The Gospel of Matthew contains many repeated phrases and double stories. Scholars have usually used this as evidence to support various source theories. Taking a different approach, this book uses narrative and reader-response criticisms to explore the role verbal repetition plays in the rhetoric, characterization, and plot of the Gospel. The importance of variation, context, and the temporal dimension of narrative is highlighted. A concluding chapter treats two literary studies of repetition in modern narrative and the relation of narrative and reader-response criticisms to aural reception of the Gospels in the first century.