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The New Moses and the Wisdom of God: A Convergence of Themes in Matthew 11:25–30

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2014

Patricia Sharbaugh
Patricia Sharbaugh*
Affiliation:
St. Vincent College
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Abstract

This article focuses on the confluence of Wisdom and Mosaic themes in Matthew 11:25–30, asserting that the convergence of these two themes points to an association between wisdom traditions and salvation history that is often overlooked. The two traditions evolved as Israel, trying to live life in obedience to Torah, encountered sin, suffering, trial, mystery, and an often turbulent history. As Israel encountered new and often painful life experiences, they remembered and appealed to tensive metaphors and traditions in order to understand the new experience and to provide stability in the midst of changing history. Recognizing that God's revelation in Jesus is a mystery both transcending and occurring within human experience, Matthew uses traditional tensive metaphors in order to emphasize that while the revelation of God's salvation in Jesus Christ is new, it is grounded in and continuous with salvation history. At the same time, this mystery transcends former expression. By describing Jesus as both a new Moses and personified Wisdom, Matthew imaginatively combines the symbolic worlds evoked by these two metaphors. The convergence of these symbolic worlds assures that Christological reflection moves beyond the familiar and is open to the mystery of God's revelation in Christ.

Keywords

MosesWisdomGospel of MatthewMosaic typologypersonified WisdomChristologyrevelation
Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , December 2013 , pp. 199 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © College Theology Society 2013 

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References

1 Perdue, Leo G., Wisdom Literature: A Theological History (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 1–3.Google Scholar

2 Brueggemann, Walter (Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997], 27–42)Google Scholar discusses the Old Testament theologies of Walther Eichrodt and Gerhard von Rad as the first two important models of Old Testament theology following the Barthian revolution of 1919. Discussing von Rad's presentation of Old Testament theology as a theology of mighty deeds, Brueggemann states: “It was soon observed that a theology of mighty deeds allowed no room for the wisdom materials of the Old Testament in which God did not ‘act.’ Indeed, one way to handle the problem of wisdom was to treat the sapiential materials of the Old Testament as substandard, largely borrowed, and largely utilitarian, so that they hardly qualify as elements of Israelite theology” (36). See also Murphy, Roland E., “Israel's Wisdom: A Biblical Model of Salvation,” Studia Missionalia 30 (1981): 1–16.Google Scholar

3 As noted above, Brueggemann draws attention to the problem wisdom literature presents for Old Testament theology and in an early work describes wisdom as the long neglected voice in the Old Testament; see Brueggemann, Walter, In Man We Trust: The Neglected Side of Biblical Faith (Atlanta: John Knox, 1972)Google Scholar, 13. Therefore, Brueggemann's Old Testament theology does not neglect wisdom literature but treats it as a competing, minority voice (Theology of the Old Testament, 318–19). Another example of Wisdom as a competing voice can be seen in Sanders, Jack T., “When Sacred Canopies Collide: The Reception of the Torah of Moses in the Wisdom Literature of the Second-Temple Period,” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 32, no. 2 (2001): 121–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 For a discussion of the role of the wisdom tradition in rabbinic Judaism, see Seltzer, Robert M., Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980)Google Scholar, 262. Seltzer writes: “As indicated in an earlier chapter, rabbinic thought had its roots in the fusion of the biblical wisdom tradition and the revealed word of God in Pentateuch and prophecy, a fusion that occurred under the stimulus and in the presence of the rich philosophical tradition of Hellenism. The result was a form of religious rationality unique to Judaism, combining verbal revelation through the written text (the Torah she–biktav) and the indirect inspiration through the oral discussions of the sages (the Torah she–be'al peh), which together formed Torah in the full rabbinical meaning.”

5 Murphy, Roland E., The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), 17–18.Google Scholar

6 A small but not exhaustive list of examples would include Deutsch, Celia, Lady Wisdom, Jesus, and the Sages (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996)Google Scholar; Deutsch, Hidden Wisdom and the Easy Yoke: Wisdom, Torah, and Discipleship in Matthew 11:25–30 (Sheffield, UK: JSOT Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Deutsch, “Wisdom in Matthew: Transformation of a Symbol,” Novum Testamentum 32 (1990): 13–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davies, W. D. and Allison, Dale C. Jr., The International Critical Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 2:235–302Google Scholar; Johnson, Marshall, “Reflections on a Wisdom Approach in Matthew's Christology,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 36 (1974): 44–64Google Scholar; Suggs, M. Jack, Christology and Law in Matthew's Gospel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 42–80; see also Deutsch, Hidden Wisdom, 36–39.

8 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:295.

9 Ibid., 296–97; see also Allison, Dale C. Jr., “Two Notes on a Key Text: Matthew 11:25–30,” Journal of Theological Studies 39, no. 2 (October 1988): 477–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Allison, The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993).Google Scholar

10 Allison, New Moses, 224.

11 Ibid.

12 The series of quotations can be found in Allison, New Moses, 224.

13 Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, “Wisdom Mythology and Christological Hymns,” in Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Wilken, Robert L. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 18–19.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., 18.

15 Deutsch, “Wisdom in Matthew,” 15.

16 Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 1.

17 Ibid., 9, 77. Deutsch notes that a metaphor is a form of symbol, and often interchanges the two terms. She describes the figure of personified Wisdom as a tensive metaphor in Lady Wisdom but uses the language of symbol in “Wisdom in Matthew,” 14–16. She uses Norman Perrin's definition of a tensive symbol when defining a tensive metaphor. Helpful discussions of the term “tensive symbol” can be found in Perrin, Norman, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom: Symbol and Metaphor in New Testament Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 29–34Google Scholar; and Meier, John P., A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 4 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 2:240–41.Google Scholar

18 Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 1.

19 Allison, New Moses, 277.

20 Ibid.

21 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:271–72; Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 54.

22 Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 54–55.

23 For discussion of the redactional differences, see Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:272–93; Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 55–58.

24 Allison, New Moses, 233.

25 Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 56–57.

26 Allison, New Moses, 222–33.

27 Allison (New Moses, 226) points out that the Father knowing the Son precedes the Son knowing the Father in Matthew 11:27. He argues that this is a reflection of Exodus 33:12–13, where God's knowledge of Moses precedes Moses' request for knowledge of God.

28 Allison, New Moses, 222–33.

29 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:296–97.

30 Ibid., 287–89.

31 Allison, New Moses, 219–20.

32 Exodus 33:11 and Deuteronomy 34:9–12 share the term “face to face,” while Numbers uses “mouth to mouth” instead. Exodus 33:12–13 and Numbers 12:6 share the use of “know”; and Numbers 12:6 and Deuteronomy 34:10, the use of “prophet.” See Allison, New Moses, 220.

33 Allison, New Moses, 220–21.

34 Source analysis of these chapters has not yielded widespread consensus, and the majority of contemporary scholars agree that interpretive focus should be placed primarily on the final form of the text. See Brueggemann, Walter, “The Crisis and Promise of Presence in Israel,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 1 (1979): 48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Childs, Brevard S., The Book of Exodus (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 1974), 584Google Scholar; Gowan, Donald E., The Bible on Forgiveness (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2010), 9Google Scholar; Gowan, Theology in Exodus (Louisville, KY: Westminster, 1994), 219.Google ScholarPubMed

35 Gowan, Bible on Forgiveness, 9. See also Irwin, William H., CSB, “The Course of the Dialogue between Moses and Yahweh in Exodus 33:12–17,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 59 (1997)Google Scholar: 633.

36 All biblical quotations contained in this article are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible.

37 Gowan, Theology in Exodus, 230.

38 Irwin, “Course of the Dialogue,” 632–34.

39 Budd, Philip J., Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 5, Numbers (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984)Google Scholar, 138.

40 In the LXX, praus is used to translate anav in Numbers 12:3. For a discussion of the association of praus and tapeinos in the Old Testament and their use in Matthew's Gospel, see Luz, Ulrich, Matthew: A Commentary, trans. Crouch, James E., ed. Koester, Helmut, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001–7), 1:190–94Google Scholar, 2:173–74; see also Allison, New Moses, 222–23; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:290–91.

41 Kardong, Terrence G., Benedict's Rule: A Translation and Commentary (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), 160–61.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., 161; see also Luz, Matthew, 173.

43 Kardong, Benedict's Rule, 161.

44 Diamond, James Arthur, “Maimonides on Kingship: The Ethics of Imperial Humility,” Journal of Religious Ethics 34, no. 1 (March 2006): 89–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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46 Olsen, Dennis T., Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994)Google Scholar, 7.

47 Gowan, Theology in Exodus, 133–36.

48 Olsen, Deuteronomy, 169.

49 Coats, George W., “Legendary Motifs in the Moses Death Reports,” in A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy, ed. Christensen, Duane L. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993)Google Scholar, 185.

50 Allison, New Moses, 180–81; Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 39.

51 Allison, New Moses, 224–25; see also Gowan, Donald E., Bridge between the Testaments: A Reappraisal of Judaism from the Exile to the Birth of Christianity (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications, 1986)Google Scholar, 132.

52 Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 21; Deutsch, “Wisdom in Matthew,” 31.

53 Allison, The New Moses, 277.

54 Prov 8:4–11, 32–36; 9:5ff.; Sir 24:19–22, 51:23–30; Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 56–57.

55 Sir 51:23–30, 6:18–37.

56 Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 56.

57 Deutsch, “Wisdom in Matthew,” 17–31.

58 Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 21; Deutsch, “Wisdom in Matthew,” 30–31.

59 Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 18.

60 Deutsch, “Wisdom in Matthew,” 30.

61 Ibid., 31.

62 Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, 58–60; Deutsch, “Wisdom in Matthew,” 37–39.

63 While Davies and Allison do not think that Wisdom is an important theme in Matthew's Gospel, they admit a convergence of themes in Matt 11:25–30 (Matthew, 2:287; see also 2:295).

64 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:291; see Müller, Morgens, “The Gospel of St. Matthew and the Mosaic Law: A Chapter of a Biblical Theology,” Studia Theologica 46, no. 2 (1992): 116–19.Google Scholar