JESUS'S FEEDING OF THE GENTILES IN MATT 15:29–39: HOW THE LITERARY CONTEXT SUPPORTS A GENTILE FOUR THOUSAND

Key words: literary criticism, Gospels, Jesus, Matthew, Gentiles, Jews, feeding of the four thousand When reading Matthew's Gospel, it is easy to overlook the feeding of the four thousand. Throughout history, however, the story has fostered a variety of creative readings, and while little consistent concern for the ethnic identity of the four thousand arose until the twentieth century, seeds of the discussion began to grow just centuries after Matthew's composition, with some throughout history taking the crowd as Jewish1 and others Gentile.2 Matthew's account is particularly ambiguous with re· spect to the crowd's ethnic identity, so spirited arguments on both sides of the debate-Jewish and Gentile-are common, generally centering on the geography of the passage, the makeup of the crowds, and the crowd's glorifying "the God of Israel. In this paper, I argue that a Gentile four thousand best satisfies the Gentile trajectory of the literary context surrounding Matt 15:29-39.4 After briefly addressing the most commonly discussed factors in the debate-the geography of the passage, the makeup of the crowds, and the crowd's glorifying "the God of Israel"-I will turn to the most significant factor in determining the ethnicity of the four thousand: [...]Matthew may be omitting mention of the Decapolis in order to exclude any misunderstanding that Jesus may be in a Gentile region.