“The Field of Blood” and “The Valley of Slaughter”: Memory and Manuscript in the Matthean Construction of Judas’ Death (Matt 27.3-10)

 

Presented May 31, 2011 at St. Thomas University in Fredericton

Abstract:

Werner Kelber has called for a constructive linking of memory and orality/literacy studies in scholarly approaches to Gospel texts. This paper brings these two interpretive methods to bear on the problematic Jeremiah ascription in the last of Matthew’s Erfüllungszitate. I shall argue that in the wake of the 70 CE fall of Jerusalem, the Matthaean community appropriated the figure of Jeremiah and his prophecies as a memorial framework for understanding the recent Roman devastation in Palestine. Matthew’s narration of Judas’ death, marked by explicit reference to Jeremiah, will be mined as a potential locus of such memory by means of a reinvigoration of C.H. Dodd’s underutilized theory of early Christian Testimonia.