וַיִפְתַּח פִּי(ה)וּ וַיִדְבֹר אֶלָיהֶם לֵאמֹר׃
אַשְרֵי שָׁפְלֵי רוּחַ שְלָהֶם מַלְכוּת שָמָיִם׃
The above is Mt. 5:2-3 in Sham-Tob's Hebrew Matthew. It reads as follows:
And he opened his mouth and spoke to them, saying:
(Blessed are the humble of spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.)
I have put verse 3, which Professor Howard showed in parentheses, in a smaller font, because it is only present in ms. A of those examined by Howard. In verse 2, I have added, in parentheses, a letter that should be there, but is not in Sham-Tob's writing. (I did this for the sake of clarity.)
This is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, arguably the core of Rabbi Yeshua's teaching. I included the prefatory verse 2 because it has the typically Semitic phrase "he opened his mouth and spoke."
There are many things to say about verse 3. First of all, it is loosely paralleled by Luke 6:20:
Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
In the Greek tradition, the Matthaean verse became:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The literal meaning of the Hebrew is:
Blessed are the low of spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the skies.
The "low" here can also mean "humble," thus Professor Howard's translation, and in English we usually translate "שמים" as "heaven.
The presence of verse 3 in only one of the nine mss, that Professor Howard examined, indicates that it was, for whatever reason, a late addition to Hebrew Matthew. The interactions between Matthew and Luke are particularly interesting in this case.In the Vulgate (ca. 400CE), St. Jerome has "beati paupers spiritu" (blessed are the poor in spirit" in Mt. 5:3, and he has "beati pauperes" (blessed are the poor) in Luke 6:20. One wonders how this difference came about, and also why, in the Greek tradition, we are now talking about poverty instead of humility. Which is more reasonable, that we should be rewarded with the spiritual kingdom for being poor, or for being humble?
I checked the apparatus in my old, worn Nestle-Aland (NA25), and found that it gave no variants at all for Mt. 5:3. But for the parallel in Luke, it gave several. First of all, the phrase "in spirit" is also found in some very old mss., especially Western ones. The NA editors thought this to be a harmonistic interpolation, but Hebrew Matthew puts this into question. Secondly, some mss. reference the poor in the third person, as in Matthew, and these include The very ancient witnesses W, syr-s, and Marcion, There is no indication, though, that any ms. of Luke has "humble" instead of "poor." The Greek word used is "ptOxós," which means "pauper" or "beggar." It does not say anything about humility.
Luke characteristically did a lot of editing, with the goal of making the Gospel more palatable or more attractive to his audience of non-Jews. This is why he has replaced the euphemistic "of heaven" with "of God." But why was humility replaced by poverty? Perhaps he, or the translator, thought it would make a better selling point.
Rabbi Yeshua's goal, though, was different. He was teaching spiritual principles, in this case humility of spirit, rather than a materialistic end to poverty.
Text and image © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
The presence of verse 3 in only one of the nine mss, that Professor Howard examined, indicates that it was, for whatever reason, a late addition to Hebrew Matthew. The interactions between Matthew and Luke are particularly interesting in this case.In the Vulgate (ca. 400CE), St. Jerome has "beati paupers spiritu" (blessed are the poor in spirit" in Mt. 5:3, and he has "beati pauperes" (blessed are the poor) in Luke 6:20. One wonders how this difference came about, and also why, in the Greek tradition, we are now talking about poverty instead of humility. Which is more reasonable, that we should be rewarded with the spiritual kingdom for being poor, or for being humble?
I checked the apparatus in my old, worn Nestle-Aland (NA25), and found that it gave no variants at all for Mt. 5:3. But for the parallel in Luke, it gave several. First of all, the phrase "in spirit" is also found in some very old mss., especially Western ones. The NA editors thought this to be a harmonistic interpolation, but Hebrew Matthew puts this into question. Secondly, some mss. reference the poor in the third person, as in Matthew, and these include The very ancient witnesses W, syr-s, and Marcion, There is no indication, though, that any ms. of Luke has "humble" instead of "poor." The Greek word used is "ptOxós," which means "pauper" or "beggar." It does not say anything about humility.
Luke characteristically did a lot of editing, with the goal of making the Gospel more palatable or more attractive to his audience of non-Jews. This is why he has replaced the euphemistic "of heaven" with "of God." But why was humility replaced by poverty? Perhaps he, or the translator, thought it would make a better selling point.
Rabbi Yeshua's goal, though, was different. He was teaching spiritual principles, in this case humility of spirit, rather than a materialistic end to poverty.
Text and image © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
