Synoptica XIII - The Beatitudes, Revisited

My favorite part of the Gospel of Matthew is the Sermon on the Mount. Ethically, it is defining for Christianity. Since it is part of the so-called "Q" material, it is also very revealing as to literary dependencies between Matthew and Luke.

The list of Beatitudes in Luke (Luke 6:20-23) is quite short. Here it is:

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

"Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied.

"Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

"Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and heap insults upon you, and spurn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man.

"Be glad on that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for in the same way their fathers used to treat the prophets."


The list in canonical, Greek Matthew (Mt. 5:3-12) is more extensive:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

"Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are you when men revile you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of Me.

"Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."


But Hebrew Matthew gives a list that is shorter than that in canonical, Greek Matthew, closer to Luke, and yet intermediate between the two. It should be noted that the verses in parentheses do not appear in eight of the nine manuscripts examined by George Howard, only being present in ms. A.

"(Blessed are the humble of spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.)

"Blessed are those who wait for they shall be comforted.

"(Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.)

"Blessed are the innocent of heart, for they shall see God.

"Blessed are those who pursue peace, for they shall be called sons of God.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are you when they persecute and revile you and say against you all kinds of evil for my sake, but speak falsely.

"Rejoice and be glad for your reward is very great in heaven, for thus they persecuted the prophets."

The two lines that George Howard placed in parentheses appear only in ms. A; they are absent from the Brit. Lib. ms. which was the main basis for his printed text, and also from BCDEFG. H is not mentioned, but that ms. is only fragmentary and does not include this part of the text. The first of these parenthetical Beatitudes corresponds roughly to the first Beatitude in canonical Luke and Matthew, but it says "humble" rather than "poor," and it does say "of spirit," a phrase that is found in canonical Matthew, but not in Luke. At this point I would have to say that ms. A either represents a later text type, or has been more assimilated to the canonical text than the others. Howard expresses the latter opinion on p. XIII of his 1995 edition. (I have not yet seen his original, 1987 edition, but will soon have it.) The second of the Beatitudes in parentheses is not in Luke at all, and is clearly an assimilation in ms. A to the text of canonical Matthew.

"those who wait" is analogous to "those who mourn" in canonical Matthew. According to George Howard (p. 226, op. cit.), this is a translation variant, due to similarity in appearance between the Hebrew words החוכים, (those who) wait, and הבוכים, (those who) mourn. In a footnote on the same page, he refers us to Gen 23:2 for an example of this usage of the verb בכה. That verb, however, literally means "to weep." Bearing this in mind, we see that Hebrew Matthew's "those who wait" is analogous both to the "those who weep" of Luke 6:21b and to the "those who mourn" of canonical Matthew 5:4. The translation variant is thus really "wait/weep," with "mourn" figuring only in the Greek translation. Since this similarity of "wait" and "weep" exists in Hebrew, but not in Greek or Latin, it is a safe assumption that 1) the original language of the Gospel of Matthew was Hebrew, and 2) Shem Tob's Hebrew Matthew is not a translation from Greek or Latin. In fact, if anyone thinks that Shen Tob's Hebrew Matthew is a translation, the burden of proof is on them.

Verses corresponding to Mt. 5:6 and 5:7 ("those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," and "the merciful," respectively) are not present in Hebrew Matthew (Matthew IIb according to my theory) at  all. The first of these is half-present in a quasi-analogous version in Luke ("you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied"). According to my Layered Matthew Hypothesis, Luke used a version of Matthew (Matthew IIa) still older than the Hebrew Matthew that has survived (Matthew IIb). So what is going on here? The following is pure speculation on my part: Perhaps it was felt that physical hunger being satisfied was a promise (in Mt. IIa) that could not be kept, so it was removed (in Mt. IIb). But by the time of canonical Matthew (Mt. III) it had been put back, but reinterpreted as hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

Canonical Matthew 5:7 (the merciful) must have been a late addition, made too late to appear either in Luke or in Hebrew Matthew. This is unfortunate. It's one of my favorites of the Beatitudes.

There is still more to say about the Beatitudes, so I'll continue this in the next installment.

Text © 2019 by Donald C. Traxler.