What should you know about Matthew's Gospel?

Answer 1

A:If you are a passive Christian, you need know nothing about Matthew's Gospel, other than the contents of the Gospel, which are in any case largely to be found in other gospels.

If you wish to be reassured whether or to what extent the gospels are a true account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, then you may need to know more about how, when and why Matthew was written, and by whom. You will also need to know what sources the author used.

Most Christians still believe that Matthew's Gospel was actually written by the apostle Matthew, an eyewitness to the life and mission of Jesus, thereby making this gospel a particularly accurate account. However, the Gospel was actually written anonymously around the eighties of the first century, so we have no signature to tell us who wrote this gospel. The only reason to believe that Matthew was the author is that the second-century Church Fathers decided to attribute this book to Matthew. However, modern scholars say that Matthew's Gospel could not have been written by an eyewitness to the events portrayed, so eliminating Matthew as a possible author. We know approximately when Matthew was written, but do not know who wrote the book.

Matthew is known as a synoptic ('seen with the same eye') gospel because when placed alongside Mark and Luke in the original Greek language, thereby 'seen with the same eye', it can be shown that there is a literary dependency among the gospels. Matthew was clearly copied from Mark, and contains some 600 of the 666 verses in Mark. This dependency not only means that the author could not have been an eyewitness, it also means that we do not have any independent accounts that would verify the original story of Jesus, in Mark.