A critique of views on the date and authorship of the Gospel of Matthew in recent decades

For the first seventeen centuries of Christendom, the early church tradition was the only position on the date and authorship of the gospel of Matthew. In that period, the First Gospel was identified as apostolic and was, consequently, given an early date within the lifetime of Matthew, the apostle of Jesus Christ.;The rise of literary criticism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ushered in a new era in which the early church position was questioned and even denied by many interpreters. As a result, the First Gospel is often attributed to a Gentile Christian or a Jewish Christian other than the Apostle Matthew. Likewise the gospel is dated after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE due to its apparent retrospective prophecies of the fall of Jerusalem and advanced theology and ecclesiology. Other reasons include its dependence on Mark and antagonism with rabbinic Judaism of the final quarter of the first century CE.;The examination of the views on the date and authorship of Matthew has shown that there is no position that can be proved with absolute certainty. However, the early church tradition seems to be a position that best explains the data available. Furthermore, the early church tradition has been criticized many times and by many exegetes; however, there is no view on the date and authorship of Matthew that has successfully ruled out the early church tradition.