Authorship

"As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man at a tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed Him." Matthew 9:9

Do you like mysteries? I used to read mystery books as a kid ... my favourite, "Encyclopedia Brown". Each chapter is a self contained mystery that the reader is challenged to solve. The answers are listed at the back of the book. Well, I never knew when I started "The Matthew Project" that there would be a bit of a mystery but here it is.

Who wrote the "Gospel of Matthew"?

To me there has never been a question - it was always the disciple Matthew - the tax collector - the one with whom Jesus had dinner. In actual fact, no one signed the original manuscript. Back in the early 50's (not the 1950's ... just the 0050's) the genre of Gospel was a new thing. People were compiling facts and first hand accounts of the life of Jesus and calling them Gospel. They weren't history per se, or biography - though they contained both. People were also compiling lists of prophesies fulfilled and lists of the sayings of Jesus. It is suspected that the tax collector Matthew was someone who did this.

Back in the 2nd century literary people started commenting about Matthew's writings. Iranaeus (an incredible theologian and Christian bishop of the 2nd century) wrote that, "Matthew published a book of the gospel among the Hebrews, in their own dialect" (interesting to note that he calls it a book of 'the' gospel - the good news - there was no other good news floating around but of the message of Jesus the saviour.) Iranaeaus points to writings in Hebrew.

Jerome, the one who published the Vulgate (the Latin translation of the Scriptures) also claims Matthew was the author. And by the time of Justin Martyr, the Gospel of Matthew was being used to support his arguments of faith.

Lots of evidence to point to Matthew the tax collector as author, yet there is no existing copy of the Hebrew text, but rather a Greek one. There is no direct comment within the text to claim Matthew as the author.

Yet nothing either to say he was not.

So there is the mystery ... and sadly, it would seem, there is no answer at the back of the book.

What does it matter? That's been rolling around in my head ... why has this issue of authorship caused me to read and scour the few books still covering my dining room table?

Originally I wanted to know the author so that I could gain a deeper sense of the book. Where is he coming from? What's his personality? What's his slant on things?

Even without the precise knowledge of author we can still know some of these things .... We can know that the author was capable of writing in Greek. He was organized enough - and wise enough - to think to gather up this text for the future generations (thank you!). He was someone who was humble; he didn't feel it necessary for his name to be prominent (it's said that the title "Gospel according to Matthew" might have been added when the four Gospels appeared together - all of which were anonymous - to distinguish the different sources). He was someone who was there around the time of Jesus life. ... Can you imagine that?!?! Really? Isn't it totally incredible to think that Jesus could be sitting right there beside you, share a meal with you, call your name to follow Him!!

I think that is part of the reason for all this time spent on the author ... I want to know and to sense this is real - more than the one dimensional picture in Sunday school depicts - more than the familiar passages, so familiar that they've lost their true meaning. This is so real in that "Matthew" was a real person who knew Jesus, the living God, and who wrote it down so that we could know Him too.

Hmmmm... just thinking ... because of Matthew's writings we come to know the ultimate 'author' of the book don't we?