THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 1, Introduction
The New Testament contains 4 gospel accounts of the life, purpose, and
meaning of the most unique man in history: Yeshua of Nazareth, known better
within the Western Christian Church as Jesus Christ. The creation and ordering
of this New Testament addition to the Bible occurred early in the 3rd century A.D.
(and until that time the Bible consisted only of what gentiles call the Old
Testament). What I just told you about when the New Testament was created is
not in particular dispute among Bible scholars; however it does tend to startle and
worry many lay Christians and Pastors when they learn this. So I can be clear in
what this means for modern Believers, let me expand upon what I just stated.
While it is true that the 4 gospels and some of Paul's letters and many more
documents were circulated among the dozens of congregations of Believing
Jews and gentiles in the 1st century (that is, in the first few decades following
Christ's birth, death, and resurrection), the only authorized document that was
the Bible for these Believers continued to be the Hebrew Tanakh.... the Old
Testament. The 4 gospels and the several letters from Paul were considered
important (as were other documents that have been lost to history, and some
preserved but not accepted by the modern Church as inspired), and they carried
the same kind of authority as any edict of religious leadership bore in that era.
However.... and this is so important to understand..... at that time these gospels
and letters were NOT considered to be new Holy Scripture nor were they seen or
intended as the contents of a new and different Christian Bible. In fact, the
person that suggested such a radical idea was a gentile named Marcion.
The first recorded attempt to actually consider Paul’s letters and certain of the
Gospels as “Holy Scripture” happened in 144 A.D. Marcion, a European, was a
recent Christian convert; a wealthy and powerful shipping magnate. He was not a
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church leader but he did write a book that struck a cord among the now
thoroughly gentile-dominated church. In his book entitled “Antithesis” he put
forth his personal theology and it began with the proposition that all things of
Jewish origin and flavor must be eliminated from the Church; the Church father
Ignatius agreed with this view. Therefore according to Marcion and Ignatius the
Church needed to create a new gentiles-only Christian Bible and once created
declare the Hebrew Bible as null and void for gentile followers of Jesus. Marcion
also declared that the Christian Bible should consist only of the Gospel of Luke
plus certain of Paul’s epistles. But even then it should not include the ENTIRE
Gospel of Luke; what amounts to the first 4 chapters were to be eliminated since
they dealt with the Jewish linage of Christ.
Marcion was widely denounced but he also gained a substantial following. No
known church body formally adopted his proposition (at least not in the form he
suggested and not until many years passed). Even when the Gospels, Paul's
letters, and the Book of Revelation were finally adopted by the Church,
canonized, and declared inspired of God early in the 3rd century in order to form
the first New Testament, the Old Testament was retained as the foundation of the
Christian Bible. So, as an important context and background for us to correctly
discern the meaning of the Gospels and all of the New Testament, we must
accept that while today we (rightly) look upon the New Testament as inspired of
God and as infallible in its original as is the Old Testament, in no way was that
how the writers of these New Testament books saw their own literary works, nor
did the early readers of these documents assign to them the same divine and
inspired status of the venerated Old Testament.
Which of the several gospels and other documents would be included in the New
Testament vacillated over the years, depending on the branch of the Church and
which Bishop was in charge. The books and the order they are presented in that
we see today in the West is either the Protestant version or it is the Catholic
version that contains several Apocryphal books not included in the Protestant
version. Even more, the books of James, Hebrews, and Revelation have been
removed, added back in, removed again, and so on over the centuries depending
on the Church branch. However for the sake of simplicity we can generally say
that in our time the order of the New Testament books is the same for nearly all
Christian denominations and branches.
Therefore, virtually all New Testaments open with the 4 Gospels, and in the order
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then John. Interestingly, the first 3 Gospels are seen
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as having a different approach to telling about the life of Christ when compared to
the 4th Gospel (the Gospel of John), such that the first 3 are lumped together and
called the Synoptic Gospels. The word synoptic is taken from the Greek and it
means "to see together". So the idea is that the first 3 Gospels (Matthew, Mark
and Luke) are similar to one another and more or less seek to tell a simple story
in an easy to read style. Yet, despite the similarities, there are differences and a
number of complexities when comparing them.
The Gospel of John is seen by Bible scholars as substantially different enough in
approach and style so as to not be included as among the Synoptics. This is in
no way an attempt to diminish the importance or impact of the 4th Gospel. Even
so, I question this scholarly attempt to make John's Gospel as a sort of outlier as
compared to the first 3. When one researches various Bible academics'
explanations for why it is proper for the Gospel of John to be seen as different
enough from the others so as to be considered as a separate category, one
begins to understand how subjective and arcane the arguments are. For
instance, John's is usually said to be "the spiritual Gospel". I have no idea what
that means. Are the first 3 absent of any spiritual element? Hardly. In defense of
that dubious label, Bible scholars point out that while the Synoptic Gospels all
begin with an important event in the human life of Yeshua, John starts with
Yeshua's eternal and divine nature by saying: "In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". Yet, John quickly veers
into many acts of Yeshua during His life on earth. Bottom line: I think the
grouping of the first 3 Gospels together and separating out John's as something
substantially different is overblown and little more than an academic attempt to
rethink (if not revise) these Gospel accounts. In fact, this grouping of the 3 into
something similar and common, and therefore different and apart from the 4th,
only occurred shortly before the beginning of the 19th century and only in the
West. From my viewpoint, each of the 4 Gospels brings its own distinctive
perspective to the life, purpose, and meaning of Messiah Yeshua. Since they are
all telling the story of the same man, there is natural overlap and repetition. At the
same time, since not everything Jesus did can possibly be included in these
modest sized documents, each author picked and chose what he thought to be
the most significant events his readers ought to know about, and to a degree he
presented events that helped put together a logical progression and history of
Christ's life to best explain who He was, and the impact He made.
Over the next many months, we will be examining only the Gospels, and of them
only the first: the Book of Matthew. Before we begin in earnest we need to get
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some important housekeeping matters out of the way by dealing with some
issues that are going to come up. And the first is: why is Matthew the first
Gospel?
Naturally, Bible scholars are divided on this issue. The oldest extant New
Testament manuscripts we have, have Matthew as the first Gospel. Although we
have large fragments of the 4 Gospels going back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries,
the oldest complete New Testament is from the 4th century and is given the
name Codex Sinaiticus. So the only evidence available is that Matthew is not
only the first book of the New Testament, but it is the first of the 4 Gospel
accounts. Why was it put first in that order? The most logical explanation is that it
was the first Gospel written. Yet the majority of modern scholars don't accept that
Matthew is the oldest; rather they say it was Mark.
The Gospel accounts all contain similar stories about events in Yeshua's life and
many of the same sayings. Sometimes the accounts and sayings are identical,
and at other times they vary. How is this explained? Let's begin by grasping that
none of the 3 Synoptic Gospel writers were eyewitnesses to Christ's life, but the
author of the 4th Gospel, John, claims that he was an eyewitness.
CJB
John 21:20-25
20
Kefa turned and saw the talmid Yeshua especially
loved following behind, the one who had leaned against him at the supper
and had asked, "Who is the one who is betraying you?"
21
On seeing him,
Kefa said to Yeshua, "Lord, what about him?"
22
Yeshua said to him, "If I
want him to stay on until I come, what is it to you? You, follow
me!"
23
Therefore the word spread among the brothers that that talmid
would not die. However, Yeshua didn't say he wouldn't die, but simply, "If I
want him to stay on until I come, what is it to you?"
24
This one is the talmid
who is testifying about these things and who has recorded them. And we
know that his testimony is true.
25
But there are also many other things
Yeshua did; and if they were all to be recorded, I don't think the whole
world could contain the books that would have to be written!
It is claimed in our time that the actual authors of the 3 Synoptic Gospels are
anonymous. And that only long after the Gospels were anonymously written were
they finally, somewhat arbitrarily, assigned names. Margarete Davies in her book
"Studying the Synoptic Gospels" uses the typical rationale for saying that the
Gospels only received their names at a late date. She says: "The Gospel writers,
it will turn out, did not follow the usual Greek and Roman practice of naming
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themselves, but rather the tradition of anonymous publication, a practice
frequently followed in Jewish literature." Like with a couple of other issues we'll
explore, this one is interesting in light of how modern Bible scholars have come
to this conclusion.
Let's begin with evidence that is outside of the Bible itself. Irenaeus, Bishop of
Lyons, wrote his great work "Against Heresies" not later than 180 A.D. In that
work he not only quoted specific Gospel passages that match what we have in
our New Testaments today, but he also named each Gospel by the same names
we use today: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If we go back another 40 years, to
about 140 A.D., Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis also alludes to at least some of
the Gospels as he mentions Matthew and Mark by name, and says he got some
of this information about the Matthew and Mark documents from an (unnamed)
but earlier church elder. No matter; the fact that these two Gospels are named by
around 110 A.D. or so says that Matthew and Mark were called by those names
no later than the generation following their creation. However, even with this
evidence sitting before our modern Bible scholars, again Margaret Davies
assumes the same conclusion they do: "In the period 90 - 150 A.D., though our
Gospels probably had been written, the author's names were not known.... in this
period Papias stands alone". Papias stands alone. In other words, during this
time period of 90-150 A.D., since the only written record of the Gospels already
being named is Papias, then this evidence has to be thrown out. To my thinking if
Papias was a liar (for what possible purpose?) he was also clairvoyant in
predicting what the Gospel names would be in the future!
And yet, do these Bible scholars have some kind of firm evidence that the
Gospels were NOT named by this time? To contradict Papias they use what
writers of that same era do NOT say when quoting Gospel passages that are
similar to what we find in the Gospel accounts today. That is: since some of the
writers in the 90 - 150 A.D. timeframe do NOT mention the Gospels by name, but
only quote some passages, then many modern Bible scholars say that this is
proof positive that the Gospels could not have been named (and thus were still
anonymous), even though Papias of that same era DID list the Gospels by name!
But because he was only 1 person, and his testimony doesn't arrive at the
conclusion these scholars seek, it is discarded. No record exists of any Early
Church Fathers challenging the notion that the authors of the Gospels were
known and attributed to each Gospel from the time of their creation. So as
preposterous as it seems that some modern scholars refuse to take the historical
record to settle this matter, this is not the only issue concerning details about the
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creation of the Gospels where modern Bible scholars use the same strategy of
simple denial of the written historical evidence.
Since we find the same, or very similar, quotes from Christ used among the
Synoptic Gospel accounts, then the question is this: which Gospel was written
first such that the later ones borrowed from it? Right or wrong, it is generally the
belief of modern Bible scholars that Mark is the earliest Gospel written with
Matthew (especially) drawing heavily from it. This would be a good time to
explain something important about these Synoptic Gospel accounts: since very
likely none of the authors were eyewitnesses to Christ's life, then where did they
get their information? Clearly this is a valid question. Some say that if Mark was
the first Gospel written, when we find the same or similar quotes used in Matthew
and Luke, then it means Matthew and Luke must have used Mark's Gospel as
one of their chief sources of information. But then this also begs the question:
what were Mark's sources if indeed his was the first? The answer is that it is not
known; but it can be reasonably deduced that documents containing quotes from
Christ and other details of His life events had to be in existence prior to the
Gospel accounts being written. How many of these other sources existed, what
they were and who wrote them down we don't know.
I won't bore you with the tiny details of just how modern Bible scholars have
come to the conclusion that it was Mark who wrote his Gospel first, and Matthew
especially drew from his. However, the method is that generally similar quotes
from Mark and Matthew are held up side by side and modern experts choose
which one they think is the most authentic. Often this choice is made on the
assumption that the shorter quotation is always the correct one, and the longer is
merely modifying the shorter. What evidence is there for this? None; all is
subjective analysis. So while the academic world tilts heavily towards Mark being
the first Gospel written, and thus Matthew and Luke drew from it, there is a
substantial minority who insists that it was the Matthew Gospel that came first
and Mark and Luke drew from him. It is unlikely that this debate will ever be fully
settled since there is no absolute proof either way.
But a related issue is this: while all the existing copies of the Gospels that we
have today were written in Greek, there are hints and implications within the
Matthew Gospel that suggest that it could have been originally written in Hebrew
or Aramaic, and then very soon translated into Greek. And connected to that
matter is this: was Matthew a gentile or a Jewish Believer? The gentile Church
from as early as the mid 2nd century wanted little connection between the Jewish
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people and Christianity, and therefore desired to have a separate Christian Bible
that emphasized gentile authority and preeminence. So in modern times a broad-
based wish that is expressed in the strong opinions by Bible scholars and Church
authorities of the Gospel authorship, does not take kindly to the idea that ANY of
the Gospel accounts were written by Jews. If indeed the Gospel of Matthew was
originally written in Hebrew or even Aramaic, then it is very nearly indisputable
evidence that Matthew was a Jew and the Gospel was written for Jewish readers.
Therefore every effort is made to prove that Matthew was a gentile. Is there firm
evidence to settle this matter? There is some evidence within the Gospel itself,
but external sources are the more powerful.
Eusibius, Bishop of Caesarea (around 300 A.D.) makes a statement that he
attributes to having originally come from Papias over 150 years earlier. He says
this: "Now Matthew made an ordered arrangement of the oracles in the Hebrew
language, and each one translated as he was able." Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons,
in around 180 A.D. also referred to Papias in regard to the Gospel of Matthew:
"Matthew, also among the Hebrews, published a written gospel in their own
dialect, when Peter and Paul were still preaching in Rome and found the church
there".
These ancient records state unequivocally that the Gospel of Matthew was
written while Peter and Paul were still alive (early 60's A.D.), and that Matthew
was a Hebrew, and that he published a Gospel in his own dialect (which could
have been either Hebrew or Aramaic as they are close-cousin languages and
both were spoken fluently among ordinary Jewish folk in the 1st century A.D.).
And so from the reference to Peter and Paul we can rather easily deduce that
Matthew was almost certainly the first Gospel account written, and thus Mark and
Luke had to have drawn some of their information and quotes from him. And if
this is fact, it would seem to offer insight as to the reason that the Christian
council decided the order of the Gospels to open the New Testament as they did:
to their knowledge Matthew should be first because it was written first; Mark is
second because it was written second; Luke is third because it was written third;
and John is 4th because it was the latest Gospel written.
Surprisingly, many notable Bible scholars since the early 19th century say that
Eusibius, Irenaeus, and Papias are all wrong. These earliest Church Fathers are
thought to be in error, even though they were but a few generations from the time
when the Gospels were written, and Papias may have been living when the
Apostle John was still alive as he implies that he personally heard him speak. I
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hope you're seeing a pattern here. Any ancient attestation against what some
modern Bible scholars wish to prove is brushed aside. Too much in our time,
especially linguistic experts are certain that they know the ancient languages and
their meanings better than those who lived and spoke them 2000 years ago and
more. Despite what eyewitnesses said occurred and recorded it in their ancient
documents, including such details as who was involved, when and in what order
events happened, and what it meant to those who lived it, modern historians
often believe that they are better equipped hundreds even thousands of years
later to give us a more accurate account and meaning. Not to be too harsh, but
the word I would use to describe such chutzpah is revisionist history. So while
many of these highly regarded modern era Bible scholars have indeed aided in
my study, and that of many hundreds of others, I cannot side step that such
conclusions are based primarily upon their own opinions and doctrinal beliefs that
at times go directly against the written recorded evidence.
The point is this: personal study and research make it my viewpoint that Matthew
was a Jew and his Gospel is aimed primarily towards Jewish Believers. Daniel
Harrington in his commentary on Matthew entitled "Sacra Pagina" says this in the
introduction: "This commentary on Matthew's Gospel has been written from a
Jewish perspective..... one that I believe is demanded from the text itself".
Obviously I agree with Harrington; and as his commentary and other fine
commentaries expose, the Gospel of Matthew is filled with semitisms (that is,
Jewish cultural expressions) that can be masked by their translation into Greek
and then later into other languages, mostly notably English. But even more
important, these Jewish expressions can be misunderstood especially when
taken out of their 1st century Jewish context.
Further, while the other Gospels also contain some amount of semitisms,
Matthew without doubt also pays closest attention to the Torah; both oral and
written. This can be best expressed by the curious reality that Christ's seminal
speech during His few years of ministry, a speech Christians rightly venerate and
call The Sermon on the Mount, is found only in the Gospel of Matthew. So
important was it to Matthew that he devoted 3 chapters to it.
I want to take just a moment to state that while it is possible that Luke was a
gentile, Mark certainly wasn't and of course neither was John. So I'm not making
the contention that of the Gospels only Matthew had a Jewish author. Rather I'm
saying that of the 3 Synoptic Gospels, Matthew can be said to be "the most
Jewish" in its form, approach, and in addressing matters that were critically
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important to the Jewish community. In fact, Matthew used much Jewish rhetoric
and several themes that only Jews would have inherently understood. Thus as
21st century readers of the Bible, expanded explanations of certain subject
matter that we hope would have been there, aren't. Why? Because for Matthew's
intended Jewish audience, no expanded explanation was necessary. We'll talk
about this considerably more as we begin to explore the text of the Matthew
Gospel chapter by chapter and verse by verse.
Although I've already explained that some Early Church Fathers that lived only a
generation or two after the time that the Gospel writers lived stated and recorded
that Matthew was the first Gospel written, the question of exactly the year it was
written needs to be answered. There are two trains of thought in Bible academia
about this. The first is that it was written before the destruction of the Temple that
happened in 70 A.D., and the second is that it was written after. The first takes
into account the ancient records that say Matthew was written first in Hebrew or
Aramaic and while Peter and Paul were still alive. And since we know that Paul
died somewhere in the mid-60's A.D., then the record of the Early Church
Fathers makes it clear that Matthew had to have been written prior to the Temple
destruction of 70 A.D., which came around 5 years after Paul's death.
The second train of thought is that Matthew was written after the Temple
destruction. This is because such a timeframe fits in better with the modern era
Bible academic belief that Mark (and not Matthew) was the first Gospel written.
Their lone piece of biblical evidence for this firm conclusion comes from a
statement in Matthew 24:1, 2 (that is also used in Luke's Gospel).
CJB
Matthew 24:1 As Yeshua left the Temple and was going away, his
talmidim came and called his attention to its buildings.
2
But he answered
them, "You see all these? Yes! I tell you, they will be totally destroyed- not
a single stone will be left standing!"
Therefore since Matthew (and Luke) included this prediction from Christ in their
Gospels (and Mark didn't), then for most 20th and 21st century Bible scholars this
is proof enough that this statement was inserted only because the writer of
Matthew wanted to prove that Yeshua's prophecy actually came true.
What we find all too often in modern commentaries on Matthew (and all the
Gospels for that matter), is a sort of pseudo-forensic study of the minds of the
authors of the Gospels, in which the commentary writer claims to know what the
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Gospel writer was thinking at the time, and his motives behind saying the things
he did, or in some cases for omitting other pieces of information. I don't mean to
be rude, but I find such an attempt at dissecting the minds of people of another
culture, who lived 2000 years ago, as a bridge too far. What these scholars
decide cannot, of course, ever be proved or disproved; but they can persuade
and that makes such a practice dangerous. Today's new standard is that if a
preponderance of Bible scholars share the same opinion, it amounts to fact. But
the fact is that none of the Synoptic Gospel accounts make direct mention of the
destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.; that much is certain. Admittedly, no mention
of it is not proof positive that the destruction had not already occurred by the time
of the Gospels' creation. After all: the Gospel accounts were meant to be about
the life of Jesus, who died around 40 years before the Temple was destroyed by
the Romans. So speaking of the destruction of the Temple would have been
outside the context of the purpose and scope of their work. Thus the only direct
statements we have as direct evidence from which to judge when Matthew may
have been written are from people who are the likeliest to have known, and who
had no discernable motives to lie or make up a story like this from thin air. The
earliest Church Fathers Eusibius, Ireneaus, and Papias all say that the Gospel of
Matthew was written during a time that Peter and Paul were still preaching in
Rome (which was in the mid-60's A.D.). The Church Father Origen of Alexandria,
Egypt also agreed with Papias (Origen lived during the time that the New
Testament was first organized and canonized early in the 200's A.D.). Therefore I
can only conclude that Matthew's Gospel was written in the mid-60's A.D.,
concurrently with the ministries of Peter and Paul in Rome.
While we can trust all the Gospel accounts, I think Matthew's is especially
important because of its early date, and because he was obviously (to my
thinking) an educated Jew who was very familiar with the Torah and with Jewish
religious tradition and social structure. But was he a Holy Land Jew, or was he a
Diaspora Jew that lived in a distant land? It matters because it deals with what
kind of culture he was steeped in; a Hellenized Greek speaking culture, or a more
traditional Hebrew and Aramaic speaking Jewish culture. Interestingly, of those
scholars who accept Matthew's Jewishness, the bulk label him as a Palestinian
Jew. For them, the term Palestine is a substitute for Holy Land, or for Judea and
Galilee. This means that he was geographically residing near to the Temple such
that he could be involved with its many activities, but was also near the center of
Synagogue authority such that he was well versed not only in the Law of Moses,
but also in the traditions of the Pharisees who were the dominant religious sect
within the Synagogue system.
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While we'll discuss at length the religious and social systems of both the Holy
Land Jews and the Diaspora Jews in following lessons, I do want to close out our
time together with this. During at least the last 150 years leading up to Christ's
birth, all during His lifetime, all during the lifetimes of Peter and Paul and of the
original Disciples, and until the fall of the Temple to the Romans in 70 A.D., the
Jewish people operated under a dual, generally complementary, religious
system. However this dual system was run by two different sets of authorities and
they couldn't have been more different. The one system was the Temple system,
under the authority of the Sadducees. These were aristocrats who inherited or
purchased their positions of authority. The other system was the Synagogue
system under the authority of educated rabbis and scribes; the common class
who, nearly universally, were members of the sect of the Pharisees. These two
systems were not necessarily rivals, but each occupied a certain space in the
overall Jewish religious scheme that was, generally speaking, inseparable from
every day social life. A natural tension existed between the two.
The Temple was where biblically mandated Feasts and sacrifices occurred, and
where the judicial system operated. The Synagogue system was a result of the
Babylonian exile, when the Temple and its system went defunct for a time.
Organized religion was a critically import part of every person's life in that era.....
pagan or Jew. So for the Jews up in Babylon, they could not tolerate not having
some sort of religious system operated by some kind of authority that was
Hebrew in its nature. Priests were only authorized to rule in the Temple so the
new system was run by what the Church would call lay persons.
Especially after their release from captivity in Babylon, about 95% of all Jews
chose not to return to the Holy Land but rather to live in foreign nations. Even
though Ezra and Nehemiah had led the rebuilding of the Temple and
reinstatement of its Priestly system, the bulk of Jews remained far away from the
Temple and its influence. Thus, for them, the Synagogue authority and system
emerged and it became the center of their Jewish religious expression. Only
later, perhaps 70 or 80 years before Yeshua was born, did the Synagogue finally
take hold in the Holy Land. But when it did, it became popular and every bit as
important to the Jewish people as the Temple system; just in different ways.
Clearly, of all the Gospel writers, Matthew was the one most familiar with the full
scope of Jewish religion..... the religion and culture of our Savior, Yeshua the
Christ..... and it is why his Gospel is the one we will study.
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