The Birth of Christianity 6: Gospel of Matthew

The author of the Gospel of Matthew was not the tax collector that Jesus knew.

The author probably wanted to create an updated version of the existing gospel, one that included the birth of Jesus among other things that Mark had omitted. He also wanted to show how Jesus' life followed the prophecies of the Old Testament. Thus, he started with the text of Mark, but added much to it, to create what today is considered another gospel. The work is quite Jewish in nature, but reflects how the religion has very much moved away from Judaism.

Paul's missionary work had established Christianity in the gentile world, whilst the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD following the Jewish revolt had seriously reduced the Jewish side of Christianity. By the time the Gospel of Matthew was written, many pagan idea had influenced the new religion.

Virgin birth

One of the most significant of these ideas was the virgin birth. That this is in Luke too indicates it predates Matthew by some several years, but it appeared subsequent to Mark.

Virgin births were popular in pagan mythology, and so this was borrowed for Jesus. Note that this contradicted the Jewish Messianic belief, that Jesus was a direct male-line descendant of David, so we see Matthew trace Jesus' genealogy via Joseph and then say Jesus was born of a virgin! We can only suppose the author felt the need to include both, as both were part of the narrative. There is a view that each gospel is a product of its community (albeit with one individual doing the writing), and a contradiction like this is easier to understand in those terms.

The virgin birth indicates a change in how Jesus was perceived. Jesus was no longer the adopted son of God that Mark had believed him to be, now Jesus was divine from birth! Some Christians maintain that Jesus' virgin birth was quite unlike that of the pagan gods and heroes, but that was because it was added to an existing myth, and so had to be modified to suit that.

The Resurrection Appearances

What we see in Matthew is the start of the appearances in Jerusalem, but at this stage it was still very minor - and indeed may be a later redaction. In fact, what we see is the original story in Mark, with Jesus meeting the disciples in Galilee, and a clear statement that Jesus was not there in Jerusalem when the Empty Tomb was found, promptly followed by Jesus been seen there!

5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

It is not clear, but it reads as though Jesus appeared only to the women, and in this telling the women are afraid but do tell the disciples. This is a clear contradiction of Mark, who states clearly that the women told no one. Presumably the author wanted to tidy up the Markan account, which leaves us wondering how anyone else knew about the Empty Tomb.

This paved the way for later accounts to have Jesus wandering around Jerusalem.

Appearances  in Galilee

Matthew then has the disciples go to a mountain in Galilee to see Jesus after the resurrection. This s rather different to the account in Peter, which suggests it was on a boat, but the Matthew account has very few details, and does not even tell us who say Jesus first.

After an exhaustive 28 chapters, this event feels very rushed. This is the culmination of the gospel, and it is all done in four quick verses; a single paragraph. I can only imagine the ending in Mark gave the author little material to work with.

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Note that Matthew has only eleven disciples at this point, as Judas supposedly hung himself in Matthew 27:5, despite Paul saying Jesus appeared to all twelve disciples. Was the betrayal by Judas a later addition? It seems likely.

Apocalypse?

Matthew's account of the resurrection takes Jesus' crucifixion as the start of a new era, the apocalypse, following the Jewish belief of the time. Hence we read about the darkness (which was also in Mark), the earthquake and dead saints walking around:

Matthew 27:45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land.
...
50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and[e] went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

 Curiously, while these events are enough to convince the centurion, they are not enough to convince anyone else in Jerusalem to become a Christian, and of course we have no historical record outside Matthew that these events happened. Why did no Jew convert to Christianity after the dead saints appeared to them? Why did Mark not record these amazing events?

Because Matthew made them up.

His source was almost certainly this OT passage:

Ezekiel 37:7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”

Bear in mind that the passion account was already partly derived from scripture, rather than historical memory, and if scripture indicated dead saints walking around, it would have been perfectly reasonable to include them.


And of course by the time Matthew was written anyone who was actually there was likely dead.

The rending of the temple veil is symbolic of the old temple being abolished to make way for the new one (and was also in Mark, of course).

Guards on the Tomb

The author of Matthew also invented the guards on the tomb, clearly in response to claims by those opposed to Christianity:

Matthew 28:12 When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

When Matthew was written, the story that the body had been stolen was widely circulated, and so it was necessary to counter them. Unfortunately, he does a poor job, and still allows for the possibility of the body being stolen the first night after the burial.

Matthew 27:62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63 “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”

Note that in all the gospel accounts the women approach the tomb wonderinghow to move the stone... but never concerned about any guards. Why would that be if the guards were hostorical? Furthermore, how did the Jewish authorities know Jesus had said he would rise, if his own followers failed to understand?


The non-canonical Gospel of Peter would later resolve the issue. As discussed in part 5, Peter is considered to be earlier than Matthew, but to have undergone significant later modifications, and in all probability this is one.

(28) But the scribes and Pharisees and elders, having gathered together with one another, having heard that all the people were murmuring and beating their breasts, saying that 'If at his death these very great signs happened, behold how just he was,' (29) feared (especially the elders) and came before Pilate, begging him and saying, (30) 'Give over soldiers to us in order that we may safeguard his burial place for three days, lest, having come, his disciples steal him, and the people accept that he is risen from the death, and they do us wrong.'

Note that it also references the signs of the apocalypse that were invented by Matthew, indicating these verses build upon the account in Matthew.

Blame the Jews

In Matthew we start to see the shift in blaming the Jews for the crucifixion - he was trying to sell Christianity to the gentiles, and hasd to play down the role of the Romans.

Matthew 27:24–25 When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. 'I am innocent of this man's blood,' he said. 'It is your responsibility!' All the people answered, 'His blood is on us and on our children!'

This is probably a reference to the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, but has been used to justify anti-Semitism for centuries.