Gospel of Matthew Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == Comparison with other writings == {{seealso|Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew}} === Christological development === The divine nature of Jesus was a major issue for the community of Matthew, the crucial element marking them from their Jewish neighbors. Early understandings of this nature grew as the gospels were being written. Before the gospels, that understanding was focused on the revelation of Jesus as God in his resurrection, but the gospels reflect a broadened focus extended backwards in time.{{sfn|Peppard|2011|p=133}} ===Mark=== Matthew is a creative reinterpretation of Mark,{{sfn|Beaton|2005|p=117}} stressing Jesus's teachings as much as his acts,{{sfn|Morris|1986|p=114}} and making subtle changes in order to stress his divine nature: for example, Mark's "young man" who appears at Jesus's tomb becomes "a radiant angel" in Matthew.{{sfn|Beaton|2005|p=123}} The miracle stories in Mark do not demonstrate the divinity of Jesus, but rather confirm his status as an emissary of God (which was Mark's understanding of the Messiah).{{sfn|Aune|1987|p=59}} === Chronology === There is a broad disagreement over chronology between [[Synoptic Gospels|Matthew, Mark and Luke]] on one hand and John on the other: all four agree that Jesus's public ministry began with an encounter with John the Baptist, but Matthew, Mark and Luke follow this with an account of teaching and healing in Galilee, then a trip to Jerusalem where there is an [[Cleansing of the Temple|incident in the Temple]], climaxing with the crucifixion on the day of the [[Passover]] holiday. [[Gospel of John|John]], by contrast, puts the Temple incident very early in Jesus's ministry, has several trips to Jerusalem, and puts the crucifixion immediately before the Passover holiday, on the day when the lambs for the Passover meal were being sacrificed in Temple.{{sfn|Levine|2001|p=373}} ===Canonical positioning=== The early patristic scholars regarded Matthew as the earliest of the gospels and placed it first in the canon, and the early Church mostly quoted from Matthew, secondarily from John, and only distantly from Mark.{{sfn|Edwards|2002|p=2}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page