prevalent thinking of the day even evangelical critics are dismissive of this chapter as being historically inaccurate. Jesus’ words are dismissed as not spoken by him since one might the accusation of being “anti-semitic” through acceptance of the chapter as genuine. Instead, the cause of these tensions between Jesus and the Pharisees is attributed to an alleged conflict between Matthew’s assumed community and the Jews of Matthew’s day in the synagogue. Indeed, Westerholm attributes these sayings in