The Layers of Matthew - VIII

Now we are getting into dangerous territory. I can proceed, with trepidation, or I can let the matter drop. I could go either way, but earlier I described myself as a lover of truth, which lays a certain burden on me. I elect to proceed, but with caution.

We have just seen how, in Matthew VII:6, the manuscripts of the Greek textual tradition read "that which is holy," where the newfound Hebrew textual tradition has "holy flesh." This was explained as being either a translation variant (Hebrew "asher kodesh" instead of the similar-appearing "bashar kodesh"), or a copyists error in transmission. There is no support that I know of in the Greek textual tradition for the reading "holy flesh." George Howard only included seven manuscripts in his apparatus, having examined nine, and we now know that the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew has survived in at least twenty-eight manuscripts. There is a lot more work to be done, but based only on Howard's apparatus, I can say that there is no support in the Hebrew textual tradition for the reading "that which." Since those seven manuscripts are not very closely allied, I would have to venture that "bashar" (flesh) is original and not a copyist's error. There is also a principle in textual criticism by which the "more difficult" reading is likely to be the correct one. I would say that "flesh" is the more difficult reading of the two. Also, dogs/pigs forms a parallelism, so important in Semitic literature, and the parallelism is more balanced and more perfect if both members reference something concrete rather than an abstraction such as "that which."

Does it matter? I think it does, and greatly. What could "do not give holy flesh to the dogs" mean? To a Jew of Rabbi Yeshua's time, it could easily be a statement against mixed marriage. We already know, from the episode of the Canaanite Woman" (Mt. XV:22-28) that at that time it was a commonplace to call the Gentiles "dogs," and it was a usage that even the Canaanite woman understood, and she replied in kind.

But wouldn't it be racism for the Jews of that time to consider themselves "holy flesh?" Not necessarily. They would have considered themselves holy if they kept the religious law, the Torah, and honored the Covenant they had made with God.

Similarly the pearls/swine part could be a warning against efforts to convert the Gentiles, because they might "turn against you and rend you." Is this not, in fact, what actually happened? Rabbi Yeshua was prescient.

The deeper we go into our study of Hebrew Matthew, the more we realize that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written for the Jews. But Paul, who had other ambitions, needed to make it more palatable to the Gentiles, which is where Luke came in.

In light of the foregoing, the claim that the Gospels were originally written in Greek and that there was no Hebrew substratum seems disingenuous, to say the least.

(to be continued)