HOW ACCURATELY DID MATTHEW USE THE OLD TESTAMENT? IntroductionThe Bible contains two parts, which are the Old Testament, the so-called Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament. Although many different writers were involved in the writing of the Bible, the two Testaments are not independent; they are cross references to each other. Christians often treat the Old Testament not only as historical documents or literature of the Israelites, but also as an important element of the foundation of the New Testament, because the writers of the New Testament place a strong emphasis on Jesus' relationship to the prophecies of the Old Testament, which includes "the birth of Jesus, the place of His birth, the flight into Egypt, the return to Nazareth, the role of John the Baptist in preparing Jesus for His public ministry", the crucifixion of Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus The New Testament is a collection of several spiritual literary works, including the Gospels, a history of the early church, the epistles of Paul, other epistles, and the apocalypse. Without reflecting or deeply researching the chronological order of the Gospels, a reader should have no problem observing that the Gospels begin with the Gospel of Matthew, and noting that there are many common areas, including content and literary features, among the first three Gospels , the Gospel of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The reason the Gospel of Matthew ranks first among the four Gospels is due to the early church tradition that Matthew was the first to record the word of the Lord and the stories of Jesus. In the 5th century, Augustine of Hippo stated that "the canonical order of the four Gospels was the chronological order". In the late 18th century, JJ Griesbach stated that The Gospel of Mark was a short version of the combination of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. In the nineteenth century, German scholars concluded that the Gospel of Matthew had been preceded by the Gospel of Mark, and Matthew used the Gospel of Mark as his primary source. Regardless of the theory accepted by most New Testament scholars, Matthew did not simply copy sources from other Gospels, but also included his own ideas and quoted verses from the Old Testament. So the readers' question should arise is, "How strong a relationship did the Gospel of Matthew have with the Old Testament?" or “How carefully did Matthew use the Old Testament?