The Apostle Matthew wrote Matthew’s Gospel. But do you know when Matthew was written, and what the historical evidence is for Matthew’s date? Was Matthew the first, second, third, or last gospel written? Did Matthew copy from another gospel? These, and similar questions, are answered in my written study on the evidence for the New Testament here. But if you want a video on Matthew which answers the questions above, click here to view “Historical Evidence for Matthew’s Gospel: Apostolic Authorship, Early Date, God’s Infallible Word on YouTube (from the last Word of Truth Conference at Bethel Baptist Church), or click here to view the video on Rumble, or view the embedded video below:
Sadly, in relation to the date question, not only theological modernists but too many theological conservatives and evangelicals ignore the actual ancient historical data to adopt dates significantly later than the data support, unnecessarily weakening the case for Christ. This video does not do that, but argues for the date for Matthew, c. A. D. 40, actually supported by history.
–TDR
Brother Ross, I’m sorry, but my personal circumstances right now simply do not permit me to take an hour to watch a video. But I do have a question, which I recognize may have already been answered in the video. If so, I ask your forgiveness in advance.
Is it your position that the date of Matthew’s Gospel is actually important? Or is it more that the absurd Markan Priority idea must be rejected?
Obviously an early date for Matthew seriously undercuts the Markan Priority error. But it’s hard for me to see how being wrong on Matthew’s date is a particularly serious error. One could be wrong on the date and still see Matthew as an obviously independent and authoritative witness. Is it your view that someone in that category is in serious error, and if so, why?
Mostly what I’m after here is clarification on exactly where the serious error lies, in your view. My view is that the real error is Markan Priority and that if the date were particularly important, we’d have been given much more substantive direct Scriptural evidence as to the date of writing. It’s entirely appropriate to look at evidence for the date, but I’m wondering if the focus on it is supportable.
Dear Bro Gleason,
Thanks for writing.
I think rejecting the independence of the synoptic gospels ends up undermining inerrancy:
https://faithsaves.net/synoptic-gospels/
If one is wrong on the date of Matthew it is not heresy. I do think it is unfortunate that many books on NT Introduction entirely ignore the early date that is supplied by the ancient sources.
Shalom!
Thank you. I agree. Being right on the date supports the independence of Matthew, certainly, and the early date evidence should be a buttress to the faith of young students when they encounter challenges to orthodoxy. I certainly think it is worth teaching.
On the assumption that Matthew was published around AD 40 and either Mark or Luke shortly thereafter, and each was recognized as Scripture as they were published, then why does literary dependence undermine inerrancy? Surely, successive Gospel authors had access to the earlier Gospels, yes? Then why would the Gospel authors not leverage the earlier material? There is a respectable history in the Bible of authors quoting from and leveraging material from earlier Scriptures. In my opinion, dependence only gets problematic if one asserts that subsequent authors invented their additions.
Dan Moore
atrustworthygospel.com
Hi Dan,
Brother Ross, who doesn’t write here now, but still often comments, wrote this piece, and maybe he’ll come back to comment. Did you watch his videos and read his longer, more thorough presentation of this? Thanks for dropping by.
Kent Brandenburg
Hello Kent. Last night I listened to the video and skimmed through several articles. It was wonderful to see the effort to defend the integrity of the Gospels by arguing for an early publication date of Matthew. I have likewise argued for an early date in my “A Trustworthy Gospel” book, although with different arguments. But I see problems with the independence argument, when one goes beyond asserting that the Gospels represent separate (inspired) accounts to instead asserting literary independence, suggesting that the apostles declined to collaborate and intentionally ignored previously published Gospels–Scriptures! The https://faithsaves.net/synoptic-gospels/ article claims that the “The Patristics were unanimous in their affirmation that none of the synoptic writers had a copy of another canonical gospel before him.” To my knowledge, they never made such a claim. (I’ve seen a similar claim from either Thomas or Farnell, both of whom I greatly respect.) Regardless, keep up the good work!
Dan
atrustworthygospel.com
Dear Dan,
Thanks for your comment.
I would not be surprised if the Apostle John had the three Synoptics with him when the Holy Spirit used John to compose the fourth Gospel. However, the first three were composed in different parts of the world, and it is at least possible that the other inspired Gospels had not circulated to that part of the world yet. It looks like, as Farnell demonstrates in his very helpful The Jesus Crisis, that Luke 1:1-4 indicates that Luke did not have any other inspired Gospel with him when he composed the third Gospel.
The typical Q & literary dependence view involves a denial that the Gospels contain Christ’s actual words and involve a rejection of the actual historical accuracy of the statements in the gospels in favor of an (alleged) reliable “core” to which the Evangelists added details at their fancy that (supposedly) may or may not go back to the (antisupernaturalist) “historical Jesus.”
Thanks again for your comment. It is a good point that the later Evangelists would certainly not refuse to consider another inspired document, had they had access to it at the time when their Gospels were composed.
Thanks, Kent, for your recent reply. This probably isn’t the right forum to debate Farnell’s arguments from silence, especially since I’ve otherwise found the Jesus Crisis to be extremely valuable. So, I’ll simply reiterate that I’m appreciating what I’ve discovered on your blog!
Dan
atrustworthygospel.com
Bro. Ross, thank you for supplying much needed information about ancient sources supporting very early Matthew.
What do you think though, about some sources saying that Matthew wrote in Hebrew? Papias for instance.
Thanks.
I believe Matthew wrote an uninspired record of Christ’s life in Hebrew, and the inspired Greek gospel under inspiration. Matthew in Greek does not read like a translation from Hebrew.
Thanks.
I tend to agree, that seems likely.
One thing we know: from the earliest days, believers have known by the attestation of the Holy Spirit that Matthew in Greek was apostolic, authoritative, accepted by all as inspired Scripture, and preserved.
Matthew in Hebrew, if it ever truly did exist, never had that attestation, acceptance, and preservation. So its existence is really only an interesting academic question, but should never be used (as some do) to try to undercut the authority of Matthew’s Greek Gospel.
Thank you Bro. Ross. I agree, that is a position that reveres the Word of God.
Thanks, Bro Gleason and Tenrin.