Before diving face-first into the Gospel of Matthew, we take a detour into the big awkward question Christians rarely love answering: who actually wrote this thing? Spoiler: probably not Matthew. The episode walks through the traditional claims, the scholarly doubts, the mystery author, the likely late-first-century dating, and the very convenient way this gospel tries really hard to make Jesus look like the long-awaited Jewish Messiah.

This intro also gets into why Matthew is obsessed with prophecy fulfillment, Jewish identity, the destruction of the Second Temple, and framing Jesus as the New Moses, because if you arrange your story just right, theology starts looking suspiciously like literary fan fic. There’s also a lot of “kingdom of heaven” talk coming, so buckle up for that phrase to be sprinkled everywhere like chocolate chips in a cookie no one asked God to bake.

And because this is Sacrilegious Discourse, the hosts also wander gloriously into Judas not getting his own book, confusing apostles with disciples, the Sandman’s Corinthian, digging up Matthew’s alleged tomb in Italy, and the terrifying realization that the New Testament is where Christianity gets personal for a whole lot of people.

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📌 Topics Covered:

Why the Gospel of Matthew probably wasn’t written by Matthew
Matthew as Jewish-Christian propaganda for Jesus-as-Messiah claims
The Gospel’s likely post-70 CE context after the destruction of the Second Temple
Why Matthew leans so hard into prophecy fulfillment
Jesus as the “New Moses” and the five-discourse structure
Matthew using Mark and the mysterious lost Q source
The difference between Matthew the apostle, Matthew the tax collector, Levi, and “wait, which guy is this again?”
The coming avalanche of “kingdom of heaven” references

💬 Best Quote from the Episode:

“Dig up Matthew. Study it out.”

Introduction to Matthew: Bible Study by Atheists