Source Criticism aims to establish the sources which a given biblical

writer
may have used in compiling his work. It is the attempt to establish the bases
used by the authors and redactors of a biblical text.

the end of the 2nd century the tradition of Matthew the tax-collector
had become widely accepted, and the line The Gospel According to
Matthew began to be added to manuscripts. For many reasons scholars
today believe otherwisefifty five percent of the gospel is copied from Mark,
and it seems unlikely that an eyewitness of Jesus ministry would need to rely
on others for information about it. They believe instead that it was written
between about 8090 AD by a highly educated Jew, intimately familiar with
the technical aspects of Jewish law, standing on the boundary between
traditional and non-traditional Jewish values.

A widespread theory holds that the author drew on three primary

sources, each representing a distinct community: a hypothetical collection, or
several collections, of sayings (called Q, and shared with Luke); the Gospel
of Mark; and material unique to Matthew (called M, some of which may
have originated with Matthew himself).

He wrote for a Jewish audience: like Q and M, he stresses the

continuing relevance of the Jewish law; unlike Mark he never bothers to
explain Jewish customs; and unlike Luke, who traces Jesuss ancestry back to
Adam, father of the human race, he traces it only to Abraham, father of the
Jews. The fact that his linage differs significantly from that of Luke is a real
problem for those who claim that the Holy Spirits hand guided the writers of
the gospels.

The content of M suggests that the community for which this gospel
was written, was stricter than the others in its attitude to keeping the Jewish
law, holding that they must exceed the scribes and the Pharisees in
righteousness (adherence to Jewish law); and of the three only M refers to
a church (ecclesia), an organised group with rules for keeping order. Biblical
scholars generally hold that Matthew was composed between the years c. 70
and 100.