AN EVALUATION OF MATTHEW 12:6 IN CONTEMPORARY SCHOLARSHIP

Abstract

What/who is greater than the temple is an on-going debate among New Testament (NT) scholars. Scholars interpret what is greater than the temple as (a) the kingdom of God/heaven (b) the superior service of the disciples of Jesus; (c) love/mercy; and (d) Jesus. However, though some ofthe literature, so far, reviewed considered Matthew’s usage of comparative adjectives in hisGospel (see Duckwitz, 2014; Diefenbach, 2012), it is not exhaustive. None of them exhaustively investigated Matthean style of using comparative adjective to help interpret the one on 12:6.Moreover, neither of the literature reviewed, so far, considered the various settings of Matthew’sGospel. There is, therefore, a gap in scholarship: the examination of Matthean usage of comparative adjectives in his Gospel to help interpret the one used in 12:6, and examination of the settings of Jesus and the Evangelist to help unravel the possible identity of what/who is greater than the temple. The main objective of the study is to synthesize and evaluate contemporary scholarly views on the expression ὅτι τοῦ ἱεροῦ μεῖζόν ἐστιν ὧδε in Matthew 12:6.This research will benefit biblical scholars, the clergy, and Bible students who will research about the Sabbath controversy in Matthew 12:1-8. Second, it has added to the existing literature on the issue of the interpretation of the comparative adjective in Matthew 12:6.