Authorship of Matthew (long)(Steve CR)

Matthew Bell mbkbell@aapi.co.uk
Mon, 24 Nov 97 19:07:42 PST (00880448862, MAPI.Id.0016.00626b62656c6c203030303730303037@MAPI.to.RFC822) 

MATT
Here is what the Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels has on the authorship of the Gospel of Matthew. Before someone jumps in with a 'thought you didn't use commentaries' post, the reason I do so is to offer something rather than nothing in response to Steve CR's post, as I am not sufficiently informed on textual criticism to  comment much further, nor presently have the time to research it myself.

Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, Edited by J.Hastings, D.D.

The Sources.- If, then we take the year A.D. 70, as an approximate date for the composition of the Gospel, there remains the questions of its sources, its author, and its historical value. The facts about the sources are these;-

(1) The editor (!) has borrowed the greater part of the Second Gospel, and has made it the framework of his narrative. He has altered the order of Mk 1-7:24 in order to group the material under subjext-heads. He has greatly expanded the discourses. He makes omissions and alterations in phrases relating to the Person of Christ, omitting especially expressions which attribute to Him inability, or desire for information, and terms of human emotion; and makes a series of somewhat familiar changes in clauses relating to the Apostles.

(2) The Gospel contains, besides this Markan material, a good deal of matter, almost entirely sayings, which is found also in substance in the Third Gospel. It is generally supposed that this was borrowed by the two Evangelists from a common source, viz. a collection of Gospel material compiled by the Apostle Matthew, and referred to by Papias (Eus. HE III.xxxix.).
 The present writer (Willoughby C. Allen.) has elsewhere attempted to prove that, so far as Luke goes, this is not a very probable theory. Besides these sayings which he has in common with St. Luke, the editor of the First Gospel has also a number of sayings found only in his Gospel. The probability is that he borrowed these  peculiar sayings, and most of those common to him and St. Luke from the Apostolic collection of sayings mentioned by Papias. If so, it is not very likely that St. Luke had also seen this collection. Rather material from it had passed into some of the many sources which he had used (Luke 1:1) and were borrowed by him from them. Thus Mt.s second source was the Matthean Logia or collection of discourses.

(3) What remains of the Gospel, when we have put aside the matter borrowed from Mk. and the sayings drawn from the Logia, consists of a number of narrative traditions. These deal with Christ's Birth and Infancy, with a few incidents concerned with St Peter and with some details commected with Christ's Trial and Resurrection. They were all drawn, it may be supposed, from current Palestinian Christian tradition.

(4) Lastly, a number of quotations of a peculiar type, which are introduced by a special formula, were drawn from the catena or list of OT Messianic passages, whaich had already been translated into Greek when the editor borrowed them.

The Author:- Now, who was the writer who thus welded together the Second Gospel, the Matthean Logia, a number of Palestinian traditions and a series of OT quotations, into our present Gospel? From the end of the 2nd Century the work has been ascribed to St. Matthew. But there are the following difficulties in this ascription:

(1) The same writers who attribute our Gospel to St. Matthew state that he wrote it in Hebrew or Aramaic. Now it is clear that our Gospel was composed in Greek, and is based upon Greek sources. This is certain so far as the material drawn from the Second Gospel is concerned, and probable for the sayings drawn from the Matthean Logia.

(2) It does not seem very probable that the Apostle Matthew should have written a Gospel from second-hand materials. The work lacks that freshness of presentation which we would expect from an eye-witness of many of the events.
 How then explain the ascription of the Gospel to him? Because the book, in a sense in which the statement is not true of St. Luke's Gospel, is based directly upon the collection of sayings compiled by the Apostle. We must, therefore suppose that the author was an otherwise unknown Jewish Christan of Palestine, who about the year A.D.70 compiled his Gospel, using as his framework the Second Gospel, but borrowing largely from the Matthean Logia, and inserting also some Palestiniam traditions with which he was familiar. The Gospel, as it left his hand, represents the conception of Christ's Person and work which was dominant in the Palestinian church in the middle of the 1st Cent. A.D. To Christian there Jesus was the Jewish-King Messiah. His life on earth was only the prelude to his sovereignty. For He was to come again as Son of Man at the end of the age, and that was imminent, and would follow immediately upon the final downfall of the Jewish polity.

Be interested in your comments Steve.

Thanks
Matt