Matthew 1:1-16:20

by Warren Carter

Overview

An insightful commentary on the Gospel of Matthew that focuses on historical context and reception history

Building on decades of focused work on the first Gospel, Warren Carter brings the fruit of that research to bear in a tour de force of historical insight and methodological rigor. Within this remarkable two-volume commentary, Carter situates the Gospel of Matthew within the context of Jewish traditions and negotiations of Roman imperialism after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. He positions the Gospel as illuminating how a community of Jesus-followers constantly navigates Roman power. He pays particular attention to Jesus’s strategies for dealing with Roman rule, showing how Jesus alternately replicates it, accommodates it, resists it, and develops a way of life committed to the empire of God. In addition to examining the Gospel of Matthew in its historical and social context, Carter shines new light on instances of the book’s reception, illustrating how scholars have interpreted it from the era of the early church up to the present. This fascinating commentary is an essential and distinctive resource for New Testament scholars and students of theology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802870087
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	11/20/2025
Series:	Illuminations (ILLUM)
Pages:	925
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Warren Carter is the Meinders Professor of New Testament at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Jesus and the Empire of God, God in the New Testament, The New Testament: Methods and Meanings (with Amy-Jill Levine), Seven Events That Shaped the New Testament World, and Matthew and the Margins.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
To the Reader
Preface
List of Abbreviations and Sigla
 
Introduction
1. Matthew’s Genre as an Ancient Biography
2. Telling the Story of Jesus
3. Written in the Late First Century in Syrian Antioch
4. Negotiating the Post–70 CE World of Syrian Antioch
5. Synagogue Conflict and Horizontal Verbal Violence under Roman Occupation
6. The Socioeconomic Realities of Daily Life in the Roman Empire
7. Interpreting Matthew’s Gospel across Two Millennia
8. Bibliography
 
Commentary
First Narrative Block 1:1–4:16
The Origins and Commissioning of Jesus (1:1–25)
The Empire Strikes Back (2:1–23)
John the Baptist (3:1–17)
            Testing Jesus’s Identity as God’s Agent (4:1–16)
Second Narrative Block 4:17–11:1
            Jesus’s Public Activity Begins (4:17–25)
            The Sermon on the Mount: Part One (5:1–48)
            The Sermon on the Mount: Part Two (6:1–34)
            The Sermon on the Mount: Part Three (7:1–29)
            Expressions of God’s Empire (8:1–34)
            Expressions of God’s Empire, Continued (9:1–38)
            Sending the Disciples to Manifest God’s Empire (10:1–11:1)
Third Narrative Block 11:2–16:20
            Responses to Jesus’s Public Activity (11:2–30)
            Negative and Receptive Interactions with Jesus (12:1–50)
            Parables Explaining the Divisive Impact of Jesus’s Activity (13:1–58)
            The Death of John and Further Signs of God’s Empire (14:1–36)
            Attempts to Discern Jesus’s Identity (15:1–39)
            Various Perspectives on Jesus’s Identity (16:1–20)
 
Subject Index
Author Index
Scripture Index
Ancient Sources

Editorial Reviews

In this absorbing commentary on Matthew, Warren Carter offers a powerful reading that glimpses how the narrative might have impacted its earliest hearers. Trapped in overbearing systems of sociopolitical domination, these were people engaged in the ‘horizontal’ hostilities that oppressive structures inevitably ignite. As Carter demonstrates, the Matthean narrative exposes the mechanisms of destructive power that seem to recur in every age, while simultaneously revealing paths along which the liberating antidote might lead. Additionally, Carter captures moments of reception history (paintings, sculptures, hymns, liturgies, sermons, and more), allowing these creative responses to kindle fresh considerations about interpretative possibilities. There is much here from which to benefit.”
—Bruce Longenecker, Baylor University

“This impressive and very valuable resource encapsulates the work of one of the most important Matthew scholars of our time. The book not only relays up-to-date information from current scholarship but is also replete with new insights not currently available anywhere else. It will delight and ultimately satisfy anyone who wants to read Matthew’s Gospel both as a venerable volume with a ‘history of consequences’ and as a dynamic treatise that retains striking relevance for our modern world.”
—Mark Allan Powell, Trinity Lutheran Seminary
 
“Warren Carter’s Matthew is a gift from a prolific scholar who has spent his career exploring the first Gospel. With clarity and depth of research, Carter offers a cogent reading of Matthew that foregrounds its engagement with Roman imperial power. He offers wide-ranging discussions of the text, its contexts, and its interpretation and effects across the centuries. Essential reading for interpreters of the Gospels.”
 —Jeannine K. Brown, Bethel Seminary
 
“Karl Barth retrieved Paul’s apocalyptic message from the Letter to the Romans for a Germany lost in a liberal and nationalistic cultural gospel. Brian Blount shredded systemic racism and retrieved a liberating word for African Americans from the book of Revelation. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza exposed the masculinism of Bible interpreters while proposing hope for women. And now Warren Carter has exposed the persistent, systematic colonialism and imperialism of American nationalist misreadings of the Gospel of Matthew. Carter has been the voice of empire criticism for more than two decades. At times I found myself disagreeing, but his achievement is monumental. The coherence of his method and the depth of his probing of the text of Matthew will influence sociopolitical scholarship on Matthew for decades.”
—Scot McKnight, Houston Theological Seminary

“A revitalizing exploration of Matthew’s Gospel, revealing its complex interplay with socioeconomic forces and the destructive impact of Roman imperial power—which it resists, contests, accommodates, and reinscribes in turn. An indispensable resource for a new generation of biblical interpreters wrestling with the enduring legacies and contemporary realities of empire.”
—Robert J. Myles, University of Divinity, Australia

“This two-volume commentary is an essential companion for anyone seeking to navigate Matthew’s Gospel in all its complexity. Warren Carter skillfully unpacks the dynamics of social tension emerging from top-down pressures in a post-70 CE landscape, draws meaningful connections to today’s world, and balances scholarly insight with theological depth in a way that remains approachable for engaged readers.”
—Anna M. V. Bowden, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary 

“Drawing on over three decades of work on the Gospel of Matthew, Warren Carter has given the guild a significant and rare gift: a commentary that intentionally reads Matthew in light of its engagement with a Roman imperial context. With his usual engaging prose, Carter provides present-day readers with new eyes for reading Matthew—eyes that perceive how the text, from beginning to end, illuminates the imperial shadow that lay heavily over its earliest audiences. Scholars and students alike will benefit greatly from this groundbreaking commentary.”
—Adam Winn, Samford University

From the Publisher