why did jesus change levi to matthew why did jesus change levi to matthew

[4] See Manlio Simonetti, Matthew 113, ACCS New Testament 1a (Downers Grove: IVP, 2001), 177; Ulrich Luz, Matthew 820, trans. For an alternative approach, W. F. Albright and C. S. Mann speculate that an Aramaic source identified the toll collector as a Levite and that this was mistranslated as the personal name Levi in the Greek texts of Mark and Luke. Matthews Gospel has more quotations from and allusions to the Old Testament than any other New Testament author. They were dishonest and were also seen as. Say, Jesus saw Levi and knew that Levi and the other tax collectors needed to know the good news. He offered something infinitely better. As Brent Cunningham expressed it the changing of the names represented Jesus' ownership of them. It is the contracted name of Mattathias. ill. 3). Matthews relics were reputedly discovered in Salerno (Italy) in 1080. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that the two verses in Matthew 9:9 and 10:3 were the basis for why this Gospel was later ascribed to Matthew. Rather, he plainly states, So Matthew composed the oracles in the Hebrew language and each person interpreted them as best he could (in Eusebius, At first sight, this description seems like a poor match for the extant text entitled the. Therefore, commentators often appeal to Matthew 9:9 and 10:3 as evidence that the Apostle Matthew was capable of composing either the Greek text of the first canonical Gospel or one of the literary sources incorporated into it. Matthew had a lucrative, though dishonest, tax collecting business for the occupying Roman government. Levi asked Jesus to come to dinner at his home. Band: Evangelien und Verwandtes. The account of the sinful woman at the well in John 4 is a good example as is the woman caught in adultery in John 8 or even Jesus calling Levi (Matthew) to join His entourage and dining with sinners and tax collectors in Matthew 9. The story of Matthew's calling shows us the amazing power of God's grace and how it transforms people and become extraordinary servants of our Creator. Teilband 1, ed. Jesus speaking or understanding Greek is the least controversial of the three. B. Luke, also, describes his calling: After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. Hence, Mark listened to Peters, That is, they surmise that Matthew applied Jewish exegetical techniques and forms of argumentation to the material at his disposal to shape it into a cogent presentation about how Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures. [12] Neither Matthew 9:9 nor 10:3 advances an explicit authorial claim. Klijn (Gospel Tradition, 11, 119) and Frey (Die Fragmente des Hebrerevangeliums, 606) treat Eusebiuss attribution of this tale to the Gospel According to the Hebrews as spurious since Eusebius may have had no firsthand knowledge of the text. Jesus invited Matthew (Levi) to follow him (Lk 5:27-32). Christian Soldiers in the Ancient Roman Army, Destruction of Jerusalem, c. 586 BCEyewitness Account, Assassination of Julius CaesarAncient Accounts, Claudia ActeNeros Mistress, Secret Christian, Emperor Tiberius & The Resurrection Of Jesus, Plinys Letter To Trajan About Christians, Ancient TechnologyThe Antikythera Mechanism, The Lycurgus CupNanotechnology in Ancient Rome, Monte TestaccioAncient Romes Garbage Dump, Metal Detector FindRoman Coins & Lost Emperor of Britain, Stirring of Water in the Pool of Bethesda. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners., CLICK HERE for Jesus and the Pharisees article. And many followed him ( Mark 2:15 ). Perhaps most plain is the calling of the disciple Matthew, also known as Levi the tax collector. Jennie Ebeling --Department of Archaeology and Art History, University of Evansville, Copyright 2000-2023 The Bible and Interpretation| All Rights Reserved |The University of Arizona | Developed bySBS Tech But let's hear Matthew's own account of his calling: [41] Contra Edwards, Hebrew Gospel, 8 and Petri Luomanen, Recovering Jewish-Christian Sects and Gospels (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 12326. Jerome may have anticipated that he would track down the Gospel according to the Hebrews in Pamphilus library in Caesarea (cf. There is no evidence that any of the Patristic authorities made any inferences about Matthews proficiency in Greek or level of education in rhetorical composition based on Matthews former occupation alone. He is mentioned in Matthew 9:9. h.e. He followed Jesus to his death. Of course, their hippy-dippy ways are . [37] See B. H. Streeter, The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (London: MacMillan, 1924). Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. Vose Seminary J.E. Jesus casually says to Levi the tax collector,follow me and Levi got up and followed him. Just like that. I.2.26; Eusebius, h.e. Additionally, specialists on the Synoptic Problem generally hold that Matthews Gospel reproduced over 90 percent of Marks content, improved Marks grammar and style, and edited out Marks transliterated Aramaic terms. Hence Levi was the original name of the man who was subsequently called Matthew; the Maththaios legomenos of Matthew 9:9, would indicate this. They contend that the conjunction oun (therefore) in Papiass statement about Matthew (3.39.16) was connected to his prior statement about Mark (3.39.15), entailing that Matthew published his narrative of Jesuss life in response to the perceived shortcomings of Marks account. There are a number of Patristic and Medieval quotations that purportedly derive from a text that was commonly dubbed as the, James R. Edwards has revived the older position that Matthew was the author of the, Conversely, Papias may not have known the. Why is Matthew called Levi? James son of Alphaeus is traditionally identified as James the Less and James the brother of Jesus. Jesus sees value in all people. [27] For instance, see Ulrich Krtner, Papias von Hierapolis: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des frhen Christentums, Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 133 (Gttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1983), 203206; Davies and Allison, Matthew IVII, 16; Black, Rhetorical Terminology, 3334, 38; France, Evangelist and Teacher, 57; Hagner, Matthew 113, xlv; Morris, Matthew, 1314; William R. Schoedel, Papias ANRW 2.27.1 (1993): 257, 263; Carson, Matthew, 13; Armin Baum, Ein aramischer Urmatthus im kleinasiatischen Gottesdienst. H. Gundry, 291. He was honored that His Lord considered him such a gift, But as Levi he had immediately joined his life to Jesus and His Mission. ill. 3; Tract. However, Bacons hypothesis depends on his suppositions that the source of Matthew 10:24 was not simply Mark 3:1619 and that the author of Matthews Gospel did not just alter Marks order by moving Thomas before Matthew. [16] At first sight, this description seems like a poor match for the extant text entitled the Gospel according to Matthew, for it does not look like a translation of an Aramaic precursor. Other than naming Matthew in the list of Apostles, usually pairing him with St. Thomas, the New Testament offers scant and uncertain information about him. Regardless of how this name change is explained, this toll collector may have been trained in accounting and documenting records and may have been functionally bilingual or trilingual in order to converse with travellers moving between the territories of Philip and Antipas. The important take-away from this detour through the Patristic testimonies was that the oldest tradition was that the evangelist Matthew published a text in Aramaic and left it to more qualified translators to translate it into the form that we have today as the Greek Gospel according to Matthew. nor any utilization of the first-person voice to present Matthews perspective on the unfolding events (contra Acts 16:1017; 20:515; 21:118; 27:137; 28:116; Gos. Jesus asked him to be a *disciple (Matthew 9:9). The reason for Papiass error may simply be that he made the natural assumption that a Galilean Apostle would be writing primarily in Aramaic. [45] The majority position among the experts is that the fragments Jerome inherited from the Nazarenes do not derive from the Gospel according to the Hebrews but from a distinct work that scholars have designated as the Gospel according to the Nazarenes. had his name changed from Levi to Matthew likely by Jesus Himself who changed Simons name to Peter.(Matt. Because of that, Levi later threw a party at his house and invited his sinner friends to meet Jesus. prol.) This is not a solitary occurrence within Matthews Gospel: the evangelist inserted the mother of the sons of Zebedee into one pericope (Matt 20:20; cf. [14] For the theory that Matthew was either the founder of a putative Matthean community or the source of their traditions, see Pesch, Levi-Matthus, 56; Gundry, Old Testament, 184; Hill, Matthew, 5354, 173; Gnilka, Matthusevangelium, 1.331; Davies and Allison, Matthew VIIIXVIII, 2.99; Hagner, Matthew 113, xlvi; John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 3-4; Witherington III, Matthew, 5, 29; Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 40; Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 111. [8] Alternatively, the textual variant that has James instead of Levi as the son of Alphaeus in Mark 2:14 in a handful of manuscripts was plausibly motivated by a desire for uniformity by having a single son of Alphaeus (cf. [32] Harris J. Rendel, The Logia and the Gospels Contemporary Review 72 (1897): 341348; F. C. Grant, The Gospels: Their Origins and Growth (New York: Harper, 1957), 65, 144. Jesus ate a meal at Levi's house and . All of the harsh and disapproving things He could have or should have said to Matthew would have been justified as far as the culture around them was concerned. [1] For the range of theories accounting for the redactional changes in Matthew 9:9 and 10:3, see the helpful summaries compiled by Joachim Gnilka, Das Matthusevangelium, HTKNT (Freiburg: Herder, 1986), 1.330-31; W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, The Gospel According to Matthew: Matthew VIIIXVIII, ICC (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 2.9899; cf. He left Judea and carried the Gospel to Ethiopia where he was martyred while celebrating a mass at the altar of a small church he had started. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 1089; cf. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. It's unclear why Matthew/Levi was called by both names. Scripture both prohibits and mocks astrology (Jer. [30] Warren Carter underscores how Papiass erroneous supposition served to underline the antiquity of this gospel and link it to the apostles.[31], Another option is that Papias was referring to a lost source. Acts 1:1-2 appears to tie the two books to the same author. The final option is that a non-extant Jewish Gospel stands behind Papiass reference to Matthews oracles or, at least, the New Testament Gospel that bears the name Matthew was mixed up with a Jewish Gospel circulating in Papiass milieu. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 2. [26] Gundry, Matthew, 619; idem, Pre-Papian Tradition, 67. 58 Matthew seems to have written his Gospel primarily to the: Jews [1] In Matthew's parabolic aside, the wisest advice Pilate got that day -- our Good Friday -- was from his wife: "Have nothing to do with that innocent man" (27:19). Saint Matthew made a very small decision at the time that ended up not only affecting his life, and the people of his time, but he made a choice that affected all of mankind in the future as well. [42] Luomanen, Jewish-Christian Sects, 21, 123; Frey, Die Fragmente des Ebionerevangeliums in Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscher bersetzung. 4 Macc 12:7; 16:15; Acts 21:40; 22:2; 26:14; Josephus, A.J. A few scholars have likened Papiass oracles to a testimonium source or collection of prophetic proof-texts from the Hebrew Bible that were translated and integrated into the Gospel of Matthew. 20.5; Vir. [34] Friedrich Schleiermacher, ber die Zeugnisse des Papias von unsern beiden ersten Evangelien, TSK 5 (1832): 73568; Manson, Gospels and Epistles, 7787; Hill, Matthew, 2427; Davies and Allison, Matthew IIV, 1.17; Black, Rhetorical Terminology, 3235; Hagner, Matthew 113; xlvxlvi; Nolland, Matthew, 3; Carter, Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist, 1617; Sim, R. Mark 2:1, 1314). [21] Krzinger, Papias, 1214, 2122, 5256; Gundry, Matthew, xxixxii, 61820; idem, Pre-Papian Tradition, 6364, 6768. 1. Indeed, Papias commented on a story about the Lords encounter with a condemned woman that Eusebius located in this Gospel (cf. Logion could be translated as an oracle or divine utterance. I. Third, Matthew Wanted to Tell Others about Christ. DepartmentBldg Tucson, AZ 85721 TEL 520-621-6897 FAX 520-626-9014. Richard Bauckham makes it clear why these examples may be irrelevant to this case: "[I]f Matthew and Levi were the same person, we should be confronted with the virtually unparalleled phenomenon of a Palestinian Jew bearing two common Semitic personal names (Matthew: ninth most popular, 62 occurrences; Levi: seventeenth most popular, 25 occurrences). Levi meaning joined and the name Matthew meaning gift of Yahweh.. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?, On hearing this, Jesus said to them, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. As a tax collector, Matthew . [15], The Original Language of Matthews Gospel, Unlike the modern deductions about Matthews level of literacy, Papias did not presuppose Matthews facility in Greek. There must have been at least 15-20 people eating in Levis spacious home. What created confusion was that Irenaeus reported that Jewish Christ followers who were called Ebionites or poor ones had a special affinity for Matthews Gospel, just as Marcion was inclined toward Lukes Gospel and Valentinus toward Johns Gospel (haer. He being a Hebrew wrote in Hebrew, that is, his own tongue and most fluently; while things which were eloquently written in Hebrew were more eloquently turned into Greek. Jerome, 382 AD On Illustrious Men, Book V. This writer will go with the early church writers who were within a few hundred years from Matthew and the other people who knew Jesus rather than with unproven theories several thousands of years away from sources. "John, James, Andrew and Peter were the disciples closest to Jesus," Traylor says. I. A beam of light illuminates the faces of the men at the table who are looking at Jesus Christ. Many commentators compare Matthews two names with other first-century Jews who had a Greek or Latin cognomen. Or Levi was having a lot of friends over for dinner that night and asked Jesus if He would come, too. Impossible!"[3]. Matthew, who is also Levi, and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language and characters for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed. The Gospel According to Matthew consequently emphasizes Christ's fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies (5:17) and his role as a new lawgiver whose divine mission was confirmed by repeated miracles. 3.24.6; Origen, in h.e. But Pilate replied, I imagine, "What happens in Jerusalem, stays in . 7.2627; 14.5960). There are many examples of irresistible grace in God's Word. [13] The thesis that the first canonical Gospel was published under the name of a pseudonym is defended by George D. Kilpatrick, The Origins of the Gospel according to St. Matthew (Oxford: Clarendon, 1946), 13839. As most of us know, the tax collector named Levi became Saint Matthew. In spite of this, Jesus went to Levi and invited him to join Jesus' disciples. [45] Luomanen, Jewish-Christian Sects, 100101; Kok, Gospel according to the Hebrews, 41; Gregory, Gospel according to the Hebrews, 47, 47n.28. Dr. Beth Harris: In the Contarelli Chapel. Wilhelm Schneemelcher, trans. This is a quite different case from that of an individual having both a Semitic and a Greek or Latin name, as well as from that of an individual having a Semitic name and also a nickname or family name."[7]. Following Jesus Meant Matthew Lost His Lucrative Tax Collector Career. High priest Aaron and his sons were descendants of Levi (Exodus 4:14), Levi being a son of Jacob (Genesis 29:34). Epiphanius and Jerome later confused the traditional account of the authorship of Matthews Gospel with the origins of the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Was the Gospel of Matthew written by Levi aka Matthew in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek? By Michael J. Kok Jesus went out again by the sea. For the theory that Matthew was either the founder of a putative Matthean community or the source of their traditions, see Pesch, Levi-Matthus, 56; Gundry. I also was allowed by the Nazarenes who use this volume in the Syrian city of Beroea to copy it. Jerome: De viris inlustribus (On Illustrious Men), chapter III. The double tradition is mostly comprised of sayings, but there are a couple of narratives (e.g., Matt 4:111/Luke 4:113; Matt 8:513/Luke 7:110). Assuming that the identification of Matthew with Levi is correct, Matthew (probably meaning Yahwehs Gift) would appear to be the Christian name of Levi (called by Mark Levi the son of Alphaeus), who had been employed as a tax collector in the service of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee. Volume I: Introduction and Commentary on Matthew IVII, ICC [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988], 1.12) acknowledge the difficulties in determining whether a text was a translation in the ancient world and the Patristic tradition about Matthew even persuaded an accomplished textual critic like Origen. [28] On the contrary, there are cases when dialektos is translated as a language even when it is not preceded by an article (e.g., Philo, Mos. It is touching that Matthew, gift of Yahweh loved his new name, probably given to him by Jesus. Mark 16:1),[11] though this example differs slightly from Matthew 9:9 inasmuch as the woman is left unnamed. Calling of St. Matthew by Alexandre Bida, 1875. Josef Krzinger and Robert Gundry have tried to line up Papiass testimony with the academic consensus. The meaning in Hebrew of the word day always means a 24 hour period of time. 29.7.4). Magi, or "wise men," were royal counselors. Jonah was in the belly of the whale 4 days. He was included as one of the Evangelists according to the Christian tradition. 3.39.16). Matthew was a Levite from the priestly tribe of Levi, making his role that of writing on Christ's priesthood. (1) Repetition of names in the list after David, some of which appear to be anachronisms, possibly suggesting that this list had its own history. Mark 10:35) and swapped Salome for her in another (Matt 27:56; cf. 2.9.45.5; Origen, Jo. [16] This English translation of the Greek text is taken from Michael W. Holmes, editor, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (rev. Christian missionaries have taught people in Papua, New Guinea who had many gods before their conversion to recite the Hebrew Shema announcing only ONE GOD. For the debate over whether Mark 2:14 and 3:18 refer to the same individual or to two different individuals named Alphaeus, see Bauckham. He was thirty-one years old and married and had four children. There were only 8 people in Noahs Ark. 16:18) Mark and Luke were probably stunned by Jesus inclusion of a hated tax collector in His Twelve. Because Matthews original purpose was to prove to his Jewish brethren that Jesus is their Mashiach/Messiah, he included in his Gospel nine proof texts from the Old Testament which Jesus fulfilledMatthew 1:22,23; 2:15; 2:17,18; 2:23; 4:14-16; 8:17; 12:17-21; 13:35; 27:9,10. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said,It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. The Calling of St. Matthew, by Vittore Carpaccio, 1502. Matthew is spoken of five times in the New Testament; first in Matt., ix, 9, when called by Jesus to follow Him, and then four times in the list of the Apostles, where he is mentioned in the seventh (Luke, vi, 15, and Mark, iii, 18), and again in the eighth place (Matt., x, 3, and Acts, i, 13). In Matthew, because of the use of Q and Matthew's theological organization, there is stress on Jesus as teacher, his sharpening or radicalizing of the Law in an eschatological context; and Jesus is presented not in secret but as an openly proclaimed Messiah, King, and Judge. Band: Evangelien und Verwandtes. He was a tax collector who was sitting at his booth. The assumption is that this order of the Gospels is a chronological one, when in fact it is a theological one.