You know, DOC has me thinking now. I was taught at school at a young age that the Gospel authors were given traditional names, but no one knew who thy were. I did a decade or so I guess studyng the Bib. Crit literature, and never saw any reason to question the assumption. After all, the traditions we do have seem to be relatively late (I was thinking Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, not Eusebius Pamphilius who taught him) and contradict what we know from textual criticism.
However, there does seem to be an early tradition of Matthew as the author. Logically it would make sense for the Gospels to be written about the time that apostolic authority was becoming contested as the apsotles died, requiring a move from a living community of authority to textual one, in the absence of clear doctrinal or ecclesiastial structure.
I think we can see why Matthew was identified with the author -- from a character who crops up here --
Matthew 9:9 said:
And as Jesus passed by from thence, he saw a man, called Matthew, sitting at the place of toll: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.
and
Matthew10:3 said:
Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
So there is our tax collector traditions root: Matthew the publican. No evidence, just a guess from the early church cos he is mentioned?
More puzzling is Papias' reference. We know Matthew was extant by c.100 through it's influence on the Didache - twenty years later though Papias refers to it as the Oracles of the Lord, sugesting a **sayings** source, not a Gospel? I wondered for a second if proto-Matthew existed as Q, but then by Papias' time it seems likely the Gospel was in its modern form. The alternative "authentic Matthew" Gospel of the Hebrews don't make much sense in light of Papias saying; and given that Matthew appears to have been widely circulated in the Early Church, Papias must have known of it?
I therefore wonder if an authentic to the apostle Matthew sayings source was combined with a redaction of Mark, or a similar account, to create the Gospel ascribed to him?
The reason I consider this possible is the strong tradition the original source was written in Hebrew. The Gospel wasn't, but an earlier sayings collection might well have been written by a publican in the service of the Tetrarch. As an educated chap he could well have written down sayings in Hebrew, which came to influence the Didache, and been incorporated in to the Greek Gospel text.
It's wild speculation and I would need to work hard to test the case, and I don't really have the time today. I will try and find time to review the scholarship on Matthew's Gospel later in the week. I have never consciously heard of a Proto-Matthew sayings source (as opposed to Q) being suggested, but it seems to make some sense of the evidence to me at least. Certainly Matthew's Gospel has both the most Jewish Christian and the most anti-Judaism elements in it; a synthesis of an earlier sayings source after a parting of the ways would explain that, but if it can be defended by textual critique I know not.
Egg & co about? They will know! I'm just thinking through the limited facts at my disposal.
cj x
or just because of my sceptical apprach to everything? i@ll have to go read this now!
