Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Veils in the Old Testament
- 3 Functionality and Identity of the ‘Veil of the Temple’
- 4 The Veil in Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism
- 5 Matthew's Temple and Jesus' Death: Hermeneutical Keys to the Rending of the Veil
- 6 Analysis of the Matthean Velum Scissum Pericope
- Conclusion: Matthew's velum scissum – Retrospect and Prospect
- Diagram: Veil Language in the Structure of the Tabernacle
- Appendix 1 Veil Language in the Old Testament
- Appendix 2 Veil Language in the Two Tabernacle Accounts
- Appendix 3 Kαταπέτασμα and the חכרפ
- Bibliography
- Index of Texts
- Index of Select Subjects
- Index of Modern Authors
- Index of Select Terms
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Veils in the Old Testament
- 3 Functionality and Identity of the ‘Veil of the Temple’
- 4 The Veil in Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism
- 5 Matthew's Temple and Jesus' Death: Hermeneutical Keys to the Rending of the Veil
- 6 Analysis of the Matthean Velum Scissum Pericope
- Conclusion: Matthew's velum scissum – Retrospect and Prospect
- Diagram: Veil Language in the Structure of the Tabernacle
- Appendix 1 Veil Language in the Old Testament
- Appendix 2 Veil Language in the Two Tabernacle Accounts
- Appendix 3 Kαταπέτασμα and the חכרפ
- Bibliography
- Index of Texts
- Index of Select Subjects
- Index of Modern Authors
- Index of Select Terms
Summary
The narrative flow of Jesus' Passion account in Matthew 27 shifts abruptly when Jesus ‘gave up his spirit’ (27:50). Up to this point, the reader follows Jesus as he is interrogated by Pilate in Jerusalem (27:11–26), taken to the Praetorium to be beaten and mocked (27:27–31a) and led away to Golgotha for crucifixion (27:31b–44). The narrative continues by recounting the darkness (27:45), Jesus' recitation of a portion of Psalm 22 (27:46) and the responses of ‘those standing there’ (27:47–49). Then the narrative presents Jesus crying out in a loud voice and giving up his spirit (27:50). At this point in the account the reader is propelled from the narrative sequence and scene at Golgotha into a meta-narrative (vv 51–53) in which, among other events, the veil of the temple is torn in two. What is remarkable is that although each Synoptic Evangelist records this event, none of them stops to explain it. The lack of explanation on the part of the Evangelists, it seems, has contributed to the great variety of interpretations of this event offered throughout the history of Christendom. Scholars both ancient and modern have addressed the enigmas raised by this text from a variety of methodological perspectives with discouragingly differing, often contradictory conclusions. Some scholars have lamented that the meaning of the rent veil in Matthew will probably never be discerned with any degree of certainty.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Torn VeilMatthew's Exposition of the Death of Jesus, pp. 1 - 28Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006