From a team of more than 50 international scholars comes the Word Biblical Commentary.

Harvesting the important historical, textual, literary and archaeological discoveries from a generation of scholarship, the Word Biblical Commentary Series serves the needs of professional scholars and teachers, students of the Bible and of theology, working ministers and anyone who wants a theological understanding of Scripture that is grounded in the best of today's biblical scholarship.

Dr. Donald Hagner is a scholar with an immense respect for the biblical text. He has produced for us a distinguished technical commentary on Matthew's gospel in which he argues convincingly that the sayings of Jesus in our Synoptic Gospels are true representations of what Jesus himself spoke.

A good commentator, Dr. Hagner asserts, offers exegesis 'that shares the faith commitment and priorities of the believing community.' While trying to avoid imposing personal preconceptions upon the text, such a commentator does exegisis from within, which is precisely what Dr. Hagner has accomplished in his volume.

* Recongnizing and incorporating the best contributions of narrative criticism, he uses the historical critical approach as his basic mode of interpretation.
* He demonstrates that the transmission of the earliest oral traditions has been careful and dependable.
* Confessing the difficulty of the task, he offers new insights into the structural analysis of the Gospel of Matthew.
* He reflects at length on Matthew's use of the fulfilled Old Testament quotations, emphasizing the christocentric nature of the Jewish Scriptures.
* He joins the ongoing scholarly discussions of the main purpose and theology of Matthew's gospel.
* Drawing from his broad research, he provides penetrating analysis of the unique historical crucible in which the Jewish/Gentile elements of this Gospel were refined.

Dr. Hagner affirms, 'Matthew's Gospel is above all a book from a church, not merely as the record of past history but as the handbook for the present experience of Christians.'