The Gospel of Matthew (literally, "according to Matthew"; Greek, Κατά Μαθθαίον or Κατά Ματθαίον, Kata Maththaion or Kata Matthaion) is one of the four Gospel accounts of the New Testament. It narrates an account of the life and ministry of Jesus, from his genealogy to his post-resurrection commissioning of his Apostles to "go and make disciples of all nations." Bibles traditionally print Matthew as the first gospel, followed in order by Mark, and . The Christian community traditionally ascribes authorship to Matthew the Evangelist, one of Jesus's twelve apostles, while secular scholarship generally agrees it was written by an anonymous non-eyewitness to Jesus's ministry.The Gospel of Matthew is written in Greek, not in Aramaic. The Greek of the gospel of Matthew cannot easily be translated back to Aramiac. This is very suggestive that Matthew is not a Greek translation of an Aramiac original. It is also generally agreed that the Gospel of Mark is actually the earliest of the four gospels and that the author of Matthew substantially used the gospel of Mark in writing this gospel.
A minority of scholars defend the tradition that asserts Matthean priority, with Mark borrowing from Matthew (cf. Augustinian hypothesis and Griesbach hypothesis). Then in 1911, the Pontifical Biblical Commission asserted that Matthew was the first gospel written, that it was written by the evangelist Matthew, and that it was written in Aramaic.
For convenience, the book can be divided into its four structurally distinct sections: Two introductory sections; the main section, which can be further broken into five sections, each with a narrative component followed by a long discourse of Jesus; and finally, the Passion and Resurrection section.
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2 comments:
To say that no copy of an Aramaic original of Matthew's has ever been found, is just not portraying an accurate version of the facts. The Aramaic Peshitta contains the Aramaic text of Matthew's gospel and the New testament in general, there is plenty of evidence that this is the original text. But at the very least, you should at least acknowledge the presence of the Aramaic Peshitta. Half of Christianity (i.e. all Christians in the East) believe the Peshitta is the original text of the New Testament. You just miss so much if you ignore th Peshitta or pretend it does not exist. It is not being true to the Scriptures if you ignore half of Biblical evidence.
Thank you for pointing out that particular point. You are absolutely right, there are scholars who defend the tradition that asserts Matthean priority, with Mark borrowing from Matthew (cf. Augustinian hypothesis and Griesbach hypothesis) and Aramaic primacy and the Peshitta. As such, this aspect was inadvertently missed but has been included. Thank you for noticing.
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