The Second Sunday of Advent, 8 December 2013
The Second Sunday of Advent, 8 December 2013 Isaiah 11:1-10 Psalm 72:1-7,18-19 Romans 15:4-13 St. Matthew 3:1-12 Background: The Gospel of St. Matthew – Audience and Setting Traditionally the audience for Matthew was thought to be a people speaking either Aramaic, or Hebrew, living in Palestine. The vocabulary and structure of the book seemed to lead scholars in that direction. Some even envisaged that the book had been originally written in either Hebrew or Aramaic. Now there is some evidence that the audience intended may have lived outside of Palestine, perhaps in Alexandria, Egypt, the home to a large population of Jews, or perhaps in Phoenician areas of the Levant, or Caesarea. There has been some consensus that the actual audience was a community of Christians and Jews living in Antioch (Syria). As Matthew begins to speak of