The other thing that struck me is that even though it is Judas who betrays Jesus and leads the Pharisees and others to him is that Jesus is always in control of the situation when he is betrayed. In fact, if you look you see several times starting around the time of the Transfiguration when Jesus tells the disciples that they are going to Jerusalem and he will be handed over, flogged and crucified and then rise again. He says it in a matter of fact way without apology and it is the disciples who are grieved when they hear it and are afraid to ask him about it. In fact, Jesus tells his disciples when they try to rescue him that he can ask the Father for 12 legion of angels and he would send them. He doesn't try to talk his way out of it with Pilate. In fact, he is strangely silent to the point that it amazes Pilate.
I guess one minor point that I noticed is that while this first gospel is called the gospel of Matthew there is no identifier in the first chapter or in the last as to the author. We are solely going by early church history and testimony of the early church fathers as to identify the author. I'm not saying that it wasn't Matthew at all. I'm just saying that it isn't mentioned in the entire book. I personally wonder how much of the writing of this book was borrowed from Mark's account or what Matthew's sources were. Did Mary or Joseph themselves tell Matthew about Jesus' birth? How else would they know about some of these details? Then again, I am not sure that it matters to me if it was a disciple named Matthew or not. The Holy Spirit is the one who primarily inspired this book and he could have used anyone.
