Rabbi Yeshua's teaching is Jewish teaching. He did not have the chutzpah to simply make everything up out of nothing. We see, for example, that Matthew 5:5 is a reference to Psalm 37:11. We also note that Mt. 5:5 is present in only one of the nine manuscripts of Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew examined by George Howard. We also note that the closely-related Mt. 5:3 is also missing from all but (the same) one of those nine Shem-Tob mss. We also notice that verse five is not paralleled in Luke (or Mark), but verse three has a parallel in Luke 6:20. In Greek Matthew, Mt. 5:3 is usually translated as "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." But in Luke we read "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. ". . . kingdom of heaven" is typically Matthaean language, while "kingdom of God" is typically Lukan. This is easily explained. As I have shown (in "Excursus Synopticus I" in this blog, and elsewhere), the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, and parts of it were translated in Luke and Mark. Jews do not casually toss around the name of God, so Matthew says "kingdom of heaven." But Paul needed a Gospel for the Gentiles, whence we have Luke, where the phrase "kingdom of God" is freely used.
Working simply from translations of the Greek, we notice "the poor in spirit," opposed to "ye poor" in Luke. When I was in school, this resulted in whispers that "It's really supposed to be 'the poor'." But is it? Fortunately we have another ancient witness in The Gospel of Thomas (GTh), which has been known to us since 1946. In GTh Logion 54 we have "Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven." Here we have simply "poor," as in Luke, and "heaven," as in Matthew. We also have a mixture of third-person, as in Matthew, along with second-person, as in Luke. It is hard to know how to evaluate the evidence of GTh. It is a "sayings" gospel, and many believe it to go back to the oral tradition. It may be worth mentioning, though, that the mixture of second- and third-person forms is acceptable in Hebrew, as witness the ritual blessings that religious Jews are familiar with.
We are left wishing for another witness to the text. Unfortunately, both Mt. 5:3 and Mt. 5:5, which are related, are absent from eight of the nine mss examined by George Howard. These verses appear only in ms A, which Professor Howard characterizes as ". . . of fair quality, but has received considerable revision with respect to improvements in grammar and assimilation to the Greek and Latin texts." I take from this that these verses were not originally present in the Hebrew of this Gospel.
Any support from the Gospel of Thomas is difficult to evaluate, since we do not with any certainty know its date. I happen to be quite familiar with GTh, due to previous study in an academic environment. A curious fact about GTh is that, while most of the sayings parallel sayings in the Gospel of Matthew, they often appear in a form that closer to that in Luke. Thus, in Logion 54 we have "poor," rather than "poor in spirit," and "yours," rather than "theirs." Along with this Lukan language, we also have the Matthaean phrase "kingdom of heaven."
We are more fortunate with regard to Mt. 5:5, since it is an echo of Psalm 37:11, which in the Masoretic text uses the word ענוים (anavim), which means "the meek." That's about all we can say, and neither of these verses appears to have originally been part of the Shem-Tob text. One of them, Mt. 5:3, is paralleled in Luke 6:20 and in GTh 54.
We are on firmer ground with Mt. 5:4. Canonical (Greek) Matthew has "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Shem-Tob's Hebrew text reads "Blessed ar those who wait, for they shall be comforted." The mourn/wait difference was explained by George Howard as a translation variant, due to the similarity of the Hebrew words החוכים (those who wait) and הבוכים (those who mourn). I find this explanation unconvincing for a couple of reasons, but I do not yet have a better one.
Mt. 5:6 and 5:7 are missing from all nine of the Hebrew mss examined by Professor Howard. They are also not present in Luke.
Canonical Mt. 5:8 (the pure in heart) appears in Shem-Tob as "the innocent of heart," but it is not in Luke.
Mt. 5:9 and 5:10 do appear in the Shem-Tob text, where they are connected by the verb רדף (which means both "pursue" and "persecute"), a catchword connection that only works in Hebrew. Such catchwords, or linking words, are usually considered to be a mnemonic associated with the oral tradition, so this material is likely to be quite old. In Biblical Hebrew, one does not say "peacemaker," but rather "one who pursues peace." The dual meaning of the verb רדף is the reason why this connection between Mt. 5:9 and 5:10 works. It would not work in Greek, Latin, or any other language with which I am familiar. But that is not the end of it. These two sayings are also connected to Mt. 5:11 and 5:12, by the same catchword, with the meaning of "persecute." This material is, therefore, likely to be some of the oldest in the New Testament.
Going further, beyond the Beatitudes themselves, we see that Mt. 5:13 (Salt) and 5;14 (Light) are connected (in Hebrew, but not in the Greek translation) by the catchword "world." Mt. 5:14 and 5;15 are, in turn, connected by the catchword "hidden."
About thirty years ago, when I was studying the Gospel of Thomas, I made the following note on GTh 33b: "This phrase ['nor does he put it in a hidden place'], with the link 'hidden', is missing from Mt. 5.14-15, where the sequence is the same." At that time I did not know that the catchword missing in the Greek translation, but preserved in GTh, is also preserved in the Hebrew original.
Text © 2019 by Donald C. Traxler.
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