why did jesus change levi to matthew

[26], Krzingers and Gundrys proposals have varying degrees of persuasiveness, but most scholars have not been swayed by their contention that Papiass words on Matthew have been misread through the centuries. In Mark 2:14, Jesus calls Levi, a tax collector and son of Alphaeus, to follow him, much as Jesus calls other disciples, and at first Levi does follow Jesus. See Barnabas Lindars, Matthew, Levi, Lebbaeus and the Value of the Western Text, https://brentnongbri.com/2018/05/21/matthew-and-levi-and-james/, Lindars, Western Text,222; cf. The Ipuwer PapyrusWere The 10 Biblical Plagues Real? Both Eusebius and Epiphanius missed Irenaeuss point that schismatics rejected the fourfold Gospel canon and selected one of the four Gospels, but their doctrines were refuted by the very Gospels that they privileged. 1. Levi the Tax Collector Became Saint Matthew - A Catholic Moment 29.9.4; 30.3.7; Jerome, Vir. However, Didymus the Blind spotted a similar story in certain Gospels in his Commentary on Ecclesiastes (223.613) and one of those Gospels could have been the Gospel according to the Hebrews that he cited elsewhere in his Commentary on the Psalms (184.910). [46] Other scholars suspect that the Nazarenes only supplied Jerome with their own translations and commentary on Matthews Gospel. Teilband 1, ed. in Mt. These Jewish tax collectors were disdained by the Jews. Matthew 9:9-13 begins with Jesus calling Matthew, a tax collector, to follow Him as His disciple. The Greek language became the international language through the conquests of Alexander the Great in 330 BCE. "And Peter was the chief . [2] B. John P. Meier even entertains the option that the evangelist wanted to replace Levi with any of the apostles and Matthew was chosen at random for this aim. 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. 1.9.9). Ultimately, the identification of Matthews oracles. Jesus casually says to Levi the tax collector,follow me and Levi got up and followed him. Just like that. It is not surprising he watched Jesus carefully and wrote down the first of the four Gospels, the biographies of Jesus of Nazareth. CHICAGO (RNS) The first time the Rev. 1.62), though these observations contradict Origens argument in his commentary above. Mark 16:1),[11] though this example differs slightly from Matthew 9:9 inasmuch as the woman is left unnamed. This creates space between Peter and the church's rock. So it is more than probable that Matthew or someone else translated Matthews biography of Christ into Greek in order to spread the Good News beyond the Jews. St. Matthew (Matthew 9:10) modestly says, "in the house," keeping himself as much as possible in the background.St. 13:4; 19:1; 53:1; 62:3; 2 Clem. 3.39.1, 15), which subtly contrasts with an exclusive interest in the Lords logoi or sayings (3.39.14). 3.2) that the Gospel according to the Hebrews was associated with Matthew. Matthew authored the first Gospel of the . It is beyond the scope of this paper to determine why Matthew was substituted for Levi. Saint Matthew | History, Facts, Feast Day, & Death | Britannica Jesus sent out 70 Disciples to preach His Good News. Ein Beitrag zur Lsung eines alten Problems ZNW59 (1968): 4056; Mark Kiley, Why Matthew in Matt 9:913Biblica65.3 (1984): 34751; Michael J. Kok, Re-naming the Toll Collector in Matthew 9:9: A Review of the Options JGAR (forthcoming). David: That's right, in the larger church. Matthew, or Levi, son of Alpheus, was one of the seven who received a call to follow Christ before the ordination of the Twelve. Jesus went out again by the sea. But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Matthew 9:9-13, Matthew is the ONLY one of the Gospel writers who uses his changed name from Levi to Matthew. The Apostles: Impetuous Peter overcame mistakes to become leader This is a painting of the Calling of Saint Matthew in San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. Change the way you think and act, and believe (trust in, rely on, and adhere to) this Good News. [19] Josef Krzinger, Papias von Hierapolis und die Evangelien die Neuen Testaments (Regensberg: Pustet, 1983), 10-11, 4445; Gundry, Matthew, 614; idem, The Apostolically Johannine Pre-Papian Tradition Concerning the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, in The Old is Better: New Testament Essays in Support of Traditional Interpretations, WUNT 178 (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 56; cf. 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. News and Interpretations on the Bible and Ancient Near East History. All the names for our week days come from Roman and Norse/Anglo-Saxon gods. Mich. 7.6; Is. Assuming that the identification of Matthew with Levi is correct, Matthew (probably meaning "Yahweh's 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. ill. 16; Is. Luz, Matthew 17, 80. Levi - who the Bible tells us was also named Matthew - was a Jew and a tax collector. Yet our access to Papias is mediated through Eusebius, so it is uncertain whether Eusebius interrupted an interconnected statement about both evangelists or juxtaposed two separate excerpts from Papias together. Matthew was saying, Jesus IS the fulfillment of Old Testament predictions of our coming Messiah, Anontied One. He is called the Son of David nine times in the Gospel of Matthew. It's unclear why Matthew/Levi was called by both names. [47] Whatever the case, Jerome slowly distanced himself from his earlier confident declarations that the Nazarenes had the original Matthean Gospel in their possession (cf. F. C. Burkitt, Levi Son of Alphaeus JTS 28 (1927): 27374; Metzger, Textual Commentary, 78; Brent Nongbri, Matthew and Levi. Benjamin Bacon (Studies in Matthew [New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1930], 3940) conjectures that the textual variant in Mark 2:14 predated the composition of Matthews Gospel, leading a pre-Matthean scribe who was transmitting a list of the Twelve that was originally independent of Mark 3:1619 to preface the name James the son of Alphaeus with the title the toll collector. The author of Matthews Gospel, however, copied this list in Matthew 10:24 and wrongly took this scribal insertion in reference to Matthew since James was immediately preceded by Matthew in the list of names. [17] 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. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 1089; cf. To follow Jesus requires renouncement. F. C. Burkitt, Levi Son of Alphaeus. Harris J. Rendel, The Logia and the Gospels, For lexical discussion and debate about the term. Saint Matthew - Facts, Life & Bible - Biography [42] Luomanen, Jewish-Christian Sects, 21, 123; Frey, Die Fragmente des Ebionerevangeliums in Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscher bersetzung. Third, Matthew Wanted to Tell Others about Christ. He was thirty-one years old and married and had four children. Modern Persecution of Christians in China, Patriarch Jacobs Well & St. Philoumenous, Slaughter of the Theban Legion C. 286 AD, LapsiChristians Who Lapse/Abandon Their Faith, Evodias Named Followers of Christ Christians. If these are all references to the same James, that would make James son of Alphaeus the author of the Book of James and one of the three men Paul called "pillars" of the church. Ward Powers enthusiastically endorses this line of reasoning in the following bold claim: "To have this evidence about the apostle Matthew his background, training, and employment in the Roman administration; his response to the call to follow Jesus; his appointment to the role and responsibility of apostle and to believe that he wouldnotwrite down what Jesus was doing and teaching requires a far bigger leap of faith than believing that he did. UBF Resources : Jesus Calls Levi After all, a toll collector may have at least needed functional literacy to perform certain tasks. ed. 58 Matthew seems to have written his Gospel primarily to the: Jews Follow me, he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. Lettie Moses Carr saw Jesus depicted as Black, she was in her 20s. The Patristic Traditions about the Evangelist Matthew [21] Krzinger, Papias, 1214, 2122, 5256; Gundry, Matthew, xxixxii, 61820; idem, Pre-Papian Tradition, 6364, 6768. From the place where he collected taxes near the Sea of Galilee (probably on the outskirts of Capernaum), Matthew may often have heard Jesus speak and must have known about his many miracles. 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. [10] 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, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 87n.17. Vielhauer and Strecker, Jewish Christian Gospels, 15465; Klijn. Christoph Markschies und Jens Schrter (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck 2012), 606; Kok, Papias of Hierapolis, 4752; Andrew Gregory, The Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Ebionites (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 34, 78. He offered something infinitely better. [29] Thus, some scholars who otherwise defend the traditional authorship of Matthews Gospel admit that Papias erred in his belief about the original language in which it was written. (vv. Gospel Parallels: Calling of Levi/Matthew - READ-SCRIPTURE.COM What does Matthew 9:9 mean? | BibleRef.com Hence Levi was the original name of the man who was subsequently called Matthew; the Maththaios legomenos of Matthew 9:9, would indicate this. Who Was Matthias in the Bible and Why Did He Replace Judas? Who translated it after that in Greek is not sufficiently ascertained. [42], It was not until Epiphanius (Pan. St. Matthew, also called St. Matthew the Evangelist, St. Matthew the Apostle, or Levi, (flourished 1st century ce, Palestine; Western feast day September 21, Eastern feast day November 16), one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ and the traditional author of the first Synoptic Gospel (the 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.