Matthew 16:21-28:20

An insightful commentary on the Gospel of Matthew that focuses on historical context and reception history

Building on decades of focused work on the first Gospel, Warren Carter brings the fruit of that research to bear in a tour de force of historical insight and methodological rigor. Within this remarkable two-volume commentary, Carter situates the Gospel of Matthew within the context of Jewish traditions and negotiations of Roman imperialism after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. He positions the Gospel as illuminating how a community of Jesus-followers constantly navigates Roman power. He pays particular attention to Jesus’s strategies for dealing with Roman rule, showing how Jesus alternately replicates it, accommodates it, resists it, and develops a way of life committed to the empire of God. In addition to examining the Gospel of Matthew in its historical and social context, Carter shines new light on instances of the book’s reception, illustrating how scholars have interpreted it from the era of the early church up to the present. This fascinating commentary is an essential and distinctive resource for New Testament scholars and students of theology.

Warren Carter is the Meinders Professor of New Testament at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Jesus and the Empire of God, God in the New Testament, The New Testament: Methods and Meanings (with Amy-Jill Levine), Seven Events That Shaped the New Testament World, and Matthew and the Margins.