Is Matthew an Eyewitness Text?

Five Reasons Why Matthew Didn't Write Matthew

Across the theological spectrum today – conservative, evangelical, liberal – few scholars are convinced of the traditional authorship of Matthew. In their view, the text was originally anonymous and only later attributed to Jesus’ disciple.

But why was this consensus reached? In this post, I unpack five significant reasons why the vast majority of scholars believe that Matthew did not write Matthew.

1. The Late Attribution to Matthew

The first problem for Matthaean authorship is its late attribution. It it not until the end of the second century, with the writing of Irenaeus, that the Greek Gospel is quoted and referred to as Matthew’s.¹ Prior to this time, the Gospel is quoted or alluded to by the apostolic fathers, but is not known by its familiar title.

This time-frame presents a key challenge to Matthean authorship for two key reasons. To begin with, it was long after Matthew had died. But more importantly, the second century was a period in which Christians of all stripes were attributing their literature to the earliest disciples of Jesus. The attribution of Matthew to Matthew fit a context in the second century when apostolic authority was imbued to various texts.

It may not seem like Matthew would have been an obvious choice of evangelist. Yet neither were other disciples who receive their own Gospels, like Thomas, Philip or Judas. Moreover, the name ‘Matthew’ was not plucked out of thin air. Prior to Irenaeus, there was a tradition preserved by Papias that Matthew had written something down. Irenaeus could therefore have built on this tradition.

Yet importantly, this early tradition claims that Matthew had written the logia (words/sayings) of the Lord in Aramaic or Hebrew. This tradition clearly does not refer to Matthew as the Greek gospel we have today. There is therefore no good, early evidence claiming that Matthew was the author of the Greek text.

2. The Gospel’s Original Title

We have mentioned that the Gospel was originally anonymous. This is to say that its title was added sometime after its composition. In this respect, Matthew is like the other canonical Gospels, which were likely given their common titles – The Gospel according to X – when they came together as a fourfold canon in the second century.

Yet the most common objection to the late attribution of the title, ‘The Gospel according to Matthew’ is the impracticality of a text circulating without a title. How would Matthew be distinguished from other similar texts, such as Mark? The great New Testament scholar, Martin Hengel, inferred that the Gospels would have have had the titles attached to them very early on to avoid confusion.²

Yet there are at least two problems with this Hengel’s scenario. The first is that we know other texts circulated quite happily without titles, most commonly in biblical literature (which Matthew tries to imitate) as well as other Greek texts.

The second is that Matthew already possesses possess a title. As prolific Matthean commentators, Dale Allison and William Davies, have argued in detail, its opening sentence, (‘The book of the genealogy…’ 1:1) likely functioned as a general title.³ We therefore have no need to suppose that the name Matthew became attached early on.

3. The Gospel’s Use of Sources

Perhaps the most significant reason to doubt Matthean authorship, however, is that the text does not read as an eyewitness account of a disciple of Jesus.⁴

We can see this in the Gospel’s use of sources. To begin with, the Gospel takes over almost the entirety of Mark. Six hundred of Mark’s six hundred and sixty verses are found in Matthew, many verbatim. This is not the move one would expect a literate eyewitness to make, especially since Mark was not an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry.

It is sometimes conjectured that Matthew may be deferring to Peter’s authority, since one early tradition suggests that Mark was based on Peter’s preaching. Yet even if this tradition could be taken for granted, it is highly speculative to suppose that Matthew felt he must defer to someone who transcribed Peter’s sermons. It also does not explain why Matthew felt he had the authority to change Peter at various points.

More importantly, it does not explain Matthew’s wider use of oral and written source material, or his broader compositional practices. We may note, for instance, that Matthew depends upon ‘Q’, material shared with a non-eyewitness, Luke. This is not the kinds of material one would expect from an eyewitness of Jesus’ life.

4. The Story of Matthew’s Call

The changes Matthew makes to Mark also do not bear the hallmarks of an eyewitness testimony. Consider for example the story of Matthew’s own call. This story is almost entirely the same as its (earlier) narration in Mark, but with one crucial difference: the author of Matthew changes the name ‘Levi’ to ‘Matthew.’

As conservative gospel scholar, Richard Bauckham, suggests, this is a very peculiar way to tell the story of your own call. For Matthew to take over Mark’s account and to change the name Levi to another Hebrew name (signalling a different figure) is the most impersonal way Matthew could recall the moment he began to follow Jesus.⁵

On the other hand, we can easily discern a reason why the author of Matthew made this change to Mark: Levi was alone among Jesus’ disciples to receive a Markan call story but not to be a member of the Twelve. Thus, as a member of the Twelve, Matthew may have seemed a good a name as any to substitute this lesser disciple.

5. Historical Development

Although the authorship of Matthew is not contested in scholarship, some scholarly apologists have attempted to revive arguments for Mathean authorship. For instance, Peter Williams has implied the traditional authorship of Matthew in its numerous references to money.⁶ Yet as I have suggested here, this speculative interpretation of the data does not properly account for the way the Gospel treats money.

Moreover, there are a number of episodes which betray a non-eyewitness hand. We might think of its apocalyptic narrative of a mass resurrection at Jesus’ crucifixion (27:51-53), or its penchant for ‘special effects’ of a seismic variety (e.g. 27:51-53; 28:2). We might also note that Matthew seems to have got his two separate donkeys from a literal reading of Zechariah’s Hebrew parallelism (21:7; cf. Zech. 9:9), and often has a version of stories in which he gives us two characters where his source only has one.

More importantly, there are a number of places where Matthew seems to be improving his Markan source, rather than giving us a straightforward reportage. One of the most fascinating ways is his inclusion of apologetic material, such as the story of the guard at the tomb. In doing so, the writer anticipates later apologetic trends we find in (other) non-eyewitness sources, such as the Gospel of Peter.

Was Matthew involved at all?….

In this post, we have seen that there are several reasons to reject Matthean authorship. But does that mean that Matthew had no connection to the Gospel? What about the very early idea that Matthew wrote down the logia of the Lord?

Elsewhere, I have suggested that while Matthew did not write our Matthew, he may have been involved in the composition of some Aramaic material, which would later be shared by Matthew and Luke. If you want to see how my exploration of Matthean ‘Q’, please consider supporting my work. You can find the argument unpacked here.

1. See Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, which is populated with references to the Gospel.

2. See Martin Hengel, Studies in Mark, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM, 1985).

3. W.D. Davies, Dale Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 150-154.

4. Some might deem it significant that the apostle Matthew nowhere identifies himself as the author. Yet this silence is weak, for other ancient biographers often do not disclose their identity or sources. As Helen Bond notes, “even when the author knew his subject, or was a witness of events, there is often a curious reluctance to mention this fact.” See Helen K. Bond, “Was Peter Behind Mark’s Gospel?” in Peter in Early Christianity, eds. Helen K. Bond, Larry Hurtado (Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, 2015), 55.

5. On Levi and Matthew as different persons, see Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), 110.

6. See Peter J. Williams, Can We Trust the Gospels? (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2018).