Matthew as marginal scribe in an advanced agrarian society

Analysis of 22 references to scribes in the Gospel of Matthew shows that a few of them are positive comments and that  the author himself was a scribe.   What type of scribe was he and how can we clarify his social context? By means of the models of Lenski and Kautsky, by recent research about scribes, literacy, and power, and by new marginality theory, this article extensively refines Saldarini’s hypothesis that the scribes were “retainers”. The thesis is that in “Matthew’s” Christ-believing group, his scribal profession and literacy meant power and socio- religious status. Yet, his voluntary association with Christ believers (“ideological marginality”), many of whom could not participate in social roles expected of them (“structural marginality”), led to his living between two historical traditions, languages, political  loyalties, moral codes, social rankings, and ideological- religious sympathies (“cultural marginality”). The Matthean author’s cultural marginality will help to clarify certain well-known literary tensions in the Gospel of Matthew

J D Crossan's Construct of Jesus' “Jewishness”: A Critical Assessment

The article focuses on J D Crossan's reconstruction of the historical Jesus and the content he assigns to Jesus' "Jewishness". Guided by Crossan's own work and the insights of ethnicity theory, the continuities and discontinuities between Crossan's Jesus and traditional "Judaism" are investigated. It is argued that there is very little that connects Crossan's Jesus with traditional "Jewish" ethnic identity. In the process it is also argued that Crossan provides no comprehensive analytical framework within which it can be explained what kind of "Jew" Jesus was