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Based on the integrity of the primary sources that place the Gospel of Matthew first in the New Testament canon, it is often called the first Gospel by those of a judicious disposition.
Primary Sources include:
1. Origen: His words relating to canon Scriptures: 'The Gospel of Matthew which he wrote in Hebrew on a roll, when he was at Caesarea...then the Gospel of Mark ...Gospel of Luke ...Gospel of John...' Ref: History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church at Alexandria, of Demetrius the Twelfth Patriarch.
2. Jerome: 'Matthew who had first set forth the Gospel in Hebrew letters in Judea' Ref: Jerome, Preface for the Gospels.
3. Hillel III (circa A.D.100): Cites the order of the gospels as Matthew Mark Luke and John. Ref: p. 248 Hillel Letters, The Archko Volume.
4.Irenaeus: 'Matthew issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect'. Irenaeus then cites the other gospels in the order of Mark Luke and John. Ref: Against Heresies Book 3 Ch. 1.
5.Epiphanius: 'For Matthew was the first to become an Evangelist. He was directed to issue the Gospel first.' Ref: Panarion Book 2. 50.1.
6.Mahboub: 'Matthew wrote in Hebrew to the Hebrews', where follows in listed order, Mark Luke and John. Ref: Agapius, Universal History; the Second part of the History of Mahboub.
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BeauThere are 4 gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) in The Bible. Matthew is often called the first gospel because it appears first in the Bible.
Another reason Matthew's Gospel has often been called the first gospel is that it is traditionally thought to have been written first. As early as the second century, the Church Fathers had realised, by means of parallel readings in the original Greek language, that there was a literary dependency among the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). The gospels were originally anonymous and the Church Fathers attributed the gospel now known as Matthew's Gospel to the disciple Matthew, believing it to have been the source used by the authors of Mark and Luke. Modern biblical scholars agree that there is a literary dependency, but say that Mark's Gospel was the original, and that Matthew and Luke were based largely on that Gospel.
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Where and When was the Gospel of Matthew written?
A:Christians generally assume Matthew's Gospel to be the most Jewish of the New Testament gospels, but Jews themselves dispute this, saying that John's Gospel shows more understanding of first-century Judaism than does Matthew. It is because of this assumption that Matthew is often thought of as written for Jews, even perhaps in Palestine. But the fact that the author clearly uses the Septuagint, a flawed early Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, as his Old Testament reference, means that Matthew could not really have been written in Palestine or for Palestinian Jews. Matthew was written in Greek Koine, the lingua franca of the ancient Near East. Although Matthew's two main sources, Mark's Gospel and 'Q', were both written in Greek Koine, we could nevertheless assume that the use of Greek Koine tells us that the Gospel was written somewhere in the Near East. Had it been written in, for example, Greece, we could expect that it might have been written in classic Greek. Various possibilities have been put forward to suggest where in the Near East the Gospel of Matthew was written, but these are speculative and usually based on assumptions that the actual author was the apostle Matthew or that it was written for Jewish converts.In fact, the New Testament gospels were all anonymous and only attributed to the apostles they now bear, later in the second century. Modern scholars say none of the gospels could have been written by an eyewitness to the events portrayed, thus the apostle Matthew was not the author of this Gospel. Scholars have demonstrated, by parallel readings in the original Greek language that Matthew was largely based on Mark's Gospel, containing som 600 of the 666 verses of Mark. Mark's Gospel was written approximately 70 CE, and scholars say that Matthew can be dated to the 80s of the first century, although Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that several years should be allowed either side of that decade.Matthew's Gospel was written somewhere in the Near East in the eighties of the first century, but we can not reliably give a more precise location.
Why is Matthew considered a Jewish Christian Gospel?
The special emphasis of Matthew is that Jesus is the Messiah foretold by the Old Testament prophets. He quotes from and refers to the Old testament more often than any other New Testament author and seems to have had particularly Jewish readers in mind. This gospel does not name its author, but it has been accepted as the word of Matthew ever since the early church fathers, beginning with Papias, who was a student of the apostle John.
Why were the four accounts of the life of Jesus called Gospels?
AnswerIn his epistles, Paul had often referred to the gospel, or "good news", that he preached. Later, when the book now known as Mark was written, the term gospel was adopted for the new genre that it became: thus Mark's Gospel. There are dozens of books in the 'gospel' genre, but only four were selected for inclusion in the New Testament.
How old were Matthew and John when they wrote the Gospels?
There is no indication as to an accurate age for Matthew, although he was called by Christ, as a tax collector shortly after the beginning of His ministry in about 31 AD. His name was Levi, son of Alphaeus, according to Mark 2:14. This indicates that he was a mature man, having some time of establishment as "a receiver of custom (tax collector)." The theologian, Dr. W. A. Criswell, has said: "There is no reason to question the Matthean authorship of the first Gospel." The Gospel of John was probably written about 80-90 AD, certainly before he wrote the book of Revelation, which he did in exile to the isle of Patmos, about 95 AD. as an aged man. Irenaeus, who was taught by Polycarp, a disciple of John, attested to these matters in the early church.
How many parallel verses are there in the synoptic gospels?
The synoptic gospels are those attributed to Matthew, Mark and Luke. Their parallel verses are documented in the Harmony of the Gospels section of The New Strong's Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible published by Thomas Nelson Publishers, whose bibles also often contain this material, which covers the parallel verses of the four canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Since not all of the hundreds of parallels are contained in all three synoptic Gospels, an answer cannot be given as to the actual number, but following is a possible explanation for the parallel verses. The Gospel According to Mark was written in Greek, the universal language of the time, by an anonymous author who is commonly known as Saint Mark. The Gospel According to Mark was attributed to John Mark (also believed to be Marcus, son of the apostle Peter - I Pet. 5:13, KJV Bible, also Markus and Mark in other versions) beginning around 100 A.D. The Gospels According to Saints Matthew and Luke were written by anonymous authors and later attributed to Matthew and Luke. None of the synoptic gospel authors claimed to have been the persons traditionally associated with these gospels, or even to have been first-hand witnesses or to have known first-hand witnesses. 'Luke' went as far as to state that what he was writing was 'what we believe of things delivered to us by those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word from the beginning'. According to some scholars, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke main source of information on the life of Jesus was Mark's Gospel. Other scholars believe Mark's Gospel was based upon Matthew's Gospel. Some scholars believe the Gospels of Matthew and Luke used a hypothetical 'sayings of Jesus' document called the 'Q' document as a source for some of the sayings they attribute to Jesus. Although 'Q' is hypothetical, as there exists no early copy of it, and none of the early Church Fathers ever referred to it, scholars believe they may have been able to reconstruct much of its content by studying the Gospels. The supposition of the 'Q' document derived from the fact that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke reported many of the same sayings of Jesus, but maintained the sayings were uttered during different times and events in Jesus' ministry. Whenever the Gospels of Matthew and Luke agree upon a saying, the Greek text for that saying was the same in both gospels. The Gospel of Mark appears to have made little or no use of 'Q'.
