Mark and Matthew II

Sustained, comparative Synoptic studies do not stand alone methodologically in the humanities, but belong to a more general trend within cultural studies as well as in the humanities more broadly. Textual interpretation involves approaching specific texts composed more often than not by individual authors. In these texts, however, are embedded a myriad of conscious and unconscious relationships to historical and contemporary events, people, and other texts likewise connected historically and contemporaneously. In-depth understanding of a text evolves, therefore, almost by necessity from multi-perspectival comparative approaches rather than from readings taking a more isolated focus as point of departure. The Mark and Matthew project, of which the present study is the second volume, aims at taking seriously such more general insights and applying them to the earliest Gospels in order to stimulate new research and a deeper understanding of these two texts individually and as parts of a common discursive setting. In the present volume, the goal has been to shed light on the interpretation and use of the earliest Gospels from the first to the twenty-first century, with special focus on cultural hermeneutics and theology. The dynamics of interpretation, including the role played by history, methodology, religion, and politics, are taken into consideration, shedding light on distinctive aspects of the human endeavour to understand and use sacred text in context. One of the characteristics of the interpretive effort that is highlighted through this approach is the fact that texts are silent until we, their readers, give them voice; that meaning and use happen in the interplay between history and the present, residing never in one place alone, but rather in the dynamic space embracing both text and reader.PrefaceAnders Runesson/Eve-Marie Becker: Introduction: Reading Mark and Matthew Within and Beyond the First Century PART IReception and Cultural Hermeneutics: Reading Mark and Matthew From the 1st to the 21st Century Eve-Marie Becker: The Reception of »Mark« in the 1st and 2nd Centuries CE and its Significance for Genre Studies - Petri Luomanen: From Mark and Q to Matthew: An Experiment in Evolutionary Analysis - Benedict Viviano: Who Wrote Q? The Sayings Document (Q) as the Apostle Matthew's Private Notebook as a Bilingual Village Scribe (Mark 2:13-17; Matt 9:9-13) - René Falkenberg: Matthew 28:16-20 and the Nag Hammadi Library: Reception of the Great Commission in the Sophia of Jesus Christ - Peter Widdicombe: The Patristic Reception of the Gospel of Matthew: The Commentary of Jerome and the Sermons of John Chrysostom - Joseph Verheyden: Reading Matthew and Mark in the Middle Ages: The Glossa Ordinaria - Martin Meiser: Protestant Reading of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew in the 20th Century - Detlev Dormeyer: A Catholic Reading of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew in the 20th Century - Anders Runesson: Judging the Theological Tree by its Fruit: The Use of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew in Official Church Documents on Jewish - Christian Relations PART IIHistory, Meaning, and the Dynamics of Interpretation Adela Yarbro Collins: Mark and the Hermeneutics of History Writing - Stephen Westerholm: Hearing the Gospels of Matthew and Mark - Mogens Müller: The Place of Mark and Matthew in Canonical Theology: A Historical Perspective - Janice Capel Anderson: Mark and Matthew in Feminist Perspective: Reading Matthew's Genealogy - Hans Leander: Mark and Matthew after Edward Said - Todd Penner/Caroline Vander Stichele: Re-Assembling Jesus: Rethinking the Ethics of Gospel Studies - Michael Knowles: The Interpretation of Mark and Matthew in Historical Perspective: The Transfiguration as a Test Case