Likewise, Matthew opens with a long genealogy (Matt. 1-9), and it ends with a king receiving all authority on earth, commissioning the construction of the Temple, and saying, “may the Lord his God be with him” (2 Chron. Chronicles begins with a long genealogy (1 Chron. If this sounds like a stretch, consider this: Matthew picks up right where the Hebrew OT left off, namely with the book of Chronicles. And so perhaps one of the reasons why Matthew wrote in Hebrew was because he knew he was writing the first book of the NT maybe his Gospel was written to serve as a bridge between the language of the OT, and the language of the NT. Indeed, James also wrote to a Jewish audience (Js. Some may say that this is because Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience, however recall that Hebrew is not “the language of the Jews.” Rather, it’s the language of the OT Scriptures. This means that Matthew is the only NT author to write in both Greek and Hebrew. However, the Greek text of Matthew isn’t simply a translation, rather these earliest sources also tell us that Matthew wrote this one too (and the manuscript tradition bears witness to this). We know Josephus originally wrote The Wars of the Jews in Aramaic, yet only the Greek texts survive. Now it’s true that we don’t have any Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew, however this isn’t unprecedented. they affirm Matthean priority), but they also say that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew. Jerome (4th century), and Eusibius (4th century), not only tell us that Matthew was written first (i.e. Here, I just want to briefly outline why Matthean priority is plausible.Ĭonsider how Hebrew is not so much the language of the Jewish people (many Jews couldn’t read or speak Hebrew in the 1st century), but rather the language of the OT and Greek is the language of the NT. This is in contrast to the dominant view in NT studies, which is Markan priority. I hold to Matthean priority, which is basically just the view that the Gospel of Matthew was written first.
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