Matthew Introduction

Neither of these objections is telling. One could just as easily speculate that Mark’s Gospel, associated as it was with Peter, had gained so much acceptance as the first accurate narrative of Christ’s life that Matthew saw no need to disregard it in compiling his own Gospel. Another objection to Matthean authorship is the highly developed relationship between Jews and Gentiles. The same can be said for Paul’s letters, which are indisputably from the apostolic age. Thus there is no compelling reason to overturn the unanimous external evidence associating the first Gospel with the apostle Matthew.

Matthew was quoted by the church father Ignatius around AD 110 (perhaps fifteen years earlier in 1 Clement) and thus could not have been written much later than about AD 90. Most critical scholars opt for a date not much earlier than that for the same reasons that lead them to deny Matthean authorship. Because Matthew seems to betray knowledge of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, any date before AD 70 is presumed impossible.

But besides prejudicially disallowing that Jesus could have predicted Jerusalem’s fall, the evidence for “prophecy” after the fact is not as clear as some suggest. First, the words of Christ (Mt 22:7; 24:15) are so general that one could easily understand them as indicating no knowledge of the actual destruction of Jerusalem. Second, certain episodes in Matthew give pre-AD 70 perspectives that would at least require clarifying comment from the Gospel writer if the temple had already fallen (e.g., the discussion of the temple tax in 17:24-27). There is no reason, therefore, that the Gospel could not have been written before AD 70. Irenaeus reported that Matthew was written while Peter and Paul preached at Rome, placing at least early versions of the Gospel in the AD 60s, assuming Irenaeus had a reliable tradition. The precise date of the writing of Matthew is uncertain, but some time in the 60s is not unreasonable.

Each Gospel, though broadly compatible with the others, emphasizes something different about the significance of the life and ministry of Jesus. For Matthew, that significance clearly lies in Jesus’s status as the promised messianic son of David, the king of Israel. Several features of the Gospel are related to this primary theme. Foremost is Matthew’s citation of Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the life of Jesus. Matthew is often faulted for taking these “prophecies” out of context and misapplying them. However, his practice must be understood in terms of the conventions of first-century citation generally, and the charge is less appropriate than is often thought (see the notes, esp. 2:15). Other features related to the theme of Jesus as promised King include long teaching discourses in which the word of Jesus becomes a new law for the church, a confession of Jesus as the Son of God in divine (as opposed to merely messianic) terms, and an extension of kingdom promises from the Jews to the Gentile nations in fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham.

For more on the similarities and distinctions between Matthew and the other Gospels, see the Introduction to Mark.