HOME WEB NEWS IMAGES CLASSIFIEDS YELLOW PAGESPOLLS - SURVEYS WIKI COUNTRIES PHOTOS US UK INDIA
Cities Stocks Weather Movies Coupons Travel Blogs Health Horoscope Maps ASIA EUROPE Classifieds Yellow Pages
|
The Gospel of Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament and is a synoptic gospel. It narrates an account of the life and ministry of Jesus. It describes his genealogy, his miraculous birth and childhood, his baptism and temptation, his ministry of healing and preaching, and finally his crucifixion and resurrection. The resurrected Jesus commissions his Apostles to "go and make disciples of all nations." (Matthew 28:19)
The Christian community traditionally ascribes authorship to Matthew the Evangelist, one of Jesus\' twelve disciples. Augustine of Hippo considered it to be the first gospel written (see synoptic problem), and it appears as the first gospel in most Bibles. Secular scholarship generally agrees it was written by an anonymous non-eyewitness to Jesus\' ministry. The author apparently used the Gospel of Mark as one source and the hypothetical Q document as another, possibly writing in Antioch, c 80-85.Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.
Of the four canonical gospels, Matthew is most closely aligned with the Jewish tradition, and the author was apparently Jewish. Most scholars consider the gospel, like every other book in the New Testament, to have been written in Koine Greek, though some experts maintain the traditional view that it was originally composed in Aramaic. The gospel is associated with noncanonical gospels written for Jewish Christians, such as the Gospel of the Hebrews.
Contents |
For convenience, the book can be divided into its four structurally distinct sections: Two introductory sections; the main section, which can be further broken into five sections, each with a narrative component followed by a long discourse of Jesus; and finally, the Passion and Resurrection section.
Woodcut from Anton Koberger\'s Bible (Nuremberg, 1483): The angelically-inspired Saint Matthew musters the Old Testament figures, led by Abraham and David
The one aim pervading the book is to show that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah — he "of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write" — and that in him the ancient prophecies had their fulfillment. This book is full of allusions to passages of the Old Testament which the book interprets as predicting and foreshadowing Jesus\' life and mission. This Gospel contains no fewer than sixty-five references to the Old Testament, forty-three of these being direct verbal citations, thus greatly outnumbering those found in the other Gospels. The main feature of this Gospel may be expressed in the motto "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill" (5:17). See also Expounding of the Law.
This Gospel sets forth a view of Jesus as Christ and portrays him as an heir to King David\'s throne, the rightful King of the Jews.
The cast of thought and the forms of expression employed by the writer show that this Gospel was written by Jewish Christians of Iudaea Province.
Some believe this gospel was written to the Jewish community, thus explaining all the allusions to passages of the Old Testament, however, see also Great Commission (which is directed at "all nations") and Interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount and Christian view of the Law.
The approximate contents of the Gospel, in order, are as follows:
|
Birth Stories
Baptism and early ministry
Sermon on the Mount
Healing and miracles
Instructions to the disciples as missionaries
Responses to Jesus
Parables of the Kingdom
Conflicts, rejections, and conferences with disciples
|
Life in the Christian community
Journey to Jerusalem
Jerusalem, cleansing of the temple, debates
Confronting leaders and denouncing Pharisees
Judgment day
Trial, crucifuxion, resurrection
|
Saint Matthew, from the 9th-century Ebbo Gospels.
Although the document is internally anonymous, the authorship of this Gospel has been traditionally ascribed to Matthew the Evangelist, a tax collector who became an Apostle of Jesus. The surviving testimony of the church fathers is unanimous in this view, and the tradition had been accepted by Christians at least as early as the 2nd century up to modern times. In addition, the title "According to Matthew" is found in the earliest codices,"ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΘΘΑΙΟΝ" is found in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Nestle-Aland. Novum Testamentum Graece. 27th ed. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Druck: 1996, p. 1. which date to the fourth century. Beginning in the 18th century, however, scholars have increasingly questioned that traditional view, and today the majority agree Matthew did not write the Gospel which bears his name.Ehrman, Bart D. (2004). The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. New York: Oxford, pp. 92-92. ISBN 0-19-515462-2. Matthew primarily writes for the Greek-speaking Jewish Christians and Gentiles who were, at least partly, Torah observant.Brown, Raymond E. (October 3, 1997). Introduction to the New Testament. Anchor Bible, p. 210-211. ISBN 0-385-24767-2.
The relationship of Matthew to the Gospels of Mark and Luke is an open question known as the synoptic problem. The three together are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels and have a great deal of overlap in sentence structure and word choice. Out of a total of 1,071 verses, Matthew has 387 in common with Mark and the Gospel of Luke, 130 with Mark alone, 184 with Luke alone; only 370 being unique to itself.
Although the author of Matthew wrote according to his own plans and aims and from his own point of view, most scholars agree he borrowed extensively from Mark, and possibly another source or sources as well. The most popular view in modern scholarship is the two-source hypothesis, which speculates that Matthew borrowed from both Mark and a hypothetical sayings collection, called Q (for the German Quelle, meaning "source"). A similar but less common view is the Farrer hypothesis, which theorizes that Matthew borrowed material only from Mark, and that Luke wrote last, using both earlier Synoptics. A minority of scholars subscribe to Early Christian tradition, which asserts Matthean priority, with Mark borrowing from Matthew (see: Augustinian hypothesis and Griesbach hypothesis). For example, in 1911, the Pontifical Biblical CommissionCommissio Pontificia de re biblicâ, established 1902 asserted that Matthew was the first gospel written, that it was written by the evangelist Matthew, and that it was written in Aramaic.Synoptics entry in Catholic Encyclopedia.
In The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (1924), Burnett Hillman Streeter argued that a third source, referred to as M and also hypothetical, lies behind the material in Matthew that has no parallel in Mark or Luke.Streeter, Burnett H. The Four Gospels. A Study of Origins Treating the Manuscript Tradition, Sources, Authorship, & Dates. London: MacMillian and Co., Ltd., 1924. Throughout the remainder of the 20th century, there were various challenges and refinements of Streeter\'s hypothesis. For example, in his 1953 book The Gospel Before Mark, Pierson Parker posited an early version of Matthew (proto-Matthew) as the primary source of both Matthew and Mark, and the Q source used by Matthew.Pierson Parker. The Gospel Before Mark. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.
Critical biblical scholars, like Herman N. Ridderbos in his book Matthew, do not consider the apostle Matthew to be the author of this Gospel. He cites a number of reasons such as the text being in Greek, not Aramaic, the Gospel\'s heavy reliance on Mark, and the lack of characteristics usually attributed to an eyewitness account.Ridderbos, Herman N. Matthew: Bible student\'s commentary. Zondervan, 1987. p. 7; from earlychristianwritings.com Francis Write Beare goes on to say "there are clear indications that it is a product of the second or third Christian generation. The traditional name of Matthew is retained in modern discussion only for convenience."Beare, Francis Write. The Gospel according to Matthew. p. 7; from earlychristianwritings.com
There is little in the gospel itself to indicate with clarity the date of its composition. The majority of scholars date the gospel between the years 70 and 100.[citation needed] The writings of Ignatius show "a strong case ... for [his] knowledge of four Pauline epistles and the Gospel of Matthew"Foster, P. "The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch and the Writings that later formed the NT," in Gregory & Tuckett, (2005), The Reception of the NT in the Apostolic Fathers OUP, p.186 ISBN 978-0199267828, which gives a terminus ad quem of c. 110. Scholars cite multiple reasons to support this range, such as the time required for the theological views to develop between Mark and Matthew (assuming Markan priority), references to historic figures and events circa 70, and a later social context. Some significant conservative scholars argue for a pre-70 date, generally considering the gospel to be written by the apostle Matthew.Brown 1997, pp. 216-7 In December 1994, Carsten Peter Thiede redated the Magdalen papyrus, which bears a fragment in Greek of the Gospel of Matthew, to the late 1st century on palaeographical grounds. Scholars date this fragment to the 3rd century, so Thiede\'s article provoked much debate.
A minority of Christian scholars argue for an even earlier date, as seen in the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia: "Catholic critics, in general, favor the years 40–45..."Gospel of St. Matthew. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X. Copyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. In recent times, John Wenham, one of the biggest supporters of the Augustinian hypothesis, is considered to be among the more notable defenders of an early date for the Gospel of Matthew.
There are numerous testimonies, starting from Papias and Irenaeus, that Matthew originally wrote in Hebrew letters, which is thought to refer to Aramaic. The sixteenth century Erasmus was the first to express doubts on the subject of an original Aramaic or Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew: "It does not seem probable to me that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, since no one testifies that he has seen any trace of such a volume." Here Erasmus distinguishes between a Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew letters and the partly lost Gospel of the Hebrews and Gospel of the Nazoraeans, from which patristic writers do quote, and which appear to have some relationship to Matthew, but are not identical to it. The Gospel of the Ebionites also has a close relationship to the Gospel of the Hebrews and Gospel of the Nazoraeans, and hence some connection to Matthew. The similarly named Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew has almost nothing to do with Matthew, however, and instead is a combination of two earlier infancy Gospels.
Most contemporary scholars, based on analysis of the Greek in the Gospel of Matthew and use of sources such as the Greek Gospel of Mark, conclude that the New Testament Book of Matthew was written originally in Greek and is not a translation from Hebrew or Aramaic (Greek primacy). If they are correct, then the Church Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Jerome possibly referred to a document or documents distinct from the present Gospel of Matthew. A smaller number of scholars, including the Roman Catholic Pontifical Biblical Commission, believe the ancient writings that Matthew was originally in Aramaic, arguing for Aramaic primacy. These scholars normally consider the Peshitta and Old Syriac versions of the New Testament closest to the original autographs.
Biblical scholar Stephen L. Harris of the Jesus Seminar mentions that the claims of Matthew Levi being the author could actually be references to "an early Christian, perhaps named Matthew, who assembled a list of messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Bible, a collection that the creator of our present gospel may have used."Stephen L. Harris, Understanding the Bible. sixth ed. Boston/Toronto: McGraw Hill, 2003, p. 424 The Jesus narrative would then have been assembled around these Tanakh (Old Testament) verses.
According to R. T. France,
Of note is the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven" (ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν) used often in the gospel of Matthew, as opposed to the phrase "Kingdom of God" used in other synoptic gospels such as Luke. The phrase "Kingdom of Heaven" is used 32 times in 31 verses in the Gospel of Matthew. It is speculated that this indicates that this particular Gospel was written to a primarily Jewish audience, such as the Jewish Christians, as many Jewish people of the time felt the name of God was too holy to be written. Matthew\'s abundance of Old Testament references also supports this theory.
The theme "Kingdom of Heaven" as discussed in Matthew seems to be at odds with what was a circulating Jewish expectation—that the Messiah would overthrow Roman rulership and establish a new reign as the new King of the Jews. Christian scholars, including N. T. Wright (The Challenge of Jesus) have long discussed the ways in which certain 1st-century Jews (including Zealots) misunderstood the sayings of Jesus—that while Jesus had been discussing a spiritual kingdom, certain Jews expected a physical kingdom. See also Jewish Messiah.
The relationship between Jesus Christ and the "Kingdom" is also mentioned in the other gospels. Jesus had said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but My kingdom is not of this realm" (John 18:36 NASB). See also New Covenant (theology).
The Jewish Encyclopedia article on the New Testament: Matthew states:
The Chi Rho monogram from the Book of Kells is the most lavish such monogram
In Insular Gospel Books (copies of the Gospels produced in Ireland and Britain under Celtic Christianity), the first verse of Matthew\'s genealogy of ChristMatthew 1:18 was often treated in a decorative manner, as it began not only a new book of the Bible, but was the first verse in the Gospels. In mediaeval typography, the Greek word Christ was sometimes abbreviated as Χρι (the Greek letters Chi-Rho-Iota); the first three letters of the word Christ in the Greek alphabet), and so the Χρι which begin this verse was given an elaborate decorative treatment by such scribes, who had a similar tradition for the opening few words of each of the Gospels. This trend culminated in the Book of Kells, where the monogram has taken over the entire page. Although later scribes (such as those of the Carolingian Renaissance) followed the Insular tradition of giving elaborate decorative treatments to the opening words of texts, including the Gospels, they did not follow the tradition of decoration of this verse.
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Online translations of the Gospel of Matthew:
Other external links:
Related articles:
| Preceded by Malachi (2 Maccabees in the Catholic Bible) | Books of the Bible | Succeeded by Mark |
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
