Who wrote the gospel according to Matthew?

Answer 1

Another answer from our community:

The traditional view is that Matthew wrote his Gospel between 65 and 80 AD.

There is currently a hypothesis that the Gospel of Matthew, which was not actually written by Matthew, is comprised of four different sources; the Gospels of Mark and Luke and texts from two other, lost sources. This theory puts the the date of the Gospel between 70 and 110 AD.

Answer 2

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The Gospel of Matthew is traditionally believed to have been written in Palestine by Matthew, one of the disciples. Some even believe it must have been written in Aramaic, the language of Jesus and the disciples, before being translated into Greek.

In fact, Matthew's Gospel was originally anonymous and was only attributed to Matthew later in the second century. Modern scholars say that the gospel could not have been written by an eyewitness to the events portrayed, which rules out Matthew as its author. It was originally written in Greek Koine, which can be confirmed by reading it synoptically ('with the same eye' - in parallel) with Mark and Luke, in the original Greek language. So much of the material in Matthew, Mark and Luke can be seen as identical when read in Greek, that the only credible explanation is that two of the gospels were copied in Greek from the third. Scholars have established that the original gospel was Mark, and that Matthew and Luke were based on that gospel.

Having been written in Greek Koine, the lingua franca of the Near East, Matthew was probably written in the Near East for a local audience. It was not written in Palestine for a Jewish audience, which would have been more familiar with Aramaic, nor was it written in Greece, where classical Greek would have been the language of choice. The author's familiarity with the magi(who were actually priests of the Persian religion) suggests that Matthew's Gospel may well have been written in Syria or Iraq.

Answer

Some parts in Palestine. Others in Antioch, Syria.

Answer

Most theologians regard Matthew's account as the most Jewish account of Jesus' life. Unlike Luke's gospel, wirtten by a Gentile and where Jewish customs are described and explained, in Matthew's account many Jewish customs are mentioned without explanation as he expected his readers to understand fully without any firther elaboration. Also, he uses prophecy a great deal to show that jesus is the promised Messiah.

Therefore, as Matthew was writing to the Jews, and because he conducted much of his ministry in Israel, theologians believe that his Gospel was written in Jerusalem or its environs.

Answer 3

The Gospel According to Saint Matthew was written anonymously and was not attributed to Matthew until later in the second century. Matthew could not have been the author, as he is listed as a disciple of Jesus and would therefore have had first-hand knowledge of the life of Jesus, yet scholars have shown that Matthew's Gospel was largely derived from Mark's Gospel and from the Q Document.

AnswerThe Gospel of Matthew was attributed to Matthew because the internal evidence, style and focus all point to the eyewitness account of the tax collector Matthew. No other author is probable or necessary. AnswerThe four New Testament gospels were originally anonymous and were only attributed to the apostles whose names they now bear, later in the second century. Thus we only have the opinions of the Church Fathers as to who any of the authors were. As the gospels became widely circulated and studied, the Church Fathers saw that there were undoubted literary dependencies among the gospels. They believed that Matthew, the disciple of Jesus, wrote the first gospel and that the gospels they attributed to Mark and Luke were based on copying and improving Matthew's Gospel. In fact, scholars now say that none of the gospels could have been written by an eyewitness to the events they portray.

Scholars can demonstrate that Mark's Gospel was actually the earliest gospel and that Matthew's Gospel was largely based on it, with some 600 of the 666 verses in Mark, as well as containing further sayings material from the hypothetical 'Q' document. Clearly, a disciple of Jesus would not have need to base almost his entire gospel on these prior sources. Matthew did not write the Gospel of Matthew.

Answer 4

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The disciple Matthew was the author of the Gospel that bears his name. The early church, who were in a better position than us to know, uniformly attributed it to him.

Answer 5

Christians generally assume Matthew's Gospel to be the most Jewish of the New Testament gospels, but Jews themselves dispute this, saying that John's Gospel shows more understanding of first-century Judaism than does Matthew. It is because of this assumption that Matthew is often thought of as written for Jews, even perhaps in Palestine. But the fact that the author clearly uses the Septuagint, a flawed early Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, as his Old Testament reference, means that Matthew could not really have been written in Palestine or for Palestinian Jews.

Matthew was written in Greek Koine, the lingua franca of the ancient Near East. Although Matthew's two main sources, Mark's Gospel and 'Q', were both written in Greek Koine, we could nevertheless assume that the use of Greek Koine tells us that the Gospel was written somewhere in the Near East. Had it been written in, for example, Greece, we could expect that it might have been written in classic Greek. Various possibilities have been put forward to suggest where in the Near East the Gospel of Matthew was written, but these are speculative and usually based on assumptions that the actual author was the apostle Matthew or that it was written for Jewish converts.

Matthew's Gospel was written somewhere in the Near East, but we can not reliably give a more precise location.

Answer 6

Scholars recognise that the gospel attributed to Matthew was based on Mark's Gospel. A side-by-side analysis of the two gospels in the original Greek shows that the sequence and even the wording of material common to both gospels are almost identical. So Matthew's Gospel can be relied on to have been written some time later than the Gospel of Mark. In turn, Mark's Gospel is considered, based on internal content, to have been written around 70 CE.

Scholars look at the evolution of Christian thought in apostolic times, particularly in respect to the attitude to the Jews. From this, they believe that Matthew's Gospel is intermediate between Mark and Luke, and much earlier than John. They believe that it was probably written around the middle of the 80s in the first century, although Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament ) cautions that a decade either way should be allowed.

Answer 7

As with all the New Testament gospels, the Gospel According to St Matthew was written anonymously and only attributed to the disciple Matthew later in the second century. Biblical scholars say that the Gospel could not have been written by an eyewitness to the events portrayed, which would rule out Matthew as the author, as would the fact that the Gospel is now believed to have been written in the eighties of the first century, too late for a disciple of Jesus.

There is no evidence to support the tradition that the disciple Matthew wrote the gospel that now bears his name, so we do not know who wrote the Gospel of Matthew.

Answer 8

One Answer:

Nobody knows.

Another thought:

Many people feel it was written in Palestine, around 41CE.

Answer 9

The Apostle Matthew wrote the book bearing his name.

Answer 10

Matthew wrote his Gospel around A.D. 65 probably from his office, which was located on the main highway that ran from Damascus.