Canonical Matthew (Mt. 6:9-13):
"Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also
have forgiven our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
[For thine is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory, forever, Amen.]"
With regard to the part in square brackets, a page note states: "This clause omitted in the earliest manuscripts."
Luke (Lk. 11:2-4):
"Father, hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins.
For we ourselves also forgive
everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation."
Hebrew Matthew:
"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."
The words in italics differ from all witnesses to the Greek tradition.
Most of us, if we know any version of this prayer, will be familiar with the version in canonical Matthew. Many would not even be aware that the Gospel of Luke has a much shorter version of the prayer. Now we have a third version, Hebrew Matthew, and it appears to be textually intermediate between the two canonical Gospels.
The first thing we notice is that Luke only says "father," not "our father," and he leaves out "who art in heaven," according to the oldest and best texts of Luke. Hebrew Matthew does say "our," but leaves out "who art in heaven."
Now in this instance I do not want to make a case for Shem-Tob ben Isaac ben Shaprut, in whose fourteenth-century book Even Bohan Hebrew Matthew appears, not having access to those "oldest and best" texts of Luke. Although most of them were not available to him, the Vulgate was, and here is what it says:
"Pater sanctificetur nomen tuum
adveniat regnum tuum
panum nostrum cotidianum da nobis
cotidie
et dimitte nobis peccata nostra
siquidem et ipsi dimittimus omni
debenti nobis
et ne nos inducas in temptationem"
This is essentially the same as Luke's minimalist Pater Noster given above in English, so it cannot be said that Shem Tob would not have had access to the shorter, Lukan version. For our own purposes, though, it is important to note that, as in other cases, Hebrew Matthew appears to be intermediate between Luke and canonical, Greek Matthew. This is best explained by my Layered Matthew Hypothesis, diagrammed below:
In the quotation above from Hebrew Matthew, I italicized four words/phrases:
"blessed" instead of "come" - This forms a more perfect parallelism with "sanctified," and so would be preferable in Hebrew literature. I would, therefore consider it to probably be original. So far as I know, it has no support in the Greek manuscript tradition.
"continually" instead of "daily" - I believe this is similar to the expression used in another Semitic language, Syriac, but it has, so far as I know, no support within the Greek manuscript tradition.
"the power of" temptation - This also finds no support that I am aware of within the Greek manuscript tradition.
"all" evil - I like this variant, but find no support for it in the Greek ms. tradition.
In other words, Hebrew Matthew does not appear to have been translated from any known Greek or Latin text of the Gospel of Matthew. Except for "continually," I am unaware of any support in Syriac, so it appears to be an independent text rather than a translation of any known text. In general, while Hebrew Matthew has some agreements with the oldest Old Latin, and with Old Syriac (which has been preserved for us in only two mss.), it is not the same as any known text, and is therefore not a translation of any of them. The facile assumption on the part of some academics that it was translated from the Vulgate is clearly incorrect.
Here, as in the case of the Beatitudes and every other case that I've so far examined, Hebrew Matthew reflects a text type that is intermediate between canonical Matthew and parallels in Luke. In terms of my theory, I believe that Luke used an older, not yet fully developed version of Matthew (Matthew IIa) in composing his Gospel. Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew appears to be based on a somewhat fuller version of the Gospel of Matthew than are many of Luke's parallels (my Matthew IIb), which is still not as fully developed as canonical, Greek Matthew (Matthew III). The evidence, therefore, indicates that Hebrew Matthew is older than canonical Matthew. I do not yet know whether George Howard made this assertion in his original (1987) edition, but he did not make it in his 1995 revised edition. I am making it now.
Text © 2019 by Donald C. Traxler.
