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Word Biblical Commentary #33A
Matthew 1-13
The Word Biblical Commentary delivers the best in biblical scholarship, from the leading scholars of our day who share a commitment to Scripture as divine revelation. This series emphasizes a thorough analysis of textual, linguistic, structural, and theological evidence. The result is judicious and balanced insight into the meanings of the text in the framework of biblical theology. These widely acclaimed commentaries serve as exceptional resources for the professional theologian and instructor, the seminary or university student, the working minister, and everyone concerned with building theological understanding from a solid base of biblical scholarship.
486 pages, Hardcover
First published December 7, 1993
23 people are currently reading
61 people want to read
About the author
Donald Hagner
14 books6 followersDonald A. Hagner (PhD, University of Manchester) is George Eldon Ladd Professor Emeritus of New Testament and senior professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He is the author of Encountering the Book of Hebrews, The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus, New Testament Exegesis and Research: A Guide for Seminarians, and commentaries on Matthew and Hebrews. He is also coeditor of the New International Greek Testament Commentary and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 24, 2017
When I write reviews for Goodreads, it’s for two reasons. I like to leave a memory trace for myself, and I like to give potential readers another voice to consider when deciding whether to read or purchase a book. The latter purpose is not easily fulfilled in the case of this book, because different readers will have different hopes for a Biblical commentary - maybe many of us quietly hope it will simply endorse our own understandings of the Biblical text!
There’s a sense in which I was bullied into reading Hagner’s two volume commentary on Matthew because an adult daughter chided me for having almost all of the New Testament volumes in the Word Biblical Commentary, without having read them. (There was an implicit jibe that I shouldn’t keep buying books when I had so many as yet unread.)
First of all, reading these volumes was a discipline. Matthew’s Gospel has 28 chapters, and, after reading Hagner’s introductory material, I set myself the task of reading one chapter each day of the Greek text of Matthew’s gospel and then reading Hagner’s comments to that chapter. The text is dense, and after I’d been at it a few days I realised I had to set aside about two hours a day for the task (not including the reading of the chapter in the Greek text, which, after about forty years of Greek studying and teaching, was the easy part). The fact that I finished in 27 days shouldn’t suggest that the task was easy; it reflects the reality that at the end, I was desperate to get it over and done with (not a good attitude to have towards a book).
In turn, the fact that I was desperate to finish shouldn’t suggest that the book is deficient in some way, or not worth reading.
It’s just that the introduction of nearly 80 pages and 889 pages of commentary over two volumes (not including indices) make for heavy going that few readers will want to read from cover to cover. In other words, this is better used as a reference book, to get down from my shelves to check the commentary on a particular chapter or passage.
There’s a particular detail that further reduces the appeal of these volumes as material for continuous reading. It’s the lack of footnotes. Well, it may be that I am drawing a mistaken conclusion, but I noticed that in this volume (and in those others of the series that I checked), the only notes provided to the reader are those to alert them to matters of textual criticism in relation to the original, Greek text. The result, it seems to me, is that Hagner has used brackets to include material that might otherwise have been better placed in footnotes. Hardly two consecutive sentences seem to pass without a bracket. Here’s an example:
“Children had apparently gathered near Jesus and were, apparently in all good fun, mimicking that chant they had earlier heard (they may already have known the words from the Hallel, which was taught to children; t. Sota 6.2-3) their elders direct to Jesus (see Comment on v 9): [Greek text] “Hosanna to the Son of David.”
If, without pause or double-take, you were able to complete the bridge “that chant they had earlier heard ... their elders direct to Jesus” then you may find Hagner’s text easier going than I did. As intimated, I suspect the avoidance of footnotes is editorial policy for the series, but the consequence is dire: a somewhat convoluted text that is less readable than it ought be.
Consistent throughout the two volumes is a layout of material for each pericope: a bibliography, translation (with notes on the text and sometimes on points of translation), a Form/Structure/Setting section, a comment, and finally an Explanation. This format, or similar, seems to follow an editorial choice for the entire series. Suffice to say, sometimes the format can lead to the repetition of material.
One reason I purchased volumes from the Word Biblical Commentary is because its New Testament volumes do interact to some degree with the Greek text. This may well disincline some from reading the book, but Hagner invariably provides a translation to Greek words referred to. (He also draws upon knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic, at times.) There are a few points to be made about his use of Greek and his translations. Generally, his translations can be affirmed as accurate. He regularly follows a form of gender correctness, as for example at 10:36: “a person’s enemies will be members of his or her household”, with the note “ ‘Or her’ is added in order to be inclusive, as are the fem. pronouns of vv. 38-39.” Will some readers perhaps find this enlightened, while others find it tedious?
Also hidden away in the notes, which many readers may not read because they mainly concern matters of Greek text, are more significant points. In his translation of the pericope 13:33-35, Hagner renders a particular Greek verb as “mixed into”; again, he is fair enough to give a note, where he acknowledges “lit. ‘hid.’” Does it matter that readers may not attend to the note? Well, since leaven – which is in this parable, according to Hagner, “mixed into” the measures of wheat flour – is often symbolic of sin, possibly it is. The trouble is, by placing in the note the important information as to the literal meaning of the verb, Hagner to some degree closes the door to one interpretative option which the reader might otherwise pursue.
Hagner seems to suggest (a number of times) that the Greek verb “dei” (“it is necessary”) must be understood as referring to divine necessity, but this is not so; the non-Greek reader may be pushed too far towards an understanding that is suggested by the verb in context, but not actually required by the verb’s meaning. Hagner’s reference to a “historical present” at 26:63b-64 (bottom of page 799) may be also misleading, since the verb he quotes in his text is in the aorist tense; a historic present is to be found in the Greek text, but Hagner does not quote it.
Most significantly in regard to Hagner’s use of the Greek is his citing Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament, in support of his use of Granville Sharp’s Rule to justify saying that “the conceptual unity of the parousia and the end of the age is indicated by the single Greek article governing both”. Whatever Porter wrote (non vidi), Granville Sharp’s rule had in mind nouns that refer to a person, not a thing. Conceptual unity of parousia and the end of the age there may be, but Granville Sharp’s Rule does not establish it. See Daniel Wallace’s book Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance, e.g. pages 50-52. Hagner’s mistake here may seem minor, but it is regrettable, because Granville Sharp’s rule is far more commonly cited than understood, and a correct understanding is of great importance in the understanding of some Christologically significant New Testament texts.
Hagner writes, “If we do not allow the transcendent within history, the Bible suddenly becomes a very different collection of writings, a book of parables concerning human existence rather than the account of salvation worked out in the historical process.” He takes for granted the historicity of miracles that some readers will dismiss on a priori grounds as being unbelievable, at least on a literal reading. This will encourage evangelical Christians, though his close analysis of Matthew’s sources, which he takes to be Mark’s gospel and the document known as Q, may trouble readers of the Christian faith who have not had the inclination to confront the questions arising from such an analysis.
Hagner works within a Protestant understanding of the Matthew’s gospel. Even within the broad tradition of Protestantism, some readers may find at certain points that their own understandings or interpretations find no support from Hagner; occasionally I wished Hagner might have engaged more with certain interpretations he disagrees with, simply to sharpen my own thinking and awareness.
Hagner’s volumes are the product of tremendous scholarship and fifteen years of labour. It would be a sad reader who could learn nothing from these pages. Even the bibliographical material is helpful, and may be used to guide the interest reader’s next steps. Published in 1993, the book is, of course, no help in leading to material of the last quarter of a century.
Nevertheless, despite acknowledging the great scholarship of these volumes, I return in my own mind to the conclusion that these are not books for most of us to read, they are volumes to have ready to access for reference purposes should questions arise from our study of particular passages in Matthew’s gospel.
There’s a sense in which I was bullied into reading Hagner’s two volume commentary on Matthew because an adult daughter chided me for having almost all of the New Testament volumes in the Word Biblical Commentary, without having read them. (There was an implicit jibe that I shouldn’t keep buying books when I had so many as yet unread.)
First of all, reading these volumes was a discipline. Matthew’s Gospel has 28 chapters, and, after reading Hagner’s introductory material, I set myself the task of reading one chapter each day of the Greek text of Matthew’s gospel and then reading Hagner’s comments to that chapter. The text is dense, and after I’d been at it a few days I realised I had to set aside about two hours a day for the task (not including the reading of the chapter in the Greek text, which, after about forty years of Greek studying and teaching, was the easy part). The fact that I finished in 27 days shouldn’t suggest that the task was easy; it reflects the reality that at the end, I was desperate to get it over and done with (not a good attitude to have towards a book).
In turn, the fact that I was desperate to finish shouldn’t suggest that the book is deficient in some way, or not worth reading.
It’s just that the introduction of nearly 80 pages and 889 pages of commentary over two volumes (not including indices) make for heavy going that few readers will want to read from cover to cover. In other words, this is better used as a reference book, to get down from my shelves to check the commentary on a particular chapter or passage.
There’s a particular detail that further reduces the appeal of these volumes as material for continuous reading. It’s the lack of footnotes. Well, it may be that I am drawing a mistaken conclusion, but I noticed that in this volume (and in those others of the series that I checked), the only notes provided to the reader are those to alert them to matters of textual criticism in relation to the original, Greek text. The result, it seems to me, is that Hagner has used brackets to include material that might otherwise have been better placed in footnotes. Hardly two consecutive sentences seem to pass without a bracket. Here’s an example:
“Children had apparently gathered near Jesus and were, apparently in all good fun, mimicking that chant they had earlier heard (they may already have known the words from the Hallel, which was taught to children; t. Sota 6.2-3) their elders direct to Jesus (see Comment on v 9): [Greek text] “Hosanna to the Son of David.”
If, without pause or double-take, you were able to complete the bridge “that chant they had earlier heard ... their elders direct to Jesus” then you may find Hagner’s text easier going than I did. As intimated, I suspect the avoidance of footnotes is editorial policy for the series, but the consequence is dire: a somewhat convoluted text that is less readable than it ought be.
Consistent throughout the two volumes is a layout of material for each pericope: a bibliography, translation (with notes on the text and sometimes on points of translation), a Form/Structure/Setting section, a comment, and finally an Explanation. This format, or similar, seems to follow an editorial choice for the entire series. Suffice to say, sometimes the format can lead to the repetition of material.
One reason I purchased volumes from the Word Biblical Commentary is because its New Testament volumes do interact to some degree with the Greek text. This may well disincline some from reading the book, but Hagner invariably provides a translation to Greek words referred to. (He also draws upon knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic, at times.) There are a few points to be made about his use of Greek and his translations. Generally, his translations can be affirmed as accurate. He regularly follows a form of gender correctness, as for example at 10:36: “a person’s enemies will be members of his or her household”, with the note “ ‘Or her’ is added in order to be inclusive, as are the fem. pronouns of vv. 38-39.” Will some readers perhaps find this enlightened, while others find it tedious?
Also hidden away in the notes, which many readers may not read because they mainly concern matters of Greek text, are more significant points. In his translation of the pericope 13:33-35, Hagner renders a particular Greek verb as “mixed into”; again, he is fair enough to give a note, where he acknowledges “lit. ‘hid.’” Does it matter that readers may not attend to the note? Well, since leaven – which is in this parable, according to Hagner, “mixed into” the measures of wheat flour – is often symbolic of sin, possibly it is. The trouble is, by placing in the note the important information as to the literal meaning of the verb, Hagner to some degree closes the door to one interpretative option which the reader might otherwise pursue.
Hagner seems to suggest (a number of times) that the Greek verb “dei” (“it is necessary”) must be understood as referring to divine necessity, but this is not so; the non-Greek reader may be pushed too far towards an understanding that is suggested by the verb in context, but not actually required by the verb’s meaning. Hagner’s reference to a “historical present” at 26:63b-64 (bottom of page 799) may be also misleading, since the verb he quotes in his text is in the aorist tense; a historic present is to be found in the Greek text, but Hagner does not quote it.
Most significantly in regard to Hagner’s use of the Greek is his citing Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament, in support of his use of Granville Sharp’s Rule to justify saying that “the conceptual unity of the parousia and the end of the age is indicated by the single Greek article governing both”. Whatever Porter wrote (non vidi), Granville Sharp’s rule had in mind nouns that refer to a person, not a thing. Conceptual unity of parousia and the end of the age there may be, but Granville Sharp’s Rule does not establish it. See Daniel Wallace’s book Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance, e.g. pages 50-52. Hagner’s mistake here may seem minor, but it is regrettable, because Granville Sharp’s rule is far more commonly cited than understood, and a correct understanding is of great importance in the understanding of some Christologically significant New Testament texts.
Hagner writes, “If we do not allow the transcendent within history, the Bible suddenly becomes a very different collection of writings, a book of parables concerning human existence rather than the account of salvation worked out in the historical process.” He takes for granted the historicity of miracles that some readers will dismiss on a priori grounds as being unbelievable, at least on a literal reading. This will encourage evangelical Christians, though his close analysis of Matthew’s sources, which he takes to be Mark’s gospel and the document known as Q, may trouble readers of the Christian faith who have not had the inclination to confront the questions arising from such an analysis.
Hagner works within a Protestant understanding of the Matthew’s gospel. Even within the broad tradition of Protestantism, some readers may find at certain points that their own understandings or interpretations find no support from Hagner; occasionally I wished Hagner might have engaged more with certain interpretations he disagrees with, simply to sharpen my own thinking and awareness.
Hagner’s volumes are the product of tremendous scholarship and fifteen years of labour. It would be a sad reader who could learn nothing from these pages. Even the bibliographical material is helpful, and may be used to guide the interest reader’s next steps. Published in 1993, the book is, of course, no help in leading to material of the last quarter of a century.
Nevertheless, despite acknowledging the great scholarship of these volumes, I return in my own mind to the conclusion that these are not books for most of us to read, they are volumes to have ready to access for reference purposes should questions arise from our study of particular passages in Matthew’s gospel.
February 8, 2025
Hagner's first half of his Matthew commentary is uneven. At times and for some pericopes of Matthew's text, he's excellent--he provides all of the GR and Jewish background you'd want, gives good textual analysis and highlights the things that I know are around but didn't want to have to do all of the legwork to find, and provides genuinely useful connections throughout. But, at other times, it feels like he punts and, after working through his writing on those sections, I wondered "why?" So, where he's good he's very good, but where he's bad it was a lot to go through for not much, there. I'll still read the second volume and it's still worth reading, but I wish the entire thing was as good as half of it was.
February 5, 2024
My impetus for reading this commentary was my idle question of whether Matthew quotes the Septuagint more or the Hebrew text of the OT. I don’t actually recall if I ever got an answer to my question. This is a fine commentary, but Hagner takes a conservative literalist approach and does not always support his conclusions. For example, he insists that Matthew could not have created his birth narrative whole cloth but gives no evidence for this, or even a reason. I found it amusing that Hagner thinks the temptation narrative happened literally except for the bit about the very high mountain, because no such mountain exists!
July 28, 2023
Excellent commentary on the first half of the gospel of Matthew. Great insights, easy to read and follow his thoughts.
July 19, 2016
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews