(was: Authorship of Matthew..)

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On Fri, Nov 21, 1997 at 09:39:20AM -0800, Matthew Bell wrote:

> MATT

> The answer to your question Steve is d). Yes, I know you didn't list

> a 'd', but it is necessary to create one to answer your question

> properly.

> 

> d) Your arguments are the commonly held view with regard to the

> authorship of Matthew, and indeed, may be correct in stating that

> Matthew the Apostle did not personally 'write' the Gospel. If this was

> the case then why the attribution of the Gospel to him? Is it not also

> the commonly held view of the same scholars that Matthew compiled the

> non-Markan material, thus the attribution of the Gospel to him, his

> work being an Apostolic source used in the compilation of the Gospel

> as we now have it?


Hello everyone. Let me attempt to outline my thoughts on "Matthew." The 
attribution of the book to the disciple "Matthew" is clearly fictitious. It 
derives from a single sentence in Papias musings; Papias had said of "Matthew" 
that he "collected the oracles in the Hebrew language and each interpreted 
them as best he could" (Ecclesiastical History, III, 39). 

Big problems here: firstly, the "Matthew" we know is NOT a translation from 
the Hebrew/Aramaic. It was composed, originally, in Greek in dependance on 
Mark and "Q." Many of the terms used, such as Ierisiluma rather than 
Ierousaleu for Jerusalem, and eschatological terms, such as battologein, 
polulogia, etc, and peculiar prepositions indicate that the Greek is original 
rather than the product of translation.

"Papias asserion that Matthew was written in Hebrew is patantly false; Matthew 
was composed in Greek in dependance on...Mark, also written in greek by 
unknown authors" ("Five Gospels,"Funk, et al., 20). 

Even Papias words are uncertain: One manuscript says that Matthew "collected" 
(sunetaxato), while two others say that he "composed" (sunegraphato) them. 
Based on the fact that "Mark" is to be found nearly complete in "Matthew," I 
think it is safe to say that the latter instance, that the gospel is a 
"composition" rather than a "collection," is false. Also, the word "oracles" 
(logia) is unclear. It could refer to actual deeds and sayings, or it could 
refer to extant pericopes and writings, etc.


Also, the content of the Gospel make it clear that its author used the 
Septaugint. For example, the confusing of almah and parthenos (Isa 7:14, MAT 
1:23), etc., etc.

Also, of course, there is no issue of "Markan" material in the gospel. which 
is a misleading way of saying that "Matthew" is little more than a revision of 
"Mark." Out of the 664 verses in Mark's gospel, for example, Matthew directly 
uses 604 (B.W. Bacon, p70). "Luke," by way of comparison, integrates a "mere" 
50% of "Mark." The 250 or so common "sayings" between "Matthew" and "Mark" are 
generally accounted for by postulating the existance of a second, non-Markan 
source known to both "Matthew" and "Luke." Some authors have claimed that 
"Luke" wrote in dependance on "Matthew," rather than "Q," but this argument is 
much weaker than the "Q" hupothesis, IMO.

Lastly, what eventually became "Matthew" has early parallels: the best of 
these is the Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles . There are about 60 
corresponding passages between the two books, and it seems just as likely that 
"Matthew" used the Didache as a source than vice-versa. Of course, they may 
have both used a common source. If the parallels are primarily "sayings," than 
perhaps both were written in deopendence on "Q."

At any rate, I hope I havent been flogging a dead horse here. Thanks everyone!
Love,
Patrick Spears
 

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