8. Are the Witnesses Honest? (2)

(1) The Gospel of Matthew -  "Gospel of the Church"

• Matthew – Levi – the tax collector, and one of the twelve disciples is the author of the whole, or at least the first draft, of the gospel. It was likely written in the 55-70 AD time period. [1]
• (Parts of) the original gospel may have been written in Aramaic. All extant manuscripts are in well versed Greek. The writer was well educated in Greek, but it was probably not his native tongue.
• It describes the calling of Matthew as a disciple in Matthew 9:9:  “As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ He told him, and Matthew got up and followed Him.” It is interesting to note that it is only in Mark and Luke he is called Levi; Matthew’s gospel does not use that name.
• The Gospel of Matthew is also known as the Gospel of the Church or the Gospel of the Kingdom as it has extensive references to God’s Kingdom and mentions the building of Christ’s church on Peter “the rock” (Matthew 16:18).
• Matthew's Gospel was the most used gospel in the early church. It is likely that it was therefore made the first book of the New Testament. It was also considered a “natural bridge” between the Old and the New Testament because of its emphasis on OT prophecies.
• It is the most structured of all gospels and can be divided into an introduction (1:1-4:11), followed by groups of 5 narratives and discourses (4:12-7:29,8:1-11:1,11:2-16:12,16:13-20:28 and 20:29-27:66), and a conclusion (28:1-28:20).
• It contains the Sermon of the Mount, the most extensive sermon of Jesus ever recorded.
• The character of Matthew's gospel is convincingly Jewish, written by a Jew for Jews.
• Matthew’s Jewish genealogy of Jesus takes us back to the father of the Jewish nation, Abraham, and follows the royal bloodline through the male ancestors of Joseph.
• It presents Jesus as Israel ’s promised Messiah, the King. To prove his case, Matthew's Gospel uses more Old Testament quotations and allusions (almost 130) than any other NT book.
• He also emphasized Jesus as a teacher, as an authoritative interpreter of the Law of Moses and the will of God (Matthew 4:23, 5:2, 7:28-29).
• As a tax collector, Matthew would likely have the background of a scribe. This would make him the most logical candidate within the group of disciples to make notes during Jesus’ teachings, which he could have included in this gospel later. That would explain why Matthew’s gospel has the most extensive record of Jesus’ sayings and teachings, including the Sermon on the Mount.
• As one of the synoptic gospels, about 50% of Matthew has significant similarities to about 90% of Mark.
• The source known as Q (shared with Luke) represents about 25% of Matthew’s material.
• About 25% of Matthew remains that is unique to this gospel and not found in any of the other gospels.  

The synoptic relationship between the synoptic gospels

Comparing the Four Gospels