Money Interests In Matthew's Gospel As Evidence Of Authorship

Matthew himself was traditionally identified as a tax collector, and Matthew's Gospel shows the greatest level of financial interest, including numerous references to money and treasure that Matthew alone records:

- The magi, with their rich gifts (2:11)
- The parable about hidden treasure (13:44)
- The parable about the discovered pearl (13:45-46)
- The scribe compared to someone bringing out old and new treasures (13:52)
- The account of Peter and the temple tax collectors (17:24-27)
- The parable of the servant who was forgiven a huge debt of ten thousand talents and who refused to forgive a fellow servant a debt of a hundred denarii (18:23-35)
- The parable of the workers in the vineyard, discontented with their pay of one denarius for a day because the same was given to late arrivals who had worked less time (20:1-16)
- The parable about talents (25:14-30)
- Judas's betrayal money (27:3) and what was purchased with it (27:7)
- The bribe given by the chief priests to the guards at Jesus's tomb (28:12)

(Peter J. Williams, Can We Trust The Gospels? [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2018], approximate Kindle location 1349)

There's some merit to Williams' argument, but it should be qualified.

A lot of other material could be added to Williams' list. See the references to pearls in Matthew 7:6, the identification of Matthew as a tax collector in 10:3 (in contrast to Mark 3:18 and Luke 6:15), the extended reference to forms of money in 10:9 (in contrast to Mark 6:8, Luke 10:4, and 22:35-36), the more precise financial terminology in 22:19 (in contrast to Mark 12:15 and Luke 20:24), gold in 23:16-17, etc.

But financial interest is hard to quantify in some ways. Matthew says a lot about rewards, for example, and rewards are often associated with money, but not always, and there's no reason to think the rewards God gives for the activities Matthew refers to would have much to do with finances. So, to what extent should we associate rewards with money?

Furthermore, the gospel of Matthew wouldn't have to show the most interest in matters related to finances. My sense is that Williams is right about Matthew's gospel showing the most interest, but all that would be needed to support Matthean authorship is a significant amount of interest in financial matters. And the gospel does have that, even if some other gospel were to show more interest. My sense is that Matthew shows much more interest in financial matters than Mark and John do, but that there isn't such a difference between Matthew and Luke. In some contexts, I think Luke gives more attention to money issues than Matthew does. But if, for example, Luke shows more concern for the poor and for condemning the abuse of the poor by rich people (e.g., the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16), we have no reason to expect a tax collector writing a gospel to be more interested in such a subject. In other words, the likelihood that a tax collector would have a higher interest in financial issues in some contexts doesn't imply that he'd have a higher interest in every context. Tax collectors weren't the only people who had professional or non-professional reasons for thinking about money a lot, knowing a lot about money, and so on.

Though the interest shown in financial matters in general in the gospel of Matthew has some significance, some of the subcategories involved are more significant. Matthew's gospel shows the most interest in and knowledge about tax issues, which is more important in this context than financial issues more broadly. As I explained in my last post, Matthew shows the most interest among the gospel writers in Jesus' compassion for tax collectors and his choosing one to be among the Twelve, and that interest is closely connected to the apostle Matthew (Matthew 9:13 occurs in Matthew's house, and 10:3 involves the naming of Matthew).

It could be objected that Luke's material on the Pharisee and the tax collector (18:9-14) and the tax collector Zaccheus (19:1-10) isn't found in Matthew. But both accounts portray tax collectors in a highly negative light. The tax collector in chapter 18 is repentant, which is good, but he does have something to repent of and is looked down upon by the Pharisee. Zaccheus is repentant and looked down upon as well, and he refers to those he may have defrauded (19:8). Luke's focus seems to be on Zaccheus' being a rich man and how he related to the poor after his conversion. His being a tax collector is treated as a lesser issue. Given the negative and secondary nature of tax collecting in these passages in Luke 18-19, there isn't much reason to expect Matthew to have included such material in his gospel. Matthew may have left that material out partly or entirely for the same reason Luke didn't include Mark's negative comment about physicians in Mark 5:26 (Luke 8:43). To whatever extent my argument in this post is weakened by Matthew's failure to include material like the passages in Luke 18-19, the argument still has some force.

For more about the evidence for Matthew's authorship, see here.