Walking on Water in Matthew's Gospel: "A Proper Doxological Ending"?

Bruce N. Fisk

1. Strategic Texts

• Matt 1:22-23: Immanuel, which translated means, "God with us."
• Matt 18:20: For where two or three have gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.
• Matt 28:19-20: Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
  How might this claim make a difference in the ongoing life of the church?

2. A Puzzling Episode

• What are the principle differences between Mark and Matthew? Is it the same episode?
  
• If one composition is dependent upon the other, which version appears to be earlier? Why?
  
• How might we explain the most striking differences? Is Hays' analysis (MVNT 105-106) persuasive? Why or why not?

• 14:28-31 not found in Mark: but Matthew has other Peter passages not found in Mk or Lk: 16:17-19; 17:24-27. Does this suggest he had access to Petrine traditions not known to Mark/Luke (Matthew's special source?). Does this make Peter look good or bad?
  
• 14:33 anticipates Peter's insight of 16:16 which seems to be a new insight (but the gospels repeatedly present the disciples as gaining understanding in stages/increments/imperfectly)
  
• 14:33 -- "the Son of God": what did the disciples mean by it? Their use later no doubt intended a fuller sense.
  • wonder worker?
  • Messiah?
  • God's representative (like Israel)?
  • revealer of the Father? (one who does what the OT attributes to YHWH)
  • God the Son? (member of the Trinity)
    See Matt 2:15; 3:17; 4:3, 6 (cf. 5:9, 45); 8:29; 11:27; 16:16; 17:5; 21:37-39; 22:2; 26:63; 27:40, 54; 28:19
    
• Matthew creates very different impression of the disciples' response. Is his story trustworthy?
  • Mark focuses on the disciples' ongoing spiritual dullness/hardness--what they didn't understand
    Matthew focuses on their insights and spiritual gains--on what they did appear to grasp (albeit imperfectly)
    
  • Mark focuses on the disciples (their straining, fear, astonishment, hard-heartedness)
    Matthew focuses on Jesus ("Lord, if it is you..."; "Lord, save me!"; worship [cf. 28:17]; "you are the Son of God")
    
  • Matthew can be negative/critical of the disciples: 14:31--"O man of little faith, why did you doubt?" (not in Mark)
  • Matthew tends generally to present the disciples in a better light than Mark (see Mark 8:14-21; Matt 15:32-39)
    
  • Perhaps Matthew has combined/conflated two different episodes (Mark's and another)
  • Perhaps Matthew has creatively altered the story because he wants to leave his readers with certain insights into both Jesus and the disciples which he has gleaned from the whole Jesus story, and not simply from this one episode.
  • Perhaps Matthew reads "the miracle traditions as allegories of Jesus' presence"; "the disciples. . . are manifestly a figure for the church. . . which may also pray for and expect Jesus to rescue them from trials and tribulations" (Hays, MVNT, 105-106).

Beware of demanding that Matthew write history the way we today expect it to be written. The Gospels are not chronicles or dispassionate accounts or detached catalogs of events. Their authors want to persuade us of something!

1. The substantial verbal, chronological and conceptual overlap among the gospels strongly supports their fundamentally historical agenda.
2. The striking contrast between the gospel narratives and many apocryphal accounts confirms the evangelist's essentially historical conservatism and non-mythological orientation.
3. One mark of historical authenticity in the gospels is the presence of potentially embarrassing, cryptic or scandalous material. For further remarks on the "criteria of authenticity," go here.
4. The Gospels are interpreted histories; they are not, nor do they pretend to be, impartial, disinterested or objective. They are portraits, not photographs.
5. It is entirely inappropriate to demand of the ancient world the modern passion for verbatim reportage, transcripts, sound-bites and "objective" journalism. (Honest post-moderns recognize that "objective reporting" is neither possible nor desirable.) We should expect the evangelists to write their histories without transcending the historiographical values and approaches of their own day.
   • They were free, within reasonable limits, to summarize, expand, rephrase and even compose words for their characters, including Jesus. This was widely considered to be perfectly sound historiographical technique.
   • They freely rearranged the order of some events, usually without acknowledging any departure from a "historical" sequence.
   • Sometimes they collected and organized episodes according to themes, without announcing a shift away from chronological narration.
   • The border between a dominical saying and the evangelist's commentary was not always clearly marked, and may be imperceptible to us. Discourses in the Gospels (e.g., Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, John's Upper Room Discourse) may be composite compositions, conforming to no single historical "sermon" in its entirety, but drawing upon various speeches delivered on different occasions, and making use of summaries, expansions and interpretations. Such compositions may portray Jesus more faithfully than any taped transcript or home video ever could.
   • It may be the case--conclusive evidence is lacking--that post-pentecost, spirit-inspired prophetic utterances stand alongside earthly teachings of Jesus in the gospel accounts.
6. Such creative license does not mean the gospels are unfaithful or untrustworthy; sometimes the barest facts (like the plainest photographs) distort reality, while interpretive renderings show things very clearly. Linguistic maxim: to say the same thing in a different context, it must be said differently.
7. In the case of conflicts and tensions between two or more Gospel accounts:
   • the contradiction may be more apparent than real, since each version leaves out more than it includes. It is both legitimate and responsible for historians to attempt to harmonize divergent testimonies.
   • non-harmonizable differences may reveal how the evangelists could use the same episode to serve as a type or pattern for distinctly different theological points, no doubt related to their distinctive social settings and the needs of their communities
8. It serves no useful purpose to pit an evangelist's theological agenda over against his concern for historical veracity, as if writers must choose between the two. The Gospels are thoroughly historical and thoroughly theological.
9. These reflections do not begin to explain how divine inspiration took place, except to suggest that God has chosen to work through, rather than around, the historiographical and literary conventions of the ancient world.