Commentary on the Teachings of Rabbi Yeshua VII - Third Matthaean Beatitude

אַשְׁרֵי הָעֲנָוִים שְׁהֶם יִרְשׁוּ אָרֶץ׃

Translation: Happy are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The pointing of the Hebrew is mine, so errors are possible (any corrections will be welcomed).

The above is Mt. 5:5 according to ms. A of Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew.The other eight mss. examined by Professor Howard do not have this verse at all.

It is also missing from Luke. This is not surprising, since, according to my Layered Matthew Hypothesis, Luke borrowed from an older layer of Matthew than that which was the original source of the Shem-Tob Hebrew Matthew.

It may be of interest that the order of verses four and five is reversed in the Latin tradition, right up through the Vulgate. One Old Syriac witness (the newer one by a century, Syr-c) also has the verse, and in the Latin order, as does Tatian's Diatessaron (ca. 172 CE). Within the Greek tradition, it is mss. of the older, "Western" (Syro-Latin) tradition that have the Latin order. It now appears, though, that the verse was absent from the (still older) Hebrew tradition, since eight of nine mss. do not have it. The one ms. (A) that does have it, is known to have gone through a lot of revision to bring it more into line with the canonical Latin and Greek texts.

Does this saying sound like the same guy who drove the money-changers from the Temple with a whip? It is not Rabbi Yeshua's voice. Neither does it, in my opinion, speak to a personal virtue, as the two preceding ones did, at least in the Hebrew tradition.

I have never liked this saying, which might even be construed as a cynical reference to the grave. I consider this saying to be a late addition to the Greek tradition, and not authentic.

Humility and patience are both virtues; meekness is not.

Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Journal of a Naked Poet - VI

In the summer of 1964 I applied to the University of California at Berkeley, and was accepted. I had to take a placement test for the Spanish language, and placed in the top ten out of two thousand students taking the test. But when I registered, I did a really stupid thing: I signed up for a full fifteen units, although I had to commute from SF by taking two buses, and had to work every day after school and on Saturday. To make things worse, my first class was at 8:00 a.m. Meanwhile, my paltry savings account was going down and down.

One day, while rushing from my linguistics class to my Shakespeare class with a heavy book briefcase, I walked smack into a glass door, which knocked me even sillier than I already was. This caused me to take stock and question the wisdom of what I was doing. But before that, something just as unexpected came along

It was the Free Speech Movement, the first of many such major protests on university campuses that would sweep across the U.S. Whole books have been written about it, but what I can tell you is this: it was very compelling, and I came to consider it more important than anything that was going on in the classrooms. Maybe it was, but I already had too many problems to be skipping classes.

I was one of the students who, practically in unison, dropped into a sitting position on the Sproul Plaza pavement around the campus police car that now held a fellow student, preventing the car from leaving. We sat around the car in shifts, and that night, after a Joan Baez concert in the Greek Theater, I came back again. It was dangerous in several ways. The campus police had been bolstered by the un-academied Oakland police. As we sat around the campus police car in a tangle of legs, the protesters passed around that it was Gandhi's birthday. It wasn't, but it gave us something inspiring to think about. We eventually went home, after the University administration agreed to a settlement (which they later reneged on).

By day, I would listen to Mario Savio, Bettina Aptheker, and others, sometimes wearing an armband. I sometimes trudged in a circle in front of Sproul Hall in my trench coat, carrying that heavy book bag that included the complete works of Shakespeare (I had to be dressed for work at Berlitz), while FBI agents took pictures of us from the Sproul steps. In the late afternoons I went straight to work, getting off around 9:15 p.m. and walking through the dark streets of the Tenderloin to get to my apartment. I often carried an umbrella (for possible use as a weapon). One night a menacing type started to approach me from across the street, and I pulled a screwdriver out of my trench coat pocket, knowing that in the light from the streetlight it would look like a knife. He crossed back over to the other side.

One day I signed a petition in support of the civil disobedience of the student protesters, which earned me a threatening letter from the Dean (I'll post it below if I can find it). I was always tired, and worse, I had no time to study. Finally, I decided that I had had enough.

Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Journal of a Naked Poet - V

The Sixties were important and seminal, in some ways life-changing, for me. The decade started out with my decision to leave the Jesuit novitiate. After a couple of years at San Diego City College, I moved to San Francisco. At the beginning of 1964 I got a studio apartment in the Tenderloin with a bed that unfolded out of the wall. It cost seventy dollars a month, and had steam heat. I moved there mainly for health reasons (the flat on Andover had unvented gas wall heaters that filled the place with humidity, and I had visions of ending up with TB, like my grandmothers brothers in Ireland had). That studio apartment reminds me of the song from My Fair Lady, "All I want is a room somewhere, with one great, enormous chair--oh wouldn't it be loverly . . ." I had that enormous chair, and it was exceedingly comfortable. The neighborhood, though, was another story. On Easter Sunday, 1964, I stepped out of my apartment building to see a man lying on the sidewalk in a pool of blood. He had been stabbed by another man, in a fight over a floozy from one of the bars across the street, The Round Table and The Square Chair. Another man was killed in my building. After that, the frail and  emphysemad old apartment manager from Chula Vista had to give up that job. He was replaced by a man from Tennessee who liked to sit on the front steps of the building with a shotgun across his lap. That settled things down.

For some reason, I must have thought I needed to be exposed to the seamy side of life. The neighborhood was full of prostitutes, boozers, and transvestites. The police constantly busted the hookers, especially the transvestites, but did little to make the neighborhood safe.

It was in that Tenderloin apartment that I first read TALES OF THE BAAL SHEM TOV, and TALES OF THE HASIDIM, vols. 1 and 2. This was formative for my spiritual outlook. I had a poster of Chagall's "Rabbi of Vitebsk" on the wall. I drew a large, decorative "shalom" (the Shin looked like a boat) on the shade that covered the unsightly light well.

At that time I was teaching English at the Berlitz school in San Francisco. One of my students, Miss Matsushita, was the daughter of the owner of the largest electrical company in Japan. It rankled me that she would soon be entering the University of California. I knew exactly how much English she could speak, since I was teaching her, and she was in no way ready. It was her father's money, and nothing else, that would get her in. I had always intended to go to Cal myself, and was certain that I would be admitted, though I had little in the way of funds. I decided to apply.

Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Commentary on the Teachings of Rabbi Yeshua VI - Second Matthaean Beatitude

אַשְׁרֵי הַחִוכִּים שְׁיְנוּחָמוּ׃

The above is the second Matthaean Beatitude, Mt. 5:4, according to Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew, pointed as well as I was able. It reads, "Happy are those who wait, for they shall be comforted." This differs, of course, from the canonical "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." 

Professor Howard tried to explain (p. 226 of his 1995 edition, footnote 104) mourn/wait as a translation variant. Maybe it is, somehow, but his explanation seemed like a stretch to me.

In some ms. traditions, this saying appears as verse 5, coming after "the meek," which appears in only one of the nine texts that Howard examined. The reversed verse order is found in the older, "Western" (Syro-Latin) tradition, and in the Vulgate.

I cannot explain why the Greek tradition has "mourn," while Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew has "wait." It seems to me, though, that "wait" fits in well here, coming after a verse about humility. Humility and patience are both personal virtues, while mourning is not. It would seem, thus, that Rabbi Yeshua intended this set of sayings to teach personal virtues.

As to the other verse, "the meek," I have never liked it, and to me it does not sound like Rabbi Yeshua's voice. Most of the mss. of Hebrew Matthew do not have it, nor does Luke. My view is that "the meek" is probably not original.

Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Between the Worlds (+Udugi, fr, es, pt)

He lives between the worlds,
where imagination and intuition make a difference.

atsvyai ehase equa-elohidi ayeli,
hatlv iyelisdo ale hawinaditlvge-unvtado gotlvdase nudalehnadone.

ᎠᏨᏯᎢ ᎡᎭᏎ ᎡᏆ-ᎡᎶᎯᏗ ᎠᏰᎵ,
ᎭᏢ ᎢᏰᎵᏍᏙ ᎠᎴ ᎭᏫᎾᏗᏢᎨ-ᎤᏅᏔᏙ ᎪᏢᏓᏎ ᏄᏓᎴᎿᏙᏁ.

Il vit entre les mondes,
où l'imagination et l'intuition font la différence.

El vive entre los mundos,
donde la imaginación y la intuición marcan la diferencia.

Ele vive entre os mundos,
onde imaginação e intuição fazem a diferença.

Text and image © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Self-Portrait / Autoportrait / Autoretrato / Auto-retrato

Self-portrait is a funny word,
it takes us on a wild ride
among faults, both real and those imagined,
but cannot show the self inside.

Autoportrait est un mot drôle,
il nous emmène dans une course folle
parmi les défauts, réels et imaginaires,
mais ne peut pas montrer le soi à l'intérieur.

Autorretrato es una palabra graciosa,
nos lleva en un viaje salvaje
entre fallas, tanto reales como imaginadas,
pero no puede mostrar el ser adentro.

Auto-retrato é uma palavra engraçada,
nos leva a um passeio selvagem
entre falhas, reais e imaginadas,
mas não pode mostrar o eu por dentro.

Text and image © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Commentary on the Teachings of Rabbi Yeshua V - First Matthaean Beatitude

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.