WHO WROTE MATTHEW?

[ViaCrucis]

From Romans 5:12-19, Adam's disobedience has given all his descendants the gift of death.

His descendants can denounce Satan and and still die? Yes.
His descendants can love their brothers and still die? Yes.

But Christ's obedience is not as powerful, after we received that gift, we can throw that salvation away by leaving, denouncing and sinning?

Is that your point?

I'm not following. How did you arrive at the conclusion that Christ's obedience is "not as powerful"?

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Guojing]

I'm not following. How did you arrive at the conclusion that Christ's obedience is "not as powerful"?

-CryptoLutheran

His descendants can denounce Satan and and still die? Yes.
His descendants can love their brothers and still die? Yes.

But for Christ's obedience, as you are saying

But can you leave? Yes.
Can you denounce Him? Yes.
And, yes, sin absolutely can cause that.
You can walk away, you could throw away every gift He has given you.

 

[ViaCrucis]

His descendants can denounce Satan and and still die? Yes.
His descendants can love their brothers and still die? Yes.

How does one do either of these apart from the grace of God, apart from faith?

But for Christ's obedience, as you are saying

But can you leave? Yes.
Can you denounce Him? Yes.
And, yes, sin absolutely can cause that.
You can walk away, you could throw away every gift He has given you.

Yes.

But that doesn't answer my question on how you concluded that Christ's obedience is somehow less powerful. Especially since St. Paul says that the Gospel is the power of God to save all who believe.

Adam's disobedience has no power, it simply has rendered us weak and sold as slaves to sin.

Christ's obedience is the very power and work of God to make satisfaction and be the righteousness which we could never have--and faith receives this as pure gift. If we throw the gift away, the value of the gift hasn't changed. A billion dollars worth of gold is still a billion dollars worth of gold even if I choose to throw it away.

So I have no idea how you could reach such a perplexing and false conclusion.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Guojing]

How does one do either of these apart from the grace of God, apart from faith?



Yes.

But that doesn't answer my question on how you concluded that Christ's obedience is somehow less powerful. Especially since St. Paul says that the Gospel is the power of God to save all who believe.

Adam's disobedience has no power, it simply has rendered us weak and sold as slaves to sin.

Christ's obedience is the very power and work of God to make satisfaction and be the righteousness which we could never have--and faith receives this as pure gift. If we throw the gift away, the value of the gift hasn't changed. A billion dollars worth of gold is still a billion dollars worth of gold even if I choose to throw it away.

So I have no idea how you could reach such a perplexing and false conclusion.

-CryptoLutheran

You can denounce Christ and lose that free gift of salvation from his obedience.

You can denounce Satan and still fail to lose that free gift of death from Adam's disobedience.

You get it now? Just read those words of mine and understand them literally.

 

[ViaCrucis]

You can denounce Christ and lose that free gift of salvation from his obedience.

Yes, you can be like the prodigal son and renounce your inheritance.

You can denounce Satan and still fail to lose that free gift of death from Adam's disobedience.

There is no free gift of death. Death is a curse.

But, yes: You can denounce Satan, such as when we were baptized, and then return back to death, return back to our enslavement. Yes. You can renounce your inheritance. The Bible calls this apostasy, and it is something treated very seriously.

You get it now? Just read those words of mine and understand them literally.

Nope. I still don't get it.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Guojing]

But, yes: You can denounce Satan, such as when we were baptized, and then return back to death, return back to our enslavement. Yes. You can renounce your inheritance. The Bible calls this apostasy, and it is something treated very seriously.

Nope. I still don't get it.

-CryptoLutheran

It seems you are unable to read my words properly, I was not talking about a believer renouncing Satan.

I am talking about an unbeliever, one who never believed the gospel before.

Such an unbeliever, even if he were to "denounce Satan", he is still going to die because of Adam's disobedience.

You get it now?

 

[Berserk]

Here are just 5 reasons why evangelical and nonevangelical NT scholars reject Matthean authorship of the Gospel:

(1) The evidence indicates that the title "according to Matthew" was added to the Gospel by the end of the 2nd century.

(2) Papias was a contemporary of Gospel writers and derived his knowledge of Gospel origins from still living "disciples of the Lord"--"Aristion and John the Elder." Papias reports"
Matthew arranged the sayings [of Jesus] in Hebrew and each one interpreted them as best he could."

(3) The consensus of Greek experts is that Matthew is not translation Greek and even uses Greek wordplays.
But Q is a sayings collection originally in Hebrew and is used by both Matthew and Luke. So the disciple Matthew may well have composed the original Q.
(4) There is overwhelming evidence that Matthew and Luke used Mark. An eyewitness would hardly need to use a Gospel written by someone [Mark] who is not an eyewitness.
(5) An internal comparison of Matthew with Mark yields many reasons for the Matthean use of Mark. The most interesting reason is Matthew's consistent pattern of editing and rewording Mark to eliminate embarrassing implications.

I'm thinking of starting a new thread on how Matthew edits Mark, so you can see for yourself.

 

[Hawkins]

Today's humans are plagued by Satan through our education. History cannot be evidenced under most circumstances. Humans are incapable of evidencing history.

For example, did you ever have eggs before the age of 2? If your mom said so, you accept so. Because history is testimony based. Authorship is also mostly faith based. Who wrote Sun Tzu tactics? It's by faith that we believe that it's written by Sun Tzu (two of them). It's out of human capability to further evidence the true authorship, because humans are incapable of doing so, not to mention that we humans can't guarantee that contents are added later on. We even need faith to believe that it's original. That's the nature of what history is, due mainly to the incapability of humans.

You sound as you can evidence history or authorship because more likely you are tempted to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Not only that it should be take with a grain of salt, but also the waring that the day you choose to eat of it, the same day you shall surely die. The term "scholar" sometimes means poison or death.

Oh, you can evidence 1st century authorship, with the earliest manuscripts dated after 4th century. Does it make any sense? You don't even have the ability to keep manuscripts earlier than the 4th century (or 3rd century at best), not to mention their authorship back to the 1st century.

While you see evidence, I only see arrogance and pride.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Most scholars view the gospel of Matthew as a work of the second generation of Christians, for whom the defining event was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD in the course of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 AD). From this point on, what had begun with Jesus of Nazareth as a Jewish messianic movement became an increasingly gentile phenomenon evolving in time into a separate religion.[20] They hold that the author wrote for a community of Greek-speaking Jewish Christians located probably in Syria. Antioch, the largest city in Roman Syria and the third largest city in the empire, is often proposed.[21]

The community to which Matthew belonged, like many 1st-century Christians, was still part of the larger Jewish community.[22] The relationship of Matthew to this wider world of Judaism remains a subject of study and contention, the principal question being to what extent, if any, Matthew's community had cut itself off from its Jewish roots.[23]

Gospel of Matthew - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Hawkins]

Most scholars view the gospel of Matthew as a work of the second generation

By no means says that they are right. Matthew is to address the Jews. Original document could possibly in Hebrew or Aramaic. Humans on the other hand have no ability to access original documents. The earliest manuscripts in Greek available to us can only be traced back to the 4th century. Documents in the 1st century are no longer accessible to humans. We can't come to the conclusion that who authored the books in the first century other than guessworks.

On the other hand, God doesn't author the Bible the way humans expect. NT Bible is rather reconstructed under the guidance of God the Holy Spirit from the tons of manuscipts made availabe to us even though the earliest manuscripts can only be traced back to the 4th (or 3rd at best) century. Matthew is the account of testimony from Matthew, nothing should be more complicated than just that. The secular way of tracing the original authorship can only be a fallacious distraction.

 

[Berserk]

Note that fundamentalist posters here have ducked the 5 standard reasons (see post #51) invoked by modern NT scholars to reject Matthew's authorship of the Gospel that bears his name. This evasion as inspired my ongoing thread on "The Significance of Matthew's Use and Edits of Mark."

 

[Yekcidmij]

But Q is a sayings collection originally in Hebrew and is used by both Matthew and Luke. So the disciple Matthew may well have composed the original Q.

Not all modern scholars believe in "Q." Mark Goodacre at Duke, for example, subscribes to the Farrer Hypothesis:

On Dispensing with Q

Farrer hypothesis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Point being, "Q" is not a conclusive framework of gospel authorship.

 

[Yekcidmij]

Most scholars view the gospel of Matthew as a work of the second generation of Christians, for whom the defining event was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD in the course of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 AD). From this point on, what had begun with Jesus of Nazareth as a Jewish messianic movement became an increasingly gentile phenomenon evolving in time into a separate religion.[20] They hold that the author wrote for a community of Greek-speaking Jewish Christians located probably in Syria. Antioch, the largest city in Roman Syria and the third largest city in the empire, is often proposed.[21]

The community to which Matthew belonged, like many 1st-century Christians, was still part of the larger Jewish community.[22] The relationship of Matthew to this wider world of Judaism remains a subject of study and contention, the principal question being to what extent, if any, Matthew's community had cut itself off from its Jewish roots.[23]

Gospel of Matthew - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I think Matthew was probably a converted scribe or Pharisee. He may include an autobiographical note in Matt 13:52 and Matthew in particular includes some of the harshest criticisms of scribes and Pharisees. It may be that "Matthew" converted to Christianity, many/most of his peers disagreed with his conclusions, and so he in particular had conflicts with scribes and Pharisees.

I've become a little suspect of post-AD 70 dating. If Matthew writes after the fall of the Temple, why is it lacking so many details? Why is there ambiguity remaining in key texts? I don't think it should be hard for even modern scholars to think that people living from AD30 - AD 69 could read the social-political climate around them and come to believe that events would build into a major conflict with the Romans and that the Jews would lose the Temple and Jerusalem in such a conflict. We seem to be able to read the social-political climate today and make predictions about a broad framework of risks and events in the future. If we can do this, why couldn't they? If people in the 1st century were able to do this, would someone speaking or writing about things look all that different what we see in the gospels? I find the basic premise too strong that nobody in the first century was able read the social-political climate and make broad predictions about the near future. People do this very thing all the time; why are people in the 1st century supposed to be an exception? So for this, and other reasons, I've become suspect of post AD-70 dating.

 

[Berserk]

Not all modern scholars believe in "Q." Mark Goodacre at Duke, for example, subscribes to the Farrer Hypothesis:

On Dispensing with Q

Farrer hypothesis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Point being, "Q" is not a conclusive framework of gospel authorship.

They are the exceptions that prove the rule of overwhelming scholarly consensus.

(1) Even Goodacre concedes that Matthew used Mark.
(2) The claim that Luke used Matthew can be refuted in many ways, for example, by sayings in which scholars agree tha Luke preserves the original wording (e. g. compare Luke 11:2-4 with Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 14:26 with Matthew 10:37).

 

[Yekcidmij]

They are the exceptions that prove the rule of overwhelming scholarly consensus.

In a field like this, "consensus," though useful, doesn't convey much information. This may be surprising, but what matters here are arguments, not "consensus." Where consensus is useful in this field is to figure out why some smart people are coming to a "consensus" and see if those argument actually carry water. I think we'll discover that "consensus" is a little more elusive than believed.

(1) Even Goodacre concedes that Matthew used Mark.

Sure. Doesn't seem a problem to me, fwiw. Also, there are other theories that scholars come up with. I only pointed out Farrer to bring up one.

(2) The claim that Luke used Matthew can be refuted in many ways, for example, by sayings in which scholars agree tha Luke preserves the original wording (e. g. compare Luke 11:2-4 with Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 14:26 with Matthew 10:37).

Meh, scholars don't seem to me to have much of a consensus when it comes to actual arguments. They just had a conference within ~the last year to continue arguing about it.

I guess my larger point here is that I wouldn't build a theological, apologetical, or anti-apologetical edifice on top of the existence or non-existence of "Q."

 

[sparow]

This topic is controversial, so maybe it belongs here in controversial Christian Theology. As the title suggest, I have been researching to find out if there is any proof that Matthew really wrote Matthew.

At this point the only way I could verify "who", would to have been an eye witness of who wrote it, have verifiable written statements from verifiable eyewitnesses., or God tell me who wrote it.

Some, if not many, claim that the internal evidence of this book proves that Matthew wrote it. What internal evidence? I read through Matthew today and did not find any internal evidence proving that Matthew wrote it.

Feel free to express your take on this and the reasons you believe as you do. THANKS!

Is it important who wrote it. What I have heard from various seminary trained people, is, the Gospels were written about 30 years after Jesus's death and resurrection, (close to the destruction of the temple), and the earliest copies available were copied 30 years after that. The who is not important, what is important is that the Gospels record the confirming of the covenant or the first half of that confirming.

Who wrote it only becomes important when we arrive at the epistles of Paul.