It will make things easier if I again give the list, from the last blog post, of Luke's omissions in the Beatitudes:
1. He omits "in spirit" from "poor in spirit." Note that in the Lukan form, the two halves of the verse rhyme in Hebrew, while the form in Matthew III (canonical Matthew), with "in spirit," prevents the rhyme.
2. He omits "Blessed are the meek," verse 5 in canonical Matthew.
3. He omits "Blessed are the merciful" (Matthew verse 7) from his list of the Beatitudes. but does include an echo of it in his verse 36.
4. He omits "Blessed are the pure in heart" (Matthew verse 8).
5. He omits "Blessed are the peacemakers" (Matthew verse 9). This extremely important and revealing omission was discussed in the previous blog post.
6. He omits "Blessed are they which are persecuted" (Matthew verse 10).
7. He includes only a sort of paraphrase of "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you" (Matthew verse 11). The Lukan paraphrase has lost the catchword connection that should link it to earlier verses and to the succeeding verse.
With all of the above Lukan omissions in mind, I decided to compare them to the oldest Hebrew Matthew that we have. What I found out was shocking.
In 1987 George Howard, Hebraist and professor of religion at the University of Georgia, published a book entitled
The Gospel of Matthew according to a Primitive Hebrew Text. Unfortunately I don't own that first edition, which unleashed a firestorm of criticism and resistance among academics. But for years I've had the revised, 1995 edition, and it is a masterwork.
I am a poet and a lover of truth, with a bent toward languages. not an academic. I have neither career nor tenure to protect, and I will tell you the truth as I see it, for whatever that is worth
There are many manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew. Some are older than others, and some are less accommodated to the standard Greek textual tradition. George Howard compared many of them, and determined the text of Matthew contained in a fourteenth-century polemical work,
Even Bohan, by Shem Tob Ibn Shaprut to be the most interesting and significant, and the least accommodated to the Received Text. Professor Howard examined nine manuscripts of this text, and included seven of them in his critical apparatus. Since that time, nineteen more manuscripts have been found, in libraries and museums all over the world, so the text has survived in twenty-eight manuscripts.
Professor Howard has done excellent analysis to determine to which text family the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew should be assigned. I have done my best, with the more limited tools available to me, to duplicate some of his research, and possibly add to it.
The conclusion I had reached, as recently as two weeks ago, was that the Shaprut Matthew was translated, either from a text of the Old Syriac type, or from one of the Old Latin type. These two text types are closely related, and probably had their origin in Antioch, at an early date. I had determined that, within the Syro-Latin text type, the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew was always closest to the very oldest surviving texts, Syr-s and Bobiensis (k). I did not expect the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew to be older than the mentioned manuscripts (fourth century and fourth/fifth century, respectively), or to be anything other than a translation from Syriac or Latin. Apparently, I was wrong.
When I compared Luke's omissions in the Beatitudes to the omissions in the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew, I found that they were very similar. Referring again to the list above:
1. The Shaprut Matthew does have "in spirit," but it may have been added later to conform to the canonical texts.
2. "Blessed are the meek" (verse 5 in canonical Matthew) is missing from all but one of the seven manuscripts of the Shaprut Matthew that Howard included in his apparatus.
3. "Blessed are the merciful" (canonical Matthew verse 7) is omitted from all seven manuscripts of the Shaprut Matthew in Howard's apparatus.
4. "Blessed are the pure in heart" (canonical Matthew verse 8) is omitted from Shaprut ms G.
5. "Blessed are the peacemakers (canonical Matthew verse 9) is included in the Shaprut Matthew, although Luke omitted it. Not only is it included, but it is given in the correct form ("those who pursue peace") to form a catchword with the succeeding verses. In Hebrew, "peacemakers" are called "peace-pursuers." Since the same verb, רדפ, is used in Hebrew for both "pursue" and "persecute," a catchword link is formed with verses 10, 11, and 12. This catchword works in Hebrew, but not in Greek, where the phrase is "peace-doers," or in Latin, where they are called "pacifici." The Hebrew phrase could not have been derived from either of those other languages.
6. Luke omits "Blessed are they which are persecuted (canonical Matthew verse 10), but it is present in the Shaprut Matthew.
7. Luke includes only a paraphrase of "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you" (canonical Matthew verse 11), and in Luke's paraphrase the catchword is lost.
The implications of the omissions and inclusions in the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew's Beatitudes when compared to canonical Matthew and canonical Luke are amazing. They show that an earlier form of Matthew (which I have called Matthew I) did indeed exist in Hebrew. Luke made use of either this Matthew I or Matthew II (which may have already been translated into Greek) for his list of Beatitudes, and probably for much of the Sayings material in his gospel. Furthermore, the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew appears to be based on a Hebrew Matthew that antedates canonical Matthew and represents a hitherto unknown text type that is older than the Greek textual tradition.
These conclusions will be disturbing to some. There will be those who claim that some very devious person or persons mutilated a copy of canonical Matthew in complex ways to give the impression of a very ancient text. But Occam's Razor tells us that the simplest answer, namely that the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew is based on a very ancient text, is likely to be the correct one.
(to be continued)
