04-21-2007, 10:57 AM
There is a need for a re-education of the NT to a more correct dating and assessment. Matthew, because of its importance, is one of these documents in history central to Judeo-Christianity. Most people of oblivious to these following details.
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Matthew's Gospel was written (and first copied and distributed) in Jerusalem among hostile living witnesses of Jesus; and the events contained therein, were set down while Peter and Paul were preaching in ROME.1
In respect to Matthew, his Gospel was set down in Aramaic between the summer of 55 A.D., to no later than Pentecost of 56, and translated into Greek from this copy.2
The original would have been entrusted to the successor of James,3 and carried to Pella some 8 years later when the Church of Jerusalem removed at the beginning of the prophetic utterances (in A.D. 63).4
These utterances were simply a confirmation that it was "the time"to remove from Jeruslaem by Divine warning, continued for 7 more years until the beginning of the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophetic utterance to leave Jerusalem until after the Romans decimated it in a conquestive action, was a strong historic teaching left by Jesus and left us in the book of Matthew: it was an action of prophecy that was required to be fulfilled within a 40 year generation. The early Jews who believed into Christ were delivered from the Romans in a very big way, even though war ravaged the country.
It appears that only the first Greek translations of Matthew survived well beyond the First Century, although it is obvious that Ignatius of Antioch and other bishops of the region (as late as 107 A.D.) still had the Aramaic original of Matthew in a copied form entering also into the early Second Century as well.5
Matthew died a martyr in Greco-Macedonia in the fall of A.D. 56.6 The apostolic tradition dates this as November. …7
However, despite Matthew's death, the stunning fact that Matthew's Gospel was unchallenged and undisputed by the Sanhedrin for 14-15 years before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 is amazing enough in itself. Clearly, there remained behind a very many witnesses who could refute all challenges to the authenticity of ever point his Gospel Account made. The Gospel of Matthew, along with the other Gospels, was left silently unchallenged in the midst of hostile witnesses who lived in (and were dispersed) throughout all Judea and Galilee…even those who are quoted some 10 years after the fall of Jerusalem. The later silence by the Mishna 134 years after Matthew’s death, and that of the Talmud’s rabbinate even hundreds more years later is deafening.8
Let's face it, not one Oral Law or Rabbinic ruling ever contradicted Matthew's the validity of Matthew's Gospel as accurately set down: be it historically, verbatim, or any terminology to show that indeed events and were spoken by those cited did NOT occur or have been spoken exactly as Matthew (or any other N.T. writer) sets down.
In fact, the very worst singular statement that the Oral Tradition makes in challenging Jesus, in referring to the Book of Generations (the genealogical record that was kept at Jerusalem), as a hostile witness, actually affirms Christ Jesus’ virgin birth, calling him "such-a-one" and listing that He had no father.9
And, in Jewish tradition, there is even the bragging of how a rabbi Zadok, who appears to be attempting to refute Jesus’ prophecy against Jerusalem and its Temple, who (in response) supposedly fasted hard for 40 years to thwart Jesus’ prophecy and to prevent the fall of the Temple at Jerusalem!
Thus, above all the other Gospels, Matthew ranks first in its “hostile-witness acid-test” amongst co-witnesses of Christ, His teachings, His events and their experiences, His miracles, His sufferings… even though Luke's Gospel preceded Matthew, by Luke’s being written in Corinth of Achaia some 5 years earlier.
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1 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.1.1. (written circa 181 -183 A.D.)
2 Only Greek copies extant translation handed down almost 2 1/2 centuries later now survive, as passed down as closest to the first translations from the Aramaic. When the Greek of Matthew is read, it should be understood after a Syriac/Galilean/Saducceean context.
3 Simeon, the son of Cleopas, half-cousin of Jesus, full cousin of James. Contrary to Eusebius, Simeon was instituted in A.D. 55, in place of James. At that time, others of the LORD’s relatives were also present (Eusebius, History of the Church, 3.11), as were some surviving Apostles.
The only Apostles available for attendance were Phillip in Phyrgia, John in Asia, Peter in Rome, Matthew and Andrew. John is testified as having never left Asia for his 54 years, except to go to
neighboring districts. Peter is not likely to have left Rome, but he could have. Phillip, Matthew, and Andrew are the most likely attendees of Simeon’s installation in ca. June 55 A.D. James died
two months earlier on Passover of A.D. 55, contrary to later third century speculation (or text corruption). Simeon was martyred in circa A.D. 100, at the age of 120 (Eusebius, H.O.C., 3.32): making Simeon 50 at Christ’s “passion”, and 75 at his induction as “bishop of the Christians returning to Jerusalem, and de facto of those dispersed through Judea as well.” He was born about a time when Herod began cutting up Moriah to lay the foundations of the New Temple there, and then outlived that Temple by some 30 years.
4 Josephus, Wars of the Jews, …… This prophet began 7 years prior to the assault of 70 A.D., in which he perished by being crushed under a Roman catapult stone. This followed one year after the writing of I Clement to Corinth. By 63 A.D., the entire world knew what Nero had done to the Christians in Rome. Fearing sufferings, and hearing prophets within and without their Faith, it made sense to remove to the other side of Jordan and out of harm’s way, into Pella of Perea.
5 Ignatius, bishop of Smyrna wrote in Aramaic; and the copy of Matthew in historical perspective, was directed to the saints that spoke Aramaic fluently. Hence, Matthew was written for those of the Syriac influence churches from Jerusalem to Damascus to Antioch, and all points in between amongst hostile and friendly witnesses who also were there to have seen many of the events....some in the hundreds of thousands, in their own dialect.
6 Irenaeus, 3.1.1. places Matthew
7 The Acts and Martyrdom of Matthew the Apostle. One manuscript extant places his death on November 16. This day of November 16 is the extreme end date in which Matthew died in 56, and is the most accepted. The other manuscript extant lists his death as being on the 14th of Gorpiaeus, or about the last week of August. Although my inclination is toward the shorter date of late August, the date of November 16 has been traditionally recognized, and is yet to be disproved. Therefore, I cite November 16 as the date of his martyrdom. Although there are many fabrications about the Apostles, these stories of the third and fourth centuries depended on the singular utterance of the historical date of the death of the Apostles as to bolster their authenticity. We therefore can accept the day of death, and reject the rest as responsible historians; in much the same way we can reject myths of the Old West, even when they have accurate days of decease for the gunfighters they eulogize and myth-make about.
8 The repercussion of the dative historical silence is like being at the epicenter of a huge explosion: as if there were no sound, but a definite and shockingly extreme disruption of all one's senses, as if reality were now some far away thing. Why, pray tell, if the Gospels were ever written outside the time period by those who were not there, would not at least one rabbi in over 2,000,000 words on 2,711 pages of sage wisdom, over its first several centuries (which were free from Christian persecution), not ever challenge and dismiss Christianity on proof of fraud once and for all?
9 Babylonian Talmud: Yebamoth 4, 49a.
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Matthew's Gospel was written (and first copied and distributed) in Jerusalem among hostile living witnesses of Jesus; and the events contained therein, were set down while Peter and Paul were preaching in ROME.1
In respect to Matthew, his Gospel was set down in Aramaic between the summer of 55 A.D., to no later than Pentecost of 56, and translated into Greek from this copy.2
The original would have been entrusted to the successor of James,3 and carried to Pella some 8 years later when the Church of Jerusalem removed at the beginning of the prophetic utterances (in A.D. 63).4
These utterances were simply a confirmation that it was "the time"to remove from Jeruslaem by Divine warning, continued for 7 more years until the beginning of the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophetic utterance to leave Jerusalem until after the Romans decimated it in a conquestive action, was a strong historic teaching left by Jesus and left us in the book of Matthew: it was an action of prophecy that was required to be fulfilled within a 40 year generation. The early Jews who believed into Christ were delivered from the Romans in a very big way, even though war ravaged the country.
It appears that only the first Greek translations of Matthew survived well beyond the First Century, although it is obvious that Ignatius of Antioch and other bishops of the region (as late as 107 A.D.) still had the Aramaic original of Matthew in a copied form entering also into the early Second Century as well.5
Matthew died a martyr in Greco-Macedonia in the fall of A.D. 56.6 The apostolic tradition dates this as November. …7
However, despite Matthew's death, the stunning fact that Matthew's Gospel was unchallenged and undisputed by the Sanhedrin for 14-15 years before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 is amazing enough in itself. Clearly, there remained behind a very many witnesses who could refute all challenges to the authenticity of ever point his Gospel Account made. The Gospel of Matthew, along with the other Gospels, was left silently unchallenged in the midst of hostile witnesses who lived in (and were dispersed) throughout all Judea and Galilee…even those who are quoted some 10 years after the fall of Jerusalem. The later silence by the Mishna 134 years after Matthew’s death, and that of the Talmud’s rabbinate even hundreds more years later is deafening.8
Let's face it, not one Oral Law or Rabbinic ruling ever contradicted Matthew's the validity of Matthew's Gospel as accurately set down: be it historically, verbatim, or any terminology to show that indeed events and were spoken by those cited did NOT occur or have been spoken exactly as Matthew (or any other N.T. writer) sets down.
In fact, the very worst singular statement that the Oral Tradition makes in challenging Jesus, in referring to the Book of Generations (the genealogical record that was kept at Jerusalem), as a hostile witness, actually affirms Christ Jesus’ virgin birth, calling him "such-a-one" and listing that He had no father.9
And, in Jewish tradition, there is even the bragging of how a rabbi Zadok, who appears to be attempting to refute Jesus’ prophecy against Jerusalem and its Temple, who (in response) supposedly fasted hard for 40 years to thwart Jesus’ prophecy and to prevent the fall of the Temple at Jerusalem!
Thus, above all the other Gospels, Matthew ranks first in its “hostile-witness acid-test” amongst co-witnesses of Christ, His teachings, His events and their experiences, His miracles, His sufferings… even though Luke's Gospel preceded Matthew, by Luke’s being written in Corinth of Achaia some 5 years earlier.
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1 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.1.1. (written circa 181 -183 A.D.)
2 Only Greek copies extant translation handed down almost 2 1/2 centuries later now survive, as passed down as closest to the first translations from the Aramaic. When the Greek of Matthew is read, it should be understood after a Syriac/Galilean/Saducceean context.
3 Simeon, the son of Cleopas, half-cousin of Jesus, full cousin of James. Contrary to Eusebius, Simeon was instituted in A.D. 55, in place of James. At that time, others of the LORD’s relatives were also present (Eusebius, History of the Church, 3.11), as were some surviving Apostles.
The only Apostles available for attendance were Phillip in Phyrgia, John in Asia, Peter in Rome, Matthew and Andrew. John is testified as having never left Asia for his 54 years, except to go to
neighboring districts. Peter is not likely to have left Rome, but he could have. Phillip, Matthew, and Andrew are the most likely attendees of Simeon’s installation in ca. June 55 A.D. James died
two months earlier on Passover of A.D. 55, contrary to later third century speculation (or text corruption). Simeon was martyred in circa A.D. 100, at the age of 120 (Eusebius, H.O.C., 3.32): making Simeon 50 at Christ’s “passion”, and 75 at his induction as “bishop of the Christians returning to Jerusalem, and de facto of those dispersed through Judea as well.” He was born about a time when Herod began cutting up Moriah to lay the foundations of the New Temple there, and then outlived that Temple by some 30 years.
4 Josephus, Wars of the Jews, …… This prophet began 7 years prior to the assault of 70 A.D., in which he perished by being crushed under a Roman catapult stone. This followed one year after the writing of I Clement to Corinth. By 63 A.D., the entire world knew what Nero had done to the Christians in Rome. Fearing sufferings, and hearing prophets within and without their Faith, it made sense to remove to the other side of Jordan and out of harm’s way, into Pella of Perea.
5 Ignatius, bishop of Smyrna wrote in Aramaic; and the copy of Matthew in historical perspective, was directed to the saints that spoke Aramaic fluently. Hence, Matthew was written for those of the Syriac influence churches from Jerusalem to Damascus to Antioch, and all points in between amongst hostile and friendly witnesses who also were there to have seen many of the events....some in the hundreds of thousands, in their own dialect.
6 Irenaeus, 3.1.1. places Matthew
7 The Acts and Martyrdom of Matthew the Apostle. One manuscript extant places his death on November 16. This day of November 16 is the extreme end date in which Matthew died in 56, and is the most accepted. The other manuscript extant lists his death as being on the 14th of Gorpiaeus, or about the last week of August. Although my inclination is toward the shorter date of late August, the date of November 16 has been traditionally recognized, and is yet to be disproved. Therefore, I cite November 16 as the date of his martyrdom. Although there are many fabrications about the Apostles, these stories of the third and fourth centuries depended on the singular utterance of the historical date of the death of the Apostles as to bolster their authenticity. We therefore can accept the day of death, and reject the rest as responsible historians; in much the same way we can reject myths of the Old West, even when they have accurate days of decease for the gunfighters they eulogize and myth-make about.
8 The repercussion of the dative historical silence is like being at the epicenter of a huge explosion: as if there were no sound, but a definite and shockingly extreme disruption of all one's senses, as if reality were now some far away thing. Why, pray tell, if the Gospels were ever written outside the time period by those who were not there, would not at least one rabbi in over 2,000,000 words on 2,711 pages of sage wisdom, over its first several centuries (which were free from Christian persecution), not ever challenge and dismiss Christianity on proof of fraud once and for all?
9 Babylonian Talmud: Yebamoth 4, 49a.