The Mind Behind the Gospels: A Commentary to Matthew 1-14.

• Author: Ye-Atkinson, Rebecca
• Position: Book review

The Mind Behind the Gospels: A Commentary to Matthew 1-14. By HERBERT BASSER. Reference Library of Jewish Intellectual History. Boston: ACADEMIC STUDIES PRESS, 2010. Pp. xvii + 377. $69.

While the methodologies that commentators use to unlock the meaning of the first gospel are indeed diverse, they roughly fall within three camps: text-focused, history-focused, and reader-focused approaches (though rarely does any commentator use one approach exclusively). By this measure, Professor Herbert Basser's The Mind Behind the Gospels is at first glance presented as another textfocused commentary on the first half of the Gospel of Matthew.

What most distinguishes this book from other Matthean commentaries, however, is the author's remarkable familiarity with Jewish literature, which he readily employs in the attempt to shed light on the layers of Jewish traditions that existed before and during the composition of the gospel. Unlike a majority of commentaries that in one way or another anchor their analysis on the Sitz im Leben of the first gospel, Basser's meticulous verse-by-verse comparisons of the Matthean text to Jewish literature from the second through the fifteenth centuries enables the reader to view the former through a "prism" (p. x) of rabbinic texts as well as their halakhic and midrashic traditions. More specifically, Basser focuses on how stock images, expressions, or discourse formats in Jewish tradition are used by both Matthew and later rabbis, carefully steering clear of the distracting technicalities of form or source criticism. As a result, the most substantial contribution of Basser's work is to situate the gospel's seemingly odd images and expressions within a Jewish literary context, enabling modern scholars to approach the text with greater aesthetic sensitivity (see examples on pp. 96, 127-28, 188, 256, 327-28).

By employing later Jewish texts as credible intertext for Matthew, Basser also pushes the boundaries of intertextuality in biblical studies by expanding the available corpus of material relevant for illuminating the biblical text. While a precise definition of intertextuality is still the object of much debate, in practice there has usually been a preference for prioritizing materials either predating--or concurrent with--the New Testament texts. In principle, Basser appears to accept this practice, initially informing the reader that "(Matthew) selectively drew upon various oral and/or written materials that he had...