choice. But as we read the evidence, the apostle Matthew is as suitable as any potential candidate for the authorship of the Gospel.2 Christian scholarship has historically maintained that Matthew’s Gospel was written for a Palestinian Christian audience.3 The Jewish outlook of the book seemed to point in this direction, as did an ancient tradition that Matthew had originally written his Gospel in a Semitic language, either Hebrew or Aramaic.4 Since few Gentiles would have
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