Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

The Magi's angel (2:2, 9/10) -- Seeing God (5:8) -- murder and Anger, Cain and Abel (5:21/25) -- Darkness at noon (27:45) -- Touching Jesus' feet (28:9) -- Reading Matthew through the church fathers -- Structure, biographical impulse, and the Imitatio Christi -- Matthew's first two words (1:1) -- Divorce, celibacy, and Joseph (1:18/25) -- The configuration of the Sermon on the mount and its meaning -- Foreshadowing the Passion -- Deconstructing Matthew -- Slaughtered infants (2:16/18).

Dale Allison, one of the preeminent New Testament scholars of our day, gathers here thirteen essays on significant features of Matthew. These essays display the historical, literary, and theological acumen that make Allison a leading figure in gospel studies. Nine of the essays are previously unpublished; the other four are thoroughly revised. Part 1 draws upon the exegetical tradition, from church fathers through medieval interpreters to nineteenth-century commentators, to highlight interpretive possibilities missed by their more recent heirs. Allison does not merely assert but demonstrates in studies of several of the Gospel's more puzzling episodes that "the exegetical past," while requiring critical sifting, nevertheless offers genuine insights that we neglect to our loss. Part 2 brings Allison's own literary sensitivities to bear to illuminate the structure and meaning of the First Gospel as a whole and several of its key narrative elements. Careful attention to Matthew's verbal signals and textual architecture brings his theological themes into sharper focus.