St Luke's Church Eccleshill - Articles from "The Link"

Matthew who?

(Artist's impression of Matthew.)

Matthew's gospel comes first in our New Testaments mainly because of a man called Papias, who in AD135 wrote that "Matthew compiled the oracles (of Jesus) in the Hebrew language (or dialect), and each one interpreted (or translated) them as he was able". For many years it was thought that Papias meant Matthew had originally written his gospel in Hebrew or Aramaic, and it had later on been translated into Greek. St Augustine thought that "Mark followed Matthew as his abbreviator or lackey".

However, if you actually read the first three gospels and compare them, it's fairly obvious that Augustine is wrong. The little incidents about Jesus are told most clearly and vividly in Mark's gospel, and both Matthew and Luke cut them down. Matthew's and Luke's gospels are longer as they put in extra about Jesus - and a lot of the extra is about what Jesus said rather than what he did.

So most theologians nowadays believe that Papias wasn't talking about Matthew's Gospel, but instead he meant that "Matthew wrote down some sayings of Jesus in Aramaic, which others translated into Greek as best as they could". This would mean the author of Matthew's gospel was another Matthew (not the apostle in Mk 3:18 nor the tax-collector in Mt 9:9), and it would explain why the gospel doesn't read like an eye-witness account of Jesus' life.

The Matthew who wrote the gospel had a burning concern for trying to help the Jews see that Jesus really was the Messiah, that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament, and that the Jews had been very wrong to betray Jesus into the hands of the Romans for crucifixion. He believed very strongly that Jesus had come to fulfil the work of Moses, and that instead of focussing on their traditions, the Jews should focus on the five aspects of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God, which fulfilled the five books of Moses in the Old Testament. And he wanted them to grasp that Jesus could be with them every day.

The Church of England's scheme of bible readings concentrates on one gospel each year, and in 2005 it is the turn of Matthew's gospel. We invite everyone to come to see how Jesus fulfils God's plan for his people today.

John Hartley