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Neusner on Midrash

What we have in all of the New Testament Gospels, as in the Essene library of Qumran, is an entirely distinctive sort of exegesis: a reading of the verses of ancient Scripture in light of an available scheme of concrete events. The exegete relates Scripture from the past to things that have happened in his own day. His form serves that goal. That is so both for the Essene Midrash and for the Christian Midrash in Matthew. What we learn, which will guide our reading of the Midrash of the rabbinical sages of the dual Torah, is two things: first, that while the exegesis yields results particular to the purpose of its authorship, the basic process of Midrash is uniform; second, that the three dimensions of Midrash form a cogent whole.