Who was a publican before Jesus called him?

Answer 1

A:A perennial challenge for young students of The Bible is the apparent contradiction in which there seem to be two disciples who were 'publicans', or tax collectors. One was Levi and the other Matthew, but it has become accepted by Christians that Matthew and Levi were one and the same person.

The original New Testament gospel, now known as Mark's Gospel, refers to Levi, son of Alphaeus, as a tax collector. However, for some reason, Mark never again refers to Levi, but introduces Matthew and James, son of Alphaeus, as disciples in the list of the twelve disciples (verses 3:14-19). There is no reason here to believe that the author of Mark was portraying Matthew as the tax collector or as the brother of James, son of Alphaeus. Luke's Gospel follows this more or less faithfully when copying from Mark.

Because disciples are not supposed to just disappear, the author of the book now known as Matthew's Gospel resolved this problem by not referring to Levi, but instead saying in the corresponding place in the text that the tax collector Jesus called was Matthew. Thus we have two essentially similar references to Jesus calling a tax collector to follow him, with names Levi and Matthew. Naturally the two were later thought to be exactly the same person.