The Layers of Matthew - III

Before reading this blog post, I suggest that you read its predecessors, The Layers of Matthew - I, published in this blog on 31 October 2018, and The Layers of Matthew - II, posted to the blog on 15 November 2018. if you have not already done so.

As mentioned in the previous blog entry, the Beatitudes, as listed in Mt. V:3-11 and Lk. VI:20-22, provide strong evidence that Luke used an earlier version of Matthew (Matthew I, in Hebrew, or Matthew II, in Greek) for the Sayings material in his gospel. The Beatitudes also provide evidence that Matthew I was written in Hebrew,

We have already spoken about Luke's omission of the "peacemakers" from his list of the Beatitudes, although it is important and clearly quite old (even containing a catchword connection that only works in Hebrew. But Luke's omissions do not stop there:

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.

The two lists are quite different. How do we even know that they are based on the same original list, or are intended to be the same list? We know this for two reasons: a) the order of the items that are present in both lists; and b) both lists finish with a version of the "rejoice" statement (Mt. V:12=Lk. VI:23). There is, clearly, a literary relationship, and it is a perplexing one.

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.

(to be continued)