The Nervous Redaction of Matthew

Mark Goodacre has commented on Matthew’s orthodox redaction of Mark, noting Matthew’s treatment of Jesus’ father and various other issues. He states,

‘It occurred to me recently that a lot of what is happening in Matthew might be seen as a kind of  ”orthodox redaction” of Mark, an attempt to fix some of the potentially troubling ideas and implications in Mark. … Matthew’s orthodox redaction of Mark was so successful that we now find ourselves reading Mark through Matthew’s — and also Luke’s — eyes.  His skill as a redactor with “orthodox” beliefs was that he rescued Mark from the potential to have been read and interpreted quite differently.’

James McGrath has also chimed in on this issue, stirring the pot a bit. There are a couple of pericopae that I would like to make some observations about that suggest that Matthew was an (unnecessarily) nervous redactor with a theological agenda.

First, Mark 6.5 states: καὶ οὐκ ἐδύνατο ἐκεῖ ποιῆσαι οὐδεμίαν δύναμιν, εἰ μὴ ὀλίγοις ἀρρώστοις ἐπιθεὶς τὰς χεῖρας ἐθεράπευσεν. Matthew used Mark but changed his words to the following: καὶ οὐκ ἐποίησεν ἐκεῖ δυνάμεις πολλὰς διὰ τὴν ἀπιστίαν αὐτῶν. Matthew apparently wanted to avoid saying that Jesus was not able to heal, so he said that Jesus did not heal. However, this should hardly be classified as an orthodox redaction, as Mark understood that Jesus could and did heal on this occasion (εἰ μὴ ὀλίγοις ἀρρώστοις ἐπιθεὶς τὰς χεῖρας ἐθεράπευσεν). Origin, handling both these texts together, reads them as follows:

And Matthew and Mark, wishing to set forth the excellency of the divine power, that it has power even in unbelief, but not so great power as it has in the faith of those who are being benefited, seem to me to have said with accuracy, not that He did not “any” mighty works because of their unbelief, but that He did not “many” there. And Mark also does not say, that He could not do any mighty work there, and stop at that point, but added, “Save that He laid His hands upon a few sick folk and healed them,” the power in Him thus overcoming the unbelief. (ANF 9:426)

This particular redaction should not be classified as orthodox, as though Mark’s understanding of Jesus was unorthodox and Matthew’s orthodox. Both recognized Jesus ability to heal even the face of unbelief, albeit perhaps in differing ways. Yet it does seem that this redaction tells us something: perhaps Matthew had a more acute focus upon christology and were sensitive to and nervous about differing christologies. Mark doesn’t have ultimate have a widely divergent view of Jesus’ ability to heal than Matthew: both ultimately agree that Jesus did at least a few miracles in his faithless hometown. It is just that Matthew appears to be more cautious in the way he relates the narrative and more nervous about christological controversy.

Compare also the dialogue in Mark 10.18–19: Καὶ ἐκπορευομένου αὐτοῦ εἰς ὁδὸν προσδραμὼν εἷς καὶ γονυπετήσας αὐτὸν ἐπηρώτα αὐτόν· διδάσκαλε ἀγαθέ, τί ποιήσω ἵνα ζωὴν αἰώνιον κληρονομήσω; ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῷ· τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν; οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ θεός. Matthew redacts this pericope in Mark in a number of ways. First, ‘Good teacher, what must I do …’ (διδάσκαλε ἀγαθέ, τί ποιήσω) in Mark becomes ‘Teacher, what good thing must I do …’ (διδάσκαλε, τί ἀγαθὸν ποιήσω) in Matthew. Second, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except one—God’ (τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν; οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ θεός) becomes ‘Why do you ask me about the good? The good is one [person]‘ (τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ; εἷς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός) in Matthew. It is clear that Matthew saw Mark’s words as likely to be misunderstood and redacted them in slightly different direction. However, this phrase εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ θεός appeared earlier in Mark in 2.7 (τί οὗτος οὕτως λαλεῖ; βλασφημεῖ· τίς δύναται ἀφιέναι ἁμαρτίας εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ θεός). In this passage, this phrase is placed on the lips of the scribes expressing confusion over Jesus (at the least) acting and speaking unilaterally as God’s representative. Further, the rich man in Mark will later drop the word ‘good’ and simply refer to Jesus as διδάσκαλε (10.20). While this might argue that the one God who is good is not Jesus, this is not necessarily so since this rich man is clearly being characterized in a strongly negative manner in the Markan pericope. Hence, the christology of this passage is unclear: it might portray Jesus in contradistinction to the one good God and it might not (other pericopae are, I think, much clearer; cf. Mark 6.45–52). It is difficult to tell. This would suggest that depicting a clear christology is not one of Mark’s goal in this pericope. But it sure would appear to be in Matthew. He nervously redacts the adumbrated Markan christology into a less ambiguous direction.

I think all of this can be taken as indicative of the Sitz im Leben behind both Gospels. Mark seems to be playing a bit more fast and loose with his christological presentation than Matthew. Perhaps this is because the Matthean Sitz im Leben was more concerned with christological controversy than Mark and Mark’s Sitz im Leben was more concerned with other topics. Perhaps one could posit a christological sensitivity or even controversy afoot behind Matthew’s Gospel. Yet this nervous concern does not seem to shared by Mark. Mark has other concerns. I would argue he has other more sociological concerns, which Matthew also redacted. But this is for another post … or more.