The First Disciples [Matthew 4:18-22, Luke 5:1-11, John 1:35-51] . [17] W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Gospel According to Saint Matthew. 1.7; Irenaeus, haer. There is no indication that Matthew wrote anything (contra John 21:24; Moreover, Matthew hardly features more as a character in the narrative than in the other two Synoptic Gospels to be the key source of the Matthean traditions. PDF JESUS CALLED MATTHEW (LEVI) - Bible Storytelling Vir. Ein Beitrag zur Lsung eines alten Problems ZNW59 (1968): 4056; Mark Kiley, Why Matthew in Matt 9:913Biblica65.3 (1984): 34751; Michael J. Kok, Re-naming the Toll Collector in Matthew 9:9: A Review of the Options JGAR (forthcoming). Levi: Luke 5:27, "And after that He went out, and noticed a tax-gatherer named Levi, sitting in the tax office, and He said to him, 'Follow Me.' ". He it was who gave a feast, for attending which Jesus and the disciples were severely criticized by the Pharisees, k on the charge that it was unseemly for Him to eat with publicans and sinners. [19] Josef Krzinger, Papias von Hierapolis und die Evangelien die Neuen Testaments (Regensberg: Pustet, 1983), 10-11, 4445; Gundry, Matthew, 614; idem, The Apostolically Johannine Pre-Papian Tradition Concerning the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, in The Old is Better: New Testament Essays in Support of Traditional Interpretations, WUNT 178 (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 56; cf. [47] Whatever the case, Jerome slowly distanced himself from his earlier confident declarations that the Nazarenes had the original Matthean Gospel in their possession (cf. A beam of light illuminates the faces of the men at the table who are looking at Jesus Christ. T/F, 5. 2.9.45.5; Origen, Jo. Frey, Die Fragmente des Nazorerevangeliums, 626; Gregory, Media, Video and Lectures From The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies of the University of Arizona, Teaching the Bible in Public Schools and Higher Ed, Scholars, Frauds, the Media and the Public, Essays on Minimalism from Bible and Interpretation, Final Reports on the Yehoash Inscription and James Ossuary from the Israeli Antiquities Authority, Essays on the James Ossuary and the Temple Tablet from Bible and Interpretation, University of Arizona, Center for Judaic Studies, Department of Archaeology and Art History, University of Evansville. Pet. Vielhauer and Strecker, Jewish Christian Gospels, 15465; Klijn. Verse 15. 3.39.16 with the Gospel according to the Hebrews in h.e. Gundry takes the referent to be the expositors who expounded on Matthews text. Matthew was saying, Jesus IS the fulfillment of Old Testament predictions of our coming Messiah, Anontied One. He is called the Son of David nine times in the Gospel of Matthew. Jerome may have anticipated that he would track down the Gospel according to the Hebrews in Pamphilus library in Caesarea (cf. "John, James, Andrew and Peter were the disciples closest to Jesus," Traylor says. The answer is very simple. 29-30) [24] Krzinger, Papias, 1516; Gundry, Matthew, 619; idem, Pre-Papian Tradition, 6162, 67. Klijn (Gospel Tradition, 11, 119) and Frey (Die Fragmente des Hebrerevangeliums, 606) treat Eusebiuss attribution of this tale to the Gospel According to the Hebrews as spurious since Eusebius may have had no firsthand knowledge of the text. However, Mark . This makes it doubtful that Matthew 9:9 was intended as either the evangelists self-reference or as a pseudonymous literary device supplementing the ascription of this Gospel to Matthew. Many think that just as Simon was named Peter (the rock) by the Lord, Levi was likewise renamed Matthew (the gift of God) by Jesus. with Q or M may depend on a given scholars acceptance or not of the Four Source theory as classically formulated. Tax collectors at that time were known as dishonest and corrupt people. Impossible!"[3]. The Patristic Traditions about the Evangelist Matthew Jesus Calls Levi | Reformed Bible Studies & Devotionals at Ligonier.org | Reformed Bible Studies & Devotionals at Ligonier.org One of the themes of Jesus' ministry is that He is not bound to choose the most obvious candidates for ministry according to social convention. Mark Book of Week - Part 1 | PDF | John The Baptist | Jesus Tradition notes his ministry in Judaea, after which he supposedly missioned to the East, suggesting Ethiopia and Persia. Jennie Ebeling --Department of Archaeology and Art History, University of Evansville, Copyright 2000-2023 The Bible and Interpretation| All Rights Reserved |The University of Arizona | Developed bySBS Tech Why did Jesus change the name of only three of his apostles? | The Born in Palestine sometime in the 1st century, Saint Matthew was one of Jesus's 12 apostles and also one of the four Evangelists, according to the Bible. Following Jesus Meant Matthew Lost His Lucrative Tax Collector Career. The whole crowd came to him, and he taught them. 5.12), and the verb hermeneuein; Papias could have chosen different terminology to highlight Matthews rhetorical style. praef. It felt "weird," Carr said. This writer will explore what the ancient writers who were closer in time to Matthew had to say about the language in which Matthew was originally written: Matthew also issued a written gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3:1 c.175-185 A.D. The first (Gospel) is written according to Matthew, the same that was once a tax collector, but afterwards an emissary of Yeshua the Messiah, who having published it for the Jewish believers, wrote it in Hebrew. Origen circa 210 CE, quoted by Eusebius, Eccl. And many followed him ( Mark 2:15 ). St. Matthew the Apostle He Left His Post to Follow Jesus - NCR Francis Watson, Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 126. This is very possible, as scholars point to Simon (Peter) and Saul. "Follow me," he said to him. [18] Josef Krzinger and Robert Gundry have tried to line up Papiass testimony with the academic consensus. C hristmas Day may be Dec. 25, but it's not the end of Christmas story. There is a lot of controversy in recent centuries about that subject. Perhaps they did so because Levis call narrative closely resembled the summons of the first four apostles to discipleship in Mark 1:1620 and Alpheus was already remembered as the father of one of the apostles in Mark 3:18. In many Western Christian traditions, there are 12 days of Christmas, culminating around . Was the Gospel of Matthew written by Levi aka Matthew in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek? Levi was happy to accept! Change the way you think and act, and believe (trust in, rely on, and adhere to) this Good News. 5.10.3; Clement, in h.e. They were dishonest and were also seen as. [47] Luomanen, Jewish-Christian Sects, 103119; Kok, Gospel According to the Hebrews, 4143; Gregory, Gospel according to the Hebrews, 1417; 4352. (Matt. It is beyond the scope of this paper to determine why Matthew was substituted for Levi. It is touching that Matthew, gift of Yahweh loved his new name, probably given to him by Jesus. Jesus sent out 70 Disciples to preach His Good News. [40] Conversely, Papias may not have known the Gospel according to the Hebrews at all, instead learning about the woman who was accused of many sins before the Lord from his oral informants in Asia Minor, and Eusebius may have been the one who discovered that this tale was included in the version of the Gospel according to the Hebrews that circulated in his own day. 3.1.1). Mark 10:35) and swapped Salome for her in another (Matt 27:56; cf. Follow me, Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. As he went along, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth. Why is Matthew called Levi? [27] The most natural reading is that a language was meant by the combination of the noun dialektos, especially when modified with the name of an ethnic group (cf. The Calling of the Matthews | The Jesuit Post Matthew did follow Jesus for the rest of his life. Sextus Julius AfricanusWhy Did The Magi Come ? had his name changed from Levi to Matthew likely by Jesus Himself who changed Simon's name to Peter. The meaning in Hebrew of the word day always means a 24 hour period of time. There were, however, at the time of Christ and the Apostles two languages spoken by JewsAramaic and Greek. December 29, 2020 7:00 AM EST. 3.11.7), which is hard to reconcile with the Ebionitess denial of the virginal conception of Jesus (1.26.2; 3.21.1; 5.1.3; contra Matt 1:23). Life-Changing Lessons from the Life of Matthew - Becoming Christians Matthew, the seventh apostle, was chosen by Andrew. I. [34] Friedrich Schleiermacher, ber die Zeugnisse des Papias von unsern beiden ersten Evangelien, TSK 5 (1832): 73568; Manson, Gospels and Epistles, 7787; Hill, Matthew, 2427; Davies and Allison, Matthew IIV, 1.17; Black, Rhetorical Terminology, 3235; Hagner, Matthew 113; xlvxlvi; Nolland, Matthew, 3; Carter, Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist, 1617; Sim, R. Pan. The other Eleven were ordinary men. Matthew had a lucrative, though dishonest, tax collecting business for the occupying Roman government. A survey of the ancient traditions about how the evangelist Matthew wrote his Gospel in Aramaic for a Jewish audience before it was translated into Greek suggests that the modern assumptions about the Apostles fluency in Greek or education in rhetorical composition may not have necessarily been shared by the Patristic intelligentsia. Acts 1:1-2 appears to tie the two books to the same author. Matthew, of course. Matthew 9:9-13 begins with Jesus calling Matthew, a tax collector, to follow Him as His disciple. Ultimately, the identification of Matthews oracles. 3.27.4; 3.39.17; 4.22.8). Krzinger and Gundry re-read the Papian fragment through the lens of rhetorical categories. [13] Moreover, Matthew hardly features more as a character in the narrative than in the other two Synoptic Gospels to be the key source of the Matthean traditions. [45] The majority position among the experts is that the fragments Jerome inherited from the Nazarenes do not derive from the Gospel according to the Hebrews but from a distinct work that scholars have designated as the Gospel according to the Nazarenes. Logion could be translated as an oracle or divine utterance. Thom. T/F, 2. The Pharisees asked them, Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said to them, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Corrections? The important take-away from this detour through the Patristic testimonies was that the oldest tradition was that the evangelist Matthew published a text in Aramaic and left it to more qualified translators to translate it into the form that we have today as the Greek. 3.2) that the Gospel according to the Hebrews was associated with Matthew. Matthew authored the first Gospel of the . Mark 16:1). However, none of the ancient Christian literati surmised that the Apostle was fluent in Greek, for they handed down the tradition that Matthew composed his Gospel in Aramaic before it was translated into Greek. [12] Neither Matthew 9:9 nor 10:3 advances an explicit authorial claim. It is not surprising he watched Jesus carefully and wrote down the first of the four Gospels, the biographies of Jesus of Nazareth. [42], It was not until Epiphanius (Pan. Assuming that the identification of Matthew with Levi is correct, Matthew (probably meaning Yahwehs Gift) would appear to be the Christian name of Levi (called by Mark Levi the son of Alphaeus), who had been employed as a tax collector in the service of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee. Gospel Parallels: Calling of Levi/Matthew - READ-SCRIPTURE.COM After his conversion, Matthew ardently preached Jesus as Messiah to his Jewish community. On the other hand, the oldest quotations from the Gospel according to the Hebrews were not attributed to a named author (e.g., Clement, str. T/F, 4. Saint Matthew made a very small decision at the time that ended up not only affecting his life, and the people of his time, but he made a choice that affected all of mankind in the future as well. Krzinger and Gundry insist that, Krzinger enlists Irenaeus in support of his reading of Papias, despite the fact that Irenaeus used the article when affirming that Matthew wrote to the Hebrews in their, Hence, Krzinger identifies the each one (. [10] Even so, most readers of the New Testament throughout history have taken the identification of Levi with Matthew for granted. 4.9). 29.9.4; 30.3.7; Jerome, Vir. Matthew Levi - TruthBook Matthew, of course. Saint Matthew's decision lives on into eternity and benefited not millions . In Mark 2:14, Jesus calls Levi, a tax collector and son of Alphaeus, to follow him, much as Jesus calls other disciples, and at first Levi does follow Jesus. So it is more than probable that Matthew or someone else translated Matthews biography of Christ into Greek in order to spread the Good News beyond the Jews. There were 12 men chosen to be disciples of Jesus Christ. At worst, they were charlatans, sycophants, and brutes (cf. Fellow citizens considered him a social outcast who was a traitor to their nation. Matthew is spoken of five times in the New Testament; first in Matt., ix, 9, when called by Jesus to follow Him, and then four times in the list of the Apostles, where he is mentioned in the seventh (Luke, vi, 15, and Mark, iii, 18), and again in the eighth place (Matt., x, 3, and Acts, i, 13). Numerous textual indications point to an author who was a Jewish Christian writing for Christians of similar background. Who translated it after that in Greek is not sufficiently ascertained. Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27), but some commentators factor this verse in as evidence for the Matthean authorship of the first canonical Gospel or, at a minimum, for one of its major sources. Th. [30] For instance, see France, Evangelist and Teacher, 6466; Morris, Matthew, 14; Carson, Matthew, 13 Osborne, Matthew, 34; Brown and Roberts, Matthew, 16. Band: Evangelien und Verwandtes. Teilband 1, ed. 3.39.1, 15), which subtly contrasts with an exclusive interest in the Lords logoi or sayings (3.39.14). Matthew (also known as Levi) doubtless was one of the tax collectors who responded to John the Baptist's call to repentance. I also was allowed by the Nazarenes who use this volume in the Syrian city of Beroea to copy it. Jerome: De viris inlustribus (On Illustrious Men), chapter III. [16] At first sight, this description seems like a poor match for the extant text entitled the Gospel according to Matthew, for it does not look like a translation of an Aramaic precursor. He was a man of moderate wealth, the only one of any means belonging to the apostolic corps. In the late '60s, he runs a musty SoCal church turned upside-down by an unexpected deluge of flower children seeking peace and love of the Christly variety. 7.2627; 14.5960). J.E. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. [48] Frey, Die Fragmente des Nazorerevangeliums, 626; Gregory, Gospel according to the Hebrews, 50, 50n.35. He was one of the earlier followers of Jesus Christ. There are sayings (Matt 13:3643) and stories (e.g., Matt 12) in Matthews special material, too. Jesus sees value in all people. Christ redeemed the priesthood of Levi back unto himself and redeemed Matthew the . There are sayings (Matt 13:3643) and stories. [1] For the range of theories accounting for the redactional changes in Matthew 9:9 and 10:3, see the helpful summaries compiled by Joachim Gnilka, Das Matthusevangelium, HTKNT (Freiburg: Herder, 1986), 1.330-31; W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, The Gospel According to Matthew: Matthew VIIIXVIII, ICC (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 2.9899; cf. [14] Nevertheless, it is conceivable that the two verses in Matthew 9:9 and 10:3 were the basis for why this Gospel was later ascribed to Matthew. Ward Powers enthusiastically endorses this line of reasoning in the following bold claim: "To have this evidence about the apostle Matthew his background, training, and employment in the Roman administration; his response to the call to follow Jesus; his appointment to the role and responsibility of apostle and to believe that he wouldnotwrite down what Jesus was doing and teaching requires a far bigger leap of faith than believing that he did. The story of Matthew's calling shows us the amazing power of God's grace and how it transforms people and become extraordinary servants of our Creator. This is a quite different case from that of an individual having both a Semitic and a Greek or Latin name, as well as from that of an individual having a Semitic name and also a nickname or family name.". There are a number of Patristic and Medieval quotations that purportedly derive from a text that was commonly dubbed as the, James R. Edwards has revived the older position that Matthew was the author of the, Conversely, Papias may not have known the. Matthias was chosen to be one of the Apostles after Judas of Iscariot had betrayed Jesus and died ( Acts 1:26 NIV). Indeed, Levi is Israel's priestly tribe, as stated in the Bible: "The priests the Levites the priests the Levites the priests the Levites" (Deuteronomy 17:9, 17:18, 18:1). The fishermen who followed Jesus, and some became His Apostles, had to pay taxes on fishing licenses and perhaps on their daily catch. Here's What History Can Tell Us About the Magi | Time Modern Persecution of Christians in China, Patriarch Jacobs Well & St. Philoumenous, Slaughter of the Theban Legion C. 286 AD, LapsiChristians Who Lapse/Abandon Their Faith, Evodias Named Followers of Christ Christians. Regardless of how this name change is explained, this toll collector may have been trained in accounting and documenting records and may have been functionally bilingual or trilingual in order to converse with travellers moving between the territories of Philip and Antipas. Despite the pain and agony of the cross, Jesus chose to die for the sins of the world because He loves us. Jonah was in the belly of the whale 4 days. What Language Did Jesus Speak? - Gateway Center for Israel The debate over the authorship of Matthews Gospel usually focuses on the replacement of Levi, the son of Alphaeus, with Matthew (Matt 9:9; contra Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27) and the addition of the descriptor the toll collector after Matthews name (Matt 10:3; contra Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). VesuviusAugust 24, 79 AD. At the same time, opposition against Jesus was growing stronger, especially from the religious . Epiphanius added to the confusion when he imagined that the Gospel that he managed to get a hold of, which skips over the virgin birth and commences at Jesuss baptism (Pan.