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

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.

After fifteen years of intense labour on this commentary, Donald Hagner describes 'the sweep of Matthew's salvation-historical perspective' as 'breathtaking.' Christians throughout the centuries have agreed with him. Matthew is the most quoted Gospel not only by the early church but by the church today.

In this concluding volume of Hagner's commentary, he takes care to remind modern readers of the historical setting of Matthew's gospel. In doing so, he seeks to place the polemical aspects of the Gospel in a historical perspective particuarly with respect to early Judaism, so that they are not misunderstood by Christians today.

Dr Hagner also presents an insightful analysis of Matthew's treatment of his sources for the story of Jesus - the Gospel of Mark and the document know at Q. While recognizing that Matthew has placed his distinct imprint on his source material, Hagner argues that this editorial work has not been compromised the essential historical accuracy of the story. Not hesitating to defend the historicity of nature miracles such as the feeding of the five thousand or Jesus's walking on the water, Hagner reasons, 'If we do not allow the transcendent within history, the Bible suddenly becomes a very diffeent collection of writings, a book of parables concerning human existence rather than the account of salvation worked out in the historical process.'

In the pages of this commentary students of Matthew's Gospel will be delighted to find

* a fresh translation of the Gospel based on the latest critical Greek text;
* thorough and up-to-date bibliographies of scholarship on each pericope;
* detailed analysis of Matthew's editorial work and the structure of each pericope, particularly focusing on his use of parallelism:
* verse-by-verse comment providing historical and cultural insights and interacting with the most important scholarly literature.