ISBL/EABS 2025 Uppsala - Synoptic Gospels/Living in the Last Days

Living in the Last Days: Matthew
11.00am-12.30pm June 25th
​International SBL/EABS - Uppsala, Sweden

Tying up loose Ends: The making of Matthew’s Apocalyptic Discourse
What was Matthew’s primary concern? According to the Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis (MPH) – an increasingly prominent approach to the Synoptic Problem – Matthew was motivated to gather and combine related materials from a range of different sources. For example, under the MPH, Matthew created the Sermon on the Mount by using Luke’s Sermon on the Plain as his ‘frame’ and filling out that frame with related materials from elsewhere in Luke, Mark, and other sources. A similar pattern is observable in Matthew’s Apocalyptic Discourse. MPH Matthew takes Mark 13 as his ‘frame’ and fills that out with related materials from Luke and other sources. This gathering instinct suggests that Matthew’s primary concern was not the privileging of one eschatological outlook over another, but the preservation and transmission of a diversity of outlooks. 

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