The traditional ascriptions for the Gospels are based on very shaky ground indeed: the testimony of one man, Papias. Papias wrote ~60 years after Mark wrote, too long to be a good source. But Papias cannot be trusted even without considering this date.
- Eusebius thought that Papias was "a man of little intelligence" (H.E. 3:39:12–13). Eusebius wrote the most important source we have on the early church. Believers generally accept his words without much question, and his credibility is well-attested even among non-believers.
- Papias acknowledged he wrote on hearsay.
But I shall not be unwilling to put down, along with my interpretations, whatsoever instructions I received with care at any time from the elders, and stored up with care in my memory, assuring you at the same time of their truth. For I did not, like the multitude, take pleasure in those who spoke much, but in those who taught the truth; nor in those who related strange commandments, but in those who rehearsed the commandments given by the Lord to faith, and proceeding from truth itself. If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings,--what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice. - He was wrong on what language Matthew wrote in. He says,
Therefore Matthew put the logia [book, words] in an ordered arrangement in the Hebrew language, but each person interpreted them as best he could.
There was also a persistent tradition that it was written originally not in Greek but in Hebrew or Aramaic. Both of these traditions are doubted by most modern scholars. The Greek of the gospel as we know it does not read like 'translation Greek', and the close literary relationship of Matthew with the (Greek) gospels of Mark and Luke makes its origin in any other language unlikely.
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