I've written about the Beatitudes several times in this series, and now I'm going to do it again. There is a reason. First of all, the Beatitudes are part of the oldest kernel of the Gospel of Matthew. We know this because their catchword connections are a feature of the stage of oral transmission. They are also a good illustration of the way in which Matthew built his Gospel in layers (see my Layered Matthew Hypothesis, in earlier blog posts). Witnesses to this trajectory through time are 1) the Gospel of Luke, 2) Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew, as preserved by the medieval Jewish community, 3) the Syro-Latin textual tradition in the Gospel of Matthew, and 4) the canonical, Greek textual tradition, especially in Matthew and Luke. When we consider all these witnesses, an interesting picture emerges, one that I think is decisive for the solution of the Synoptic Problem, and also clears up many wrong readings in the canonical texts.
As reflected both in Luke and in the Shem-Tob Hebrew Matthew, the list of Beatitudes in Matthew was originally shorter than it is in the canonical, Greek-based texts.
There is also an inversion of the order of verses 5:4 and 5:5 in the texts belonging to the earlier, Syro-Latin textual tradition as compared to the manuscripts of the canonical, Greek textual tradition. Unfortunately, we cannot say on which side of this divide Shem-Tob would fall, Since it does not have our Mt. 5:5 at all. George Howard prints it in his translation, but eight of the nine mss. used in his apparatus do not have it. The only one that does have it is his "A," which as he says, is the most edited to harmonize with the canonical texts.
In 5:4 ("those who mourn" in the canonical, Greek texts), corresponds to "those who wait" in Shem-Tob, and "those who "weep" in Codex Bobiensis ("k"), the oldest Old Latin that we have, and also a specimen of the "Afra" text stream, which is older than the European Latin. It is very similar, if not identical, to the text-type used by St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, in his third-century writings, and it has been determined, on paleographic grounds, to be a copy of a second-century papyrus. It is older than the Vulgate, and older than the Alexandrian Greek texts that we consider "the best."
The reading "weep," as attested in "k," would be הבוכים in Hebrew. The reading "wait," which we find in Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew , has a very similar appearance: החוכים. I think it most likely that "wait" was caused by an error in copying the Hebrew manuscripts, and that "weep," as attested in "k," is the original reading. "Mourn" in the Greek texts would then be mere synecdoche, and the "wait" of Shem-Tob would be incorrect. See p. 226 in the 1995 edition of Professor Howard's book for his take on this variant.
The reading "weep" also has some support from Luke 6:21, where we read "Blessed are you who weep, for you shall laugh."
(to be continued)
Text © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.
