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For as long as the four gospels of the New Testament
have been collected together the gospel of Matthew has been the
first gospel. Even before there was a New Testament, there was a
collection of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That was usually the
order and Matthew was always first. There have been several explanations
for why. The most common explanation through church history was
simply that Matthew was the first gospel to be written. This view
is no longer widely accepted as true. It is more likely that Matthew
appeared first in the collection of the gospels for two reasons.
First is that Matthew is structured as a teaching gospel. More than
the other three gospels Matthew presents the great blocks of teaching
by Jesus, collected and organized in a way that could be easily
learned and remembered. Second, and most important once the New
Testament was formed, Matthew provides a bridge from the Old Testament
to the New Testament.
As the first gospel in the New Testament, Matthew has always exerted
great influence in the Christian church. Much of the traditional
view of Christ and his ethical teachings has come from Matthew’s
presentation of Jesus and his message. The story of the wise men
who visited Jesus at his birth is found only in Matthew. The Sermon
on the Mount is a collection of teaching in Matthew 5-7. The Great
Commission forms the climax of this gospel. The only gospel to use
the word "church" is Matthew and twice the power of binding
interpretation is given in this gospel. In the history of the medieval
church Matthew was especially important for it provided the scriptural
foundation for those who taught the supremacy of the pope as Peter’s
successor as bishop of the church at Rome. In the area of Jesus’
teaching no other gospel has been as influential as Matthew.
With the rise of modern understandings of history in the last two
hundred years certain questions have become important for the study
of biblical books. These questions include: Who wrote the book?
When? Where? Why? What kind of literature is the writing? Knowing
the answers to these questions can increase our understanding and
appreciation of the message of each book of the Bible. Unfortunately
the answers to such questions are not always clear not easy to discover.
Scholars often disagree about the answers and some are ready to
give up the search. However, what we can learn will be helpful.
Author - Who wrote Matthew?
As far as we know the original copy of Matthew had no indication
of who the author was. Sometime during the second century AD the
ascription, "According to Matthew," began to appear at
the beginning of the gospel. However, nothing in the body of the
gospel tells us who the author was.
The earliest reported claim that Matthew was an author was that
of Papias, an early church leader who died around AD 130. We do
not have the writings of Papias, but the church Eusebius from the
fourth century quotes Papias. This quotation states that Matthew
compiled the sayings in the Hebrew dialect and everyone translated
them as best they could. Whether the "sayings" Papias
was talking about were the gospel of Matthew as we now know it is
debated. Some scholars believe that Papias’ "sayings"
were a collection of teaching by Jesus that were used by the author
of the first gospel.
The bottom line is that we do know for certain that Matthew, the
tax collector who became a disciple, was the author of the first
gospel. Neither do we know that he was not the author. The authorship
of Matthew is an issue that we cannot answer with certainty. The
evidence is too slender and it can be interpreted in more than one
way. Whatever benefit might have come to us by knowing for sure
about the authorship will not be ours.
However, there is so much we can profitably learn from the first
gospel that we will hardly miss that benefit. Whatever we might
think about the authorship of Matthew we will continue to refer
to him (or her) as Matthew because of the long tradition of the
church. Whether it was Matthew the disciple or another Matthew we
can not know.
Date - When was Matthew written?
Two centuries ago, when people began asking about the date biblical
books were written, the question often had implications about the
reliability of the information in the book. People assumed that
the closer to Jesus’ own life that a gospel was written the
more likely it was to be historically accurate. The longer the time
between Jesus’ life and the gospel, the less accurate the
story would be. With such thinking people who argued that Matthew
was written in AD 90, say, were seen as attacking the reliability
of Matthew’s portrait of Jesus by those who thought Matthew
was written in AD 50.
Such a concern no longer dominates the discussion about the date
of the gospels. We now recognize that an author writing in AD 90
who had correct information could easily be "more correct"
than an author writing in AD 50 who had poor information or who
wanted to distort the picture of Jesus. As a result the effort to
establish the date of Matthew is now built on historical evidence
rather than on theological bias.
The most common view of the date of the writing of Matthew is that
is was written between AD 75 and 90. This conclusion is based on
the evidence of interest in Jewish issues in the gospel. As will
be mentioned below there are many aspects of Matthew that indicate
it was written in the context of Jewish people. It appears that
the author wants to address Jewish believers in Christ who were
finding it hard to maintain their faith in Christ and their own
Jewishness. That would not have been a problem early in Christian
history. Up until at least AD 60 or 65 the majority of Christians
were Jews rather than Gentiles and all the leaders of the church
were Jewish. "Persecution" of Christians by Jews was a
matter of one group of Jews persecuting another group of Jews (which
happened frequently in that period of history). At least four major
religious groups co-existed (however, uneasily) in Judaism at that
time. Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, and Nazarenes (as the Jewish
followers of Jesus were called) all considered themselves to be
the true Jews, but they tolerated the existence of the other groups.
There was no conflict between being a Jew and being a follower of
Christ also.
In AD 66 Jewish revolutionaries in Galilee revolted against the
Roman Empire. The war spread throughout Palestine. The evidence
is not clear, but it appears that the [Jewish] followers of Jesus
in Palestine refused to join the uprising against Rome and that
they moved out of Jerusalem and Judea to an area east or northeast
of Palestine. By AD 70 Jerusalem had been burned to the ground and
the temple had been totally destroyed. The Roman Empire nearly destroyed
Judaism as it had been known. The only survivors in terms of religion
were the remnants of the Pharisees and the Jewish followers of Jesus.
Banned from Jerusalem by the Romans the remaining Pharisees moved
to Galilee to rebuild Judaism. These Pharisees concluded that the
lack of Jewish unity before the war had caused their problems. They
determined to rebuild Judaism without the diversity of religious
views that had existed before. Since the followers of Jesus had
not supported the war and since that group had accepted so many
gentiles into it that they (the gentiles) were fast becoming the
majority the Pharisees decided to exclude "Nazarenes"
from their synagogues.
They used a variety of methods to accomplish this goal. The most
notorious was a re-writing of the synagogue worship liturgy to include
a curse on the heretics (which meant the followers of Jesus). Obviously
this turn of events between AD 70 and 90 made it increasingly difficult
to remain both a Jew and a follower of Jesus. There was pressure
on Jewish believers in Christ to abandon their faith in him. It
is the match between the historical developments in Judaism in AD
70 to 90 and the concern of Matthew to show the Jewish connections
to Jesus that lead most New Testament scholars to date Matthew between
AD 75 and 90.
There is also minority of scholars who argue that Matthew was written
in the 60’s (usually they opt for the early 60’s). Recently
a small portion of a manuscript has been discovered that two scholars
studying it claim to be a fragment of Matthew’s gospel. They
also claim that it can be dated in the AD 50’s. There is presently
considerable debate in the community of New Testament scholars as
to whether the methods used by these two were valid methods and
whether their conclusions were correct. Should further investigation
support their conclusions the argument presented above could not
be true and another explanation for the picture Matthew presents
of his readers would need to be developed.
The debate about the date of Matthew is not a debate over the historical
reliability of the gospel. It is an effort to best understand the
circumstances in the early church that this gospel addressed. The
better we understand those circumstances, the better we will understand
the logic of the book, and the better we will be able to hear and
apply its message to our own circumstances.
Place - Where was Matthew written?
The discussion about the place where Matthew was written is much
more subdued than that about authorship and date. For one thing,
no one has questioned the spirituality of another based on that
person’s view of the place where Matthew was written. Such
questions have arisen over interpretations of authorship and date.
More importantly, there is less evidence internally (within the
book itself where the date evidence arises) or externally (outside
the book as in Papias’ comments) about the place of writing.
It is generally assumed that Matthew was writing for people who
lived near where he wrote. Because the "Nazarenes" who
fled Jerusalem and Judea as the Jewish war broke out moved northeast
into Syria and because Antioch in Syria was an early center of Jewish
Christian faith Syria is the most commonly suggested place for the
writing (and audience) of Matthew. Some scholars argue for Antioch
specifically, but most feel "somewhere" in Syria is as
precise as we can ever determine. There have been scholars who argued
that Alexandria in Egypt was the place of the writing of Matthew,
but this view has never been widely accepted.
The lack of clear evidence about the place of writing is disappointing.
However, as is the case with the uncertainty about authorship, there
is plenty of material that we do know about this gospel to keep
us occupied with serious study. We will have to do so without certainty
about the place of writing.
What Kind of Literature is Matthew?
The story of the analysis of Matthew as literature has progressed
through a fascinating history of viewpoints.
The methods of modern historical study began to be used for studying
the bible almost two hundred years ago. One of the first goals of
scholars then was to learn the exact history of Jesus. They were
sure that the last gospel to be written, John, was so full of theology
that it could not be accurate history. They carefully compared Matthew,
Mark, and Luke trying to determine which of those three would be
the oldest (closest to Jesus). These three gospels are called the
synoptic gospels because they have a common outline and share considerable
material that is virtually identical. (The word "synoptic"
comes from a Greek expression meaning to see with one eye or one
perspective; see The Synoptic Problem.)
Detailed comparison led them to the conclusion that Mark’s
gospel was written first and that Matthew and Luke used Mark as
a source for their gospels. By the beginning of the 20th century
most scholars had also concluded that Matthew and Luke used another
source called Q. The view that Matthew and Luke both used Mark and
Q as sources for their gospels is called the Two Source (or Document)
Hypothesis and it is still the most common view.
About 1925 the Four Document Hypothesis was proposed. This view
argued that Matthew used Mark, Q, and another written source called
M while Luke used Mark, Q, and another source called L. After a
brief period of popularity the Four Document Hypothesis has been
retained by only a small minority of scholars.
Early in the 20th century some scholars began to focus study on
the literary forms of the individual paragraphs of the gospels.
This approach was called Form Criticism and was very influential
from about 1920 to about 1955. This emphasis on the individual paragraphs
led to a loss of interest in the gospels as a whole. Indeed, the
gospels were seen as the hap-hazard collection of these important
small paragraphs. Though Form Criticism has made some important
contributions to our understanding of the smaller units of the gospels,
further reflection returned to the obvious truth that each gospel
had been written and organized with great care to accomplish a purpose.
This emphasis on the organization and purpose of the gospels has
been called Redaction or Editorial Criticism. The first studies
of Matthew using this method compared Matthew’s and Mark’s
versions of the same events and teachings in Jesus’ life.
Assuming Mark to be written first and that Matthew had Mark as a
source, these studies discovered patterns in the ways Matthew was
different from Mark. It appeared that Matthew had "edited"
Mark consistently to produce a different perspective. This different
perspective reveals Matthew’s distinctive purpose in writing
and shows his theological concerns. This method of study has been
extremely fruitful for our understanding of Matthew and we will
encounter the results of it throughout this bible study (see The
Synoptic Problem: Redaction).
The shift from focusing on the individual paragraphs to the organization
of the whole gospel has led to another method of study in the past
20 years. This is sometimes called Narrative Criticism. This approach
tries to study Matthew without reference to Mark or Q or any other
document. The narrative approach asks how a gospel will be read
as a story. How the author develops the characters and the plot
is seen as the key to understanding. This approach has also been
very helpful in the study of Matthew.
Another issue in the study of the gospels as literature is the question
of what kind of literature the gospel writers thought they were
writing. Ancient history writers had a certain pattern of writing
history. Only a few would argue that the gospels follow that pattern.
(Luke comes the closest.) Writers of ancient biographies had several
patterns of writing their material. (These were often called The
Life of ______.) It is clear that the gospels do not follow the
pattern of modern biographies, but many would argue that they were
written as ancient biographies. A few scholars argue that gospels
were written to be tragedies along the pattern of the Greek tragedies.
A few others argue that Greek tragicomedies show us the kind of
literature the gospel writers thought they were writing.
The prevalent view in the 20th century has been that gospels are
a unique literary form. On this view the gospels are sermons designed
to persuade believers to a certain course of Christian action. Some
would say that the gospels preach the Gospel. That is the view that
will be adopted in this bible study.
The question of the kind of literature Matthew is has also led to
studies of the literary structure or outline of the book. There
are two main proposals adopted by scholars today. The first has
been popular for the past sixty to seventy years. It views Matthew
as consisting of five main sections. Each of these sections begins
with a narrative section and concludes with a collection of teachings.
The final sentence of each section begins, "Now when Jesus
had finished . . ." These five sentences become the organizational
key. These five sections and the strong Jewish emphasis in this
gospel have led to comparing the structure of Matthew to the five
books of Moses, the Pentateuch.
The five sections are often called books and are divided as follows:
Book 1
Narrative - Matthew 3-4
Teaching - Matthew 5-7 Book 2
Narrative - Matthew 8-9
Teaching - Matthew 10:1-11:1 Book 3
Narrative - Matthew 11:2-12:50
Teaching - Matthew 13:1-53 Book 4
Narrative - Matthew 13:54-17:27
Teaching - Matthew 18:1-19:1 Book 5
Narrative - Matthew 19:2-22:46
Teaching - Matthew 23:1-26:1
The major weakness of this view is that it is forced to treat the
birth of Jesus as a prologue and the last three chapters as an epilogue.
Surely Matthew did not regard the story of Christ’s final
night, death, and resurrection as something added on to the main
outline of the gospel.
The other major view of the structure of Matthew has been influential
for the past 20 years. The organizational key for this view is the
sentence, "From that time on Jesus began to . . ." This
unique phrase appears only twice in Matthew, in 4:17 and in 16:21.
Using it as the key to Matthew’s structure has led to this
outline:
The Person of Jesus, Son of God
Matthew 1:1-4:16 The Preaching of Jesus, Son of God
Matthew 4:17-16:20 The Passion of Jesus, Son of God
Matthew 16:21-28:20
The chief problem with this view is that it breaks apart passages
that seem to belong together. It is especially hard to believe that
Matthew 16:13-20 was intended to be part of a different section
of the gospel from Matthew 16:21-23. These two paragraphs are tightly
connected to each other.
Other proposals about Matthew’s outline have been made but
these two are clearly the most accepted views today. Both have strengths
and weaknesses. We will keep both views in mind in this study but
will not adopt one or the other. It appears the key to Matthew’s
outline has not yet been discovered.
Purpose - Why was Matthew written?
The question of the kind of literature and the structure of Matthew
has led to several understandings of the gospel’s purpose.
A few have argued that Matthew was written to supply lectionary
readings about Jesus’ life and teachings for the worship services
of Jewish followers of Christ. The carefully organized paragraphs
of Matthew and a pattern that some believe fits the Jewish festivals
provide the support for this view. Though it is intriguing it has
never been widely accepted.
More popular is the view that Matthew was written to provide a catechetical
manual. This way of describing Matthew as a discipleship teaching
manual is based on the emphasis on teaching and the large blocks
of teachings of Jesus.
The most common view is that Matthew was written to provide correctives
to a church in danger of loosing either its Jewishness or its connection
to Christ. Problems with false prophets, with how to view the law,
and with hypocrisy are seen as the reason Matthew wrote. This study
will proceed on the assumption that Matthew was written to a church
that was struggling to find and maintain its Christian identity.
With a background in Judaism that church’s members needed
to discover how Christ fulfilled all the values and hopes for which
they had been looking.
