What do we know of the world in which Matthew was written?

We know some things for sure about the context of the Gospels. (For example, just by reading Matthew, one can discern the concern for Jewish tradition.) On other points, scholars make educated guesses, drawing from their knowledge of the ancient world, on internal evidence in the Gospel, and on other aspects of archeology, anthropology and sociology.

So, from all of that, what have scholars concluded about Matthew's world?

Most place the composition of the Gospel in Antioch in Syria. Antioch was the third most populous city in the Roman Empire. It was close to Palestine, just to the north, and we know it had a sizeable Jewish population. During the first century, about half of all Jews lived outside of Palestine, in the Diaspora, or 'dispersion.' This accelerated after the Jewish war against Rome, which resulted in the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.

We also know that Peter preached in Antioch. He may have been based there for quite some time, possibly much longer than the time that he preached in Rome.

The issues that faced this church:

• The incorporation of the Gentiles in the Christian community. Faith in Jesus as the Messiah was first preached to Jews. They would have known what the Messiah was to be, and would have understood Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law. Yet, Christianity also began to attract Gentile believers. Whether these new believers had to become Jews was an enormous issue for the early church. It threatened to split it altogether. See Acts 15 for more on how it began to be resolved. Matthew's community, while predominantly Jewish, also had to begin to make sense of 'outsiders' accepting Christ.


• The relationship of the believers in Jesus to other members of the Jewish community. There was certainly no one way to be a Jew in the first century, any more than there is one kind of Judaism today. The believers in Jesus were initially one faction in a diverse people. However, this became more complicated with the destruction of the Temple. Up to that point, the Temple was a unifying element for all factions, including the followers of Jesus. Without the Temple, Judaism had to redefine itself. At the same time, Christians were determining their own identity.
  
  We tend to think of "Jews" and "Christians". However, during this era, it is more accurate to think of different sects of Jews, among which was one who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. This was true in the two generations after Jesus' resurrection.
  
  With the loss of the Temple, two things happened. First, Pharisaic Judaism, which had not been as tied to the Temple, was the best equipped to deal with the aftermath. The form of Judaism that survived into the modern era was basically Pharisaism. This included an emphasis on the holiness of keeping all the points of Torah, a religious life centered in the home and synagogue, and a strong emphasis on community identity within a Gentile world. Second, Christianity began to be defined as a separate sect. The Acts of the Apostles records that Antioch was the first place where believers in Jesus were called "Christians". (Acts 11:26) This was initially a disparaging term. However, the community began to adopt the name as its own.
  
  
• Living in the Roman Empire, while pointed at the Kingdom of Heaven. Keep in mind that Jesus had been crucified as a revolutionary against the Roman Empire. And Matthew's Gospel was written in the wake of a Jewish war against the Empire. The Empire wasn't going anywhere. It continued to be the most powerful and extensive Empire in that part of the world for the next few centuries.
  
  Jews were familiar with the need to define oneself against the culture of the Greco-Roman world. The temptation to assimilation had been present for a millennium - in Egypt, in Canaan, and after the Syrian invasion (in which the tribes were not 'lost' as much as disaffiliated from Hebrew life and connections). During the Babylonian exile when it was possible to return, many Jews did not, and a Jewish community remained vibrant in what is now Iraq until the 1970's. The Greek invasion, under Alexander the Great posed another threat. Not only was there a strong cultural influence (and during the New Testament era, three centuries later, the Greek language and Greek culture was still dominant), but there were attempts to extinguish Jewish practice and belief. 1 and 2 Maccabees recount this era, and the revolt that preserved the Jewish nation and its identity.
  
  Jews knew that to preserve their identity, they needed to live in proximity to each other, to keep the Sabbath, to keep the dietary rules, to limit intermarriage. They knew that their ideals were in conflict with the surrounding culture. For example, Jewish sexual morals were very different in an era of licentiousness. They didn't countenance public nudity in an time when the major social venue was the baths. They didn't permit abortion and infanticide, which were not only common, but expected.
  
  For the Jews in Matthew's community, living as a member of the Kingdom was an extension of all this. They saw their belief in Jesus as an extension of what Torah and the Prophets had taught.
  
  The Gentiles joining this community had a very different experience. They had lived fully in the Greco-Roman world. They were brought into a community with very different values, with different goals, and with a different world view. They were discovering, in the time that this Gospel was being written, what that meant. How was one to live in this world, while aimed at Heaven? One can see the ways that this is worked out throughout the Gospel, but the Sermon on the Mount sets up the questions and the answers.
  


• Waiting for the Lord to return The earliest Christian communities believed that Christ would return shortly. During this period, the urgency was to proclaim Christ as widely as possible before the end of time. They were not interested in more of a social footprint, which one sees much later in Church history.
  


• The death of the apostolic generation. The community had the impetus to record the Gospel in writing as the apostolic generation began to leave the scene. In addition, they had to deal with issues of transition in leadership. The role of the bishop, the successors to the apostles, began to develop. Episcopos meant 'overseer' and eventually was used solely for those who headed the church. A concern for the order of the church and the role of the apostle/bishop is evident in the Gospel. (Especially in chapter 16.)