Reading Matthew in Hebrew - VII

On a warm night in early 2015 I was trying to put myself to sleep by reading the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew. as I read, I suddenly realized that the passage I had reached, Mt. 5:25, 26, was full of alliteration. This was very exciting, and made sleep even more impossible.

I was reading Franz Delitzsch's translation of the New Testament into Hebrew, which is written in pure and impeccable Biblical Hebrew. Here is the passage I was reading:

מַהֵר הִתְרַצֵּה לְאִישׁ רִיבְךָ בּעוֹדְךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ אִתּוֹ פֶּן־יַסְגִיר אֹתְךָ אִישׁ רִיבְךָ אֶל־הַשֹׁפֵט וְהַשֹׁפֵט יַסְגִּירְךָ לַשׁוֹטֵר וְהָשְׁלַכְתָּ אֶל־בֵּית הַכֶּלֶא ׃  אָמֵן אֹמֵר אֲנִי לָךְ לֹא תֵצֵא מִשָׁם עַד אֲשֶׁר שִׁלַּמְתָּ אֶת־הַפְּרוּטָה הָאַחֲרוֹנָה ׃

Here is an ad hoc phonetic version, so that those who do not read Hebrew may appreciate the alliteration:

maher hitratzeh l'ish riv'chaw b'od'chaw baderek ito pen-yasgir ot'chaw ish riv'chaw el-hashofet v'hashofet yasgir'chaw lashoter v'hawshlachtaw el-beyt hakele. awmen omer ani lawch lo tetze mishawm ad asher shilamtaw et-ha p'rutaw hawacharonaw. 

English:

Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

The alliteration in v.25: shofet/shofet/shoter. It is also visible in Salkinson.

The alliteration in v. 26: the common Matthaean formula "awmen omer ani" (amen I say to you). Salkinson expresses this somewhat differently, losing the alliteration.

In the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew we have the following:

אז אמר יש“ו לתלמידיו ראה שתמהר לרצות שונאך בלכתך עמו בדרך פנ ימסור אותך לשופט וזה השופט ימסורך לעבד לתת אותך לבית הסוהר ׃

באמת אני אומר לך לא תצא משם עד תנתן פרוטה אחרונה ׃

v. 25: shofet/shofet only (because Shaprut has "servant" instead of "officer")

v. 26: The alliteration of the common Matthaean formula is lost, because the Shaprut text reads "in truth" in place of "amen."

The implications of all this are many. Alliteration is a common feature of Semitic literature, but it is generally lost in translation. I am convinced that the alliteration in v. 25 is integral to the composition of the verse. This implies that the verse was originally written in a Semitic language. The alternatives are Hebrew and Aramaic. But I have checked Syr-s, Syr-c, and the Peshitta, and the alliteration is not visible in those texts. So we are left with Hebrew, but what type of Hebrew? The alliteration is only partial in the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew, but it is fully visible in Delitzsch's strict Biblical Hebrew.

When I first read Delitzsch's translation, I felt that the use of Biblical Hebrew was an anachronism. So it may have been, but there would have been no better way to give dignity and gravitas to the text. My vote, therefore, now goes to Biblical Hebrew as the substratum language in Matthew.

The alliteration of the common Matthaean formula is also interesting. It is no doubt original in the text of Matthew, and we find it in all the best Greek and Latin manuscripts. It disappears in Luke, where it is customarily replaced by "verily," or some such word. Even the KJV and the RSV say "verily," "truly," or some such, instead of the original (and alliterative in Hebrew) "amen."

This also has implications for the Synoptic problem. For years I was a partisan of Markan priority, the hypothesized "Q Document," and the Two-Source Theory. It falls apart, though, when one looks at the many Minor Agreements (more on this in a later blog post), and forces us to ignore the statements of the early Church historians. If we resort to a Two-Gospel Theory, as did Augustine, Griesbach (the father of New Testament textual criticism), and, more recently Farrar did, we are consistent with nearly eighteen centuries of Church opinion. Still, though, there is the question of  Matthaean or Lukan priority. The evidence of the Hebrew substratum in Matthew, with all its literary devices, argues for Matthaean priority. We have, then, a Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, written for the Jews, and a little later a Gospel of Luke, written for the Gentiles. Thus we see the alliterative "amen I say to you" changed by Luke to "truly," "verily," or simply "I say to you," to make the Gospel sound less Jewish, and for the same reason less insistence upon the Law.

Rabbi Yeshua, called by us Jesus, was a Jew, and his original audience was made up of Jews. To argue that the more Gentile gospel of Luke was the first and the "Jewish" features of Matthew were added later would be to stand history on its head.

(to be continued)