Craig Blomberg reviews the Matthew ZECNT

Craig Blomberg at Denver Seminary recently reviewed Osborne's Matthew volume from the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament.

You can read an excerpt below, and find the rest here.

"Osborne finds history, theology, and literary style all present in abundance, none necessarily in tension with any other.  He opts for Matthew the apostle as author and cautiously suggests a date of 65-67 for his writing.  He adopts the two-source hypothesis for Gospel relationships, outlines the book by means of its alternating sections of narrative and discourse, highlights the typological uses of the Old Testament, and deftly sums us the key principles of each pericope and their implications in each “theology in application” section.  

With respect to concrete applications to the twenty-first-century world, he regularly and rightly highlights how shallow the Western church’s concept of discipleship and lifelong commitment to Christ is and how enmeshed we are in a materialism that drains us of the energy that should be directed elsewhere.

...this volume will now become my preferred commentary on Matthew for virtually every purpose other than perusing the exhaustive kinds of discussions one finds only in three-volume works like Davies’ and Allison’s revised ICC volumes or Luz’s Hermeneia offerings or for consulting the encyclopedic background citations available in Keener’s socio-rhetorical commentary."