The Gospel of Matthew (The New International Greek Testament Commentary | NIGTC)

by John Nolland

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2005

Overview

Having devoted the past ten years of his life to research for this major new work, John Nolland gives us a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew that engages with a notable range of Matthean scholarship and offers fresh interpretations of the dominant Gospel in the history of the church.

An important aim of the NIGTC authors is to interact with the wealth of significant New Testament research published in recent articles and monographs. In this connection, the authors make their own scholarly contributions to the ongoing study of the biblical text. Without neglecting the Gospel’s sources or historical background, Nolland places his central focus on the content and method of Matthew’s story. His work explores Matthew’s narrative technique and the inner logic of the unfolding text, giving full weight to the Jewish character of the book and its differences from Mark’s presentation of parallel material. While finding it unlikely that the apostle Matthew himself composed the book, Nolland does argue that Matthew’s Gospel reflects the historical ministry of Jesus with considerable accuracy, and he brings to the table new evidence for an early date of composition.

Including accurate translations based on the latest Greek text, detailed verse-by-verse comments, thorough bibliographies for each section, and an array of insightful critical approaches, Nolland’s Gospel of Matthew will stimulate students, preachers, and scholars seeking to understand more fully Matthew’s presentation of the gospel narrative.

Contents

Top Highlights

“In the Gospel pericope, ‘ ‘Your heart’ denotes a response to God from the innermost personal center of one’s being; ‘your life’ (‘soul’) conjures up the role of the life force that energises us; … ‘your mind’ signals the inclusion of the thinking and planning processes. The challenge is to a comprehensive engagement with God with the total capacity of all of one’s faculties’.” (Page 911)

“The challenge is to find one’s way forward in life with a clear focus on the kingdom of God and a deep trust that, as one looks to him, God will open the way ahead.” (Page 325)

“anxiety is wrong because it represents a failure to trust God as provider.” (Page 310)

“This being the case, the imagery of hungering and thirsting is best seen as focussing on the sense of need created by the present lack of a just social order lived out in the presence of God; the desire to see things put right is a reflex of the sense of deprivation in the present.” (Page 203)

“Is ‘this rock’ Peter or Peter’s confession of faith, or is the reference to Jesus himself as now identified in the Petrine confession?” (Page 669)

Praise for the Print Edition

Although some may be daunted, or perhaps even wearied, by the appearance of another massive work on the Gospel of Matthew, readers will be pleasantly surprised that Nolland manages to balance exegetical detail with theological perspective which has resulted in a usable and well documented commentary.

—Theological Book Review

A refreshingly clear and accessible contribution that depicts the fruit of very careful, learned, and reasoned scholarship at its finest.

—Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

Enormously learned, exhaustive in its detailed textual, literary, redaction- and source-critical comments and bibliographical material, and interesting, useful, and accessible to a wide range of readers.

—Religious Studies Review

Product Details

• Title: The Gospel of Matthew
• Series: The New International Greek Testament Commentary
• Author: John Nolland
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication Date: 2005
• Pages: 1,579

About John Nolland

John Nolland is academic dean and lecturer in New Testament studies at Trinity College, Bristol, England. He is an ordained minister of the Church of England, and author of The New International Greek Testament Commentary: The Gospel of Matthew and coauthor of Built upon the Rock: Studies in the Gospel of Matthew.