Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Parables
*Sixth Attack on Pharisees 22:15-46)
23:1-23:33 DISCOURSE ON FALSE DISCIPLES
Prophecies
*******23:34-24:31 APOCALYPTIC PASSAGE cf. ‘LUNATIC JESUS’ (J. WAR 6,5)*******
26:1 Jesus concluded his discourse END OF DISCOURSE No. 5
THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS
26:2-28:16 The Sacrifice (follows circular pattern of Leviticus, as per M.Douglas)
26-6-29 Outside the temple
26;55-6 Temple portico/porch (compare Lev 8;3)
26;61-68 Blasphemy accusation (compare Lev. 10;1-2)
27;3-6 Outer Sanctuary
27;40 Blasphemy accusation (compare Lev. 24;10-22)
27:51 Door/curtain of Inner Sanctuary is torn (Lev 24;3)
28;1-6 Empty chamber guarded by an angel (Ex.25;17-22)
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Copyright (2006) JOHN HUDSON All Rights Reserved
BACKGROUND
Literary evidence shows that the gospel of Matthew is not the account of a
historical Jesus but was created as a parody of the Torah. This is
compatible with the latest evidence in books like Joseph Atwill’s Caesar’s
Messiah, which shows the gospels were created by the Romans as literary
satires, after the end of the Roman-Jewish war.
LITERARY STRUCTURE
Like other works of classical literature, the Gospel of Matthew has a specific
center. The midpoint of the Gospel concerns whether Jesus is speaking directly
or indirectly (13;34-36). There are also two parallel discourses, one on true
disciples, the other on false disciples. Mixed in-between are separate groups of
parables, miracles and prophecies. Each of the major accounts is divided into a
Narrative in which Jesus interacts with other people and a Discourse in which he
basically gives speeches.i
Far from being a naturalistic account, the Gospel of Matthew is structured into
five books like an alternative rewritten Torahii although unfortunately no edition of
the Gospel makes this explicit. That is why it starts with an account of Genesis
(1;1-2;12). It moves next to an account of Exodus (2;13-23) then includes
passages about wilderness which remind us of the Book of Numbers (3;1-4;16)
which Jews call the book of ‘In the Wilderness’. Then most important of all, there
is a Book of Instruction (8;1-26;1) that opens in a similar way to how Moses
begins the Book of Deuteronomy and similarly comprises five sections. Finally
the last book about the passion story mirrors the Book of Leviticus which is about
sacrifice and atonement (23;34-.28;16). Each of the five books of the Torah has
their specific parallels in Matthew;
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Copyright (2006) JOHN HUDSON All Rights Reserved
• Genesis Parallel The writers’ primary purpose in the first part of their
Gospel was to provide an account of ‘genesis’, of birth, which would
structurally parallel the Book of Genesis in Torah. However Matthew has
performed a subtle reversal. Most genealogies say that a famous person
has the son X who had the son Y. However, this genealogy goes
backwards to Abraham and is being used as a way of connecting Jesus to
the founder of the Israelite faith. It therefore is making the amusing,
nonsensical and chronologically upside down claim that Abraham is
famous because generations later his descendant was Jesus!
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Copyright (2006) JOHN HUDSON All Rights Reserved
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Copyright (2006) JOHN HUDSON All Rights Reserved
In the place where in the Temple would be the Holy of Holies and two
cherubims on the ark containing the stone tablets, we find the empty
tomb with an angel sitting on a stone (it becomes more exact when two
angels appear in Gospel of John which also adds in 100 pounds of
spices to parallel those used in annointing the tent of meeting in Exodus
30). In other words, in Gospel of Matthew the empty tomb corresponds
structurally to the Holy of Holies in the temple or the tabernacle. This
strongly suggests that the writers of Matthew invented the empty tomb,
to create a literary equivalent that corresponded with the (empty) Holy of
Holies beyond the curtain.
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Copyright (2006) JOHN HUDSON All Rights Reserved
tent (Lev 8;3) when Aaron’s sons try to enter with the wrong sort of
blasphemous fire. They are burnt to death (Lev 10;1-2. The second takes
place after the reference to the light being set up outside the curtain of
the covenant, when a nameless blasphemer blasphemed the Name of
God (Lev 24;10-22).
The writers of Gospel of Matthew have created the two accounts of Jesus being
accused of blasphemy in order to copy the positioning of the two blasphemy
accounts in the book of Leviticus. Whereas other aspects of the Passion
Narrative were based on other literary sources, the overall literary prototype of
the Torah had led to the creation of the empty tomb, the angel, the mention of
the curtain, and the two blasphemy accusations.
JOHN HUDSON
darkladyplayers@aol.com
ENDNOTES
i
David R Bauer The Structure of Mattthew’s Gospel (1988).
ii
The Temple scroll and Book of Jubilees are other examples see Sidnie White
Crawford
The Temple Scroll and related Texts (2000;17-19) Sheffield Academic Press; Sheffield
iii
Raymond Brown The Birth of the Messiah (1979)
iv
Back in the 1920s Bacon thought that these five divisions corresponded to the whole of
the Torah. But that was not correct. They only match Deuteronomy.
v
Mary Douglas Leviticus as Literature (1999)