The structure Saint Matthew gave his gospel. Bernard Sadler.

 

This is Bernard Sadler’s highly important contribution to New Testament biblical scholarship.

 

 

 

The Structure of Matthew

 

The structure of the gospel according to Saint Matthew has long remained obscure. The original Hebrew version has been lost and the earliest extant Greek versions seem not to show any structure—the text seems to run on and on without any clear divisions. Since a structure of some kind is necessary, editors have arranged and printed Matthew's gospel each in his own way. As a result, we now have a great variety of arrangements. But which is Matthew’s?

Well, would any competent writer compose a shapeless text and leave his readers to devise a structure for themselves? Matthew certainly did not. Today, we cannot easily see how Matthew structured his gospel because we are not familiar with the techniques used by ancient Hebrew authors. But the structure Matthew gave his gospel is right there in the text to be seen. You can now read details of the techniques Matthew used to compose his gospel and how he indicated the structure in the text. You can also study his gospel text just as he wrote it. Go to this website: www.structureofmatthew.com