NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible CBSB_Digital Sampler | Page 28

the gospel of
Matthew
A
Matthew’s Position Among the Gospels
s a Gospel, Matthew is an ancient biography, and the information treated in the
introduction to the Gospels in general also applies to Matthew. But just as other
ancient biographies differed from one another even when they described the
same person, so do the four Gospels. Of the four Gospels, Matthew is the most
carefully arranged by topic and therefore lends itself most easily to a hierarchical outline.
Along with John, Matthew is also an emphatically Jewish
Gospel; Matthew moves in a thought world resembling that of
the emerging rabbinic movement (the circle of Jewish sages
and law-teachers) more than do the other Synoptic Gospels. AUTHOR:
(Our sources for rabbinic Judaism are later than the NT, but Matthew, also called Levi
later rabbis avoided early Christian writings, so the frequent AUDIENCE:
parallels — ​sometimes even in sayings and expressions, for Greek-speaking Jewish
which see, e.g., Mt 7:2; 18:20; 19:3, 24; 21:21; 22:2; 23:25 — ​ Christians
presumably stem from concepts, customs and figures of DATE:
speech already circulating among sages in the first century.)
Between AD 50 and 90,
perhaps in the 70s
quick glance
Authorship
THEME:
Matthew presents ­Jesus
as the Jewish Messiah
sent by God to fulfill OT
prophecy.
As noted above, the traditions of the Gospels’ authorship are
very early. Works as large as Matthew’s Gospel were major
literary undertakings. As suggested for the Gospels gener-
ally, in a work this size, authorship would be one of the last
matters forgotten. That observation would surely be particularly relevant for Matthew’s
Gospel, which seems to have enjoyed popularity right from the start. Matthew was the early
second-century church’s favorite and most-cited Gospel.
Some raise questions about the ancient tradition in the case of Matthew. One reason
for these questions is that the earliest tradition about Matthew’s Gospel (from a very early
second-century church father named Papias) is that he wrote in Hebrew and that other
Gospels, probably including Mark, drew on this work. Most scholars agree that our current
Gospel of Matthew was not written in Hebrew, nor does it appear to be mostly translated
from Hebrew. Most scholars, moreover, believe that our current Gospel of Matthew makes
use of Mark’s Gospel, casting doubt on Papias’s apparent suggestion that Matthew wrote
first (although it is possible to interpret Papias differently).