The Evangelist Matthew Armenian Bible minature
The Gospel According to Matthew
"...Eusebius of Caesarea...quotes (ca. 350 CE) this vague one-line assertion from Papias' no longer extant five volume exegesis of the sayings (logia) of Jesus."
"That Papias' 'Matthew' was equivalent to Q is a fairly common suggestion, but the problem is, there is no evidence to assume that Q was ever in a language other than Greek. The existence of 'Semitisms' has long since been proved inconclusive, since Greek-speakers in Semitic cultures (as Palestine would have been) would readily absorb Semitic idioms into their Greek way of expressing themselves."
"Matthew may have another name, Levi, which is the name given to the tax collector in Mark 2:14 and Luke 5:27, but who is called Matthew in the parallel passage, Matt 9:9."
"It is known that in Egypt at this date there were 111 kinds of tax, and many of the tax-collectors know shorthand. Matthew's livelihood [if he was Levi] was earned by interviewing tax-payers and discussing their affairs (usually in Aramaic) and then writing up his reports in Greek. He had a lifelong habit of noting things down and of preserving what he had written."
"The [Church] fathers are almost unanimous in asserting that Matthew the tax-collector was the author, writing first, for Hebrews in the Hebrew language: Papias (c. 60-130), Irenaeus (c. 130-200), Pantaenus (died c. 190), Origen (c. 185-254), Eusebius (c. 260-340), Epiphanius (c. 315-403), Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-86) and others write in this vein. The Medieval Hebrew gospel of Matthew in Even Bohan could be a corrupted version of the original. Though unrivaled, the tradition has been discounted on various grounds, particularly on the supposed unreliability of Papias, from whom some would derive the whole tradition."
"As far as we can tell, Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 190) was the first to equate Papias' testimony with a 'gospel' of Matthew. Yet the nature of this 'gospel' is uncertain, since (a) it is presented as a parallel to the oral 'preaching' of Peter and Paul and (b) the contents are left unspecified. In antiquity a written 'gospel' could be anything from a sayings collection (like Thomas) to a compilation of independent anecdotes (like Signs) to a connected biographical narrative (like Luke) to a theological treatise (like the Valentinian 'Gospel of Truth'). So it cannot be taken for granted that the 'gospel' Irenaeus refers to was coextensive with the contents of canonical Matthew." Some researchers think that Papias' Matthew might actually have been the Gospel of the Hebrews.
"Almost certainly he [Papias] was referring to Hebrews, although it is not impossible that he had in mind the Q gospel. He declared that Maththaios's Hebrew tract had been widely translated. When Hebrews was discovered and found to contain an admission by Jesus that he might have sinned, that passage was deemed adequate evidence in the eyes of second-century Christians that it was a pseudepigraphic forgery. Hebrews was excluded from the Christian canon and an alternative Matthew was sought.
"Origen's Commentary on Matthew (ca. 250) is the first patristic text that clearly identifies this primitive Matthean composition with the contents of the canonical gospel of the same name by identifying the author as a toll collector. Yet neither these authors nor Eusebius equate this reputedly first apostolic composition with the extant Greek text of canonical Matthew, since all of them insist that that author wrote in a Hebraic dialect."
Dating
"Matthew was "written in Jewish circles well before the final tearing away of Jewish Christians from their participation in synagogue worship that occurred around the year 88 C.E. That would tend to anchor the date for this gospel between 75 C.E. and 85 C.E., with the range of 80 C.E. to 82 C.E. being the best guess of most scholars."
"Matthew apparently considers the Pharisees to be the sole legal authority. This was true only after the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E., a generation after Jesus and long after the composition of Q." This conclusion is debatable, however. During the time of Jesus, the moderate Pharisees were favored by the Herodian ruling class, with whom they had enjoyed a long alliance. The Pharisees therefore would have occupied prominent positions of power along with the Herodian-appointed Sadducees. A better argument could made that, due to the evident lack of Pharisees in Galilee before 70 C.E., Jesus would have had little opportunity to engage them in debate.
"A comparison of the Synoptic gospels reveals that Matthew refers to the Sadducees the most. It seems odd that he would do so if he wrote after the fall since they had already disappeared after the fall of Jerusalem because of their political cooperation with Rome."
"...Careful examination of several features makes it probable that Matthew (in Greek) is earlier than AD 70, since he does not allude to the fall of Jerusalem, a matter which was so important to a Jew like himself that he could not have passed it over in silence." Like Mark, the dating of Matthew rests on descriptions of the destruction of Jerusalem which many scholars tie to its fall during the Jewish War (66-70 C.E.). The relevant passages, however, were most likely derived from OT prophesies and allow an earlier dating of Matthew. (See Mark's Little Apocalypse for more details.)
"R.T. France [Matthew--Evangelist and Teacher (1989) ], page 906, notes that there are a number of passages in Matthew 'which presuppose that the temple was still intact (5:23-24; 17:24-27; 23:16-22); and these have not been edited out in the way a writer after AD 70 might have been expected to do.' The priests were concerned with what to do with the pieces of silver Judas returned.
"Would someone writing after the fall of Jerusalem know where the Field of Blood was located (Mt. 27:8)? Would anyone be interested in a rumor from that day and age that His disciples had stolen His body (Mt 28:15)?"
"Theodor Zahn, a classicist and NT scholar, wrote a commentary on Matthew back in 1903. He wrote that: 'Mt would hardly have written v. 23 if the escape of the Christians [to Pella] had already taken place at the time of his writing. Our gospel is written before A.D. 66.' (Das Evangelium des Matthaus (Leipzig/Erlangen, 1903; 4th ed., 1922; repr. Wuppertal/Zurich, 1984), p. 407. Quoted by Thiede and D'Ancona, page 12.)"
"The situation presupposed by Matthew corresponds to what is known about Christianity in Palestine between A.D. 50 and ca. 64, but not after the flight of the Christians in ca. 64 and the start of the Jewish war in A.D. 66."
The First Gospel?
"Here Matthew has
polla [Gk. 'many'], and proceeds to give actually many parables. Mk. retains
polla, and intends to give only three parables, so he adds; 'And in the course of His instruction He said'. Mk. has before him a series of many,
polla, and he has not given the whole, or so it seems."
"Mt. 23:1-39 contains a long discourse of Christ against the Pharisees and the scribes, ending with an appeal to Jerusalem, which had slain the prophets. Of these 38 verses (2-39) Mk. has two and a half only, very freely and pointedly given. the chapter was of great importance in Palestine; but at Rome it was valueless, except as a moral lesson against vanity and ambition. Now let us see how it is introduced:"
- J. Chapman, Matthew Mark and Luke (London: Longmans, 1937) pp. 16f
Sources
"Matthew was composed in Greek in dependence on Q and Mark, also written in Greek by unknown authors." The possibility that the author of the Gospel of Matthew had Zoroastrian contacts is reflected his depiction of Satan as a "tempter" and in the prominent place given in his birth narrative to the magi - a term for the Zoroastrian priestly class.
The Gospel of Matthew "used, apart from other data, the Gospel of Mark, and Sayings Gospel Q for its prepassion narrative, and the Gospel of Mark and the Cross Gospel for its passion and resurrection account."
"Matthew was a careful student both of the Old Testament and of Mark, which in his time was not yet accepted as canonical Scripture and thus could be changed at need. His study revealed how frequently Mark's Gospel was transparent upon Scripture (or based upon it), and in ways that Mark himself apparently did not recognize. Mark had composed his Gospel on the basis of earlier oral and written sources, which in turn had found much of their information about Jesus in the Old Testament. Though Mark seems not to have realized that this was so, Matthew readily recognized the relationships between Mark and the Old Testament, and even took it upon himself to extend and correct them. "
"For all their thousands of differences and their considerable degree of apparent independence, Matthew (if he is redacting Mark) demonstrably keeps close to Mark's sense; he make a handful of tiny changes or allows a handful of tiny differences to stand."
"Matthew's consistent deletion of magical traits [attributed to Jesus] has been demonstrated by Hull, Hellenistic Magic, 116ff. Such censorship left most references to magical procedure in the gospels scattered and isolated, one term here, another there."
"...The usual supposition is that Matthew shows a general predilection for proof texts, so that if Matthew attributes something to Jesus that resembles anything in the Tanakh prophets, then some kind of midrash or other, whether explicit or not, is implied...Crossan calls it 'prophecy historicized'."
Matthew's "main intention is to use Old Testament prophecy to interpret the passage to which it is attached, for he is convinced the that story of Jesus is very much at one with God's purposes." Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, a Q non-believer, says that Mark was the main inspiration for Matthew's gospel with the writings of Paul and the Old Testament serving as secondary sources.
"Matthew has added elaborate parables to Mark's corpus. We need to be aware that parables were in the rabbinic style of teaching and they were the means whereby on rabbi would keep current the teaching of a former rabbi. A rabbi with a storytelling gift would take a point in the teaching of a well-known rabbi of the past and develop it into a parable, which would then be attributed to that revered rabbi of the past. That was not, for the Jews, a dishonest practice but a way of honoring the gifts found in their heritage. Four of Mark's parables Matthew appears simply to have transcribed as he found them in Mark. Other parables, however, such as the ones we call the parable of the seed growing secretly and the parable of the doorkeeper, Matthew appears to have expanded significantly from their original Marcan nucleus. Still others Matthew appears to have himself created based on as little as a single line in Mark or a reference in Paul or a place in the ancient Hebrew texts."
Teaching Discourses "Yeshuine Jews were expelled from the synagogues and the author of Matthew appears to be one of these excommunicated Jews. As part of a Christian community in Antioch that included both Jews and gentiles, the Matthew scribe saw Jewish participation in the Jesus movement declining and gentile participation increasing. It may also be that the gentile concepts of a trinity and pre-existent Messiah could have offended the Jewish Christians. Even the references to the 'Holy Ghost' were later editorial additions to Matthew. Accordingly, this Gospel was written to remind gentiles of the Jewish origins of the faith and to remind Jews that Jesus was the expected Messiah and of his present and imminent coming."
"Matthew has chosen and 'shaped' his traditions with the needs and concerns of Christians in his own day in mind. Matthew writes as a pastor....One of the most distinctive features of Matthew is the ferocity of anti-Jewish polemic..."
On point to note here. During Jesus' time the word for Jews ( ioudaioV) meant Judeans. According to the gospels, Jesus was a Galilean. Therefore the polemic was directed against his Jerusalem-centered opponents.
"Matthew presents a combination of anti-Pharisaic polemic and a description of Jesus' teaching of fulfilling the law and the prophets in episodes such as the Sermon on the Mount, which can be seen as the work of a writer conscious of setting a competing tradition to the Pharisees, saying that the Christians are in effect the new hasidim in a similar vein to the polemic of the Essenes against the Jerusalem priesthood."
"Matthew's theological concerns include: "Jesus' moral teaching on avoiding scandal, the consequent waiving of freedom in voluntary acts of love for others, Jesus' foreknowledge and control of events (an important theme in the approaching Passion Narrative), and Peter's special position as the recipient of Jesus' instruction and care."
"The noun 'righteousness' is not found in Mark and it occurs only once in Luke (1:75). But in Matthew it is used seven times, and in every case the evangelist has almost certainly introduced the work himself. This is one of the Matthew's most important and distinctive theses. Whereas Paul uses the word to refer to God's gift of grace or salvation by which man is enable to stand in a right relationship with his Creator, in Matthew the work refers to the righteous conduct which God demands of disciples."
"In a book by B. W. Bacon published in 1931, entitled Studies in Matthew, the author identified five teaching discourses in Matthew's gospel, each of which was concluded with a consistent formula."
The phrase "when Jesus finished" appears only five times in Matthew, at the conclusion of each of block of Matthew's teaching. According to Michael Goulder, the blocks were related to the five great celebratory festivals in the Jewish liturgical year:
Because Mark only provided lections from Rosh Hashanah to Passover, Matthew had to undertake a massive midrashic rewriting of Mark. "He covered the months Mark omitted. He dulled Mark's criticism of the Torah, Jewish practices, and the scribes. He expanded the content of the teaching of Jesus so that the five celebratory festivals of the Jewish year could be observed in an appropriate and proper Christian style, and, in the process, he heightened the sense that Jesus was the fulfillment of the law and the prophets."
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