Why does Matthew present Jesus as the Jewish Messiah?

Answer 1

A:

Tradition says that Matthew's Gospel was written by the disciple Matthew, and based on this it would seem that Matthew presented Jesus as the Jewish messiah because he learnt as a disciple to regard Jesus as the messiah.

In fact, Matthew was originally anonymous and was only attributed to the disciple Matthew later in the second century. New Testament scholars have established that Matthew was actually based on Mark's Gospel, and includes around 90 per cent of the verses from Mark, often in exactly the same words in the Greek language. Matthew presents Jesus as the Jewish messiah because Mark had done so.

Answer 2

A:The Gospel of Matthew is sometimes perceived as the most Jewish Gospel because it makes many references to the Old Testament in order to support its message. This originally anonymous gospel was attributed by the second-century Church Fathers to the disciple Matthew, lending weight to the notion that it must have been written in a Jewish milieu.

However, scholars point out that Matthew was originally written in Greek Koine and so could not really have been written for Palestinian Jews. Also, the Old Testament references use the Septuagint, a flawed, early Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, and anyone familiar with the Hebrew language would quickly realise that the author knew little about Judaism. Nevertheless, Matthew was written in the eighties of the first century, only a few years after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and at a time when Judaism was uncertain of its future. Matthew's Gospel might have been written specifically to explain that the future of Judaism lay in the Christian faith.