How the Gospel of Matthew got its' name, from the lost manuscript of Theodore
In the days when the Bible was being compiled.. the friends of Theodore gathered in the lower room.. All the boys were there.. Eusebius, Alesandro Caponiski, , Michael blue eyes, Homer the homeophilis, Christophe the Robintino, Samuel the sayer, Eugene, Felix, Otis, and Nigellus. And as they gathered, the brought forth one by one the ancient scrolls that contained the words of the Lord.. And it came to pass that one scroll was brought forth, it was well written in Greek by someone who appears to know Jewish tradition, but it had no authors name attached. So they opened discussion:
Theodore: "Al, did you write this?"
Al: "I know nothing about it."
Theodore : "Sam is this you?"
Sam: "Not I, Sam I am, for I don't write while eating green eggs and ham".
Theodore: "Homie, was it you?"
Homer: "No, my schtick is with poetry"
Theodore: "Well someone wrote it.. Who?"
Mikey: "We have to give it a name. It should be someone important!"
Luigi: "How about Jesus himself?"
Theodore: "No we can't use the Lords' name in vain.. If anything in this story proves not to be accurate, that wouldn't look good, and the boss won't like it. We need some plausible deniability here, we need someone else that can be blamed if there is any inaccuracy"
Luigi: "OK, but they still need to be important like an Apostle.."
Christophe: "How about Peter?"
Theodore: "No, we already have a letters by Peter and the writing style is all wrong.. "
Otis: "How about James?"
Theodore: "James has same issue as with Peter"
Felix: "How about John?"
Theodore: "we already have a one text we are attaching John to.. We already have a john so we can't have two Johns' think of the extra plumbing.."
Eusebius: "Well I heard from someone say that there was this guy Papa Papias who said there was this guy Matthew.."
Theodore: "Matthew? Hmmm, wasn't he an apostle? We don't have a Matthew text. hmmm.. what did the Papa say? "
Eugene: "He said Matthew collected the oracles of Jesus.."
Mikey: "Matthew.. I like it."
Theodore: "OK, well this story text isn't exactly a collection of oracles, it's a gospel."
Mikey: "It doesn't matter we are just looking for a name to use."
Nigellus: "But using Matthew might not be the truth".
Mikey: "We are not looking for truth, Nigellus, were setting up a 'Tradition' , people won't know the difference. And besides most people can't handle the truth"
Theodore: "So all in favor of using Matthew say 'I'"
ALL: "Aye"
Theodore: "Ok Matthew it is.. NEXT"
And that son is how the gospel of Matthew got its' name.
