"Matthew Through OT Eyes" (David B. Capes)

TITLE: Matthew Through Old Testament Eyes
AUTHOR: David B. Capes
PUBLISHER: Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2024, (392 pages).
 

Recently, there has been a spate of literature and biblical resources to interpret the Old Testament from New Testament eyes. A key contribution was G.K. Beale's and D.A. Carson's edited collection of articles in "Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament." This has helped to spur modern readers to read the Old Testament with greater fervour. Whether it was the prophets or kings, scribes or teachers, disciples or record-keepers, Old Testament or New Testament authors, all were "Old Testament" people.  In fact, the Old Testament Scriptures were the only ones they had. Yet, even today, many think of the Old Testament as outdated and irrelevant, preferring the New Testament texts over the Old Testament. This is partly the fault of the nomenclature where the words "Old" and "New" erroneously shape our perception. That is why some scholars prefer to rename the Bible into "First Testament" and "Second Testament" respectively. At that time, the Scriptures were written in a particular context relevant to the hearers.  Modern readers will need to bridge the ancient and modern contexts. Thankfully with this resource, the work of researchers, scholars, and teachers are made available for us.12` 
This book is one example of such work. Based on the "Background and Commentary" series by Kregel Academic, there are four common features:

1. Running Commentary with background explanation
2. Through OT Eyes that gives periodic summaries
3. Structure
4. Implications for the Church

There are many parts of the gospel of Matthew that elucidates deeper understanding when seen from OT eyes. For instance, Jesus' five sermons in Matthew parallel the first five books of the Old Testament, or the Torah. Like the OT records, the genealogies in Matthew are pretty much Old Testament style. Plus, the constant reference to how the OT prophecies were fulfilled is a significant theme in Matthew. While Capes recognizes that it is "not possible" to identify the exact dates of the authorship of Matthew, he believes that Matthew was written later than Mark.  This is essentially the Majority view based on Marcan priority. Conflict is also a key theme in the gospel of Matthew, something that the OT is not afraid of showing. Embedded throughout the book are implications for us and the Church today.

My Thoughts

How similar is this commentary to others? There are several similarities. Going chapter by chapter, passage by passage, and verse by verse, this book follows the popular running commentary format, which makes it a common reference book to use when studying the gospel of Matthew. The author has also allocated a chapter in this book for each of Matthew's 28 chapters, which makes it easy to follow. Within each chapter, the modern formatting makes it a delight to follow. The referenced verses are italicized; OT quotes formed a distinct block to improve readability; illuminating tables; and explanatory contexts of "Through Old Testament Eyes" are written within greyed out boxes. In terms of editing, I must commend the publisher for making this book a pleasure to navigate. Like many modern commentaries, Capes gives us illustrative list of tables, explanatory boxes, and various ways to go deeper into the texts.

However, there are a couple of things that I find unique. First, there is the focus on seeing perspective from Old Testament eyes. Some people are tempted to jump to application when reading the gospels. This commentary prevents such premature attempts by constantly showing us what it meant according to Old Testament contexts. I find the various boxes of Old Testament perspectives highlighting this unique contribution to keep us anchored on the whole Bible, instead of impatient modern applications. Like having a wise guide beside us, this commentary gives us a lot of background information to learn of, that helps us with the application process. Second, Capes does a good job in summarizing the themes for us periodically, such as the arrangements of the parables of Jesus; the comparison of Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus; clarifying how we should understand Jesus' prophecies; etc. Such summaries remind us that we should learn to read the gospel with the whole Bible in mind. Third, Capes helps us pay attention to the structure of the gospel through OT eyes, which is something rather interesting. He helps us by explaining what the structure means to help bridge the two testaments together. This is perhaps one of the key strengths of this commentary. It is not often we can see commentaries bridging the two testaments so succinctly. From genealogies to the prophecies, the parables to Jesus' Passion, we learn to read the gospel of Matthew in the context of the OT. By training our minds to do that, we learn to read Matthew in a more holistic manner.

 

Even today, it is common to hear Christians who say that they prefer the New Testament to the Old Testament. They also claim that the Old Testament is simply not as relevant as the New Testament. Some only read the New Testament! The fact is that the whole Bible is the Word of God. Anyone who tries to diminish the OT in favour of the NT might have forgotten that the Old Testament was the Bible that Jesus read! With this commentary, we get more insights into how Jesus would have read Matthew. By doing so, we can develop a framework to study the other gospels and New Testament texts with the lessons we learn from this Matthew commentary. Capes has given us a powerful resource that we should keep coming back over and over again. We need more of such contextual bridging commentaries to bring us closer to how Jesus would have read the Bible.

David B. Capes (PhD, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the executive director of the Lanier Theological Library (Houston, Texas). He taught for more than thirty years in various colleges and graduate schools around the country. He earned his PhD in New Testament. He is the author, coauthor, editor, or coeditor of a number of books including The Divine Christ: Paul, the Lord Jesus, and the Scriptures of Israel and Rediscovering Paul: An Introduction to His World, Letters, and Theology

Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5.

conrade

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This book has been provided courtesy of Kregel Academic without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.