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Tritle, Jedidiah 2019 MAT -ETD.pdf (699.75 KB)

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The Patristic Historians of Matthew's Gospel: A Critical Analysis of the Earliest Witnesses

Tritle, Jedidiah
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=athe155022231240027

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Arts in Theology, Athenaeum of Ohio, School of Theology.
The Church Fathers and early Ecclesiastical writers are unanimous in their claim that Matthew's Gospel was written first among the Four Gospels and was written in the Hebrew language. The evidence for these Patristic claims is external to the Gospel itself--relying on "traditions" purported to have been passed down from authoritative figures such as John the Evangelist and his disciples. The Patristic authors, while unanimous in their claims that Matthew wrote first and wrote in Hebrew, are generally discounted as being historically unreliable regarding the origin of Matthew's Gospel. This thesis examines this problem by analyzing in detail the Patristic authors who, as Biblical historians, write on the authorship of Matthew's Gospel. The witnesses were examined based on the work of several contemporary scholars, and their testimonies were cross-referenced with each other and with other historical evidence in order to ascertain if the claims held up to scrutiny. While many of the Patristic claims were indeed plausible, issues such as questionable motives on the part of some (such as Eusebius), textual errors (in Jerome's writings), linguistic unclarity (in Papias' witness), and possible chronological errors (in Irenaeus' account) make proving the veracity of the Patristic claims impossible. While proving the claims beyond a reasonable doubt is impossible, the research demonstrates that it is indeed plausible that the Patristic writers were familiar with a Hebrew proto-Gospel which later developed into a canonical Greek version--though the canonical version was likely not a direct translation from a Semitic original.
David J. Endres, Ph.D. (Advisor)
61 p.
Bible; Biblical Studies; Religion; Religious History
Biblical studies; Biblical authorship; New Testament - Matthew; Matthean priority; Church Fathers

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Citations

  • Tritle, J. (2019). The Patristic Historians of Matthew's Gospel: A Critical Analysis of the Earliest Witnesses [Master's thesis, Athenaeum of Ohio]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=athe155022231240027

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Tritle, Jedidiah. The Patristic Historians of Matthew's Gospel: A Critical Analysis of the Earliest Witnesses. 2019. Athenaeum of Ohio, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=athe155022231240027.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Tritle, Jedidiah. "The Patristic Historians of Matthew's Gospel: A Critical Analysis of the Earliest Witnesses." Master's thesis, Athenaeum of Ohio, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=athe155022231240027

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2019, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License The Patristic Historians of Matthew's Gospel: A Critical Analysis of the Earliest Witnesses by Jedidiah Tritle is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Athenaeum of Ohio and OhioLINK.