Matthew background

Matthew

Author: Matthew, son of Alphaeus

Papias: "Matthew composed his history in the Hebrew dialect, and everyone translated it as he was able." (1) (2)

Origen: "The first is written according to Matthew, the same that was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, who having published it for the Jewish converts, wrote it in the Hebrew."
(Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius; Book 6, Chapter 25)
This quote from Origen was around 244 A.D.

Irenaeus: "Matthew, indeed, produced his gospel written among the Hebrews in their own dialect..."
(Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius; Book 5, Chapter 8)
This quote from Irenaeus was before 191 A.D.

Notice that Origen states that Matthew was the first gospel. Scholars who claim that Matthew, or some unknown person, copied part of Mark, are making that claim in spite of historical evidence. If you followed Jesus, and you decided to write a first hand account, why would you copy part of another person's eyewitness account? Always keep in mind that Matthew was an eyewitness, and was perfectly capable of writing the Scripture we still have!

Date: Around the 50s A.D. since Peter and Paul were still alive according to Irenaeus.

Language: Aramaic, most likely.
In the quotes from early historians given under the topic of the author of Matthew, they all said the language used by Matthew was Hebrew. However, once the Israelites came back from the exile in Babylon, the popular language was Aramaic rather than Hebrew. Yet for Gentiles, they often lumped the two together, just as many back then still referred to Israelites as Hebrews, rather than the more recent term of Jews. Yet most "modern" scholars think Greek was the language of the autographe, and concerning this dispute, see the reflection at the bottom of this page.

Place: Jerusalem
Eusebius: "...when on the point of going also to other nations..."
(Ecclesiastical History, by Eusebius; Book3, Chapter 24)

Purpose: Just as the ancient historians refer to Matthew as a "gospel," Matthew was giving a history about Jesus the Messiah so that people would know the "good news," a translation of "gospel," about the offer by Jesus for eternal life. I think Matthew hopes that readers will do what he did, which was to follow Jesus.

What kind of book: A historical biography of Jesus.

Reflection: Dr. Keener states, "... the same tradition also claims that the original Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew, which is not true of our First Gospel)."(3)  For someone like me who is use to arguing the accuracy of the New Testament Scriptures even though we do not have any of the original manuscripts, it seems ironic that I now have to emphasize that we do not have any of the original New Testament manuscripts.
   Here is a quote from an incredible book from a Professor of New Testament at Cincinnati Bible Seminary from 1938. (Coincidentally this is the same year as the book I quote by Dr. Cartledge; 1938 was a superb year for New Testament Introductions by seminary professors :)   "The earliest copies of the Gospels were doubtless made of papyrus.  The immensely important find of a papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John which dates from the first part of the second century has already been discussed on page 106.  The autograph copies doubtless perished in the early centuries, and there is slight chance that any of them will ever be recovered (4).  I do add that we have oodles of manuscripts, unlike any of the classics I read in my "Humanities" classes in high school or at Virginia Tech. And there have been some exciting manuscript finds in the past one hundred years. But the only argument that some make to refute the ancient Christian historians is that the ancient Greek texts we have now do not look to them like a translation. This is no ground to make a claim with certainty.
   Let me make an illustration. One major hero for me is Abraham Lincoln!  Once in the basement of the CCU library, a book that gives a list and a description of the "best" books on Lincoln caught my eye, and I browsed through it.  Now I do not agree with the person's list.  Listen to what was said in the book about the two classic books written by Carl Sanburg about Abraham Lincoln: "There are two parts to Carl Sandburg's massive biography of Lincoln. The first part, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, came out in two volumes in 1926, and the second, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, came out more than a decade later. The two works are so dissimilar, they could be from different authors"(5). (Note - I own a abridged book which was published at a later time which is a one volume book where those two books by Sandburg were merged together with material having been edited out.)  Why are two book written by the same person do dissimilar? Some people are capable of writing in different manners and ways.  The same is true of translating. Because of different manners and ways, you cannot always identify a translation, especially if you do not have the original to make a comparison. I'll tell you what we do have. We have fantastic quotes from ancient Christian theologians who have preserved history.  Obviously the accuracy of their statements is open to scrutiny just like any history.  Yet the more Christians affirm a certain point, considering that I give credence to Christians, the more weight we should give to it.  I am learning more and more at CCU that many Biblical scholars simply do not like history.
Hunter Irvine
(1) Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Complete and Unabridged, trans. C.F. Cruse (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 106.
(2) {After my study of Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius from June of 2006 to December of 2006, I state my conviction that Eusebius was a genuine historian, though his writing is rough. Yet likewise, I state that I do not agree with all of his doctrinal statements. And I in no way concur with his adamant view that the reason for Jerusalem being ransacked in 70 A.D., a ransacking that involved many Jewish people being killed, was that many Jewish people had persecuted Jesus. I do not believe that God was in any way getting what could be classified as revenge. Rather, it was a consequence of the fact that many Jewish people did not enter the new covenant in that time period, which was necessary for the survival of Israel, since the guidance of the Messiah was what the nation had to have on the whole at that tumultous time. And keep in mind that a number of Jewish people did turn to Jesus! All of the authors of the Scriptures of the New Testament were Jewish except for one.}
(3) Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary, New Testament (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1993), 43.
(4) R.C. Foster, An Introduction to the Life of Christ (Cincinnati: The Standard Publishing Company, 1938), 180-181.
(5) Michael Burkhimer, 100 Essential Lincoln books (Nashville: Cumberland House Publishing, Inc., 2003), 48.