The Unreliability of the Gospel of Luke - Part 2: Birth, Infancy, & Childhood Stories

WHERE WE ARE

The author of the Gospel of Luke made some changes to the stories about Jesus that came from the Gospel of Mark, and added some stories or events to what is found in the Gospel of Mark. 

The changes and additions by the author of the Gospel of Luke to stories about Jesus from the Gospel of Mark could either be historically reliable or not. If those changes and additions are historically unreliable, then in terms of stories about Jesus, the Gospel of Luke would have very little historical information to offer about Jesus beyond what we already find in the Gospel of Mark.

In Part 1 of this series, I argued that it is probable that the changes and additions by the author of the Gospel of Luke to stories about Jesus from the Gospel of Mark are historically unreliable on this basis:

REASON #1: There are several general considerations about the Gospel of Luke that suggest that its additions and changes to stories from the Gospel of Mark are historically unreliable.  

A SECOND REASON FOR THE HISTORICAL UNRELIABILITY OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

In this post, I am going to provide more specific evidence that the changes and additions to stories about Jesus from the Gospel of Mark made by the author of the Gospel of Luke are dubious and historically unreliable. 

Here is the second reason that supports this conclusion:

REASON #2: The Gospel of Mark has no stories about the birth, infancy, or childhood of Jesus, but the Gospel of Luke adds stories of eight such events, and there are good reasons to doubt the historical reliability of those stories in the Gospel of Luke. 

In the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke we find eight different events about the birth, infancy, and childhood of Jesus that are not found in the Gospel of Mark:[1]

• Miraculous Conception of John (Luke 1:7-25)
• Miraculous Conception of Jesus (Luke 1:26-38)
• Mary Visits Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-56)
• Birth and Naming of John (Luke 1:57-80]
• Birth of Jesus (Luke 2:1-7)
• Visit of the Shepherds (Luke 2:8-20)
• Dedication of Jesus (Luke 2:21-40)
• The Young Jesus in Jerusalem (Luke 2:41-52)

Also related to the birth of Jesus, the Gospel of Luke provides an alleged genealogy of Jesus:

• Jesus' Genealogy (Luke 3:23-38)

If this genealogy is historically dubious, then that would cast doubt on the historical reliability of the eight alleged events in the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke.

SCHOLARS USUALLY VIEW THE BIRTH STORIES AS LEGENDS 

Most mainline Jesus and NT scholars view the birth stories in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew as unhistorical legends:

Historians are usually convinced that if a case can be made for Jesus' birthplace, the most likely site is Nazareth in Galilee.[2]  - Jesus scholar James Charlesworth

 

Most critics doubt that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea.[3]  - Jesus scholar Craig A. Evans

During the reign of Herod the Great, and probably toward its end (ca. 7-4 B.C.),  Jesus was born in the hill town of Nazareth in Lower Galilee.[4] - Jesus scholar John P. Meier   

He [Jesus] was probably born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem.[5] - Jesus scholar Marcus Borg

The precise date of the birth of Jesus is still unknown. It occured, it would seem, before the spring of 4 BC, and most likely in 5, or a little earlier.

...His birthplace is equally uncertain. Whilst Bethlehem cannot be absolutely excluded, it remains highly questionable.[6] - Jesus scholar Geza Vermes

Most disturbing for Christian pilgrim piety is the outcome that Jesus' birth in Bethlehem has to be left in question. Was the story to that effect contrived simply because of the Micah prophecy: 'And you Bethlehem, ... from you shall come forth a ruler, who will shepherd my people Israel' (Mic. 5.2, cited by Matt. 2.5-6)?[7] - Jesus scholar James Dunn  

According to the birth stories in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was born in Bethlehem (in southern Palestine).  If Jesus was not actually born in Bethlehem, but was born in Nazareth (in northern Palestine), as "Historians are usually convinced," then the birth stories in those two Gospels are unhistorical legends. 

There are three primary reasons why I (and most mainline scholars) do not see these stories [the stories of Jesus' birth in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew] as historically factual.[8] - Jesus scholar Marcus Borg

We will look at the three primary reasons later in this post.  For now, the key point is that Borg's skeptical view of these birth stories is shared by "most mainline scholars".

The prominent New Testament and Jesus scholar E.P. Sanders argues that the birth stories in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew are unhistorical:

The authors of the gospels offer this kind of information about Jesus, information that is based on the assumption that he fulfilled biblical statements. This does not prove that they were dishonest historians. They were not historians at all, except accidentally (though Luke had some of the attributes of a hellenistic historian). Nor were they dishonest.  They believed that Jesus really did fulfil the promises of Hebrew scripture. 

[...]

This way of seeing history was of great assistance to the authors of the gospels. It allowed them to fill in some of the blank spaces in the story of Jesus. They were probably set on this course by genuine parallels between John the Baptist and Jesus, on the one hand, and biblical characters or predictions on the other. ...

The more parallels between Jesus and characters or prophecies in Hebrew scripture, the more likely Matthew, Mark, and Luke were to invent still more. ...The clearest cases of invention are in the birth narratives. Matthew and Luke write that Jesus was born in Bethlehem but grew up in Nazareth. This probably reflects two sorts of 'facts': in ordinary history, Jesus was from Nazareth; according to salvation history, the redeemer of Israel should have been born in Bethlehem, David's city. The two Gospels have completely different and irreconcilable ways of moving Jesus and his family from one place to the other.[9]

The birth narratives constitute an extreme case. Matthew and Luke used them to place Jesus in salvation history. It seems that they had very little historical information about Jesus' birth (historical in our sense), and so they went to one of their other sources, Jewish scripture.[10]

In addition to general considerations (presented in my previous post) that provide a good reason to doubt the historical reliability of the additions and changes made by the author of Gospel of Luke to the alleged events described in the Gospel of Mark, we now have a more specific reason to doubt the historical reliability of those aspects of the Gospel of Luke: most mainstream scholars view the birth stories in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew as unhistorical legends. That is a good reason to believe that it is probable that those birth stories are unhistorical legends.

THE TRADITION OF A REMARKABLE BIRTH IS LATE 

Jesus scholar Marcus Borg mentions three reasons why many scholars doubt the historical reliability of these stories. Here is one reason that he gives:

First, the tradition that Jesus had a remarkable birth is relatively late. The stories of his birth are found only in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke, both written near the end of the first century.  Earlier writers (as well as the rest of the New Testament) do not refer to a special birth.[11]

The Jesus scholar John Meier reinforces this point with an explanation:

 ...unlike the public ministry of Jesus, where certain eyewitnesses were also prominent leaders in the early Church, almost all the witnesses to the events surrounding Jesus' birth were dead or otherwise unavailable to the early Church when it formulated the infancy traditions that lie behind Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2.[12]

Jesus' twelve disciples were probably about Jesus' age (in their 30s) or younger (in their 20s), so none of them would have been present when Jesus was born. 

Jesus' father Joseph disappears from the Gospel accounts before Jesus began his ministry:

Joseph is gone from the scene when the Gospels describe Jesus' adult life, though he was apparently remembered by those around Jesus as his father...and as a carpenter (Matt. 13:55). The gospel of Mark makes no mention of Jesus' father, and calls him instead "Mary's son" (Mark 6.3).[13] - The Oxford Companion to the Bible

 

So, Jesus' father was probably dead before any of the Gospels were written.  

Jesus' mother, Mary, was allegedly still alive during his ministry and crucifixion, but if she was 16 years old when Jesus was born, and if Jesus was born about 5 BCE, then Mary was about 20 years old in the year 1 BCE. So, in the 80s CE (when the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew were probably written), Mary would have been between 100 and 109 years old when the birth stories were composed! 

But very few people in first-century Palestine lived to be 90 years old. Only about one in a thousand women who were 20 years old in 1 BCE would have lived to be 90 years old.[14] 

Furthermore, even if Mary had lived to be 100 years old, she would likely be experiencing dementia at that age, and even if her mind was still functioning well, her memories of what had happened to her more than eight decades in the past (around 5 BCE) would be unreliable. Thus, if the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew were composed in the 80s, as most NT scholars believe, then it is very unlikely that their birth stories came directly from a reliable eyewitness to those alleged events.  Therefore, it is very likely that the birth stories are, at best, second-hand or third-hand stories.  

STRIKING DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO BIRTH STORIES

The Jesus scholar Marcus Borg gives a second reason for doubting the historical reliability of the birth stories in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew:

The second reason is the striking differences between Matthew's birth story and Luke's birth story. ...

1. The genealogy of Jesus.  Both Matthew and Luke trace the genealogy of Jesus back through Joseph to King David and beyond.  But the genealogies differ significantly. ...

2. The home of Mary and Joseph. In Luke, Mary and Joseph live in Nazareth but because of the census travel back to Bethlehem, where the birth occurs in a stable.  They go back home to Nazareth after the birth.  In Matthew, Mary and Joseph live in Bethlehem and the birth occurs at home (not in a stable).  The family then moves to Nazareth after spending time in Egypt.  Matthew has no trip to Bethlehem. 

3. Birth visitors. In Matthew, "wise men from the East" follow a special star to the place of Jesus' birth.  Luke has neither wise men nor star but instead angels singing in the night sky to shepherds who then come to the manger. 

4. Herod's plot. In Matthew, Herod the Great orders the killing of all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem. The family of Jesus escapes by fleeing to Egypt.  Luke's story has neither Herod's plot nor a trip to Egypt. 

5. Use of the Hebrew Bible. Both Matthew and Luke use the Hebrew Bible extensively, but they use it differently. Matthew uses a prediction-fulfilment formula five times in his birth story: "This took place to fulfill that which was spoken by the prophet." Luke, on the other hand, echoes language from the Hebrew Bible without treating it as fulfilment of prophecy, especially in the great hymns that he attributes to Mary (the "Magnificat") and Zechariah (the "Benedictus").

There are other differences as well.  But these are enough to make the point that we have two very different stories.  Though some of the differences can perhaps be harmonized, some seem irreconcilable.[15]

Many NT and Jesus scholars agree with Borg that it is very difficult to reconcile these two very different birth stories with each other:

• John P. Meier[16]  
• Raymond Brown[17]  
• E.P. Sanders[18]  
• Geza Vermes[19]  
• John Crossan[20] 
• James Charlesworth[21]  
• Jürgen Becker[22]  
• Bart Ehrman[23]  
• Paula Fredriksen[24]  
• Robert Funk[25]

In view of the conflicts between the two birth stories, the Jesus scholar E.P. Sanders draws this conclusion:

It is not possible for both these stories to be accurate. It is improbable that either is.[26] 

                                                                                                                             

THE STORIES LOOK LIKE LITERARY CREATIONS

The Jesus scholar Marcus Borg gives a third reason for doubting the historical reliability of the birth stories in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew: 

The stories look like they have been composed to be overtures to each Gospel. That is, the central themes of each birth story reflect the central themes of the gospel of which they are a part. For example, for Matthew Jesus is "the king of the Jews," and so his ancestry is traced through the kings of Judah.  For Luke, Jesus is a Spirit-anointed social prophet, and so his ancestry includes prophets.  For Matthew, Jesus is "one like unto Moses," and the story of Herod's plot calls to mind the story of Pharaoh ordering the death of all newborn Hebrew boys in the time of Moses.  Luke emphasizes the spread of the gospel into the Gentile world (especially in the book of Acts), and so the ancestry of Jesus is traced back not simply to Abraham the father of the Jewish people, but to Adam, the father of Jew and Gentile alike.  In short, the stories look like the literary creation of each author.[27]

The events and details contained in both birth stories fit too neatly with the themes and theology of the authors of those stories, suggesting that the stories were not based on historical facts but, rather, on the imaginations of the authors of the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew. 

CONCLUSION

Based on various general considerations, we previously concluded that the changes and additions made by the author of the Gospel of Luke to the stories found in the Gospel of Mark are probably historically unreliable. 

Given this reasonable assumption, and given that most mainstream scholars view the birth stories in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew as unhistorical legends, and given the three reasons presented by the Jesus scholar Marcus Borg for viewing the birth stories as unhistorical, we may conclude that it is probable that the birth story in the Gospel of Luke is a historically unreliable addition to the stories found in the Gospel of Mark.

END NOTES

1. Robert Funk and The Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998), see the list of "Birth & Infancy Stories", p.564.

2. James Charlesworth, The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2008), p.67.

3. Craig A. Evans, "Context, Family, and Formation" in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, edited by Markus Bockmuehl (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001), footnote #7, p.22. 

4. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Volume 1 (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1991), p.350. 

5. Marcus Borg, "The Meaning of the Birth Stories" in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999), p.182.  

6. James D.G. Dunn, Christianity in the Making, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003), pp.344-345. 

7. Geza Vermes, The Nativity (London: Peguin Books Ltd., 2006), p.97.

8. Marcus Borg, "The Meaning of the Birth Stories" in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright, p.179. 

9. E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York, NY: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1993), pp.83-86.

10. E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, p.88.

11. Marcus Borg, "The Meaning of the Birth Stories" in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright, pp.179-180. 

12. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Volume 1, p.209.

13. Philip Sellew, "Joseph (Husband of Mary)." in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, edited by Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1993), p.382. 

14. See my post "The Life Expectancy of the Eleven Disciples" for more information about life expectancy in first-century Palestine.

15. Marcus Borg, "The Meaning of the Birth Stories" in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright, pp.180-181. 

16. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Volume 1, pp.211-213.

17. Raymond Brown, The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1973), pp.52-54. 

18. E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, pp.83-90.

19. Geza Vermes, The Nativity, pp. 17-19.

20. John Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994), pp.4-23.

21. James Charlesworth, The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide, pp.63-68.

22. Jürgen Becker, Jesus of Nazareth (New York, NY: Walter De Gruyter & Co., 1988), pp.20-24. 

23. Bart Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp.36-38. 

24. Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), pp.18-27. 

25. Robert Funk, Honest to Jesus (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers,1996), pp.292-294.

26. E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, p.86.

27. Marcus Borg, "The Meaning of the Birth Stories" in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright, p.181.          

The Life Expectancy of the Eleven Disciples

TWO PROBLEMS WITH THE GOSPEL OF LUKE AND THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

There are at least two significant problems with using the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew as sources of historical information about the ministry, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus, especially in attempting to make a case for the claim that God raised Jesus from the dead. 

First, neither Gospel was written by an eyewitness to the life, ministry, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus.[1]  So, these Gospels are, at best, secondhand sources of historical information.  

Second, it is unlikely that the authors of either of those Gospels had direct access to eyewitnesses to the ministry, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus.  

In the case of the Gospel of Luke, for example, most of the specific events in the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus are taken from the previous Gospel of Mark.  But the author of the Gospel of Mark was not an eyewitness to the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, or burial of Jesus. Since most of the specific events concerning the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke are based on a book written by a non-eyewitness, this is a strong indication that the author of the Gospel of Luke did not have direct access to eyewitnesses to those events.

THE UNAVAILABILITY OF EYEWITNESS SOURCES

Furthermore, the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew were both written about 80-90 CE.[2]  So, these Gospels were composed five or six decades after Jesus was crucified.  By that point in time, most of the eyewitnesses to the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus would either be dead or would be senile.

Here is a Life Expectancy Table for the Roman Empire[3]:

Because the disciples were all men, I will use the data from the right-hand column in the above chart.  Note that most people died before they turned 10.  Infant mortality and childhood diseases killed off many infants and children, so that out of 100,000 births of males, only about 48,000 survived to the age of 10.  About 52% of people died before reaching that age. But if a man survived to the age of 25, his life expectancy at that point would be about 27 more years, so he could reasonably expect to live to be about 52 years old.  

Jesus was probably in his thirties when he was crucified, and his disciples were probably younger than Jesus, so his disciples were probably in their twenties when Jesus was crucified. Let's suppose that the disciples were around 25 years old when Jesus was crucified, and let's suppose that Jesus was crucified in 30 CE. In that case, the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus (the Twelve disciples minus Judas Iscariot) would have been about 25 years old in 30 CE, and they could reasonably expect to survive another 27 more years, until about 57 CE.

The problem is that the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew were both written around 80-90 CE.  We would expect the eleven disciples to have all died sometime between 40 CE and 70 CE, based on their life expectancy when Jesus was crucified.

Furthermore, Christian apologists claim that most of the eleven disciples were killed as martyrs for their faith.  If that is the case, then the disciples of Jesus would have a significantly lower life expectancy than the average man in the Roman Empire.  It would thus be reasonable to infer that the eleven disciples would all have died by about 60 CE, two or three decades before the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew were composed.

The expectation that a 25 year-old disciple would survive to about age 52 is, of course, an average.  Some of the eleven disciples probably died in their twenties, some in their thirties, some in their forties, and so on.  So, it is not just the average life expectancy at age 25 that matters.  We also need to have some idea about the likely range and distribution of their deaths over the decades following Jesus' crucifixion.  The above Life Expectancy Table includes information about the likely distribution of deaths over the decades following Jesus' crucifixion.

Out of the 100,000 male births, an estimated 40,201 would have survived to age 25.  Let's make that cohort the baseline, so that 40,201 men constitute 100% of the cohort of which we are interested.  In the following chart, I have calculated the % of this cohort that survives to various ages, based on the above Life Expectancy chart:

This chart indicates that we would expect one or two of the eleven disciples to survive to age 70, and that one of the eleven disciples would survive to age 75, and that it is unlikely that any of them would survive to age 80.  

Furthermore, if most of the eleven disciples died as martyrs, then their life expectancy would be significantly lower than the average male. Thus, it would be unlikely for any of the eleven to survive until age 75, and it would be likely that all eleven would die before age 75, which would be about 80 CE.

Since the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew were written between 80 CE and 90 CE, it is unlikely that any of the eleven disciples were still alive at the time those two Gospels were composed.  Thus, it is not surprising that the primary source of information about specific events in the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus used by the author of the Gospel of Luke was a book written by a non-eyewitness (the Gospel of Mark). 

CONCLUSION

Not only were the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew written by authors who were not eyewitnesses to the ministry, arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus, but it is unlikely that any of the eleven disciples of Jesus were still alive when those two Gospels were being composed.

END NOTES

1. For Gospel of Luke, see my post "The Unreliability of the Gospel of Luke - Part 1: General Considerations"; specifically, read the section called: "2. THE GOSPEL OF LUKE WAS NOT WRITTEN BY AN EYEWITNESS".

For the Gospel of Matthew, here are comments by some leading NT scholars:

...the gospels as we have them were not written by eyewitnesses on the basis of first-hand knowledge of Jesus.

The Historical Figure of Jesus by E.P. Sanders (New York, NY: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1993 ) p.63. 

For more than two hundred years most New Testament experts have concluded that the Evangelists [the authors of the Gospels] did not know the historical Jesus; moreover, they wrote decades after his death.

The Evangelists [the authors of the Gospels] were not eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and thought.

The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide by James Charlesworth (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2008), pp.xiii-xiv.

AUTHOR [of the Gospel of Matthew] DETECTABLE FROM CONTENTS: a Greek-speaker who knew Aramaic or Hebrew or both and was not an eyewitness of Jesus' ministry, drew on Mark, and a collection of the sayings of the Lord (Q), as well as on other available traditions, oral or written. Probably a Jewish Christian.

An Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond Brown (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1997), p.172. 

The bottom line is that very few scholars believe this Gospel was written or compiled by Matthew the disciple of Jesus. ...Most scholars think this Gospel uses Mark as a principle source. If its author had the advantage of actually having been an eyewitness to the events Mark reports, we would expect him to offer greater detail, filling in the blanks left by Mark's sketchy accounts. But this is not the case. The Gospel of Matthew adds very little of a historical nature to Mark's report of Jesus' ministry. What it does do is develop theologically the reports found in Mark in ways that would render them more meaningful to Christians of a later era. Thus, most scholars believe this Gospel reflects the concerns of second-generation Christianity, coming from a time when all of the original disciples were probably dead. 

Fortress Introduction to the Gospels by Mark Allan Powell (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), pp.71-72. 

Practically all critical scholars consider the evidence against apostolic authorship to be overwhelming: (1) The Gospel itself is anonymous.  Apostolic authorship is a claim made for the book, not a claim made by the book itself. ...(2) The use of Mark and Q as sources undercuts its claim to eyewitness testimony.  (3) The Greek language in which the Gospel was composed was the native language of the author and is of higher quality than the relatively unpolished Greek of Mark. Given the author's setting and background, he may have known enough Hebrew and Aramaic to work with texts, but there is no evidence that he was fluent in these languages.

"The Gospel of Matthew" by M. Eugene Boring in The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. VIII (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), pp.106-107.

2. For the Gospel of Luke, see my post, "The Unreliability of the Gospel of Luke - Part 1: General Considerations"; specifically, read the section called: "3. THE GOSPEL OF LUKE WAS WRITTEN ABOUT FIVE OR SIX DECADES AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION".

For the Gospel of Matthew, here are comments by some leading NT scholars:

Both Matthew and Luke, working independently of each other, composed larger Gospels in the 70-100 period (most likely between 80 and 90) by combining and editing Mark, a collection of Jesus' sayings that scholars arbitrarily label Q, and special traditions peculiar to Matthew and Luke. 

 A Marginal Jew, Vol. I by John P. Meier (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1991), pp.43-44.

As already noted, both Gospels [Matthew and Luke] are usually dated in the period of 80-95... 

Christianity in the Making, Volume I by James D.G. Dunn (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), footnote #98 on page 160.

...the great majority of Matthean scholars place the work within the decade of 80-90 C.E.

Fortress Introduction to the Gospels by Mark Allan Powell (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), p.74.

All this makes AD 80-90 the most plausible dating [for the composition of the Gospel of Matthew]; but the arguments are not precise, and so at least a decade in either direction must be allowed.

 An Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond Brown (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1997), p.217.

Thus it seems that the Gospel of Matthew was composed in the period 80-100, for which 90 may serve as a good symbolic figure.

"The Gospel of Matthew" by M. Eugene Boring in The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. VIII (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), p.106. 

3. "Demography of the Roman Empire" in Wikipedia, viewed 12-03-25. Based on data in Frier, Bruce W. (2000). "Demography". In Bowman, Alan K.; Garnsey, Peter; Rathbone, Dominic (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History XI: The High Empire, A.D. 70–192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 789, table 1.