Nude Selfies at Eighty?

 

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

My Workspace

 

My workspace. Normally I would have three or four of these books open at once (especially during this #NewTestament #Synoptic #Gospels #project), but I guess I decided to tidy up a bit (haha).

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

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

 

But the Gospels are not monolithic, and neither are their sources. The first two chapters of Luke contain material not common to the other Gospels, referred to as "special Luke." Most of this material was, almost certainly, translated from a document in the Hebrew language. There is a great deal of evidence for this, and some of the most convincing, as was brought to our attention by Jean Carmignac, is in the Benedictus (Lk. 1:68-79), specifically in Lk. 1:72-73. If one reads these verses in Hebrew, encoded into them are references to John (the Baptist), Zachary (his father), and Elizabeth (his mother). Like the Anunciation and the Magnificat, the Benedictus, spoken by Zachary, is a pastiche of quotations from Jewish Scripture. To catch on to this code, one has to know that the Hebrew form of John, Yohanan, means "God (Yah) is merciful (hanan)," the name Elisabeth means "My God (Eli) has sworn (saba)," and the name Zacharyah means "God (Yah) remembered (zakar)." It only works in Hebrew.

I might also add that these lovely  biblical pastiches, The Annunciation, the Magnificat, and the Benedictus could only have been assembled by someone, or several someones, exceedingly well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures.

The first two chapters of Luke are as much about John the Baptist as they are about Jesus. In connection with this it is interesting to note that a lot of people believe that John was a member of the Essene community at Qumran. It is not impossible that the Hebrew document from which Luke got the "special Luke" material originated in the Qumran community, and we may yet find it, or fragments of it, among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

It is also interesting to note that in some ancient manuscripts of Irenaeus and Origen, as well as in some of the Old Latin texts, the Magnificat is actually attributed to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, and not to Mary, the mother of Jesus. It is certainly a confusing transition: one minute they are talking about Elizabeth, and the next about Mary. But it is not only the first two chapters of Luke that were clearly translated from Hebrew. We have already shown that to be the case in connection with the "Our Father." It is likely that all of the Sayings material, the so-called "Q" material, was translated from Hebrew. Evidence of this abounds.

Since I have mentioned the hypothetical "Q" (from German Quelle = source) document, this is as good a time as any to say that I do not believe in its existence, nor do I need it to explain Synoptic textual relationships.

(to be continued)

The above image is from Delitzsch's nineteenth-century translation of the New Testament into Hebrew. It includes Luke 1:72-73, and I have underlined in red the encoded references to "mercy" (for Yohanan), "remembering" (for Zakaryah), and "sworn" (for Elisabeth), John the Baptist and his parents. This could be seen just as well in Salkinson's Hebrew translation, and indeed in any Hebrew rendering of these verses. But the "code" only works in Hebrew.

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

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

 

In this part we will go outside the Gospel of Matthew, to the Gospel of Luke. The version of the Lord's Prayer in Luke (11:2-4) is much shorter than that in Matthew. In the image above, we see it in St. Jerome's Latin, in the Vulgate (late fourth century). Here is how it translates into English:

Father, may your name be sanctified,

may your kingdom come.

Give us daily our daily bread,

and forgive us our sins,

just as we also forgive all those

who are indebted to us,

and do not lead us into temptation.

Those familiar with the version in the Gospel of Matthew will notice right away that this Lukan version does not say "our," or "who is in the heavens." It does not say "may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Instead of "give us this day our daily bread," it says "give us daily our daily bread." It does say "do not lead us into temptation," but it does not say "deliver us from evil."

Never noticed that before? You're not alone. Many people who are familiar with the version in Matthew are not even aware that there is a version in Luke, or that it differs. If you go to Luke 11:2 in the King James Version (KJV), you will find a longer version, basically the same as that in Matthew, which has all the elements that are "missing" above. How did that happen?

The short answer is that the KJV is based on the so-called Received Text or Textus Receptus, which is actually the Byzantine Text. The Byzantine textual type is characterized by many interpolations that were intended to bring the gospels into closer agreement with one another, thus obscuring textual relationships.

How do we know that the shorter version is the original Lukan version? We know it because the oldest and best texts, such as the Codex Vaticanus ("B"), a fourth-century Greek Bible, considered to be the very best, and the Codex Sinaiticus ("א," also fourth-century), discovered in 1851 and considered to be the second-best, both have the shorter version, as do some other excellent, ancient sources.

Interesting. There is a principle in textual criticism by which the terser, briefer reading is considered to usually be the older, more original reading. So what are we to make of the fact that the Avinu/Our Father in canonical, Greek Matthew is longer and more elaborate (both in the Our Father and in the Beatitudes, for example) than the version in Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew? Not only that, but in both of these cases (the Our Father and the Beatitudes) the version in Luke is even shorter and less elaborate. There are probably other examples, but I've really only studied these two.

We could jump to the conclusion that the Gospel according to Luke is older than the Gospel according to Matthew. But the preponderance of evidence is that Luke is, for the most part, a de-Semitized version of Matthew, suitable for the needs of Paul and his mission to the Gentiles. But why would Luke have left out such important things as whole clauses of the "Lord's Prayer" and even some of the Beatitudes? Watch this space.

(to be continued)

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.

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

 

אָבִינוּ יִתְקַדַשׁ שְׁמֶךָ

וְיִתְבָרֵךְ מַלְכוּתְךָ רְצוֹנְךָ יִהְיֶה עָשׂוּי

בַשָׁמַיִם וּבָאָרֶץ

וְתִתֵּן לַחְמֵנוּ תְּמִידִית

וּמְחוֹל לָנוּ חַטָֹּאתֵינוּ כַּאֲשֶׁר אֲנַחְנוּ

מוֹחֲלִים לַחוֹטִאים לָנוּ

וְאַל תְּבִיאֵנוּ לִידֵי נִסָיוֹן וְשָׁמְרֵינוּ

מִכָל רָע אָמֵן

The above is a pointed text of the Avinu (Our Father) in the Shem-Tob Hebrew Matthew, one of the treasures preserved for us by the Jewish rabbis (though they did it for polemical purposes).

Now we continue with the list of salient points begun in Part II of this article:

5) The Greek word "peirasmós" means "temptation." The Hebrew word "nisayon," while it CAN mean "temptation," literally means a test or trial. The Hebrew is saying, "do not bring us to a test," or "do not bring us to trial."

6) While the later (Matthew III in my terminology) Hebrew version said "deliver us from evil," the earlier Hebrew version (Matthew IIb, corresponding to the Shem-Tob text) had "keep us from all evil." I prefer the latter, because it is proactive rather than reactive, and it says all evil.

Returning to the Hebrew text at the top of the page (the Shem-Tob version of the Avinu), its pronunciation is approximately:

awveenoo yeetkadesh sh'mehchaw

v'yeetbawrech malchoot'chaw ratson'chaw yeehyeh awsooy

bashawmayeem oovawawrets

v'teeten lachmaynoo t'meedeet

oom'chol lawnoo chatawtaynoo

kaasher anachnoo mochaleem

lachoteem lawnoo

v'al t'veeyaynoo leey'dey neesawyon v'shawmraynoo

meekol rah awmayn

One thing that will be noticed right away is that this version does not say "sh'bashawmayeem (in the heavens)." Neither did Luke's terser version at Lk. 11:2-4.

(to be continued, perhaps)

The image above is from a page of my notebooks, the page on which I added vowel pointing to the unpointed Shem-Tob text of the Avinu.

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

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

 

The image above is a modification of one that I found on the internet, and I do not own any rights in it. It contains a descendant of the oldest Hebrew text of the Avinu ("Our Father") that we have, It corresponds to my Matthew IIb, and is from a text similar to that of Shem Tob's Hebrew Matthew, also preserved for us by the Jewish Rabbis. It is here written in Dead Sea Scrolls script, which is much the way it would have been written in the time of Rabbi Yeshua (Jesus).

In concluding Part I of this article, I indicated that there was much more that could be said on this subject. Indeed, there is, and I'll try to say it, or at least some of it, in this part.

Some of what remains to be said concerns the Aramaic version of this prayer, known as the "Abun," "Abwoon," or "Awoon," depending upon the dialect. It is important to remember, though, that Jewish Aramaic and Christian Aramaic (Syriac) are rather different. It is quite misleading to call Syriac (the language that Jesus spoke," as is often done by speakers and proponents of that language. Jesus (Rabbi Yeshua) was a Jew, and it is therefore logical to assume that he spoke Jewish Aramaic. It is also a fact that the Peshitta, the official Syriac text of the Bible, has been intentionally modified to bring it into closer harmony with the Greek textual tradition. In fact, an effort was made to suppress and destroy all earlier Biblical texts in Syriac. As usual though, they couldn't quite get all of them, and a couple of texts (Syr-s and Syr-c) did survive, and were rediscovered in the late nineteenth century. For the purposes of this article, the relevant version is the version in standard Jewish Aramaic, covered in the previous part.

Some of the salient points are these:

1) The Aramaic version is the oldest. As a poet, I am certain that it is original and not a translation, since it employs literary devices such as rhyme and plays on words. It also reveals a structure that was partially lost in all succeeding versions.

2) The Aramaic version makes clear several points that were doubtful. For example, we needn't worry about whether "sins" or "debts" is correct: it should simply depend on the context, because in Aramaic the same word has both meanings.

3) What in Greek was "daily bread" was "our bread, which is from the earth" (give it to us day by day). This is part of an internal structure of the prayer, which contrasts the heavenly kingdom with life here on earth. The idiom used for "day by day" is literally "today and tomorrow," which is why St. Jerome, who apparently didn't know much Aramaic, thought the sense was "give us our bread of the morrow today."

4)The Aramaic original was translated into Hebrew in at least two different versions. In the earlier (Matthew IIb) one, the last line read "keep us (shomrenu) from all evil." But a later Hebrew version (Matthew III) read "deliver us (hatsilenu) from evil." It was from this later, fuller Hebrew text that our Greek Matthew was translated. This is proven by a misreading in the Greek text, a confusion between two very similar-appearing Hebrew words: hatsilenu "deliver us" and chaltsenu "draw us." The word that appears in our Greek text, "rhusai" is a translation of the latter, not the former.

(to be continued)

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