The Gospel of Matthew Robinson's Date: c. 40-60+  The Gospel According to Matthew | Matthew and the Talmud

AUTHOR, INTRODUCTION, DATING, SUBJECT MATTER, COMMENTARY

"The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." (Matt. 3:2)

"Who warned you to flee from the wrath about to come?" (Matt. 3:7)

"The axe is already laid at the root of the trees." (Matt. 3:10)

"His winnowing fork is in His hand." (Matt. 3:12)

"The kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt. 4:17)

"The kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt. 10:7)

"You shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes." (Matt. 10:23)

"....the age about to come." (Matt. 12:32)

"The Son of Man is about to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds." (Matt. 16:27)

"There are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." (Matt. 16:28; cf. Mk. 9:1; Lk. 9:27)

"'When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?' '....He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers, who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.' '....Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a nation producing the fruit of it.' ....When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them." (Matt. 21:40-41,43,45)

"This generation will not pass away until all these things take place." (Matt. 24:34)

"From now on, you [Caiaphas, the chief priests, the scribes, the elders, the whole Sanhedrin] shall be seeing the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Matt. 26:64; Mk. 14:62; Lk. 22:69)

LANGUAGE OF ORIGIN

Eusebius Pamphilus
"Papias stated: "Matthew composed his history in the Hebrew dialect [Syro-Chaldaic], and every one translated it as he was able" (Ecclesiastical History, trans. Christian Frederick Cruse, section 3.39.)

"Pantaenus is said to have gone even to the Indies, and found there, among those who acknowledged Christ, the Gospel of Matthew which had reached them before his arrival. These believers Bartholomew the Apostle had instructed in the Christian faith, and left with them the book of Matthew, written in Hebrew, and it was preserved among them down to the time named." (H. E. v. 19)

Irenaeus
"Matthew issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect...." (Irenaeus, "Against Heresies," in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson section 3.1.1.)
 

DATE OF COMPOSITION

D.A. Carson (1984)
"While surprisingly little in the Gospel conclusively points to a firm date, perhaps the sixties are the most likely decade for its composition." ("Matthew," Expositor's Bible Commentary, p. 21.)

D. J. Conklin
"Theodor Zahn, a classicist and NT scholar, wrote a commentary on Matthew back in 1903. He wrote that: 'Mt would hardly have written v. 23 if the escape of the Christians [to Pella] had already taken place at the time of his writing. Our gospel is written before A.D. 66.' (Das Evangelium des Matthaus (Leipzig/Erlangen, 1903; 4th ed., 1922; repr. Wuppertal/Zurich, 1984), p. 407. Quoted by Thiede and D'Ancona, page 12.)" ("A Study on the Synoptic Gospels" Part 1: The Date of the Gospels)

"So they decided to use the money to buy the potter's field as a burial place for foreigners. That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day." - Matthew 27:7-8.   Would someone writing after the fall of Jerusalem know where the Field of Blood was located (Mt. 27:8)? Would anyone be interested in a rumor from that day and age that His disciples had stolen His body (Mt 28:15)?"  ("A Study on the Synoptic Gospels" Part 1: The Date of the Gospels)

"A comparison of the Synoptic gospels reveals that Matthew refers to the Sadducees the most. It seems odd that he would do so if he wrote after the fall since they had already disappeared after the fall of Jerusalem because of their political cooperation with Rome." ("A Study on the Synoptic Gospels" Part 1: The Date of the Gospels)

R.T. France (1985)
"There are a number of passages in Matthew 'which presuppose that the temple was still intact (5:23-24; 17:24-27; 23:16-22); and these have not been edited out in the way a writer after AD 70 might have been expected to do.' (D. G. Conklin, "A Study on the Synoptic Gospels" Part 1: The Date of the Gospels; p. 906)

"Other such indications are collected by Gundry into a detailed and persuasive argument for a date before AD70 for Matthew. Indeed, Gundry goes further and, after arguing that Luke-Acts, which he dates about AD63, was influenced by Matthew, concludes that Matthew was written before AD63.  Whether this latter point be granted or not, there is certainly a good case to be made for a date in the sixties for the final 'publication' of Matthew." (The Gospel According to Matthew; p. 30)

Jack P. Lewis (1976)
"While Clement of Alexander suggested that the Gospels with genealogies were written first (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History VI. xiv.5), of early writers on Irenaeus suggests an approximate date for the writing of Matthew.  He asserts that it was written while Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome, which would require a date before A.D.64." (The Gospel According to Matthew, The Living Word Commentary; Austin, TX: Sweet PC; p. 14)

Thomas Newton
"But none of our Saviour's prophecies are more remarkable than those relating to the destruction of Jerusalem, as none are more proper and pertinent to the design of these discourses: and we will consider them as they lie in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew, taking in also what is superadded by the other evangelists upon parallel occasions. These prophecies were delivered by our Saviour about forty years, and were committed to writing by St Matthew about thirty years, before they were to take effect. St Matthew's is universally allowed to be the first of the four Gospels; [1] the first in time, as it is always was the first in order was written, as most writers affirm, in the eighth year after the ascension of our Saviour. [2] It must have been written before the dispersion of the apostles, because St. Bartholemew [3] is said to have taken it along with him into India, and to have left it there, where it was found several years afterwards by Pantaenus. If the general tradition of antiquity be true, that it was written originally in Hebrew, it certainly was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, for there was no occasion for writing in that language after the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews into all nations. It is asserted upon good authority, [4] that the Gospels of Mark and Luke were approved and confirmed, the one by St. Peter the other by St. Paul. So Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, and Clemens Alexandrinus say expressly that the Gospel of St. Mark was written at the desire of the new converts, and ratified by St. Peter. So the learned Origen affirms, that the second Gospel is that of Mark, who wrote as Peter dictated to him; and the third Gospel is that of Luke, which is commended by Paul. So Tertullian saith, that Mark's Gospel is affirmed to be Peter's whose interpreter Mark was; and Luke's Gospel they are wont to ascribe to Paul. So Jerome saith, that the Gospel according to Mark, who was the disciple and the interpreter of Peter, is said to be Peter's. These authorities are more than sufficient to weigh down the single testimony of Irenaeus to the contrary; but besides these, Gregory Nazienzen, Athanasius, and other fathers might be alleged to prove, that the Gospels or Mark and Luke received the approbation, the one of St. Peter, the other of St. Paul: and it is very well known, that both these apostles suffered martyrdom under Nero. " (Prophecy of Matthew 24)

Luigi Pareti
"...Careful examination of several features makes it probable that Matthew (in Greek) is earlier than AD 70, since he does not allude to the fall of Jerusalem, a matter which was so important to a Jew like himself that he could not have passed it over in silence." (Luigi Pareti, The Ancient World)

LV Pfeifer
"The evidence points to Matthew's Gospel as having been written before A.D.70." ("Matthew" in New Testament Survey; Harding faculty, p. 76)

Bo Reicke
(On Matthew 10:23)
"The situation presupposed by Matthew corresponds to what is known about Christianity in Palestine between A.D. 50 and ca. 64, but not after the flight of the Christians in ca. 64 and the start of the Jewish war in A.D. 66." ("Synoptic Prophecies on the Destruction of Jerusalem" in Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature: Essays in Honor of Allen P. Wikgren, p. 133)

John Wenham (1991)
(On Matthew 10:23)
"The arguments for Matthean priority, though not overwhelming, are substantial. Matthew looks original. His eight thousand supposed departures from Mark's text are cleverly disguised. It looks early and Palestinian, reflecting a terrible clash between Jesus and the religious authorities, rather than a post-70 clash between church and synagogue. Mark looks like Peter's version of the same Palestinian tradition composed for Jewish and Gentile readers outside Palestine. Mark shows signs of conspicuously making omission, e.g. parables." (Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke (1991), p. 88)

"After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, "Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?'"   - Matthew 17:24