> First, there is no reason to think that Jesus has such power.
Actually, every evidence we have of Jesus says that he does. We have the 4 Gospels, which have never been proven to have anything untrue in them. Second, we have Josephus, who said Jesus was known as a person who did wonderful things. Third, we have bowl from the 1st century that archaeologists dug up showing that Jesus had a reputation as a magician. So there is actually every reason to think Jesus had such power, unless you have evidence to the contrary. We follow th evidence. Let me see it if you do, since opinions here don't carry much weight.
> we should expect to hear about it from multiple sources
This is an impossible position to hold. If you're going to stick to this criteria, we have to throw out about 95% of what we know from history. Almost everything we have is from one source.
> and not just the anonymous author of the Gospel of Matthew.
This is also an impossible position to hold, for the same reason. Almost everything we have from history is anonymous. We have no clue who wrote the hieroglyphics on pyramid walls, who wrote the historical records on the obelisks, who wrote Hammurabi's code. These works are also anonymous:
- Aristotle's Poetics
- Plato's Republic
- Aristophanes' Birds
- Livy's The Early History of Rome
- Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome
- Shakespeare's Hamlet
- Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
- Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
Should we throw them all away?
Secondly, there are no anonymous copies of Matthew. They don't exist and possible never have. The copies we have say Matthew on them. We follow the evidence.
Third, there are no actual examples in early Christian history of a document known to have been written by someone other than the person to whom it is attributed. We have no evidence at all that early Christianity accepted pseudonymity as a legitimate device. We follow the evidence.
We have to be given a reason to doubt Matthew's Gospel, and there isn't one aside from "it sounds crazy to me." That doesn't cut it; we follow the evidence.
> There's just no reason to believe Matthew's claim
We have every reason to believe Matthew's claim, as I've said. He has never been proved to be unreliable historically, and nothing he has ever written has been proved to be false. So what's your evidence for this claim?
> The burden rests on the claimant, which is the author of Matthew, and by extension, anyone who believes his fairy tale to be true.
This is a cop out. Pure cop out. In a court of law, the burden of truth is with the prosecution, but in a debate, the burden of proof lies with anyone making a claim, no matter what side they're on. I've given you my evidence for Matthew, and you've given me nothing in return but opinion. So the burden rests on the claimant, which in this case is you, claiming, "There is no reason to believe Matthew's claims." So, back it up with your evidence.
> Dead people don't get up and walk around town. It doesn't happen and never has.
How do you know it never has? The resurrection of Jesus has been examined for 2000 years, and there is actually a lot of credibility to the record, and competing alternative explanations don't hold water under examination. So what is your evidence that it doesn't happen? The evidence tells us it has happened (Jesus).
> Why are we talking about the disciples?
Because Matthew was a disciple.
> Maybe you're under the assumption that the author of Matthew was a disciple, but there's no reason to think that.
There's every reason to think that.
1. If someone were to falsify a document to send around with a fake author's name to give it credibility, "Matthew" is not the name they would put on it. Matthew was a tax collector (respected neither by Rome nor by Jews). Matthew faded away from history somewhere after the beginning of the book of Acts. We have no clue what happened to him. Why would anyone in their right mind, if they were trying to manufacture respect, put Matthew's name on a Gospel if he weren't the author? Many names, if we were going to plant a fake name on it, would make more sense (Peter, James, Philip, Andrew).
2. In those days, for important documents, multiple initial copies were made and sent to various locations. From those, multiple copies were made and circulated from each of those regions. So how does one explain that the only name that ever ended up on this Gospel was Matthew, if he weren't the author? The titles of all four Gospels were unanimously accepted over a large geographical area even by the 2nd century.
3. Every indication from the ancient world—every evidence we have, and we follow the evidence—is that Matthew wrote it. There is no indication that his authorship was ever doubted. There is no competing claim for a different author. The Church Fathers unanimously attribute it to Matthew.
4. The book itself has every characteristic of being written by a Levite (Matthew), a conservative-minded Jew concerned about the Law, Judaism, the spiritual history of Israel, and ecclesiastical matters (church rules, organization, etc.). It is thoroughly Jewish, with a level of Greek fitting what we know about Matthew,
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is EVERY reason to think Matthew wrote it, unless you have evidence to the contrary. We follow the evidence. What do you have?
> First, there is no reason to think that Jesus has such power.
Actually, every evidence we have of Jesus says that he does. We have the 4 Gospels, which have never been proven to have anything untrue in them. Second, we have Josephus, who said Jesus was known as a person who did wonderful things. Third, we have bowl from the 1st century that archaeologists dug up showing that Jesus had a reputation as a magician. So there is actually every reason to think Jesus had such power, unless you have evidence to the contrary. We follow th evidence. Let me see it if you do, since opinions here don't carry much weight.
> we should expect to hear about it from multiple sources
This is an impossible position to hold. If you're going to stick to this criteria, we have to throw out about 95% of what we know from history. Almost everything we have is from one source.
> and not just the anonymous author of the Gospel of Matthew.
This is also an impossible position to hold, for the same reason. Almost everything we have from history is anonymous. We have no clue who wrote the hieroglyphics on pyramid walls, who wrote the historical records on the obelisks, who wrote Hammurabi's code. These works are also anonymous:
[list][*] Aristotle's Poetics
[*] Plato's Republic
[*] Aristophanes' Birds
[*] Livy's The Early History of Rome
[*] Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome
[*] Shakespeare's Hamlet
[*] Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
[*] Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics[/list]
Should we throw them all away?
Secondly, there are no anonymous copies of Matthew. They don't exist and possible never have. The copies we have say Matthew on them. We follow the evidence.
Third, there are no actual examples in early Christian history of a document known to have been written by someone other than the person to whom it is attributed. We have no evidence at all that early Christianity accepted pseudonymity as a legitimate device. We follow the evidence.
We have to be given a reason to doubt Matthew's Gospel, and there isn't one aside from "it sounds crazy to me." That doesn't cut it; we follow the evidence.
> There's just no reason to believe Matthew's claim
We have every reason to believe Matthew's claim, as I've said. He has never been proved to be unreliable historically, and nothing he has ever written has been proved to be false. So what's your evidence for this claim?
> The burden rests on the claimant, which is the author of Matthew, and by extension, anyone who believes his fairy tale to be true.
This is a cop out. Pure cop out. In a court of law, the burden of truth is with the prosecution, but in a debate, the burden of proof lies with anyone making a claim, no matter what side they're on. I've given you my evidence for Matthew, and you've given me nothing in return but opinion. So the burden rests on the claimant, which in this case is you, claiming, "There is no reason to believe Matthew's claims." So, back it up with your evidence.
> Dead people don't get up and walk around town. It doesn't happen and never has.
How do you know it never has? The resurrection of Jesus has been examined for 2000 years, and there is actually a lot of credibility to the record, and competing alternative explanations don't hold water under examination. So what is your evidence that it doesn't happen? The evidence tells us it has happened (Jesus).
> Why are we talking about the disciples?
Because Matthew was a disciple.
> Maybe you're under the assumption that the author of Matthew was a disciple, but there's no reason to think that.
There's every reason to think that.
1. If someone were to falsify a document to send around with a fake author's name to give it credibility, "Matthew" is not the name they would put on it. Matthew was a tax collector (respected neither by Rome nor by Jews). Matthew faded away from history somewhere after the beginning of the book of Acts. We have no clue what happened to him. Why would anyone in their right mind, if they were trying to manufacture respect, put Matthew's name on a Gospel if he weren't the author? Many names, if we were going to plant a fake name on it, would make more sense (Peter, James, Philip, Andrew).
2. In those days, for important documents, multiple initial copies were made and sent to various locations. From those, multiple copies were made and circulated from each of those regions. So how does one explain that the only name that ever ended up on this Gospel was Matthew, if he weren't the author? The titles of all four Gospels were unanimously accepted over a large geographical area even by the 2nd century.
3. Every indication from the ancient world—every evidence we have, and we follow the evidence—is that Matthew wrote it. There is no indication that his authorship was ever doubted. There is no competing claim for a different author. The Church Fathers unanimously attribute it to Matthew.
4. The book itself has every characteristic of being written by a Levite (Matthew), a conservative-minded Jew concerned about the Law, Judaism, the spiritual history of Israel, and ecclesiastical matters (church rules, organization, etc.). It is thoroughly Jewish, with a level of Greek fitting what we know about Matthew,
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is EVERY reason to think Matthew wrote it, unless you have evidence to the contrary. We follow the evidence. What do you have?