Matthew

What kind of book this is

Matthew is a Gospel — euangelion, “good news.” It belongs with Mark and Luke to the Synoptic Gospels (sharing structure and material), but with distinctive emphases: the careful tracing of Jesus to Jewish messianic expectation, the use of the title Son of David, the long discourses including the Sermon on the Mount, the formulaic OT-fulfilment citations.

The Gospel was historically the most used in early Christian liturgy and is placed first in the New Testament canon despite Mark being earlier in composition. The Greek title — Kata Matthaion (according to Matthew) — became Secundum Matthaeum in the Latin tradition and According to Matthew in English.

Authorship

Traditional Christian attribution names Matthew (also called Levi), the tax collector who became a disciple (Matthew 9:9, 10:3). Papias of Hierapolis (c. 130 CE), as quoted by Eusebius, says: Matthew compiled the sayings (logia) in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as best he could.

Modern critical scholarship has questioned the traditional attribution. The Gospel is preserved in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic; its Greek does not read as translated from a Semitic original (despite older theories proposing this). The Gospel uses much of Mark (about 90% of Mark’s verses appear, often verbatim, in Matthew) — which seems unlikely behaviour from an eyewitness apostle.

Most contemporary scholarship treats the Gospel as anonymous, written by an unknown author drawing on (1) Mark, (2) a sayings source called Q (also used by Luke), and (3) material unique to Matthew (sometimes called M). The traditional and critical positions remain in scholarly conversation; this entry resolves neither.

Composition is most often dated 70-90 CE, after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE.

The most famous — Matthew 5:3 and the Beatitudes

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3, BSB)

The opening of the Sermon on the Mount and one of the most famous lines ever spoken. The Greek makarioi hoi ptōchoi tō pneumati — blessed are the poor in spirit — has been interpreted variously:

• The spiritually impoverished — those who recognise their need for God
• The economically poor of spirit — those whose poverty has shaped their inner condition
• The humble — those of low estate

Luke’s parallel (Luke 6:20) reads simply blessed are the poor — without “in spirit.” The two formulations have generated extensive discussion. See our /meaning/ entry on “poor in spirit”.

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) are nine statements of makarioi — blessed/happy/fortunate. The Greek makarios is closer to “fortunate, blessed by the gods” than to subjective happiness. Each beatitude follows the form: blessed are X, for Y.

The most misquoted — Matthew 7:1

“Do not judge, or you will be judged. For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1-2, BSB)

Verse 1 is one of the most quoted lines from Jesus. Verses 2-5 are almost always omitted. The full passage (7:1-5):

“Do not judge, or you will be judged. For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (BSB)

The passage is about hypocritical judgment — judging from a position of greater fault. Verse 5 explicitly assumes the speck is real and still needs removing. The passage does not prohibit moral discernment; it prohibits doing so dishonestly.

John 7:24 reinforces the point: do not judge by mere appearances, but judge with right judgment. The two passages are the same concept stated negatively (do not judge wrongly) and positively (do judge rightly). See our /confused/ entry on the full context of judge not.

The Lord’s Prayer — and the doxology that wasn’t

Matthew 6:9-13 contains the most famous prayer in the world. The KJV ends with the doxology:

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” (Matthew 6:13b, KJV)

The doxology is absent from the earliest Greek manuscripts of Matthew. It does not appear in Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, or several other early witnesses. It first appears in some 5th-century manuscripts. Modern critical editions (NA28, UBS5) omit it; modern Protestant translations (NIV, ESV, NRSV, BSB) typically omit it from the main text or include it with a footnote.

The doxology is part of the Didache (an early Christian liturgical text, c. 100 CE) and entered Christian liturgy from there. It is genuinely ancient — but it is not (most likely) part of the original Gospel.

This is the more famous of the two textual situations regarding the Lord’s Prayer; Luke 11:2-4 has its own (shorter) version of the prayer, and many translations harmonise the two. See our /confused/ entry on the two versions of the Lord’s Prayer.

Surprising content — Matthew 27:52-53

“The earth quaked and the rocks were split. The tombs broke open, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After Jesus’ resurrection, when they had come out of the tombs, they entered the holy city and appeared to many people.” (Matthew 27:51-53, BSB)

This event is mentioned only in Matthew. No other Gospel records it. No New Testament epistle alludes to it. No Jewish or Roman historical source preserves it. The narrative places it at the moment of Jesus’s death (the centurion’s response in 27:54 follows immediately) but says the resurrected saints appear in Jerusalem after Jesus’s resurrection — a temporal note that itself raises questions.

Modern scholarship has handled the passage variously: as a literal historical event, as an apocalyptic vision shared with eyewitnesses, as a theological symbol of the resurrection’s general implications, as a literary device drawing on Ezekiel 37 (the valley of dry bones). The text itself simply states what happened and moves on.

What the passage does in the Gospel: it links Jesus’s resurrection to a wider resurrection — a foreshadowing of the general resurrection that the New Testament elsewhere expects (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). It is, theologically, dense even if historically isolated.

Other surprising content — the wise men were not three

“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, in the days of King Herod, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem.” (Matthew 2:1, BSB)

The magoi (μάγοι) — wise men, possibly Persian astrologers — are not numbered in the text. Three is a later tradition, derived from the three gifts (gold, frankincense, myrrh — Matthew 2:11). They are not called kings (the kings tradition is later still). Their names — Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar — are entirely post-biblical. See our /entry/ on the three wise men.

The Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5-7 is the most concentrated collection of Jesus’s teaching in any Gospel. Its structure:

• 5:1-12 — The Beatitudes
• 5:13-16 — Salt and light
• 5:17-48 — The “you have heard… but I say to you” antitheses (six of them)
• 6:1-18 — Practices: giving, prayer, fasting; includes the Lord’s Prayer
• 6:19-34 — Money, anxiety, treasures
• 7:1-12 — Judging, asking, the golden rule
• 7:13-27 — The two ways, false prophets, the wise and foolish builders

The Sermon contains the Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, the Golden Rule (do unto others — 7:12), the salt-and-light metaphor, turn the other cheek, love your enemies, judge not, consider the lilies, seek first the kingdom of God, and the parable of the wise and foolish builders. It is the most quoted body of teaching in human history. See our /passage/ entry on the Sermon on the Mount.

Other key passages

• Matthew 1:1-17 — the genealogy from Abraham to Jesus, including four women (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba)
• Matthew 2 — the magi, the flight to Egypt, the slaughter of the innocents
• Matthew 16:13-20 — Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi
• Matthew 25:31-46 — the sheep and the goats — the inheritance criterion is treatment of the least of these
• Matthew 28:18-20 — the Great Commission

Original language

Greek throughout. Matthew uses Greek that is generally regarded as more polished than Mark’s, with a more careful structure. The Gospel contains 41 explicit Old Testament citations — more than any other Gospel — frequently using the formula this was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet.

The word ekklēsia (ἐκκλησία) — translated “church” — appears in only one Gospel: Matthew (16:18, 18:17). Its meaning in this context is debated. Ekklēsia in Greek means “assembly, gathering” and was used for civic assemblies; its use in Matthew has been read as referring to a future organised Christian community, to the gathered disciples, or to a specific local congregation.

Matthew’s use of the Old Testament

Matthew is the most explicitly Jewish of the four Gospels. Its 41 OT citations include:

• Matthew 1:23 — quoting Isaiah 7:14 (the virgin will conceive)
• Matthew 2:6 — quoting Micah 5:2 (Bethlehem)
• Matthew 2:15 — quoting Hosea 11:1 (out of Egypt I called my son)
• Matthew 2:18 — quoting Jeremiah 31:15 (Rachel weeping)
• Matthew 2:23 — he shall be called a Nazarene — no clear OT source for this citation; one of the most studied formula citations

The Gospel argues throughout that Jesus is the fulfilment of OT expectation. How the OT is being fulfilled in Matthew’s quotations is itself debated — some are direct prediction-fulfilment, some are typological, some are creative re-readings.

Why this book matters

Matthew has been the most influential Gospel in shaping Christian liturgy and ethics. Most early Christian worship drew on Matthew first; the Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes, the Great Commission, and the parable of the sheep and the goats all come from this Gospel. The Sermon on the Mount has shaped Christian ethics across denominations and has spoken beyond Christianity — Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. all engaged it directly.

The Gospel’s particular emphases — Jesus as fulfilment of Jewish expectation, the kingdom of heaven, careful structuring of teaching material — have made it a primary text for thinking about Christianity’s relationship to Judaism. That history has been complicated: Matthew 27:25 (his blood be on us and on our children) has been used in anti-Jewish polemic for centuries. The Gospel’s Jewishness and the uses to which it has been put against Jews are both part of its legacy.