Hall quotes Allison on Matt. 5:5.
Perhaps we should follow the interpretive lead of Theodoret and Eusebius and set Matt. 5:5 against the Moses traditions. Moses was, in meekness, the exemplar. He promised the Israelites inheritance of the land. And he himself did not enter the land. From this last fact, sufficiently unexpected to have engendered much rabbinic reflection, one might extract that the third beatitude pledges something Moses never gained. On such an interpretation, the members of the new covenant would be more blessed than the chief figure of the old; if, in the past, the meek one did not enter the land, now, that the kingdom of God has come, “the meek shall inherit the earth.” One thinks of Matt. 11:11: the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than all of those who came before.
Hall notes that Allison remains undecided about an allusion to Moses in Matt. 5:5 and then adds:
He does beleive, though, that such an allusion should be seriously considered, that it has fruitful homiletical possibilities, and that it clearly tells us what the fathers themselves heard when they listened to the passage. Again, the hermeneutical proximity of the fathers to Scripture has picked up tonal qualities of the text that would remain mute for modern readers if the scholar, pastor or layperson relied solely on recent exegesis. The fathers hear and see where we tend to be deaf and blind. (Hall, 40-41)
Why do the fathers often hear and see where we tend to be deaf and blind?
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
