The Historical Unreliability of the Gospel of Matthew - INDEX

REASONS FOR THE HISTORICAL UNRELIABILITY OF THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

The stories about alleged events in the life of Jesus found in the Gospel of Matthew involve changes and additions to the stories about the life of Jesus from the Gospel of Mark and those changes and additions by the author of the Gospel of Matthew are dubious and historically unreliable. 

There are at least five reasons that support this conclusion:

REASON #1: There are several general considerations about the Gospel of Matthew that suggest that its additions and changes to stories from the Gospel of Mark are historically unreliable. I will present such general considerations later in this post. 

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

REASON #3: The Gospel of Mark has no stories about alleged appearances of the risen Jesus to his followers, but the Gospel of Matthew adds stories about two events involving alleged appearances of the risen Jesus and about another event related to the alleged empty tomb, and there are good reasons to doubt the historical reliability of these additional stories in the Gospel of Matthew.

 REASON #4: In Chapters 3 through 25, the Gospel of Matthew adds sixteen events that are not found in the Gospel of Mark, and there are good reasons to doubt the historical reliability of those accounts of additional events.

REASON #5: The various additions and changes that the author of the Gospel of Matthew makes to the Passion Narrative (about the arrest, trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus) in the Gospel of Mark are consistently dubious and are thus historically unreliable.

The above five reasons are sufficient to show it is very probable that changes and additions made by the author of the Gospel of Matthew to stories about Jesus from the Gospel of Mark are historically unreliable, and thus in terms of stories about Jesus, the Gospel of Matthew has very little historical information about Jesus to offer us beyond what we find in the Gospel of Mark.