Matthew in History: Interpretation, Influence, and Effects

In this provocative book, Ulrich Luz points the way beyond the limitations of the historical-critical method as it has been practiced during the past two centuries. He demonstrates the richness of the insights that can be gained when the interpreter considers a variety of effects and influences that a text has had in subsequent history, a method of inquiry he calls Wirkungsgeschichte.

This distinctive approach, which Luz so brilliantly exhibits in his multi-volume commentary on Matthew, is here applied to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 10, and Matthew 16:18. Insights from the ancient fathers, from Scholastics, from Reformers and Anabaptists, and from many others are adduced to demonstrate the importance of the history of Christian thought for the interpretation of biblical texts.

"Students and pastors will welcome this book! It begins with the frank admission that because much current study of the Bible attempts openly to explain what scriptural texts meant in ancient times, it strikes the reader as irrelevant for life and experience today. Throughout the centuries, however, biblical texts have generated new meanings in new situations. The upshot is that biblical texts have a 'history of effects,' and this history is part of our history. Written in a lively style, this book is not only stimulating and highly informative but it also grapples successfully with the knotty problem of what interpreting Scripture entails."
— Jack Dean Kingsbury, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Theology, Union Theological Seminary in Virginia