stuart shepherd

Acts chapters 10 and 11, are relevant to this discussion.
Peter sees a vision and he seems not to know about Jesus' command to go to make disciples of men of all nations. [Gentiles]
Peter sees the vision 3 times before he is coaxed to go to a gentile home.
In chapter 11 he explains his experience with the rest of the Apostles and brothers who also seem ignorant of Jesus' command to go preach to the gentiles.
IMHO the Apostles, Jesus' brothers etc were having trouble selling this new religion to their Jewish countrymen so they discovered that they could have more success with selling this religion to the gentiles. So they rewrote the ending of Matthew and had Jesus changing the focus from the Jews to the Gentiles.

You may wonder why the Apostles went through all this trouble.
What was their motivation?
Look.
1 Corinthians 9:5 (New American Standard Bible)
Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

The Apostles and Jesus brothers were all married. Probably had children also.
Only Paul and Barnabus were single.
The Jesus entourage discovered that you can make a better living selling Jesus than by working a small farm or being a fisherman or carpenter.
Look at all the millionaire evangelists that we have today.

stuart shepherd

xaxxat

He sure does seem - what's the phrase? - "culture-bound"...

Chris Weimer

Culture-bound isn't normally used in the phrase "culture-bound syndrome", meaning that it's a syndrome stemming from that culture?

Are you using that term in a different manner?

Chris Weimer

Can you show that it's a interpolation? I tried earlier, it's authentically Matthean. But this of course is expected when one ignore the entire Matthean soteriology and eschatology.

storytime

Also, look at the character Peter, who seems highly suspect. Jesus once called him Satan indicating liar. After Jesus is dead Peter is exposed as "living in the manner of Gentiles". This manner prohibited by Jewish law. Peter may have been worshiping Gentile idols or eating "unclean" food with the Gentiles. Then in order to cover his butt, because he feared the Jews punishment (possibly stoning), Peter invents a story that salvation had also come to the Gentiles. (visions and prophecies had already been condemned in OT and Peters vision as "you have seen nothing" - Ezekiel )

Why would the Gentiles have needed salvation when they had no Jewish laws to begin with? Certainly without any laws Gentiles needed no savior.

After Peter parlays his vision in covering his butt he then goes back to Jerusalem and the Jews. If Gentiles had indeed been as equal with the Jews (which they were not), then why did Peter not preach throughout the Roman world that Gentiles had inheritance with the Jews? This would have certainly been of interest to Caesar. Instead we see Peter deciding that the purpose of the twelve was to remain at Jerusalem and oversee the treasury or something while others were sent to evangelize/proselytize for converts. Converts to what? Judaism. Unless one thinks that Jews were converting people to Apollo or Roman influence. No, for the point was to bring "all that one owned" and have it sold for the good of the Jews at Jerusalem. And a man and his wife died because they held back a portion of their property and did not give everything they owned to Peter's Temple.

I think it's from this point with Peter and the twelve at Jerusalem and suddenly in charge of the Temple, that the Pharisees fade out of the picture. Jews for Jesus are seen as the New Jerusalem and new covenant and represented in the twelve tribes of Israel.

Lugubert

Interpolation or not, what might be more important is what the writer regarded as "all nations".

Let's say that this local scribe knew of only Palestine and some of its immediate neighbours. Would "all nations" in his view apply to people outside his horizon? Probably not.

Ray Moscow

As far as I know, there is no strong textual reason(s) for considering it an interpolation. The argument that it is comes from form criticism.

Amaleq13

Is that a reasonable hypothesis, though? Weren't most folks aware of the vast extent of the Roman Empire and the existence of distant foreign lands if not the specifics?

Joan of Bark

Aren't you an MJer, Toto?

I'm going on the assumption that much (though not all) of what Jesus said was accurately transmitted orally until written down. Of course, this is just an assumption, but we wouldn't have much to discuss historically wrt the gospels if we didn't assume this much.

Toto

I don't think that most of the "HJ'ers" here would support the idea that the gospels contain any sort of accurate account of what a historical Jesus said, carefully transmitted through oral means. The Jesus Seminar identified 18% of the statements of Jesus as authentic. I don't recall off hand what they thought about these statements.