Differences In Jesus’ Message From Judaism in The Gospel of Matthew

By the time of Jesus’ life in Palestine, participation in the Pan-Hellenic world was redefining what it meant to be Jewish. Hellenistic Jews adapted to the new culture, while the Pharisees fought this assimilation by choosing a strict interpretation of Jewish law (Smarr 1/18). Into this picture steps Jesus. It is my interpretation that the Jesus depicted by the Gospel of Matthew does not intend to be a radical revolutionary seeking to establish an entirely new faith, but a reformer attempting to revive the moral and spiritual strength of Judaism, yet Jesus’ message of love and mercy as a formula for human relationship departs radically from the traditional Jewish emphasis on law and justice. I attempt to prove this through chronologically addressing the pivotal points of the evolution of Jesus’ message throughout Matthew, namely, how the authors give legitimacy to the teacher, his sermons, and the violation of Jewish law.

The Gospel of Matthew immediately seeks to place Jesus within the bounds of traditional Judaism to give him credibility as the true teacher. Around the time of his birth, messianic sects such as the Essenes cropped up, preaching that a savior would liberate the people from the pagan Roman rule and often living by high moral standards (Bentley 227). Jesus would have needed to distinguish himself numerous other sects. To do this Jesus is established as a Jew by an account of his genealogy (NOAB Matt 1:1-17) and as the fulfiller of several prophecies (NOAB Matt 1:23, NOAB Matt 2:6, NOAB Matt 2:18, NOAB Matt 3:3, NOAB Matt 4:15-16). Jesus is also related to Moses in a series of parallels as noticed by Janet Smarr: Jesus spends forty days in the desert as the Jews wandered in the desert for forty years; the Sermon...

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