Notes on the Sermon on the Mount - I

 

The upper screen print above is from Franz Delitzsch's Hebrew translation of the New Testament (Eighth Edition, 1885, I believe), The lower one is Shem-Tob ben Shaprut's primitive Hebrew text, found in the book HEBREW GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, by George Howard (Macon, GA, Mercer University Press, 1995. The former is not copyrighted, the latter is, and I do not own any rights in either publication.

The Delitzsch text is a translation from Greek. Shem-Tob's Hebrew may not be a translation at all (though I am not certain that it isn't). What I am certain of is that the Shem-Tob Hebrew Matthew reflects a more primitive state of the Gospel of Matthew than does canonical, Greek Matthew. I have written in some detail on this subject in my Synoptica series, in this blog. So has Professor Howard, in his book. For now, I just want to focus on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, 7), examining both texts and trying to better understand the relationship between the two textual traditions, the Hebrew and the Greek, in the Gospel according to Matthew.

The list of Beatitudes (Mt. 5:3-12) in the Received Text and in Delitzsch's translation contains nine Beatitudes. But the list in Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew contains fewer, as does the parallel text in Luke 6:20-23. The list in Luke is shorter, in fact, than those in both Shem-Tob and the Received Text.

 Here is a handy comparison of Matthew (Received Text), Matthew (Shem-Tob ben Shaprut), and Luke:

Luke 6:20-23 (reflects "Matthew I"):

1) Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

2) Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.

3) Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude and insult you and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man,

4) Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.


Matthew 5:3-11, in the Shaprut version (reflects "Matthew II"):

1) (Blessed are the humble of spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.)

2) Blessed are those who wait, for they shall be comforted.

3) (Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.)

4) Blessed are the innocent of heart, for they shall see God.

5) Blessed are those who PURSUE peace for they shall be called sons of God.

6) Blessed are those who are PERSECUTED for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

7) Blessed are you when they persecute and revile you and say against you all kinds of evil for my sake, but speak falsely.

8) Rejoice and be glad for your reward is very great in heaven, for thus they persecuted the prophets.


Matthew 5:3-11, in the canonical version ("Matthew III"):

1) Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

2) Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

3) Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

4) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

5) Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

6) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

7) Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

8) Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

9) Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The two lines that George Howard placed in parentheses appear only in ms. A; they are absent from the Brit. Lib. ms. which was the main basis for his printed text, and also from BCDEFG. H is not mentioned, but that ms. is only fragmentary and does not include this part of the text. The first of these parenthetical Beatitudes corresponds roughly to the first Beatitude in canonical Luke and Matthew, but it says "humble" rather than "poor," and it does say "of spirit," a phrase that is found in canonical Matthew, but not in Luke. At this point I would have to say that ms. A either represents a later text type, or has been more assimilated to the canonical text than the others. Howard expresses the latter opinion on p. XIII of his 1995 edition. The second of the Beatitudes in parentheses is not in Luke at all, and is clearly an assimilation in ms. A to the text of canonical Matthew.

"those who wait" is analogous to "those who mourn" in canonical Matthew. According to George Howard (p. 226, op. cit.), this is a translation variant, due to similarity in appearance between the Hebrew words החוכים, (those who) wait, and הבוכים, (those who) mourn. In a footnote on the same page, he refers us to Gen 23:2 for an example of this usage of the verb בכה. That verb, however, literally means "to weep." Bearing this in mind, we see that Hebrew Matthew's "those who wait" is analogous both to the "those who weep" of Luke 6:21b and to the "those who mourn" of canonical Matthew 5:4. The translation variant is thus really "wait/weep," with "mourn" figuring only in the Greek translation. Since this similarity of "wait" and "weep" exists in Hebrew, but not in Greek or Latin, it is a safe assumption that 1) the original language of the Gospel of Matthew was Hebrew, and 2) Shem Tob's Hebrew Matthew is not a translation from Greek or Latin. In fact, if anyone thinks that Shen Tob's Hebrew Matthew is a translation, the burden of proof is on them.

Verses corresponding to Mt. 5:6 and 5:7 ("those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," and "the merciful," respectively) are not present in Hebrew Matthew (Matthew IIb according to my theory) at  all. The first of these is half-present in a quasi-analogous version in Luke ("you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied"). According to my Layered Matthew Hypothesis, Luke used a version of Matthew (Matthew IIa) still older than the Hebrew Matthew that has survived (Matthew IIb). So what is going on here? The following is pure speculation on my part: Perhaps it was felt that physical hunger being satisfied was a promise (in Mt. IIa) that could not be kept, so it was removed (in Mt. IIb). But by the time of canonical Matthew (Mt. III) it had been put back, but reinterpreted as hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

Canonical Matthew 5:7 (the merciful) must have been a late addition, made too late to appear either in Luke or in Hebrew Matthew. This is unfortunate. It's one of my favorites of the Beatitudes.

We have now seen evidence, in the form of the wait/weep translation variant, that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew. George Howard found eighteen such translation variants and listed them on pp. 226-228 of his book (op. cit.). They are to be explained by similarities in appearance between Hebrew words with different meanings, where no such similarity exists in Greek or Latin. Now we are going to take a look at another type of evidence: catchwords.

Catchwords are words used to connect different thoughts or sayings, for later recitation. They are a mnemonic usually associated with the oral transmission stage, including the material that we call "Q." Now it happens that some of these catchwords exist in the Beatitudes, and you can see more of them when you read the Beatitudes in Hebrew, because they involve an idiomatic play on words that exists in Hebrew, but not in Greek.

In canonical, Greek Matthew 5:9, we have a Beatitude that can be translated as: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." But in Hebrew one does not speak of "peacemakers," but rather of  "peace-pursuers" or "those who pursue peace." Thus, Mt. 5:9 in Hebrew Matthew reads "Blessed are those who pursue peace, for they shall be called sons of God." The verb used in Hebrew is רדף, which happens to mean both "pursue" and "persecute." Because of that double meaning in Hebrew, there is a catchword connection between verse 9 and verse 10. That catchword is, in fact, what connects the two verses (other than the words "blessed are"), and it only works in Hebrew. In Greek such people are called "peace-doers," or "peacemakers." This tells us that the Beatitudes were first composed in Hebrew, whether in oral or written form, and in this case even their order depends upon the Hebrew language.

That same רדף catchword also connects verse 10 to verse 11, and verse 11 to verse 12. These Beatitudes are probably original, and probably go back to the oral tradition. It no doubt took Matthew some time to collect them all from that tradition, which I believe is why Luke has fewer Beatitudes.

It is worth noting that the רדף catchwords survived intact in Delitzsch's nineteenth-century translation into Hebrew. He translated them as they would be said in Hebrew, not as they would customarily be said in Greek. This illustrates, for me, the value and importance of Franz Delitzsch's translation.

When you read the next few verses, on Salt and Light in Hebrew, you see that they are connected by the following catchwords: "world," "hidden," and "light." But if you read them in canonical, Greek Matthew, you will only see "light." This, of course, is further evidence for the original language of the Gospel of Matthew, and justifies the order of these verses. There is more evidence along these lines, but I think the point has been made.

(to be continued)

Text Copyright © 2022 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.