Faith in Jesus 93 as for the precise wording, the evangelists’ accounts appear to be determined by descriptions of the suffering of the righteous in the scriptures of israel. matt 27,43 quotes ps 22,9 and may also contain an allusion to lam 2,15. many commentators therefore conclude that it is impossible to know what, if anything, of the words recorded are historically accurate 25. it is frequently overlooked, however, that there is a clear tension between the mockery recorded in v. 42 and v. 43 in matthew’s account. in v. 42, the point of the sarcasm is that Jesus is inadequate as a savior because he appears unable to save himself. in v. 43, the mockers’ implicit claim is that he is not favored by God, because God does not save him. the quotation from the psalms occurs in v. 43. if matthew’s wording has been influenced by scripture, that influence is most likely to have occurred in the statement recorded in v. 43. But if the wording of v. 42 were also a free creation of the tradition, why has it not been constructed so that it agrees with the scriptural quotation to follow? Why does it refer to Jesus’ own powers of salvation, not to God’s willingness to save him, which is the point of v. 43? the chief priests’, scribes’, and elders’ mock concession that they will believe in Jesus is also quite abrupt and unmotivated by matthew’s narrative. nowhere in matthew’s Gospel does Jesus demand or invite people to have faith in him. to explain the anomaly, Gnilka maintains that matthew’s use of pisteu,somen evp av uvto,n in 27,42 is a pauline formula, but this explanation will not do 26. the phraseology is used three times by paul (Rom 4,24; 9,33; 10,11), twice in a quotation from the septuagint (Rom 9,33; 10,11). it is better understood as scriptural, which would explain why matthew would use the terminology, but it does not explain the presence of the idea in this context. however, if matthew is preserving an authentic tradition in v. 42, that would explain this tension. the parallel account in mark’s Gospel does not contain the quotation from the psalms but only the sarcastic comment about Jesus’ inability to save himself. mark also has a different wording of this taunt: he does the account legendary, composed on the basis of ps 21,8 and lam 2,15 lXX (Geschichte, 295). 25 GnilKa, Matthäusevangelium, ii, 473-474, 479; W.D. DaVies – D.c. allison, JR., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (icc; edinburgh 1997) iii, 617. ludger schenke does not discuss the historicity but ascribes the mockery in mark 15,31b-32a to the earliest layer of the tradition (Der gekreuzigte Christus. Versuch einer literarkritischen und tra- ditionsgeschichtlichen Bestimmung der vormarkinischen passionsgeschichte [stuttgarter Bibelstudien; stuttgart 1974] 105). 26 Matthäusevangelium, ii, 473.