This gospel was written by a Jew, Matthew the tax-collector, for a Jewish Christian audience. The narrative closely follows the life of Jesus from his birth, through his ministry and unto his ...

If Matthew was a Levite, it would make his association with the Romans and work as a tax collector even more egregious. Jews considered tax collectors as sinners by default. They often collected ...

Jews had to pray three times a day and people would go to the temple for private prayer. The tax collector, on the other hand, put his head down and kept hitting himself to show how sorry he was.