understand synonymous parallelism in poetic texts, but that's probably taking the matter too far. We know of instances jewish texts where interpreters pressed the logic of a poetic passage in similar ways. This od interpretation doesn't show that Matthew was a gentile, but simply that he was sometimes a bit literalistic in his understanding of how Jesus fulfilled scripture.
