HKB
Gospel looks more like an original Greek work than like a translation. The tradition of the Aramaic Matthew places before us one of the unsolved problems of New Testament criticism.
One thing is certain--the language of the Gospel of Matthew, like that of the other Gospels, has a strong Aramaic coloring. This, however, does not require the hypothesis that our Matthew was translated from an Aramaic original. Undoubtedly, however our Greek Matthew was written, there was a time in the early days of the Church when the tradition of the life of Christ was carried on chiefly or wholly in the Aramaic language. The words of Jesus, at any rate, as they appear in our Gospels, have at some time or other undergone translation; for Jesus taught in Aramaic. The Aramaic coloring of the Gospels is one of the evidences of their trustworthiness. Though written in Greek, they are evidently rooted deep in the original Palestinian soil.
The date of the Gospel cannot be determined with accuracy. Some indication, however, is afforded by the assertion of Irenæus, of the latter part of the second century, that Matthew published his Gospel while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome. Even if this assertion should prove not to be absolutely correct, it would exhibit an early tradition for the years between about A. D. 60 and 70 as the date of the Gospel. This tradition is confirmed by the widespread view among early writers that Matthew was written before Mark; for Mark is now generally admitted to have been written before the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. There is really no serious objection to the traditional dating of Matthew. It was probably written in the sixties of the first century, and probably, as tradition says, in Palestine.
There are traces of the use of the Gospel in writers of the early half of the second century. On the other hand, there is no clear indication that it was used by any New Testament writer. The absence of citations from our Gospels in the epistles of Paul would tend to indicate that in the very earliest period the gospel tradition was carried on by word of mouth rather than by books.
In the four lists of the apostles, Matt. 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:13-16; Acts 1:13, Matthew is designated by the bare name, except in his own Gospel, where he appears as "Matthew the publican." In Matt. 9:9, his call is narrated. In the parallel passages in Mark and Luke, Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27,28, the name of the publican who was called is given only as "Levi." Without the Gospel of Matthew we should not have been able to identify Levi and Matthew. Evidently the apostle had two names, as was the case with so many others of the persons mentioned in the New Testament. After his call, Matthew made a great feast for Jesus. Luke 5:29; compare Mark 2:15. Matthew himself, alone among the Synoptists, does not even make it perfectly clear that it was he in whose house Jesus sat at meat. The peculiarities of the First Gospel in what is said about Matthew become significant when the authorship is known. Of course of themselves they would be quite insufficient to indicate who the author was. The assertion by early writers that Matthew wrote the Gospel, was based not upon indications in the Gospel itself, but upon independent tradition.