The "Our Father" and What It Can Tell Us about the Gospels - Part IV

 

While it is true that the retroversions into Hebrew by Salkinson and Delitzsch are very important, having brought to our attention a misreading in the Greek text (as is also the version in Jewish Aramaic), in many ways the key to this whole thing is the Hebrew Matthew published by Shem-Tob Ibn Shaprut in the fourteenth century. The Shem-Tob text is clearly older than canonical, Greek Matthew, and it has clarified the relationship between the texts of Matthew and Luke.

The "Our Father," in its trajectory through time, is like a microcosm of the whole "synoptic problem." By focusing on this beautiful and ancient prayer, we get a more manageable view of synoptic relationships.

The Shem-Tob text above translates to English as follows:

Our Father, may your name be sanctified;

may your kingdom be blessed; may your will be done in the heavens and on earth.

Give our bread continually,

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us,

and do not lead us into the hands of temptation (literally, a trial), but keep us from all evil, amen.

All versions of the prayer say "may your name be sanctified." That is top-of-mind  in Judaism, because of the enormous reverence and respect due to the Name. Some versions insert "who is in the heavens," but this one does not. Neither does Luke's shorter version of the Avinu, at Lk. 11:2-4. So far as I know, the reading "may your kingdom be blessed" is unique to Shem-Tob. I prefer it to "may your kingdom come," because, as we are told (Lk. 17:21), "the kingdom of God is in the midst of us." Also, we are told in the Gospel of Thomas that the kingdom of heaven is among us, but we do not see it.

Give our bread continually (or day by day) seems to be the earliest reading.

In Aramaic (and possibly also in Hebrew, I'm not sure) the same word means both "sin" and "debt," which explains the confusion in translations.

Both the Aramaic word "nesyuna" and the Hebrew word "nisayon" literally mean "a test" or "a trial." They can also figuratively mean "temptation," but it would not be my first thought if the one doing the leading was God. I believe the intended meaning is "do not bring us to trial," in other words, "do not judge us."

The phrase "the hands of" is a Hebrew idiom meaning "the power of." It is not present either in the canonical, Greek text or in the Latin of the Vulgate. It is interesting to note that both Salkinson and Delitzsch used the phrase in their Hebrew translations, because they knew that it belonged there. The Shem-Tob Hebrew Matthew does not look like a translation from any Western text, and it is not the same as any of them. Some of the features of the Shem-Tob text, including some that can be seen in both the "Our Father" and in the Beatitudes, clearly show it to be more primitive than the canonical, Greek text.

I believe the reading "shomrenu" ("keep/guard/protect us) is found only in Shem-Tob and related Hebrew texts (such as Du Tillet and Munster). It is one of my favorite features of the Shem-Tob text, since it is proactive rather than reactive.

But the Shem-Tob Hebrew Matthew is not merely attractive due to some of the features mentioned above (which are all to be found in a mere five verses). Its greatest value lies in its intermediate position between the canonical, Greek text and parallel verses in Luke. This intermediate position provides us with a window to the development of the Gospel of Matthew, and gives us hope to solve the "synoptic problem."

(to be continued)

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