Arguments for a pre-70 CE Dating of Matthew's Gospel

During my time of study under Craig Evans, he flirted with the idea of a pre-70 CE dating of Matthew's gospel at various times in class or in conversation. During my undergrad, I had for the most part come to follow the standard post-70 CE dating for most of the Gospels, with Mark being the only serious consideration of a pre-70 CE Gospel. During my dissertation work, I ran into this issue anew, particularly in the excellent Matthew commentaries by John Nolland (who was my external advisor) and Richard France. France in particular puts forth his case in his book Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher, which he regards as the fuller introduction to his NICNT commentary. Anyone who appreciates France's Matthew commentary should really have this prelude volume.

In reading the work of these scholars, I have become more persuaded that Matthew may indeed have been written before the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. This has important ramifications for the dating of at least Mark, pushing it perhaps to the 50s or even the 40s (as Crossley has argued). In addition, I have in the last few months stumbled upon the work of Alan Garrow, who puts together an excellent case for what he called the Matthew Conflator Hypothesis. Garrow argues that Matthew was the last of the synoptics written, utilizing Mark, Luke, and Q. I highly encourage you to watch his video presentations on his website. If both of these things are true (Matthew is pre-70 CE and is the last synoptic gospel written), this pushes Luke into the 60s as well. But that is an issue for another day!

 

A Survey of Recent NT intros and Matthew Commentaries

When discussing the dating of Matthew, it is good to get a sense of what modern scholarship is saying on the subject. The following introductions & Bible dictionaries date Matthew as follows:

• W. D. Davies (1969): 85 CE
• Ralph Martin (1975): 80-90 CE
• Ancho Yale Bible Dictionary (1992): 80-90 CE
• McDonald & Porter (2000): 80-90 CE
• Lea & Black (2003): pre-70 CE
• DeSilva (2004): post-70 CE
• Drane (2001): 80-100 CE
• Ehrman (2008): 80-85 CE
• Elwell & Yarbrough (2013): pre-70 CE
• Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 2nd ed. (2013): non-commital

A survey of the major commentaries on Matthew reveals similar diversity:

• Carson (1984): 60s CE
• Harrington (1991): 70s CE
• Morris (1992): 50s-60s CE
• Blomberg (1992): 58-69 CE
• Gundry (1994): 65-67 CE
• Hagner (1998): pre-70 CE
• Davies & Allison (1998): 80-95 CE
• Nolland (2005): pre-70 CE
• France (2007): pre-70 CE
• Luz (2007): early 80s CE
• Turner (2008): 80s-90s CE
• Keener (2009): late 70s CE
• Evans (2012): 66-69 CE

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This itself is interesting in that the NT introductory textbooks lean more to a late dating, with a majority of the commentaries leaning to an early dating. Obviously this is a sampling and not exhaustive lists. But I think it provides a solid sample of current discussion on the issue. Davies and Allison provide a thorough list of some of the older commentaries, and can be seen by clicking the image to the right.

Arguments for a Late Date

Without being too reductionistic, the main arguments for a late date of Matthew fall into 3 main points:

1. The date of Mark's gospel being 65-70 CE. Because Matthew used Mark, we need to allow for some time to pass.
2. Jewish-Christian Relations. The tension found in Matthew is thought to reflect a time closer to Jamnia (85-90 CE) and the  birkat ha-minim, a clause in the Eighteen Benedictions, attributed to the rabbis at the Jamnia council: “Let Nazarenes and heretics perish in a moment, let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and let them not be written with the righteous.” The counter this is, of course, the rest of the NT - namely Paul and the book of Acts. Tensions developed early on – there is no reason to push what we see in Matthew to after the temple's destruction.
3. More Developed Theology. Matthew seemingly contains more developed theology that better fits into a later time period. The areas most mentioned are christology (Matt 24:29-31, Matt 25:31-46), Ecclesiology (Matt 16:18, Matt 18:17), and the trinitarian formula of Matt 28:19. The counter to this is again the apostle Paul. Christology developed early, as evidenced by Paul (like Phil 2:1-11), and we have a trinitarian formula in Paul as well (2 Cor 13:14; Tit 3:4-6; 1 Pet 1:2)
4. Matthew 22:7: “the king was angry and sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city”. Scholars who argue for a late date point to this Matthean addition to the parable (compare Luke 14) as being reflective of the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. In my opinion, this is a poor argument, as it would therefore equates the king of the parable with Caesar, when it is very clearly God. There is a simple alternative: It is punitive military language drawn from the OT and similar to other Jewish literature.
5. Olivet Discourse?? Notable by its relative absence in arguments for a late dating is Matthew's Olivet Discourse. If the destruction of the temple were to leave any residue on the text, surely it would be here. Hagner states: “Matthew’s redaction of the Markan eschatological discourse makes no attempt to disentangle the references to the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the age (chap. 24). Luke very deliberately does so in his redaction of Mark 13, and we might expect Matthew to do the same had it been written after 70.” (Hagner 1998, lxxiv)

Arguments for an Early Date

There are a number strong arguments from internal evidence that Matthew was written prior to the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. In this list, I will put them in the order of strongest to weakest arguments.

1. Approving of the Temple Tax. Jesus in Matthew approves of the temple tax in Matt 17:24-27. While it is of course conceivable that Matthew is simply passing on Jesus tradition faithfully, the issue is that the temple tax after 70 CE became a tax for the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome. Bob Gundry states: “The distinctive passage 17:24 – 27 teaches that Jewish Christians should not contribute to their fellow Jews rejection of the gospel by refusing to pay the Temple tax. This exhortation not only shows Matthews concern to win Jews. It specifically favors a date of writing before AD 70; for after the destruction of God’s temple in Jerusalem the Romans shifted the tax to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome (Josephus J.W. 7.6.6 §218; Dio Cassius 65.7; Suetonius Dom. 12), and m. Šeqal. 8.8 says that the laws concerning “the Shekel dues … apply only such time as the Temple stands.”  Surely Matthew does not include this passage to support upkeep of a pagan temple, for then the argument implies that the disciples are sons of the pagan god! Nor can we suppose that Matthew is urging Jewish Christians to support the school of pharisaical rabbis that formed in jam yet during the aftermath of the Jewish rebellion, for he excoriates the Pharisees throughout his Gospel. The argument from 17:24 – 27 for an early date gains further cogency from the evidence that Matthew himself composed the passage.” (Gundry 1994, 606).
2. Swearing by the Temple. In a section unique to Matthew, Matt 23:16-22 talks about swearing by the altar and sanctuary. While again this may be a faithful passing on of Jesus material, it nonetheless becomes antiquated post-70 CE, and if Matthew was the composer, it would make even less sense.
3. Gift at the Altar. Like the previous passage, Matt 5:23-24 is unique to Matthew and would be teaching of Jesus that could no longer be followed if it was passed on, and make little sense for Matthew to compose after 70 CE if he composed it.
4. Den of Robbers. Matt 21:13 is a passage used from Mark 11:17, and paralleled in Luke 19:46. What is interesting about Matthew's version is that he makes a verb change to a present for the verb "saying,", making it a Historic Present that stands out. He then also edits Mark's verb "turning" to a present tense as well: "you are turning it into a den of robbers." This change to a historic present main verb and switch to a present in the reported speech may be to highlight the current situation - i.e. that the temple is still standing.
5. Jewish Persecution. If Matt 23:34 is reflecting current Jewish persecution of Christians by the synagogue, the verse implies an authority to punish that Jewish leaders did not likely have after the temple destruction.
6. Fleeing on the Sabbath. Jesus in Matt 24:20-21 tells his hearers that he hopes their flight in 70 CE won't be on a sabbath or in winter. Yet if Eusebius is trustworthy, we know what happened: “the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella. And when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem, then, as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men.” (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.5.3). If Matthew wrote after 70 CE, we could perhaps expect some revision to the words of Jesus to conform to historical reality.

To this internal evidence we can also add patristic evidence, as Irenaeus in Ag. Her. 3.1 states that Matthew wrote while Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome (i.e. in the 60s).

Taken all together, I think there is more evidence for a pre-70 CE dating of Matthew, and as I said, this has implications for the dating of the other synoptic gospels. Have I missed any arguments for the late or early dating? Let me know in the comments!

Why is Jesus' Genealogy Different in Matthew and Luke?

Please enjoy this video I just uploaded to YouTube, explaining why Matthew's and Luke's genealogy of Jesus is different. If you enjoyed it and think other will, please share it via social media too! The transcript is below. For more information specifically on Matthew's creative counting, see my previous blog post.

Transcript:

If you’ve ever read the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, it is likely that you have recognized at some point that they both offer a different family tree for Jesus. On the surface, it seems very odd that Jesus' genealogy would be different. Obviously, they can't both be correct, right? 

The first step to understanding why the two genealogies are different, is to recognize that both have different starting points: Luke goes all the way back to Adam, while Matthew only goes back to Abraham. However, even when we just trace the development from Abraham, the names are different. Matthew and Luke don't even agree on Jesus' grandpa's name!
To understand why the genealogies differ, we need to understand the nature of Jewish genealogies. We think of family trees as a chronological listing of every single blood relative. But we shouldn’t impose our modern understandings on the Bible. Genealogies in the bible were also telling stories. They were reminding the reader of history by using names. Sometimes, a genealogy would be thorough as we would expect, other times it wouldn’t be as thorough and would instead be selective because they wanted readers to focus on particular aspects of the history which the genealogy was reminding them of.

Now, some have suggested that perhaps Luke was giving the genealogy through Mary, while Matthew gave the genealogy through Joseph - but this doesn’t make sense as Joseph is specifically mentioned in both genealogies, and even if it were Mary’s genealogy we would still expect around the same number of names. When people try to make this kind of argument, they are guilty of holding ancient genealogies to today’s standard. Luke I would suggest, was attempting to be more thorough and wanted to emphasize Christ as the son of God, by tracing Jesus right back to Adam and ultimately God. Matthew, however, had a more specific story in mind. So let’s take a look at Matthew.

Matthew wasn’t simply tracing a family line. He was, rather, tracing a dynastic, or royal, line. Matthew wanted to establish right from the beginning Jesus’ legitimate kingship over Israel. He does this by highlighting David the king, and by highlighting Abraham, the father of the Israelite nation. Notice how Matthew starts out his whole book - the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David and son of Abraham.

Because Matthew’s genealogy is a dynastic genealogy, it is intentionally selective. If we look at a quick timeline, Abraham is here, David is here, the babylonian captivity is here, and Jesus is here. This makes it fairly obvious that Matthew wasn’t worried about an exhaustive family tree - the same amount of names are covering totally different periods of time. Let’s add Luke’s names here. As you can see, Matthew is using far less names, particularly after we get to David! The names between these two lines bear almost no similarity!

Now, if the purpose is to establish Jesus in the dynasty of king David, we can also presume that there would be other elements within the genealogy to clue readers into this focus. And guess what, that is exactly what we find.

In Matthew’s genealogy there are things we call annotations. Small bits of commentary. Again, remember that genealogies tell a story. What kind of story do these annotations tell?

The first small annotation “Judah and his brothers” was a wonderful reminder that Judah rose to a position of leadership and prominence over his brothers, the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. Furthermore, a promise of a future messiah occurs in Jacob’s blessing of Judah in Gen 49. We have the same annotation about Jechoniah “and his brothers.” Jechoniah, called Jehoiachin in the Old Testament, represented the entirety of the IsraelIte nation in accepting the punishment of the coming army, going off to the exile and receiving his punishment, and then receiving repreave from the punishment. Josephus, the important Jewish historian, highlights Jechoniah as a model of one who suffered for others - sound familiar?.

One thing well known about Matthew’s genealogy is the mention of women in the annotation - mentioning these women do several things simultaneously. First, the presence of women highlights what we see later in Jesus’ ministry - his value of women. While genealogies (like Luke’s) always traced through men, Matthew’s short genealogy adds women to the story. Second, beginning the genealogy with Abraham reminds the readers of God’s promise to Abraham to bless the nations. These women and their stories remind us that even within the Old Testament, gentiles were part of God’s story and even part of continuing the Davidic line! Third, mentioning these women remind the readers of the scandalous nature by which the promised line continued. There is no more soap opera story in the OT than Tamar! Rahab was a prostitute! And just in case we forget, Matthew reminds us of “The wife of Uriah.!” - calling to mind the infamous story of David’s adultery with Bathsheba. All of this sets the reader up for the scandal of Mary - a virgin woman who will claim she has conceived the child through the power of the holy spirit! The genealogy prepares us to see that God has worked in strange ways to continue the promised line in the past already!

The final thing which further helps us understand Matthew’s selectivity is the way in which he structures it. In v. 17 Matthew says "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.” This verse introduces 2 issues - why the number 14? and how exactly is Matthew counting? When we put the names in columns of 14, we are one name short. There have been several options provided by scholars as to how this should be understood:

  1. Matthew simply rounded up to emphasize the number 14
  2. Maybe there was a scribal error and a name has been accidentally dropped
  3. Maybe the exile is being counted as a generation
  4. Perhaps the holy spirit is being counted as a generation or maybe Mary.
  5. Some have suggested that Jesus was an illegitimate child and so his real father was counted
  6. One of the most popular options is that Jehoakin, Jeconiah’s father, is present in the count, but not in the actual genealogy

None of these are perfect answers, and all of the options assume some sort of creative counting on Matthew’s part. 3 scholars as well as myself have argued in publications that we should actually count David twice. Here is why. First, notice that David is the only one besides Jesus to receive a title in the genealogy. Notice also that he is the 14th name in the list. We should also remember how “Son of David” has already been highlighted in the first verse. But more than that, counting David twice is exactly how Matthew tells us to count the genealogy. When reading v.17 and counting just like Matthew tells us to, the genealogy would be structured like this. This gives us 14 names in each section, with David being counted twice. Finally, the last piece of evidence that supports counting David twice is the number 14 itself. It seems clear from v.17 that Matthew is drawing attention to that number. why? Most commentators believe it is because of something called gematria, where letters of the alphabet represent numbers. In this case, the Hebrew letter dalet is the 4th in the Hebrew alphabet, and vav is the 6th. 4+6+4 is 14. And that is how David’s name is often spelled in the Old Testament. This is why 14 is highlighted and it is why Matthew chose to structure the genealogy the way he did. He was selective in his choice of names so that the structure itself could emphasize  Jesus’ Davidic lineage as the messianic Son of David.

Understanding Matthew's Genealogy and His "Creative Counting" in 1:17

Have you ever wondered why Matthew and Luke's genealogy of Jesus is different? It is clear to most scholars that Matthew is not intending to create and exhaustive genealogy of Jesus (or more specifically Joseph), but rather a dynastic genealogy. Matthew is using the genealogy to show how Jesus is in the line of dynastic succession. As such, the evangelist is not focused on an exhaustive list.

As some of you know, I am in the final stretch of my PhD dissertation. My study has focused on Davidic tradition and typology in the Gospel of Matthew.

Last week Craig Evans and a few of my friends (Greg Monette, Jesse Richards, Brian LePort) were at Bristol and told me about a presentation on Matthew's genealogy by the awesome NT scholar Francis Watson, as part of a forthcoming monograph on the Gospels. They were kind enough to pass along some of his handouts.

My first dissertation chapter is on the incipit and genealogy of Matthew and so I was interested to see what Watson thinks about Matt 1:17 and the 3 x 14 structure of Matthew. If you're quick at math, you'll see that Matthew counts 42 generations and herein lies the problem – there aren't enough names to get to 14 for the 3rd set. I argue in my chapter, along with other commentators, that Matthew was utilizing gematria (letters equalling numbers) on the Hebrew name David, which adds up to 14. But where there has been a wide range of opinion is how to understand Matthew's "creative counting." Here is a list of options:

• Matthew miscounted
• Textual corruption or scribal error. E.g. perhaps Jehoiakim or Abner was a name that got missed in early transmission. (Schonfield)
• Matthew "rounded up" the third grouping to stress the 3 x 14 pattern (Davies and Allison)
• Jesus counts as 2 (Jesus is one, Christ is the second) (Stendahl)
• Matthew counts Jechoniah twice. Augustine argued this. From the handouts I received I see that Watson also takes this position. And I noted a while back that Michael Licona stated this in a nice little YouTube video about the genealogy. (He explains gematria in the video quite nicely too!)
• The Holy Spirit is counted (Nolan)
• Mary is counted (Gundry)
• Jesus' "real" biological father is counted (Schaberg)
• Jehoiakim is present in the count but not Matthew's genealogy (Brown)
• The exile is counted as a generation (Chrysostom)
• David is counted twice (Schöllig)

All of the options assume two things: First, Matthew used a name to represent a "generation." Second, all of the options assume Matthew counted "creatively" by either double-counting one person, adding someone without naming them, or rounding up.

The last option was presented by Johann Bengel in 1858, by Hugo Schöllig in 1968, and was also presented by Stephen Carlson in 2009 at a SECSOR regional meeting (see his post). To this list you can now add Zacharias. And trust me, I'm right !  😏

In a nutshell, David and David alone should be counted twice because Matthew emphasizes David and Jesus as Son of David throughout the Gospel. In addition, David is the 14th name in the genealogy (remember Matt 1:17 and its 3 x 14 structure), and Matthew adds additional focus to David by utilizing gematria and calling him "the king" in the genealogy. But more important than any of that is this point: Matthew himself tells us exactly how to count the genealogy:

“Therefore all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ are fourteen generations.” (Matthew 1:17)

It can be visualized in this way:

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This way of counting, Matthew's way, gives us 14 names in each division, with David being counted twice, just like Matthew tells us to.

So to sum up,  this is the best option available because:

1. It doesn't assume error by Matthew or later scribes
2. Doesn't assume a missing name
3. Doesn't arbitrarily choose to double-count a name (Jechoniah or Jesus) just to make the scheme work
4. Fits Matthew's continual emphasis on Jesus as the Son of David through the Gospel
5. Counts the "generations" exactly how Matthew tells us to

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment below!

And finally, my favorite book on the genealogy is with fellow Highland PhD student (and now graduate) Jason Hood's published dissertation The Messiah, His Brothers, and the Nations. If you're interested in Matthew's genealogy, check it out!