Matthew 27:9: Quoted from Jeremiah?

You like the satire theory. Here is a link to the article I read. The Satire According to MatthewIt might be interesting to discuss sometime.

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton

Since you've done more research than I have, weren't there others claiming to be the messiah at the time of Jesus? Wasn't the criminal he was exchanged for supposedly claiming that?If there were, that could explain the satire. Poking fun at the outlandish claims of supposed messiahs.

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton

It looks like Mark and Luke have him as an insurrectionist. Interesting.Makes you wonder how those supposed messiahs presented their authority. What were their credentials???

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton

I've found your posts interesting. I had not heard of the burdens. Is there a site that would explain them more?There's also the possibility that the author of Matthew was working with a faulty translation of the Hebrew text. These translations suggest the money was to be thrown into the treasury and not to the potter. Throwing money to the potter in the House of the Lord doesn't really make sense, IMO.I was looking into where this "Field of Blood" is located. Supposedly it is in the Valley of Hinnom or one end of it anyway.Considering it was a place of incineration, I find it an odd purchase for Judas or the priests.The tale that the author presents seems to be weaving together OT stories. The tale itself is about an incident that couldn't have been witnessed by any of the disciples and considering the Valley of Hinnom had a bloody past, the death of Judas or blood money, wouldn't be the only reason to call a place a "Field of Blood".

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton

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It seems that with faith God leaves you some room to doubt is you really want to. I see this principle played out in the discussion of the fulfilling of Old Testament prophesies spoken of by the New Testament writers. There is room for us to think "But, maybe its not true."

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If God truly wants everyone to believe, love, and serve him, what would be the purpose of leaving room for doubt?How is it beneficial to God to deliberately allow people room to flounder, to not provide complete information?That's like giving someone a recipe but leaving out the ingredient that makes or breaks the recipe.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

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I mean a kind of attitude "If all else fails, then I will begrudgingly trust God. I will explore each and every rationale NOT to believe first. Only if there is no way out of believing God, then I MAY believe."

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Because there is room for doubt which you said may be purposely left open by God. He may have created the problem.I don't think I know of anyone who begrudgingly trusts God.If my car malfunctions in a remote town and there is only one mechanic available, I will begrudgingly trust him even though I have my doubts, because I have no choice if I want my car fixed.Now if I'm faced with a Spanish Inquisition scenerio, then yes I would probably begrudgingly say I trust to save my life even though I doubt the veracity of people who threaten death as a means of gaining believers. But am I truly trusting God in this scenerio or saying what is necessary to save my physical life?IMO, begrudgingly implies a lack of choice in the matter against one's better judgement.

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One of the commandments is that you shall not tempt the Lord your God. Now I heard it taught that to tempt God was to ask God for more of a sign than He is pleased to give.

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If you look at the entire command written in the OT: you will find that the original story isn't dealing with asking for signs to aid in belief or proof as the NT usage does. In the NT the Devil was asking Jesus to purposely put himself in danger to prove God. The people in the OT did not. There is a difference.Your analogy with the child doesn't really work because the child knows her father exists and has heard her father's voice. The child may not trust their siblings message, but they would insist their father come to the head of the stairs or come closer etc.All people have today is the equivalent of the sibling.

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They fault God for not giving enough indication of validity of the command to repent and believe in His salvation.

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They fault God for leaving us to deal with the various and sometimes conflicting messengers.

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I see it as something like Jesus told Thomas after He presented proof of His resurrection. Thomas was skeptical and demanded strong imperical proof. He said that he would not believe unless he placed his hands in the hole in Jesus' side and placed his fingers in the wounds in His hands.

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Finally Jesus presented Himself to Thomas and showed Him His wounds as proof. But it is very interesting what Jesus added - "... and do not be unbelieving, but believing" (John 20:27)

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But Jesus provided the proof and didn't condemn Thomas for refusing to believe what he was told without proof and Jesus didn't imply that Thomas was testing God. Thomas was only asking for proof of what the other disciples were claiming, not a miracle. Jesus provided the proof and Thomas believed he had returned. Jesus doesn't imply that we shouldn't question what we are told. Maybe you score more points for believing without proof, but IMO, we aren't told to automatically believe what we are told.

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This is a decision of the will, to be believing or to be unbelieving.

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But who are we believing? God or Man?

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

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I never said that we should not question. I said that there may come a point where our demand for more and more proof is a manifestation of our rebellion.

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I don't see that people are asking for more and more proof. They simply ask that what a spokesperson claims is consistently true.Within Christianity there isn't a consistent guarantee of an afterlife, healing, good life, safe life, etc. There are too many different forumulas that promise various types of salvation.The words of God aren't even presented consistently.We can't even come to a reasonable conclusion without a shadow of a doubt or gymnastics why the author of Matthew used the name Jeremiah when it doesn't seem to be a quote from Jeremiah. So if that which is claimed to be God's word cannot be trusted to be correct, how can God expect people to trust Him concerning larger issues?

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

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Did this custom really exist?

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I've tried to find something other than an apologetic source that would back up that idea, but I haven't found a truly Jewish source yet.The closest I've found is on Yashanet which gave three different thoughts and what they considered to be a more likely explanation. Yashanet is a messianic site. The impression I get is that while the scrolls may have been grouped together, I haven't found a Jewish source that supports the custom of quoting a minor prophet by referring to the major prophet in the grouping, which your examples brought out.Even the author of the Yashanet site doesn't think it is likely.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

Your source doesn't really say that referencing the major prophet in the group is a custom. He just speculated what the author of Matthew might have done.

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Matthew's citation is actually a conflation of Zechariah 11:12-13 and Jeremiah 19:1-13 and 32:6-9. There is a very simple explanation why Matthew would attribute the prophecy to Jeremiah:

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So it isn't a true quote. While I do agree with your source that "Furthermore, it was a common Jewish exegetical practice to link together passages which had identical words or phrases."I would question the authority of blended phrases that are deemed prophecy and have a different meaning than the original texts. Neither Zechariah or Jeremiah spoke of something to be fulfilled. Personally I feel that the author of Matthew knew exactly what he was doing and it had nothing to do with real prophecy. Message 11

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

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I'm assuming that the practice of Gezera Shewa enumerated by Hillel in his approach to scripture finally answers the question of this thread "Matthew 27:9: Quoted from Jeremiah?" Everyone who doubted me has dropped the issue and dont even have the decency to acknowledge it. But in debate lack of response is to concede the point.

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You assume incorrectly.Gezera Shewa only confirms the practice of blending similar verses. It doesn't confirm or promote the practice of attributing a quote to a major prophet because the minor one may or may not have been grouped with the major prophets scroll. It doesn't address why the blended product was attributed to Jeremiah.The simplest explanation aside from the satire theory is that the author created a prophecy from blending verses from two prophets and attributed it to the major prophet or the one who came first alphabetically. We'll can never really know what was actually going through the author's mind at the time he wrote Matthew.

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The new question you pose 'but is it prophecy' I would have to state the obvious...yes because Matthew, the disciple said it was after an encounter with the risen christ "And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets. He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" Luke 24:27

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The author of Matthew did not make that claim and the verse from Luke is not Matthew speaking. Not to drag this thread off the main topic, I just thought it was an interesting question as to whether a blended statement could really be considered a prophecy when the blended statement wasn't actually stated before the time it was spoken. So it was spoken after the event and not before the event.

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The rest of the book does not even remotely support your satire theory. It would be a hasty generalizing taking a small part and qualifying the whole with it with the small part highly questionable.

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I feel that it does, but there is a thread for that.
Book of Matthew - Serious or Satire?.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz