Commments

* The handout made it easier to follow
* Emic/etic -distinction is good to keep in mind
* The list of  Indicators was useful

Questions

* Purpose and origin of  Matthew?
Perhaps we'll learn something about the purpose during this course (save my own I ideas here). As regards the origin, Antioch has been traditionally considered as the town where the gospel may have originated but lately Palestine has also been considered. Thus, for instance Overman (Galilee) and Stanton. Palestinian background (especially Galilee which was the center of  Pharisaic-Scribal faction after 70CE) would explain well the disputes Matthew (and his community) had with the Jewish leaders of his time. On the other hand the universial mission command at the end of the gospel would impy a wider Hellenistic-Roman cultural context. In my book Entering the Kingdom of Heaven I played with the idea of Decapolis (a group of Hellenistic cities to the East of Jordan) as the possible place of composition since these cites would be close to Galilee but would also provide a "window" for the universialism in the gospel.
* What do you think about modern arguments for Matthew's priority?
-I have done quite a lot work with synoptic materials (from a redaction-critical point of view) and I have always found the Two source theory the best hypothesis to go with.  Starting from Mark and Q,  Matthew and Luke appear as reasonable editors whereas reasons that are presented for Mark's shortening of Matthew (or Luke) are always more or less artificial. It is the synopsis (of Aland) that has convinced me about the Mark/Q priority, and the fact that the sequence of Q- material is approximately the same in Luke and in Matthew although  both evengelists have placed their Q-sections on different points of Mark's narrative. This is a phenomenon that is easy to understand if one assumes two editors working with the same sources but withouth knowing each other.
-By the way, one author who was not included in the handouts but who surely deserves to mentioned is Michael D. Goulder who argues in his Midras and Lection in Matthew that Matthew is a freely reproduced version of Mark, based on Jewish Midrash tradition. Thus he tries to survive without Q, but is not doing well, according to the majority of scholars.

* On the homepage you hint that Neusner's opposition to Sanders is personal. I think that Neusner makes a good point about Sanders' methodology: Sanders only cites a few authors and applies Mishnah to the first century.
- The personal tones of Sanders - Neusner discussion can hardly be overlooked. Yet, in a sense Neusner has a point, you are right with that. But I would quess that Sanders would answer that ordinary people seldom wrote books. There are not so many authors (and usually they are upper class people) that tell us something about Judaism in the first century. In addition to Josephus and Philo there is not much to cite.