Who wrote the Gospel of Matthew? The Gospel of Matthew is anonymous: there is no internal and direct proof of authorship. At the beginning of the 2nd century the Gospel of Matthew was designated as such. (This at least offers prima facie evidence that the apostle Matthew wrote this work.) Regarding internal and indirect evidence, three facts should be noted. This suggests that he was Jewish, because a Gentile would tend not to be interested in such a teaching tradition. This suggests that the author was Jewish, as a Jew would be interested in understanding Jesus as such. It is possible that this is an attempt at derogatory self-identification on the part of the author. For whom was the Gospel of Matthew written? From the data covered when considering the question of authorship of the Gospel of Matthew, who do you think were the intended readers? The internal and indirect evidence of the intended readers of the Gospel of Matthew is the author's concern to present the fulfilling nature of Jesus' ministry. This implies that the intended readers were Jews. Furthermore, much of the teaching material specific to the Gospel of Matthew is fully understandable and of interest only to a Jewish reading audience: the fact that the author wrote for a Jewish reading audience is confirmed, if external and direct evidence that Matthew wrote a gospel in Hebrew/Aramaic for the Jews is correct and whether this original text has any connection to the canonical Gospel of Matthew, written in Greek. When was the Gospel of Matthew written? There is no direct internal evidence for the date of composition of the Gospel of Matthew. There is, however, internal, indirect evidence to consider. The Gospel of Matthew transmits some of Jesus' sayings regarding the role of the Temple in the life of the Jewish people (Mt 5.23-24; 12.5-7; 17.24-27; 23.16-22). Assuming that the author did not include sayings of Jesus that were no longer relevant to his readers, it could be argued that the Gospel of Matthew was written before the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. Do you find this convincing? Where was the Gospel of Matthew written? Matthew? Based on what you know so far, what do you conclude about where the Gospel of Matthew was composed? The Gospel of Matthew was probably written in or around Palestine, where there were many Jewish believers.