The Gospel of the Son of God: An Introduction to Matthew

by David R. Bauer

From beginning to end, the very structure of the Gospel of Matthew emphasizes that Jesus is the Son of God. At climactic points Jesus is so identified--by Peter, by a Roman centurion, by Jesus himself, and by God the Father. With The Gospel of the Son of God, David Bauer provides a comprehensive introduction to this Gospel that has been so foundational to the Christian church. Arguing that the nature of Matthew itself should provide us with the framework for its study, he presents a holistic inductive approach with a literary, theological, and canonical focus. In the first section on orientation, Bauer explores issues of genre, interpretive methods, authorship, audience, and literary structure. Then he moves to interpretation, guiding readers through the meaning of sections of the text. Finally, the reflection section synthesizes and develops major theological themes emerging from the interpretation, including Christology, salvation history, eschatology, and discipleship. While providing a sound basis for the study of Matthew, Bauer goes beyond typical introductory issues to draw out the rich theological vision of the Gospel. His careful scholarship and clear exposition will make this a valuable resource for college and seminary students and pastors.

Genres: Religion, Biblical Studies, Christian

375 pages, Paperback

Published November 19, 2019

About the author

Dr. David R. Bauer is the Ralph W. Beeson Professor of Inductive Biblical Studies and Dean of the School of Biblical Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, where he has served on faculty since 1984.
He received a B.A. from Spring Arbor College (University), a M.Div. from Asbury Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. He has also done postdoctoral studies at Princeton Theological Seminary.
He is the author of several books, including An Annotated Guide to Biblical Resources for Ministry.

Reviews

[Jimmy Reagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Bauer is the right person to write this academic introduction to the Gospel of Matthew. I’ve known for years that Mr. Bauer has followed in the footsteps of Jack Dean Kingsbury. Kingsbury’s writings on Matthew first fascinated me well over a decade ago. In fact, this volume divides the book of Matthew in the same three places that Kingsbury first did. I find that division to be quite helpful and accurate. Bauer takes the best of Kingsbury and expands it to all that we have learned since and offering his own additional conclusions.

Part one called an orientation covers form and genre, approach and method, circumstances of composition, and shape of composition in four chapters. I got the least out of this section especially as the theories of composition don’t do much for me. Academic tops will still likely work through it.

Part two is where the book starts to shine offering an interpretation in three chapters along the lines of the aforementioned division of Matthew’s gospel. There is brilliant insight to be found here.

Part three entitled reflection gives us 5 chapters looking at the Christological titles of Jesus, additional aspects of christology, God, salvation history and eschatology, and discipleship. You will find outstanding nuggets along the way even if there are occasional statements that you find totally subversive to your thinking. Take the book as one requiring a little digging to remove its treasure with a little junk to move out of the way and the gospel of Matthew will come alive to you in a whole new way.

I see this book as the pinnacle of a key interpretive arc of Matthew’s gospel. In that sense, it will be an indispensable volume.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a bit torn by this book. I enjoyed parts of it immensely. But I also found much of it frustrating. I think the best part of the book is Bauer's commitment to discuss Matthew by keeping the discussion largely within Matthew itself. Especially when Bauer gets to the theological portions at the end, and he discusses righteousness, eschatology, rewards, punishment, judgment, and the anthropology of the afterlife, many scholars are tempted to rope in Paul, and discuss the considerable tensions between Matthew and Paul on some of these issues. Bauer shows no signs of such a temptation, and explains Matthew as well as he can using the clear contexts of the Gospel itself. The eagle-eyed reader, who knows Paul, will recognize these tensions, but when writing about Matthew, the best thing a scholar can do is let Matthew tell his own story.

My big problems come mostly in the interpretive sections in the middle of the book (and some of them continue to be manifest in the theological sections at the end). Bauer has this odd quality of requiring too much precision of Matthew's language where he shouldn't, and not recognizing Matthew's precision where he should. In at least one place, this leads to devastating consequences.

Where Bauer isn't precise enough:
1. Bauer interprets Matthew as a supersessionist. Israel has rejected Jesus, and therefore the gospel has been taken from them and given to the church. First of all, the church has a VERY small role in Matthew, and almost certainly doesn't refer to "the Church" in the way that Paul does. Bauer makes too much of the church in Matthew's context. But secondly, Bauer makes the HUGE mistake of taking language intended ONLY for the leaders (scribes, Pharisees, chief priests) and applying it to the rest of Israel. For example, Bauer argues that Matt 21:43 applies to all Israel - they've all lost the kingdom, and it's been given to the church instead. This is an old superssionist reading (ala Stanton and others) that has been largely rejected in recent scholarship, and rejected for a whole host of good reasons, but Bauer still holds to it. In fact, according to Paul Foster, the consensus has turned, and Bauer's view is now the minority view. If you're going to argue for the minority view, you should at least flag the discussion, but Bauer never does. He writes as though his view is "just the way it is," so that the unlearned reader would have no idea that Matthean scholarship now largely rejects this view. Matt 21:43 is explicitly addressed ONLY to Israel's failed leaders, so if Bauer recognized the precision of Matthew's language, he would have been forced to reckon with this. As it stands, I find his supersessionist reading absent from the whole of Matthew, and anti-Semitic in nature.

2. Bauer mentions Pennington's view that "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" are not synonymous. Pennington's arguments are formidable, to the degree that he's almost certainly right, but Bauer rejects the precision of Matthew's language, without accounting for Pennington's arguments, and appeals to the old (and almost certainly incorrect) view that Matthew was simply avoiding use of the word "God" for reasons of Jewish tradition. Bauer ignores a precision of language that Matthew seems to have intended.

Where Bauer was likely being too precise:
1. Bauer parses "the kingdom of God" and "the kingdom of the son of man" as conveying two different emphases. This is possible, but much less likely than the "kingdom of heaven/God" distinctions mentioned above. Why recognize precision in one of these places, but reject the other?

2. Bauer consistently refers to John the Baptist as outside of the kingdom of God. He appeals to passages like Matt 11:11, where Jesus says that the least in the kingdom are greater than John, as evidence that John was not even in the kingdom. This is clearly not the case. This would be like reading that disciples must "hate" their father and mother for Jesus' name's sake and argue that Jesus actually wanted disciples to "hate" their family. Jesus often used hyperbolic formulae, so that expecting literal precision from these descriptions is a huge mistake.

In the end, I think that this book has real value for the discernible reader, but it's loaded with the sorts of problems that would keep me from recommending it to a newer interpreter of Matthew's Gospel.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I refer to the audio edition read by Tom Parks. This book is heavily academic, and theological, leaning towards the debate of semantics and language than the actual spiritual nature of the Gospel of Matthew. Because there is so much actual ancient Greek in the text, and not actually pronounced in the text, just left as parenthetical, I believe that takes away from the actual using of this text as audio study material as anyone who has been involved in academic Bible study and the study of the original Greek language knows, the actual Greek word holds a very defined explanation to the meaning of the word in the text. I would have liked to have heard the Greek words pronounce/said in all the places they showed in the text, and that would include all the parentheticals. Anyway, regarding the text, not speaking all the Greek words in the text discounts all the citations read. This makes a better study book for the reader to read, make notes in, stop and study the related Biblical citations while reading the book. Listening to lists of citations is distracting to the listener and it makes it hard to keep ones train of thought as to just what the author was talking about, and makes the listened say, “Oh, I better stop the audio and grab my bible” and one can’t do that while driving. If this is a companion audio for the text for an academic class study, it is pretty good. It would be excellent in that case if ALL the Greek had been read, as the Bible scholar would understand the nuance of the meaning of the text much better. That being said, Tom Parks has a clear crisp voice that is easy to listen to and delivers a dry boring text quite well. I would not want to listen to this while driving.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bauer's introduction to the Gospel of Matthew demonstrates the fruit of years of inductive Bible study methods. Although it is presented as an "introduction," it comes across as fairly comprehensive in its observations and analysis of the text. This would serve as an excellent tool for reference over a lifetime of reading and rereading Matthew. Many, many observations here that were helpful, especially in the cases where he was pointing out things I've never noticed before.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to Matthew's gospel; the culmination of a lifetime of study. While not ignoring historical-critical scholarship, Bauer helpfully takes an inductive approach that focuses on narrative + literary criticism, theological interpretation and the text in it's final form. So much insight in such a short space, especially in the interpretation section. Bauer is especially influenced by his doktorvater Jack Dean Kingsbury, especially in his structure and son of God theme.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and thoroughly accessible. Lots of interesting takes and Bauer interacts relatively extensively with many significant modern commentaries.