Reading Matthew in Hebrew - VII

On a warm night in early 2015 I was trying to put myself to sleep by reading the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew. as I read, I suddenly realized that the passage I had reached, Mt. 5:25, 26, was full of alliteration. This was very exciting, and made sleep even more impossible.

I was reading Franz Delitzsch's translation of the New Testament into Hebrew, which is written in pure and impeccable Biblical Hebrew. Here is the passage I was reading:

מַהֵר הִתְרַצֵּה לְאִישׁ רִיבְךָ בּעוֹדְךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ אִתּוֹ פֶּן־יַסְגִיר אֹתְךָ אִישׁ רִיבְךָ אֶל־הַשֹׁפֵט וְהַשֹׁפֵט יַסְגִּירְךָ לַשׁוֹטֵר וְהָשְׁלַכְתָּ אֶל־בֵּית הַכֶּלֶא ׃  אָמֵן אֹמֵר אֲנִי לָךְ לֹא תֵצֵא מִשָׁם עַד אֲשֶׁר שִׁלַּמְתָּ אֶת־הַפְּרוּטָה הָאַחֲרוֹנָה ׃

Here is an ad hoc phonetic version, so that those who do not read Hebrew may appreciate the alliteration:

maher hitratzeh l'ish riv'chaw b'od'chaw baderek ito pen-yasgir ot'chaw ish riv'chaw el-hashofet v'hashofet yasgir'chaw lashoter v'hawshlachtaw el-beyt hakele. awmen omer ani lawch lo tetze mishawm ad asher shilamtaw et-ha p'rutaw hawacharonaw. 

English:

Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

The alliteration in v.25: shofet/shofet/shoter. It is also visible in Salkinson.

The alliteration in v. 26: the common Matthaean formula "awmen omer ani" (amen I say to you). Salkinson expresses this somewhat differently, losing the alliteration.

In the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew we have the following:

אז אמר יש“ו לתלמידיו ראה שתמהר לרצות שונאך בלכתך עמו בדרך פנ ימסור אותך לשופט וזה השופט ימסורך לעבד לתת אותך לבית הסוהר ׃

באמת אני אומר לך לא תצא משם עד תנתן פרוטה אחרונה ׃

v. 25: shofet/shofet only (because Shaprut has "servant" instead of "officer")

v. 26: The alliteration of the common Matthaean formula is lost, because the Shaprut text reads "in truth" in place of "amen."

The implications of all this are many. Alliteration is a common feature of Semitic literature, but it is generally lost in translation. I am convinced that the alliteration in v. 25 is integral to the composition of the verse. This implies that the verse was originally written in a Semitic language. The alternatives are Hebrew and Aramaic. But I have checked Syr-s, Syr-c, and the Peshitta, and the alliteration is not visible in those texts. So we are left with Hebrew, but what type of Hebrew? The alliteration is only partial in the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew, but it is fully visible in Delitzsch's strict Biblical Hebrew.

When I first read Delitzsch's translation, I felt that the use of Biblical Hebrew was an anachronism. So it may have been, but there would have been no better way to give dignity and gravitas to the text. My vote, therefore, now goes to Biblical Hebrew as the substratum language in Matthew.

The alliteration of the common Matthaean formula is also interesting. It is no doubt original in the text of Matthew, and we find it in all the best Greek and Latin manuscripts. It disappears in Luke, where it is customarily replaced by "verily," or some such word. Even the KJV and the RSV say "verily," "truly," or some such, instead of the original (and alliterative in Hebrew) "amen."

This also has implications for the Synoptic problem. For years I was a partisan of Markan priority, the hypothesized "Q Document," and the Two-Source Theory. It falls apart, though, when one looks at the many Minor Agreements (more on this in a later blog post), and forces us to ignore the statements of the early Church historians. If we resort to a Two-Gospel Theory, as did Augustine, Griesbach (the father of New Testament textual criticism), and, more recently Farrar did, we are consistent with nearly eighteen centuries of Church opinion. Still, though, there is the question of  Matthaean or Lukan priority. The evidence of the Hebrew substratum in Matthew, with all its literary devices, argues for Matthaean priority. We have, then, a Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, written for the Jews, and a little later a Gospel of Luke, written for the Gentiles. Thus we see the alliterative "amen I say to you" changed by Luke to "truly," "verily," or simply "I say to you," to make the Gospel sound less Jewish, and for the same reason less insistence upon the Law.

Rabbi Yeshua, called by us Jesus, was a Jew, and his original audience was made up of Jews. To argue that the more Gentile gospel of Luke was the first and the "Jewish" features of Matthew were added later would be to stand history on its head.

(to be continued)

ᏡᎬᏗ (translation)

ᏡᎬᏗ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎠᎦᏘᏯᎯ ᎠᏓᏅᏙᏗ
ᎡᏆ-ᎡᎶᎯ ᎥᎿᎢ.
ᎢᏳᏃ ᎢᏧᎳ ᎠᏓᏍᏕᎸᏙᏎ ᏡᎬᏗᏁ,
ᏡᎬᏗ ᎠᏓᏍᏕᎸᏙᏎ ᎢᏧᎸ.


Trees are the guardian spirits of the world.
If we will protect trees,
trees will protect us.

Reading Matthew in Hebrew - VI

For many years I have been interested in the "synoptic problem" and in the Semitic substratum for which there is evidence (mostly in the form of wordplay and translation variants). For a long time I believed that this substratum was probably Aramaic, but I am now favoring Hebrew. This note is intended to explain this shift in my thinking.

A good example is Matthew 5:46-48. When one reads these verses in the Delitzsch translation into Biblical Hebrew, one is impressed by the amount of wordplay present, of a kind that is typical of Semitic texts, but not of translations of any sort. For example, "ahava" (love) is echoed by "achim" (brothers), and "shalom" (peace, health) is echoed in "shalem" (perfect, complete). This last example works in Hebrew, but not in Aramaic, where the word used for "perfect" is "gamir."

Burt these verses are interesting for another reason. Verse 47 has come down to us in a form that either says "Do not the publicans (tax collectors) also do this?" (the so-called Received, or Byzantine Text) or says "Do not the ethnikoi (gentiles, goyim) also do this?" (the best and most ancient Greek texts). This verse 47 is absolutely central to the wordplay, so it clearly is original. But should the reference be to tax collectors (who have already been mentioned in verse 46), or to the gentiles? The latter is suggested by the better texts. The clincher, though, comes from the omission of verse 47 in the oldest Old Syriac that we have (the Sinaitic Syriac) and in our oldest Old Latin (Bobiensis, known as "k").

This omission of verse 47 cannot have been an accident, occurring as it does in both the Syriac and the Old Latin textual traditions. It is likely that it was at some time felt that the verse would be offensive to the gentiles, who had become the major audience for Christianity. But later texts, such as the Peshitta and the Byzantine Greek texts, found an easier solution: they simply changed "gentiles" to "publicans," who had already been mentioned in the preceding verse. St. Jerome, to his credit, kept the word "ethnici" in the Vulgate.

The verse, in its original form, shows that the original audience for the Sermon on the Mount was the Jews. Its omission at a certain point in time, in two different manuscript streams, shows that that situation had changed.

The omission of verse 47 in Syr-s and in k also interests me for another reason. I have a Hebrew translation of Matthew that also omits the verse. It was published in the late fourteenth century, but is clearly older. It is the Hebrew Matthew of Shem Tob ibn Saprut. Other evidence makes it likely that it was translated either from the Old Syriac or from the Old Latin.

The wordplay in verse 48, dependent on the choice of the word "shalem" for "perfect," fortunately came out in Delitzsch's Hebrew translation (ca. 1877, with many later editions), but it did not come out in that of Salkinson (ca. 1885), who used the other common Hebrew word for "perfect," which is "tamim." It did not come out in Syriac (late, eastern Aramaic), either.

The three translations I've mentioned of Matthew back into the language in which the Sayings were probably written are all somewhat different, and they are all interesting. That of Shem Tob was made by Jews for polemical purposes and supports a theology that is different, to be sure, from that of Pauline Christianity. Salkinson's translation (completed for Acts after his death, by C. D. Ginsburg) is intentionally periphrastic, so may sound more natural in places. It was based on the great Codex Sinaiticus, one of the best available. I also love the fact that he used the word "goyim" for "ethnikoi." But Delitzsch's translation is, by far, my favorite. It is written in impeccable Biblical Hebrew which, although it may be an anachronism, is reassuring and makes it quite clear and easy to understand. It's greatest weakness is that, after the first edition, the British and Foreign Bible Society forced him to modify it to agree with the so-called Received Text if he wanted them to publish and distribute it. Reading Matthew in any of these translations is highly rewarding, revealing things about the Sayings (which for me are the teachings of Rabbi Yeshua) that would not be apparent in any other language.

Shem Tob's Hebrew MatthewSalkinson & Ginsburg Hebrew New TestamentDelitzsch Hebrew New Testament

ᏡᎬᏗ

ᏡᎬᏗ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎠᎦᏘᏯᎯ ᎠᏓᏅᏙᏗ
ᎡᏆ-ᎡᎶᎯ ᎥᎿᎢ.
ᎢᏳᏃ ᎢᏧᎳ ᎠᏓᏍᏕᎸᏙᏎ ᏡᎬᏗᏁ,
ᏡᎬᏗ ᎠᏓᏍᏕᎸᏙᏎ ᎢᏧᎸ.

Reading Matthew in Hebrew - V

Recently I've been enjoying reading the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, the language in which at least the Sayings portion of it was probably originally written. The exercise has been very instructive. Consider, for example, Mt. 6:7-13. Here is verse 7 in the Revised Standard Version: "And in praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words." The word used in the Greek text for "Gentiles" is "ethnikoi." One of the very best texts though, Codex Vaticanus, has "hypocrites" instead of "Gentiles." Vaticanus, known as "B," is a fourth-century complete Bible in Greek, housed in the Vatican Library. The Old Syriac texts , also fourth-century, also have "hypocrites," as does the Peshitta, sometimes called the Syriac Vulgate, which is a fifth-century text.

The fourth century was a watershed year for textual changes. Something big had happened. Upon the conversion of Constantine, the fledgling Church had formed an alliance with its former oppressors, and no longer wished to offend them.

One of my texts of Hebrew Matthew, that of Shem Tob ibn Saprut, which may have been translated from either an Old Syriac text or an Old Latin one, uses instead the term "minim," a post-biblical word for heretical sectarians, which eventually came to be used for the Jewish Christians. If the latter is the meaning in the Shem Tob text, as it could be from the point of view of Jewish polemics, then it is a glaring anachronism. There is another possibility, though. It may have been used to refer to the Sadducees, who harshly enforced the Torah, but rejected the Prophets and the Writings. This would make sense from the point of view of the Pharisees, and the evidence that we have indicates that Rabbi Yeshua was a Pharisee, as was Saul/Paul. Paul was a student of Gamaliel, who was a student of Hillel.

But why would the people of Antioch, which was likely where the Syriac versions originated, have cared about offending the Gentiles? The answer is simple: the young church of Antioch was full of Gentiles, in addition to Jewish Christians. Rabbi Yeshua's original audience was composed of Jews, but by the fourth century this was no longer the case.

As I continued reading, I noticed that the Hebrew translation I was using, that of Delitzsch, had the longer, "Protestant" ending of the Lord's Prayer in Mt. 6:13. He wouldn't have wanted it that way, since it was not in accord with the best textual criticism of the time, but the British and Foreign Bible Society had forced him to use the "Received Text," which represents the Byzantine textual type. I checked the Salkinson translation, and found that, while the English on the facing page was exactly the same, the Hebrew reflected the shorter, "Catholic" ending. Shem Tob's text also had a short ending. All of this aroused my curiosity, so I did a little more digging.

I found that both the Curetonian Syriac (Syr-c) and the Peshitta (Syr-p) had the longer, Byzantine ending. Unfortunately, the older and better Sinaitic Syriac (Syr-s) is not a witness, due to a lacuna in the text. There are, however three very old texts that do have something resembling the Byzantine ending: Codex Bobiensis ("k"), the Sahidic Coptic version (SA), and the Didache (Did). Of these, "k" only mentions "the power" (virtus); the Sahidic says "the power and the glory," as does the Didache. But none of them mention "the kingdom." So we have a very interesting trajectory through time.

We have only two representatives of the Old Syriac textual type, both dating to the fourth century. This type of text was replaced by the fifth-century Peshitta, which aimed to more closely adhere to the Greek text, in the interest of Church unity. In fact, a serious effort was made to destroy all earlier texts, but as usual, they were not quite able to get them all.

Bobiensis ("k") is also a fourth-century manuscript, and its original provenance is thought to have been North Africa. It represents the earliest form of the Old Latin textual type. Thanks to quotations by Saint Cyprian and some others, we know that a text of this type existed at least as early as the third century. One theory is that the African type of Old Latin text originated in the same place as the Old Syriac, probably Antioch.

The Sahidic Coptic version is from the third century. The Didache is dated to either the first or the second century. The only copy we have of the original Greek, though, is a medieval one that was discovered in the late nineteenth century.

So the trajectory we are looking at in the development of the "longer ending" of the Pater Noster goes from terse in the early centuries of Christianity to verbose, adding "the kingdom" in the Alexandrian and Byzantine textual types. No part of the "longer ending" of the Pater Noster ever became official, however, in the Church of Rome. This is worth thinking about. In any case, the "longer ending" of the Pater Noster is only a loose echo of the matrix from which it sprang, which is Divrei HaYomim 1 (1 Chronicles 29:11): "Yours, Lord, are greatness, might, splendor, triumph and majesty--yes, all that is in heaven and on earth; to You, Lord, belong kingship and preeminence above all." [This English is from my JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, and is based on the Masoretic text.]

By the late fourth century, the young church of Rome was stuck in a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, having fallen into an alliance with its former oppressors. No Roman emperor would have wanted to hear that the "kingdom" belonged to a foreign god. After all, the emperors themselves had claimed to be gods. It was, in any case, an unholy alliance.

It is to be presumed that the churches of the East had less circumspection about offending the Roman Emperor. Some may have been horrified by the "establishment" of the Roman church, and therefore of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Some, in the East, may have felt the need for a cautionary comment. It seems to me probable that this was the Sitz im Leben of the newly-expanded verse 13.

Some claim that the Pater Noster is taken from the third, fifth, sixth, ninth, and fifteenth blessings of the Amidah, or Shemoneh Esrei, the central prayer of the synagogue liturgy, which is recited by observant Jews three times a day. Certainly there are similarities. I have seen it claimed that Rabbi Yeshua was not the only itinerant Rabbi who taught a "boiled-down" version of the Amidah at that time. I'll take no position on these claims, since I haven't had time to research them. What I will say is that the Pater Noster (let's start calling it the Avinu) is very, very striking in Hebrew.

Avinu shebashamayim yitkadash shmecha

"Yitkadash shmecha." Let Your name be made holy. Because from this blessing all the others will flow. A world in which the Name is revered and respected, will be a world in which all Life is revered and respected, and in which we respect each other. It is a path to a better world.

Tavo malchutecha

May your kingdom come. (Replacing the rule of unethical imposters and usurpers who poison our existence because of their greed and lust for power.)

Yeaseh ritzoncha kmo bashamayim ken baaretz

May your will be done as in the heavens, so also on the earth.

Et-lechem chuqenu ten-lanu hayom

Give us this day our daily bread

Us'lach-lanu et-chovotenu kaasher salachnu gam-anachnu l'chayavenu

Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors

V'al-t'viyenu liydey nisayon kiy im-chaltzenu min-hara'

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil,

[Kiy l'cha hamamlakhah v'hag'vurah v'hatipheret l'ol'mey olamiym] amen

[for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.] Amen.

That version, as I said above, agrees with the Received Text. Here is the Shaprut Hebrew Matthew version, which probably dates to the early centuries of the Common Era:

אבינו יתקדש שמך

ויתברך מלכותך רצונך יהיה עשוי בשמים ובארץ ׃

ותתן לחמנו תמידית ׃

ומחול לנו חטאתינו כאשר אנחנו מוחלים לחוטאים לנו

ואל תביאנו לידי נסיון ושמרינו מכל רע אמן ׃

Our father, may your name be sanctified;

may your kingdom be blessed; may your will be done in heaven 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 power of temptation but keep us from all evil, amen.

This blog has now passed the milestone of 48,000 visits. Thank you all for your interest and encouragement.

Reading Matthew in Hebrew - IV

We now move to my favorite part of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount. First we'll look at Mt 5:9-10, two of the Beatitudes. In the RSV, these verses read:

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

In this English translation, and in the Greek texts on which it is based, there is no particular connection between these two thoughts. Let's see how they read in Hebrew:

Salkinson

אַשְׁרֵי עֹשֵׂי שָׁלוֹם כִּי־הֵם יִקָּרְאוּ בְּנֵי־אֱלֹהִים ׃

אַשְׁרֵי הַנִרְדָּפִים עֵקֶב צִדְקָתָם כִּי לָהֶם מַלְכוּת הַשָׁמָיִם ׃

Shaprut

אשרי רודפי שלים שבני אלקים יקראו ׃

אשרי הנרדם לצדק שלהם מלכות שמים ׃

Delitzsch

אַשְׁרֵי רֹדְפֵי שָׁלוֹם כִּי־בְנֵי אֱלֹהִים יִקָּרֵאוּ ׃

אַשְׁרֵי הַנִרְדָּפִים עַל־דְּבַר הַצְּדָקָה כִּי לָהֶם מַלְכוּת הַשָׁמָיִם ׃

Salkinson has followed the "original" Greek, so in his Hebrew we still see no particular connection between the two thoughts. The situation changes, though, in Shaprut, where we see that these two Beatitudes are actually connected by the Hebrew verb "רדפ," which means both "pursue" and "persecute." Such connecting/linking words, or "catchwords" are a memory aid that is common in texts that go back to the oral tradition, especially collections of sayings. Most of the sayings in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, for example, are connected by such catchwords. In this case, and in quite a few others, the connection only works in Hebrew or Aramaic. This is one reason (not the only one) why many people believe that all or part of this Gospel was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic.

In Greek, "peacemakers" are literally "peace-doers." Salkinson calls them "makers of peace," which is similar to the Greek phrase. The Shaprut Hebrew calls them "pursuers of peace." "Peacemaker" does not occur anywhere in the Bible before or after this one verse. But the phrase in the Shaprut Hebrew echoes Ps.34.14, where it says "Seek peace and pursue it." The phrase in Shaprut's Hebrew seems likely to be more original 

It is interesting to note that, while we do not see the connection in the Hebrew of Salkinson, we do see it in that of Delitzsch, who uses the same phrase, "pursuers of peace," as in the Shaprut text. This may indicate that Delitzsch had, and was influenced by, a text of the Shaprut type. It is known that Delitzsch's translation originally had more variant readings. The British and Foreign Bible Society, though, refused to publish his translation unless he brought it into conformity with the Recieved Greek Text. This was, in effect, a rejection of all modern textual criticism. If he wanted his translation to be published by the BFBS, Delitzsch had no choice but to comply. It is interesting that he allowed this reading to stand, in spite of the instructions of the BFBS. It could, of course, have simply slipped through, but I believe that Delitzsch allowed it to stand because it gave such strong support to the theory of a Semitic substratum in Matthew.

(to be continued)