Kampen effectively argues that Matthew's Gospel is a sectarian Jewish composition addressed to other Jews. Matthew is neither a Christian text, nor a Jewish-Christian or Christian-Jewish text. The Gospel does not reflect a “parting of the ways” between the nascent church and Judaism. Indeed, “the designation ‘Jewish Christian’ is not a meaningful category” (45). Kampen thus avoids common concerns (law versus Gospel, validity of Torah, status of Gentiles) that arise from reading the Gospel anachronistically through the lens of subsequent church history. Reading it as a Jewish composition avoids equally anachronistic questions about whether portions of Matthew are anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic.
Utilizing insights from sociology and scholars of new religious movements, Kampen considers Matthew a “voluntary association of protest” that “utilizes boundary marking mechanisms” reflecting the “high level of tension with surrounding Jewish co-religionists” (48–49). In most chapters he seeks to show that portions of Matthew reflect three elements typical of sectarian movements: difference, antagonism, and separation.
The sectarian texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls are Kampen's primary conversation partners for reading Matthew. The many similarities between Matthew and the Qumran scrolls (focus on sectarian wisdom, communal organization, and discipline; attitudes toward law, authority, and communal legislation; critique of temple leadership; apocalyptic context) show that Matthew functions in a similar manner and shares the same type of sectarian outlook that appears in these texts.
Viewing Matthew as sectarian helps explain the Gospel's anti-Pharisaic and anti-Sadducee polemic, the interest—more than any other Gospel—in “other identified Jewish groups” (160), why it is both the most Jewish Gospel and the most critical of other Jewish sects, why other Jewish sects receive more blame for Jesus’ death than the Romans, and why it is preferable to translate ekklēsia as “assembly” rather than “church.” As a sectarian Jewish text, the Gospel reflects a community that sees itself as marginalized and persecuted.
Kampen focuses on uniquely Matthean material (that which does not appear in Mark or Luke). The Sermon on the Mount (“the best example of a sectarian Jewish text found in the NT gospels,” 206) is mainly a polemic directed against other Jewish sects. The Beatitudes describe and distinguish Jesus’ followers from other Jews, and the Antitheses critique Jewish sectarian opponents such as the Essenes. The Sermon views Jesus as the authoritative interpreter of Torah, and Matthew 11 equates Jesus with wisdom. It is unclear, however, if Matthew's community claims “Jesus alone as their source of wisdom” and sees him as “the only place where true wisdom is to be found” (197). Regardless, this view of Jesus distinguishes Matthew's community from most other Jewish sects. Like Qumran's Rule Texts, Matthew 18:15–20 outlines communal policies for reproving fellow sect members.
Kampen does not analyze the infancy narrative, and I wonder how he would view, vis-à-vis other Jewish sects, the function of dreams and a star as vehicles of divine revelation. Because Matthew's unique material is the most sectarian in his Gospel, does this suggest that the authors/communities that produced Mark, Q, and Luke were less sectarian, and if so, what might account for this?
Kampen's most provocative claim, which I find unconvincing, is that Matthew considers its sect to be “uniquely legitimate within the Jewish community” (183). “For Matthew,” he writes, “there is no other group that understands what God wants from and for the Jewish people at the end of the first century” (183). Again: “No other group within the Jewish community adequately or correctly understands the will of God” (200). These claims lack sufficient evidence. Would the author of Matthew feel similarly about communities that produced Mark or Q? Matthew's use of these texts seems to reflect an implicit imprimatur of these communities’ practices and beliefs. Would Matthew reject Paul's communities? The overlap between views in Matthew and other Jewish sects (including Qumran) suggests a more nuanced manner of engagement than wholesale repudiation. Rather than rejecting all other Jewish sects, it may be more helpful to think of Matthew participating in contested Second Temple Jewish conversations, and on any single issue displaying varying degrees of alignment with, or departure from, a broad spectrum of Jewish perspectives.
Too advanced for undergraduates, the book is ideal for doctoral students, professors, and scholars interested in Matthew specifically or Second Temple Judaism more generally.
