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questioned by the Pharisees regarding divorce (19.3–6), Jesus cites Gen 1.27; 2.23 to issue an authoritative decision regarding another, Deut 24.1–4. Similarly, when some Pharisees express concern that Jesus’ disciples are plucking grain on the Sabbath (12.1–9; b. Shabb . 73b; the rabbis would have prohibited the plucking of grain since it would have been equated with “reaping”), Jesus responds by arguing that other Jews violated Sabbath laws when they were in need. Matthew makes the need clear in 12.1 by adding to Mark 2.23 that the disciples were hungry. Matthew’s Jesus is thus depicted as utilizing Jewish exegetical methods to create new authoritative rulings.
    Despite these close connections to Jewish texts, Torah interpretation, and images, other passages—the parables of the vineyard (21.33–45) and the wedding feast (22.1–14), the invectives against the Pharisees (23.3–36), and the self-curse of “all the people” that Jesus’ “blood be on us and on our children!” (27.25)—suggest a strained if not broken relationship between Matthew’s intended readers and the synagogue.
    That final citation—the infamous “blood cry”—was used by some Christians through the centuries to claim that all Jews in all times and places were collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. More likely, the phrase reflects Matthew’s interpretation of the tragic events of 70 CE, when Rome destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple: the “children” of the Jerusalem crowd were the ones to witness that destruction.
    Following this tragic event, in which thousands of Jews were killed or exiled, the survival of Judaism was in doubt. New leaders were needed to preserve the Jewish traditions as well as to interpret the Torah for a changing world. The conflict inherent in Matthew’s Gospel may reflect this competition for survival, thereby explaining the harsh attitude exhibited toward the Pharisees, who were the forerunners of the rabbis. Matthew’s Gospel thus may provide a look into the tensions that existed between Jewish Christians and traditional Jews following 70 CE.
    Aaron M. Gale

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
    This Gospel was titled “According to Mark” in the earliest manuscripts, but the names of the Gospels were likely added later to establish their authority. Still, it is possible that the author is the same as the John Mark of Acts 12.12; 15.37, and the Mark mentioned in Col 4.10; 2 Tim 4.11; Philem 24; and 1 Pet 5.13. Papias, a Christian bishop in Asia Minor in the early second century (Eusebius, Hist. eccl . 3.39.15–16), believed that Mark had accompanied Peter to Rome and recorded what Peter had said, but he considered Mark less dependable as a Gospel author than Matthew, since Matthew was presumed (based on Mt 9.9) to be one of Jesus’ original followers. This traditional view of the relative authority of the first two Gospels continued throughout Christian history until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the lack of literary artifice of the Gospel came to be viewed as a virtue: scholars theorized that Mark was the earliest of the Gospels and therefore preserved more faithfully the words and deeds of Jesus. This view of Mark as prior to Matthew, however, also made it easier to downplay the Jewish practices of Jesus, which are more prominently discussed in Matthew.
    AUTHORSHIP AND DATE
    Jesus was crucified in about 30 CE, but the Gospel of Mark was likely written between 64 and 72 CE, during the events of the horrific Jewish War, when Jerusalem and the entire region were re-pacified by the Romans, and the Jewish Temple was destroyed. The reference to the Temple’s destruction in 13.2 and to wars in 13.7, as well as the depiction of refugees in 13.14–17, could apply to the events of that period, although the descriptions are vague and so not necessarily derived from the uprising and the Roman response.
    Mark probably utilized a number of sources for the Gospel: a passion