GOD’S STORY
When the Events of This Book Happened:
During Jesus’s earthly life, 6. B.C. – A. D. 30
Matthew’s Gospel begins with the announcement of Jeus’s coming birth, ca. 6 B.C., and ends with his post resurrection ministry in the spring of A.D.
How Matthew Fits into God’s Story”
Matthew tells “chapter 4” – the most important chapter- of God’s story: God purchases redemption and begins the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ. Jesus’s original hearers had no concept of a Messiah with two comings. One of his great concerns was to explain for his followers that the kingdom was not arriving in a single, one-step manner. Most first-century Jews supposed that the Messiah would usher in the kingdom of God (or “age to come”) in an irresistible, visible, dramatic way on the day of the Lord (Dan. 2). Especially in his parables, Jesus taught that God’s kingdom had truly come, but in a resistible, invisible, gradual way. In Matthew, at Jesus’s first coming, only a few wise men acknowledged him as King (2:1-12); at his second coming, he will be the King who judges all people (25:31-46).
ORIGINAL HISTORYAL SETTING
Author and Date of Writing:
Matthew the apostle, perhaps ca. A.D. 55-65
The book is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Matthew composed this Gospel. He was also known as Levi, a tax collector Matthew composed this Gospel. (“publican”) whom Jesus called to be an apostle (Matt 9:9; Mark 2:14). The organization and fondness for numbers in the book point to an author interested in mathematical precision. Many scholars of the past two centuries have denied that Matthew wrote this book, partly because of their belief that the author fabricated manly of the details, such as the miracles of Jesus. Such invention is harder to explain if the account was written by an eyewitness to Christ’s life. The Christian tradition of authorship by Matthew is surely correct.
Because most scholars believe Matthew used Marks Gospel as a source. Matthew should be dated in the A.D. 50s or later. Matthew quoted Jesus’s prophecy of the coming destruction of the temple (24:2; fulfilled in A.D. 70) without mentioning that it had come to pass as Jesus said. This leads many conservative scholars to conclude that Matthew published his Gospel before 70. Others, however, accept the decade of the 70s. Critical scholars uniformly date Matthew after 70, perhaps near the end of the first century. A typical conservative estimate for its composition is the decade from 55 to 65.
First Audience and Destination:
Jewish Christians, perhaps living in Antioch of Syria
Matthew did not directly mention his audience, but his interest in showing that Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures points to a Jewish-Christian audience. He began his Gospel with a genealogy that recalls the entire history of the Jewish people, also pointing in this direction. This understanding has generally been held throughout Chrisitan history.
Antioch of Syria is a “best-guess” deduction. This major Roman city had a significant number of Greek-speaking Jewish Christians involved in carrying out Jesus’s missionary commission (Matt 28:18-20; Acts 11:19; 13:1-3). Further, the first known quotation from this Gospel was made by Ignatius of Antioch around A.D. 110.
Occasion
Matthew did not explain what prompted him to write. The assessment of many students is that he composed his Gospel largely to help Jewish Christians interpret Jesus as the fulfillment of the Scriptures. Most scholars believe that the author was prompted by reading Mark’s Gospel plus a (now lost) record of Jesus’s teachings (sometimes call “Q”). There is much to commend the view that Matthew interwove Mark, “Q”, his own research, and eyewitness memories into his own careful account.