Excursus Synopticus I - "ακοή" in Mt. 4:24 - A New Translation Variant

In George Howard's translation of Shem-Tob's Hebrew text of the Gospel of Matthew, in Mt. 4:24, we read: "So a report about him went into all the land Syria . . . " The Hebrew literally says, "his report," which in Shem Tob's unpointed text is שמועתו. But no Greek manuscript says this. They all, without exception so far as I know, use the word "ακοή," which means "hearing." They all say, literally, "his hearing went out into all Syria."

Most recent translators, since the KJV, have translated the word as "fame," with no support that I'm aware of, Strong's extended meanings notwithstanding. I'm not aware of any evidence for such an extended meanings existing in Koine Greek. Saint Jerome, who knew Greek as well as anybody in 400 CE, translated it as "opinio," not knowing what else to do with it.

So how are we to explain the discrepancy between the original "his report" and the "his hearing" of the Greek tradition? As it turns out, there is an explanation, and it is a simple one, involving a translation variant from Hebrew. In an unpointed text, which was all they had in those days, "his report" is written "שמועתו,“ while "his hearing" is written "שמיעתו.“ In other words, the only difference between the two words is the length of a single stroke of the pen.

What happened is clear: the person translating from Hebrew to Greek misread Hebrew "his report" as "his hearing;" and the error has persisted for nearly 2,000 years.

Does it matter? Well, it does to me, because it shows that the Gospel of Matthew was translated into Greek from a Hebrew original, just as Papias told us in ca. 200 CE.

The Hebrew text under consideration, that reproduced by Shem-Tob Ibn Shaprut, is apparently not the oldest version, but evidence abounds that it is older than the Greek version.

Text © 2019 by Donald C. Traxler.