Bible (New Testament): English Standard Version

The Gospel of Matthew relates the life and ministry of Jesus from his birth to his resurrection. Early traditions assign the gospel’s authorship to Matthew, one of Jesus’s 12 disciples, but the text of the gospel itself is anonymous. It was likely first used by a Christian community that had an interest in the historically Jewish context of Christian belief and practice. As such, the Gospel of Matthew deals prominently with issues of Old Testament interpretation and the relation between the law of Moses and the teaching of Jesus.

As one of the synoptic gospels (See: Background), Matthew shares much of its content with Mark and Luke, but it organizes that material differently. The gospel begins with a birth narrative of Jesus, offering details different from the Gospel of Luke but set in a complementary account. Both Matthew and Luke recount Jesus’s virginal conception, his birth in Bethlehem, and his subsequent relocation to Nazareth, but Matthew focuses more on Joseph’s experience of those events than of Mary’s. Matthew also includes the account of the wise men’s visit to Bethlehem, while Luke records the shepherds’ visit.