17 At that time Jesus said to his disciples: Do not think that I came to annul the Torah, but to fulfill it.
18 Truly I say to you that until heaven and earth (depart) not one letter or dot shall be abolished from the Torah or the Prophets, because all will be fulfilled.
19 He who shall transgress one word of these commandments (and shall teach) others shall be called a vain person (in the) kingdom of heaven; but whoever upholds and teaches [them] shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 At that time Jesus said to his disciples: Truly I say to you, if your righteousness is not greater than the Pharisees and the sages, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
And here, for comparison, is this same passage, but from canonical, Greek Matthew (which I call Matthew III), as translated in the Revised Standard Version (RSV):
17 "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. 18 For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
While there is substantial agreement here between Shem-Tob's Hebrew text (which I call Matthew II) and canonical Matthew (Matthew III), the differences are interesting. Most important, perhaps, among these differences, is the inclusion, twice, of the introductory phrase "At that time Jesus said to his disciples" in the Hebrew text. Professor Howard has shown (on p. 200 in Howard's 1995 edition) that whenever we see such an introductory phrase in Mt. 5-7 (the Sermon on the Mount), Luke either jumps to a different place in his text or has a void. This is extraordinary evidence for Matthew's editorial process. These introductory phrases had already been edited out by the time of Greek Matthew (Matthew III), but they were still present in Shem-Tob's Hebrew text (Matthew II). This passage, though, is not paralleled in either Luke or Mark (although there is a weakened echo of Mt. 5:18 in Lk 16:17).
Why was this extremely important passage not included in either Mark or Luke? Really, this question goes to the heart of the Synoptic Problem, and its significance.
For about the first 1800 years of their history, Christians believed, and were taught, that the first Gospel to be written was that of Matthew. In the second century, Papias told us that Matthew collected the Logia (sayings) and wrote them down in the Hebrew language, and everyone else translated them as best they could. Matthaean priority was Augustine's belief ca. 400 CE, and it was Griesbach's in the first half of the nineteenth century. In the latter part of that century there were also supporters of Lukan priority, and early supporters of Markan priority. This last hypothesis, though, really came into prominence with the publication of B. H. Streeter's 1924 book, THE FOUR GOSPELS. Markan priority remained the preeminent theory, at least in the United States, until about 1960, when it began to lose ground.
Why does it matter? Well, let's go back to the passage I've cited, Mt. 5:17-20. If the Gospel of Matthew was the first to be written, as believed by Christians for most of their history, then the absence of parallels to this passage in the Gospels of Mark and Luke can be easily (and somewhat historically) explained. While the Gospel of Matthew was written for the first Christians, who were Jewish Christians, Mark and Luke were written primarily for the Gentiles, who presumably had no reverence for, and did not wish to be restricted by, the Torah. In this scenario, the First Gospel needed to be adapted to the needs of Gentiles in Mark and Luke.
If, on the other hand, we assume either Lukan or Markan priority, we can say that Mt. 5:17-20 was "added" by or for the Jews. In other words, by adopting, for example, Streeter's theory of Markan priority, we can "de-Semitize" Christianity and its origins. Why on earth would anyone wish to do that?
Well, in the 1920s and 1930s, when Streeter's hypothesis of Markan priority became dominant, this de-Semitization of Christianity and its origins may have seemed like the right thing to do. Jews would soon be exterminated by the millions, by people who called themselves "Christians."
A few months ago, in connection with something I was writing, I wanted to get Streeter's exact dates and the date of first publication of his book. I looked him up on Wikipedia. I read the whole article, and was shocked by something that I read there: Streeter had attended the 1936 Olympics (the "Nazi Olympics") in Berlin, although he had no need to be there. Just a coincidence? I have to doubt it.
I prefer to judge Streeter's hypothesis on its own merits, and it seemingly has few. First of all, it stands history on its head. Secondly, there is the matter of what Streeter disingenuously called "the minor agreements." These are cases in the Triple Tradition where Matthew and Luke agree (often verbatim) with each other, against Mark. There are hundreds of these agreements, and they are anything but "minor."
So we see, from the passage cited above (and there are others that could be used to the same effect), that work on the Synoptic Problem is not a mere intellectual puzzle or a harmless, gentlemen's avocation. It is important, and it has much wider implications and significance.
Text © 2019 by Donald C. Traxler.
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