9 - Matthew

Summary

In my view Matthew is chronologically the third of the Gospels. I think it was based on Luke, or perhaps on an earlier form of Luke, and written c.130 CE.

I am aware that, in saying this, I am going against a commonly-accepted trend. The Gospel of Matthew has, for most of the history of the Church, been thought of as the first (and even as the most authoritative) of the Gospels. One of the biggest upheavals brought to the understanding of the Bible by critical scholarship was the realization that Matthew was later than Mark and dependent on it. This theory had become common currency by the second half of the nineteenth century. It is very widely held today, and can certainly be described as the “consensus view.”

Matthew is considerably longer than Mark. We must see it as revisionist anti-Markan and not simply as a longer version of Mark. Much of the non-Markan material in Matthew is found also in Luke in often very similar language. The common explanation of this observation is that Matthew was combining with Mark another Gospel-like book to which he had access but which has failed to survive except for the portions that are used by Matthew and Luke. This is commonly called “Q.”

Matthew's Gospel is traditionally associated with Antioch. Kilpatrick disagreed with this view because of Matthew's failure to overlap with Ignatian Christianity. But Matthew must have originated in a place where Peter's memory was kept warm.