Abstracts Philosophy, Religion, and Theology

Semitic Residue: Semitic Traits that Indicate Early Source Material Behind the Gospel of Matthew

by Brian Gray Chilton

Skeptics have often argued that the Gospels were written too late to have contained any valuable information about Jesus. Furthermore, the likes of Rudolf Bultmann and the Jesus Seminar claim that very little can be known about the voice of the historical Jesus. However, this work argues that the oral traditions stemming from community-based transmission provides a basis to hold that the oral traditions that undergird the finished Gospels are much earlier than the written texts themselves. Using the Gospel of Matthew as a test case and seven criteria to gauge the strength of residue, this study argues that the Gospel of Matthew is based on early oral traditions and that the early church transmitted accurate information based on Kenneth Bailey's informal controlled model.