Matthew and the Mishnah: Redefining Identity and Ethos in the Shadow of the Second Temple’s Destruction

Akiva Cohen investigates the general research question: how do the authors of religious texts reconstruct their community identity and ethos in the absence of their central cult? His particular socio-historical focus of this more general question is: how do the respective authors of the Gospel according to Matthew, and the editor(s) of the Mishnah redefine their group identities following the destruction of the Second Temple? The author further examines how, after the Destruction, both the Matthean and the Mishnaic communities found and articulated their renewed community bearings and a new sense of vision through each of their respective author/redactor’s foundational texts. The context of this study is thus that of an inner-Jewish phenomenon; two Jewish groups seeking to (re-)establish their community identity and ethos without the physical temple that had been the cultic center of their cosmos. Cohen’s interest is in how each of these communities (the Matthean and Mishnaic/Rabbinic-related ones) underwent a reformulation of their identity as Israel, and the consequent ethos that resulted from their respective reformulations.