It is today a well proven fact that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew: not only do the Church fathers[1] tell us just that, but the discovery of the dead sea scrolls showed that Hebrew was still the Jewish language of the day in the first century. Linguistic study of the Hebrew versions[2] of Matthew in more recent years has also provided abundant evidence to prove the Hebrew origin of the Gospel of Matthew.

 

[1] Papias, Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome all wrote that Matthew originally composed his Gospel in Hebrew. For references see e.g. the AENT (Aramaic English New Testament) 5th edition, 2012: Netzari Press, pp. 12, 13; and the ‘Hebrew Gospel of Matthew’ by George Howard, 1995: Mercer University Press, pp. 155, 156.

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[2] Hebrew versions include the ‘Shem Tov,’ ‘Du Tillet,’ and ‘Munster’ versions.