So I’m writing a paper on Matthew’s use (21:5) of Zechariah (9:9) and I wrestled with Matthean authorship this whole morning. If you guys are interested, here’s a summary (this’ll be sporadically inserted into my paper in the form of footnotes). Comments are especially appreciated on the last paragraph.
Arguments for Matthean Authorship
1. No competing tradition (no other author ever proposed), if any, has survived.
2. Papias’s testimony concerning Matthean authorship is within half a century of Matthew’s publication and no one in the years surrounding Papias’s testimony challenged Matthean authorship (again, that we know of).
3. The early church witness is unanimous.
4. As far back as can be trace in the manuscripts, the Gospel always has the superscript (R. T. France).
5. Both Papias and Irenaeus were taught by “those associated with the apostles; thus, they were directly aware of the origins of the Gospels.” (Craig Keener)
6. Why would the early church attribute the Gospels to such unlikely people if they didn’t really write them? “Mark and Luke were not among Jesus’ twelve apostles. Mark is best known for abandoning Paul…and Luke is particularly obscure, being mentioned by name only once in the New Testament…Matthew, although an apostle…[was] a tax collector…[who was] considered traitorous to [his] nation. By contrast, the apocryphal gospels consistently picked better-known and exemplary figures – such as Philip, Peter, James, Bartholomew, or Mary – for their fictitious authors.” (Keener)
7. See Matthew 10:3, “where…the apostle refers to himself in a self-deprecating way not found in Mark and Luke.” (Carson)
8. The Gospel of Matthew was the “most highly revered and frequently quoted of the gospels” very early on (Carson).
9. “The titles of the Gospels were unanimously accepted over a large geographical region in the second century…Because travelers networked early Christian assemblies throughout the empire and word traveled quickly among them…early traditions concerning the authors of popular works’ are probably generally correct.” (Keener)
Arguments against Matthean Authorship
1. It is the majority view, even some evangelicals hold this position.
2. It is technically anonymous (like the other gospels). The titles were added sometime in the second century. [Though Michael Wilkins argues that this is expected since the gospel writers were writing to communities of which they were “active participants and leaders…they likely stood among the assembly and first read their Gospel account themselves.”]
3. “The lack of evidence for any other particular suggestion does not necessarily make the limited evidence for Matthean authorship compelling.” (Keener)
4. Eusebius records Papias as writing, “Matthew, then, compiled the oracles in the Hebrew/Aramaic language, and each interpreted/translated them as they were able.” Papias was most likely referring to oral tradition that others translated; thus, Matthew may have just compiled a list of sayings that his students translated – it’s possible that his list of sayings underlies Q or the Gospel of Thomas.
5. “If Papias is wrong that Matthew wrote in Hebrew or Aramaic…and wrong that Matthew wrote before Mark did, he may also be mistaken that Matthew wrote the extant Gospel of Matthew (though he could be mistaken about one while correct about the other).” (Keener)
6. Irenaeus (Matthew wrote “a gospel…for the Hebrews in their own language”) was most certainly wrong about written in Hebrew since the “Greek Gospel of Matthew shows not the slightest sign of having been translated from a Semitic language” and mostly uses Greek sources (Nolland). Papias may not be speaking of our Greek Gospel of Matthew, “though he may be speaking about a document in Hebrew or Aramaic that he believed lay behind the Greek Gospel or even of which the canonical Gospel was a translation.” (Nolland) If he was speaking of another document it is no longer extant.
7. “Even if Matthew wrote at one stage of the tradition…we have no guarantee that the finished product is largely from Matthew’s hand.” (Keener)
8. Why would an apostle (Matthew) depend so heavily on Mark (who wasn’t an apostle)? [Matthew may have know that Peter was behind Mark though.] “Matthew’s use of Mark also may speak against the author’s having been a firsthand witness of the events he describes…as much as the church would have liked him to have been (where we can check him, the writer of the Fourth Gospel, who claims eyewitness information, is not as dependent on sources like Mark as Matthew appears to be).” (Keener)
9. The Greek is too good for a Galilean Jew? [Matthew was a tax collector though, and we should expect him to be fluent in multiple languages.]
10. “These arguments depend on early church tradition, not on the earliest text of the Gospel itself; and in this instance, the argument from tradition may be suspect.” (Keener)
11. D. A. Carson, R. T. France, Craig Blomberg, Scot McKnight, and Craig Keener accept Matthean authorship only very tentatively.
I think where I end up is with Keener who says that the most likely conclusion in light of all the evidence is that it was probably written by Matthew but edited by a student or students. I am still uncertain about Matthean authorship though.
In the end, however, it seems like very little depends on this. And for the most part, I would agree except for a couple of points I do not have answers to:
1. CANON. A big reason for this gospel’s inclusion into the canon was its apostolic authorship. What do we make of this if Matthew didn’t indeed write the gospel? I think there might still be a reason for its inclusion if we remember that even those who reject Matthean authorship believe that he compiled a list of saying that may underlie the gospel. Maybe Matthew could be behind the gospel in this way, vaguely similar to how Peter was behind Mark’s account.
2. INERRANCY. This is my never-ending battle with most of the Bible. Whether or not Matthew even wrote the gospel, my perennial question is: there most likely was an editor or editors of the final work and that that is what we have received and read in our Bibles today. Am I to believe that the author was inspired and inerrant, that the editor(s) was also inspired and inerrant, and that the “canonicler” (depending on the book) and various redactors were also inspired and inerrant? Errrr…any thoughts?
