The first thing to understand about the Synoptic Gospels is that they are literary creations. They postdate the texts of Paul's "Christianity" (Messianism). Each can be traced to a likely locus, and each had its intended audience. Mark was probably written in Rome, for the Romans, I am willing to accept, at least for now, the priority of Mark. I have shown Luke to be more primitive than Matthew. Luke, which was written for Greek-speaking goyim, may have been written in a place such as Antioch, where Latin, Greek, and Hebrew were known and had their respective communities. It is often assumed that Matthew originated in Jerusalem, since it was clearly written for Jews, who had no need of explanations regarding Jewish customs. I believe, though, that it may just as well have come from Alexandria, where excellent Greek was spoken, where there was a large Jewish community, and where Egyptian proverbs, in their Coptic versions, would have been known.
I make that last point specifically because of Mt. 6:34, which does not appear in either of the other Synoptics. It includes the proverbial saying, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." The word "evil" is now usually glossed as "trouble," which seems a more appropriate word choice. It was, in fact, glossed as "trouble" (tsurith) in Shem Tob's Hebrew Matthew. The correct word, though, is "evil" ("kakia" in the canonical Greek text, and "malitia" in the Latin of the Vulgate). We can be sure of this because of a play on words, one that exists only in Egyptian: Coptic (Late Egyptian) "evil" = "hoou" and "day" also = "hoou." It is, thus, an Egyptian proverb.
The second thing to understand about the Gospels is that they are fiction. Details of the "passion narrative" such as "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and the soldiers casting lots for the garments are taken from Psalm 22, where the "piercing" of the hands and feet should actually be "binding." The story of "Joseph of Arimathea (a place, by the way, of which there is no record)," a rich man who supposedly donated his own tomb, is based on a misreading in the "Suffering Servant" portion of Isaiah (about which I have previously written). A textual misreading in the Hebrew Bible was thus carried over into the New Testament, where it became the basis of a fictional detail. The idea of "walking on water" is also based on a textual misunderstanding. It never happened.
Copyright © 2023 by Donald C. Traxler.
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