Readers of Matthew’s Gospel have long pondered and puzzled over his references and allusions to the Old Testament Scriptures.

Bart Ehrman invites us to consider the story that Matthew tells in his first five chapters:

• a male child is miraculously born to Jewish parents,
• but a fierce tyrant in the land is set to destroy him.
• The child is supernaturally protected from harm in Egypt.
• Then he leaves Egypt and is said to pass through the waters (of baptism).
• He goes into the wilderness to be tested for a long period.
• Afterwards he goes up on a mountain, and delivers God’s law to those who have been following him.

(Quoted verbatim, but with bulleting added)

The parallels with Exodus 1-20 are inescapable:

• Herod is like the Egyptian Pharaoh,
• Jesus’ baptism is like the crossing of the Red Sea,
• the forty days of testing are like the forty years the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness,
• the Sermon on the Mount is like the Law of Moses delivered on Mount Sinai.

(Quoted verbatim, but with bulleting added)

Ehrman concludes:

‘These parallels tell us something significant about Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus.  Certainly he agrees with Mark that Jesus is the suffering Son of God, the messiah.  But here Jesus is also the new Moses, come to set his people free from their bondage (to sin 1:21), come to give them the new law, his teachings.’