Matthew

        Many contemporary scholars maintain that the Gospel According to Matthew was written in a context in which relations between Jews who were follow­ers of Jesus and those who were not were becoming increas­ingly strained. In part, the Gospel represents an at­tempt, some­times polemical, to con­vince non-believ­ing Jews that with Jesus prophecies appearing in Hebrew Scrip­ture are ful­filled. Thus, Matthew proclaims Jesus as the Risen Lord and Christ, in terms especially under­standable and inviting to first century Jews. Matthew was written between 80 and 90 AD, most likely by an unknown Jewish disciple who may have been active in a church founded by the apostle Matthew, perhaps in Antioch. Though the first Gospel in the New Testament, Matthew was written a few years after Mark, on which, in part, the M­atthean author relied.