Donald Traxler's Poetry

Sunday, May 8, 2022

Notes on the Sermon on the Mount - III

We go next to Matthew VI:9, which is parallel to Luke XI:2, The Our Father/Pater Noster/Avinu. 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 liy'dey nisayon kiy im-chaltzenu min-hara'

And do not lead us into the hands of 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.

(This is a transliteration from Franz Delitzsch's nineteenth-century translation of the New Testament into Hebrew.)

This beloved and ancient prayer has survived in three editions: that of Matthew, that of Luke, and that of the Didache. Somehow, the canonical (Greek) text grew out of this development, and that is what we want to shed light on.

So far as I can tell, the oldest version is that in Luke. Here is Luke's version (Lk. 11:2-4), according to modern scholarship:

Father,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come

Give us each day
our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive
everyone who is indebted to us;
and lead us not into temptation.

I happen to believe that the original of this prayer was taught in Aramaic, and such a version has survived in the Sinaitic Palimpsest (Syr-s). I'll show it first in Hebrew letters, easier for me to write than Estrangelo (classical Syriac script):

אבא נתקדש שמך ותאתא מלכותך ׃ 2

והב לן לחמא אמינא דכליום ׃ 3

ושבך לנ חטהין ואף אנחנן שבקין אנחנן לכל דחיב לן ולא תעלן לנסיונא ׃ 4

This is essentially the short, Lukan version, and it sounds something like:

abba netqaddash sh'mak watite malkutak

wahab lan lahma amyna d'kulyum.

wash'buq lan n'tahayn 'ap ennahnan sh'baqn l'kul d'hayyabin lan w'la ta'lan l'nesyuna.

But we should not suppose that this minimalist, Lukan version was widely known or available to all. It did survive, though, in the Vulgate:

Pater sanctificetur nomen tuum
adveniat regnum tuum
panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis cotidie
et dimitte nobis peccata nostra
siquidem et ipsi dimittimus omni debenti nobis
et ne nos inducas in temptationem.

English translation of the Vulgate Latin:

Father, may your name be made holy,

may your kingdom come,

give us daily our daily bread,

and forgive us our sins,

as we also forgive all those indebted to us,

and do not lead us into temptation.

We almost lost that shorter, Lukan version, but it survived in the Codex Vaticanus ("B"), the Codex Sinaiticus ("א"), the Sinaitic Palimpsest ("Syr-s") and in Papyrus 75. It also survived in the Vulgate, probably because Jerome used "B." It is significant that all of these sources are fourth-century, except P75, which is third-century. By the late fifth century, we see (from Syr-c, the Curetonian Syriac) that the shorter, Lukan version of the prayer had been swamped by a longer version intended to harmonize it with the Matthaean version. From there, the longer version got into the (Byzantine) Textus Receptus, and from there into countless other translations, including the KJV. Had the texts mentioned above not survived (most were either discovered or began to be studied in the nineteenth century), we would probably have lost Luke's original version, and an important part of the textual history of the New Testament would have been lost.

Above, I gave a Syriac (Christian Aramaic) text (from the Oldest Old Syriac, Syr-s) of Luke's original version.

We have no version that short for Matthew. The shortest that we have is that in Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew. It goes like this:

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 power of temptation, but keep us from all evil, amen.

One notices that it says OUR father, and not just Father as in the Lukan version. It says "in heaven/the heavens, which the Lukan prayer does not. It says "heavens" (plural) because this word is always plural in Hebrew, In common with all versions, it says "may your name be sanctified." It also says "may your kingdom be "blessed," instead of "come." In common with all the earlier versions, it says "sins" instead of "debts." It says (uniquely) "the POWER of temptation" (literally, "the hands" of temptation, which is the idiomatic way to say this in Hebrew) and it mentions "all evil" instead of "evil" or "the evil one" (or nothing at all, as in the Lukan version). It has no ending mentioning kingdom, or power, or glory (or all three, as in the Byzantine texts). Finally, it ends with "amen," as Jewish prayers should.

It is these variations that I want to track in this trajectory through time, I will condense the various points so that I can represent them graphically.

Luke Shem-Tob Didache "k" Syr-s Vulgate .

Father Our Our Our Our Our
kingdom kingdom blessed in heaven in heavens heaven heavens
daily bread will done kingdom come kingdom [lacuna] kingdom
forgive sins bread continually will done will will
temptation forgive sins daily bread daily bread supersubstantial bread
no ending power of temptation forgive debt forgive debts forgive debts
evil temptation temptation temptation
no ending evil one evil evil
amen power&glory power no ending

Syr-c "D" Canon. Gk. Mt.

Our Our Our
in heaven heavens in heaven
kingdom kingdom kingdom
wishes will will
continual bread continual bread daily bread
forgive debts forgive debts forgive debts
temptation test temptation
evil one evil evil
.kingdom&glory no ending kingdom, power, glory
amen

The above table is a graphical version of the Matthaean version of the Pater Noster. One can see the general tendency for the prayer to become more elaborate. There is doubt at certain points, notably with regard to the dating of the Didache. It exists in one Greek document, which is clearly from the Byzantine period, but it is believed to reflect Church practices of 40-120 CE. The Two Ways portion of the Didache is Jewish in origin, and a copy was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. But in its Byzantine dress it can tell us little or nothing about the earliest history of the prayer.

To my mind, at least, the omission of "Our" in the Lukan version may indicate translation from Aramaic, and indeed it existed in that form into the late fourth century (Syr-s), as I showed earlier. The form "our father" (avinu) would be the more common in Hebrew. It is likely that, in the stage of oral transmission, not only the Our Father but all of Rabbi Yeshua's teaching was in Aramaic.

The earliest texts have "sins" rather than "debts," but "debts" predominated in the Matthaean version of the prayer by the late fourth century (Vulgate).

We see that the earliest texts had no fancy ending (kingdom, power, and glory). The earliest to have even part of such an ending would probably be "k" (Codex Bobiensis) with only "power," which never made it into the Vulgate. The full additional ending was a feature of Byzantine texts, which became the basis of the Textus Receptus or Received Text. The ending appears to be a reference to 1 Chron 29:11-13, but it could not be called a quotation. The Byzantine texts, which were exceedingly numerous, became the basis of most Protestant translations. The Catholics, on the other hand, had the Vulgate, which had the benefit of better and more ancient readings, including those of "B" (Codex Vaticanus), which modern scholars consider to be the best of all, along with a few others such as "א" (Codex Sinaiticus).

In studying this simple but wonderful prayer, I am struck by how close it is to Hebrew idiom and Jewish tradition. In it there are echoes of the Kaddish, and some of the blessings of the Amidah (a rather lengthy prayer that observant Jews say three times a day). Some believe that it is a boiled-down version of the latter. I shall leave that for others to decide, and say only that the Our Father/Pater Noster/Avinu is thoroughly Jewish in tone and spirit.

My Language Is Light / ᎠᏆ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᎩ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎤᎸᏌᏓ

Saturday, May 7, 2022

The Work of the Poet / ᏗᎦᎸᏫᏍᏓᏃ ᏗᎪᏪᎵᏍᎩ-ᎧᏃᎮᎸᏍᎩ ᎥᎿᎢ

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Notes on the Sermon on the Mount - II

Going further, beyond the Beatitudes, we see that Mt. 5:13 (Salt) and 5;14 (Light) are connected (in Hebrew, but not in the Greek translation) by the catchword "world." Mt. 5:14 and 5;15 are, in turn, connected by the catchword "hidden."

About thirty years ago, when I was studying the Gospel of Thomas, I made the following note on GTh 33b: "This phrase ['nor does he put it in a hidden place'], with the link 'hidden', is missing from Mt. 5.14-15, where the sequence is the same." At that time I did not know that the catchword missing in the Greek translation, but preserved in GTh, is also preserved in a primitive Hebrew text of the Gospel of Matthew.

In the interest of truth, I feel compelled to say something about Rabbi Yeshua's defense of the Torah (Matthew 5:17-20). Here is the defense, in George Howard's translation of Shem-Tob's Hebrew text:

17 At that time Jesus said to his disciples: Do not think that I came to annul the Torah, but to fulfill it.
18 Truly I say to you that until heaven and earth (depart) not one letter or dot shall be abolished from the Torah or the Prophets, because all will be fulfilled.
19 He who shall transgress one word of these commandments (and shall teach) others shall be called a vain person (in the) kingdom of heaven; but whoever upholds and teaches [them] shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 At that time Jesus said to his disciples: Truly I say to you, if your righteousness is not greater than the Pharisees and the sages, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

And here, for comparison, is this same passage, but from canonical, Greek Matthew (which I call Matthew III), as translated in the Revised Standard Version (RSV):

17 "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. 18 For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

While there is substantial agreement here between Shem-Tob's Hebrew text (which I call Matthew II) and canonical Matthew (Matthew III), the differences are interesting. Most important, perhaps, among these differences, is the inclusion, twice, of the introductory phrase "At that time Jesus said to his disciples" in the Hebrew text. Professor Howard has shown (on p. 200 in Howard's 1995 edition) that whenever we see such an introductory phrase in Mt. 5-7 (the Sermon on the Mount), Luke either jumps to a different place in his text or has a void. This is extraordinary evidence for Matthew's editorial process. These introductory phrases had already been edited out by the time of Greek Matthew (Matthew III), but they were still present in Shem-Tob's Hebrew text (Matthew II). This passage, though, is not paralleled in either Luke or Mark (although there is a weakened echo of Mt. 5:18 in Lk 16:17).

Why was this extremely important passage not included in either Mark or Luke? Really, this question goes to the heart of the Synoptic Problem, and its significance.

For about the first 1800 years of their history, Christians believed, and were taught, that the first Gospel to be written was that of Matthew. In the second century, Papias told us that Matthew collected the Logia (sayings) and wrote them down in the Hebrew language, and everyone else translated them as best they could. Matthaean priority was Augustine's belief ca. 400 CE, and it was Griesbach's in the first half of the nineteenth century. In the latter part of that century there were also supporters of Lukan priority, and early supporters of Markan priority. This last hypothesis, though, really came into prominence with the publication of B. H. Streeter's 1924 book, THE FOUR GOSPELS. Markan priority remained the preeminent theory, at least in the United States, until about 1960, when it began to lose ground.

Why does it matter? Well, let's go back to the passage I've cited, Mt. 5:17-20. If the Gospel of Matthew was the first to be written, as believed by Christians for most of their history, then the absence of parallels to this passage in the Gospels of Mark and Luke can be easily (and somewhat historically) explained. While the Gospel of Matthew was written for the first Christians, who were Jewish Christians, Mark and Luke were written primarily for the Gentiles, who presumably had no reverence for, and did not wish to be restricted by, the Torah. In this scenario, the First Gospel needed to be adapted to the needs of Gentiles in Mark and Luke.

If, on the other hand, we assume either Lukan or Markan priority, we can say that Mt. 5:17-20 was "added" by or for the Jews. In other words, by adopting, for example, Streeter's theory of Markan priority, we can "de-Semitize" Christianity and its origins. Why on earth would anyone wish to do that?

Well, in the 1920s and 1930s, when Streeter's hypothesis of Markan priority became dominant, this de-Semitization of Christianity and its origins may have seemed like the right thing to do. Jews would soon be exterminated by the millions, by people who called themselves "Christians."

A few years ago, in connection with something I was writing, I wanted to get Streeter's exact dates and the date of first publication of his book. I looked him up on Wikipedia. I read the whole article, and was shocked by something that I read there: Streeter had attended the 1936 Olympics (the "Nazi Olympics") in Berlin, although he had no need to be there. Just a coincidence? I have to doubt it.

I prefer to judge Streeter's hypothesis on its own merits, and it seemingly has few. First of all, it stands history on its head. Secondly, there is the matter of what Streeter disingenuously called "the minor agreements." These are cases in the Triple Tradition where Matthew and Luke agree (often verbatim) with each other, against Mark. There are hundreds of these agreements, and they are anything but "minor."

So we see, from the passage cited above (and there are others that could be used to the same effect), that work on the Synoptic Problem is not a mere intellectual puzzle or a harmless, gentlemen's avocation. It is important, and it has much wider implications and significance.

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Notes on the Sermon on the Mount - I

The upper screen print above is from Franz Delitzsch's Hebrew translation of the New Testament (Eighth Edition, 1885, I believe), The lower one is Shem-Tob ben Shaprut's primitive Hebrew text, found in the book HEBREW GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, by George Howard (Macon, GA, Mercer University Press, 1995. The former is not copyrighted, the latter is, and I do not own any rights in either publication.

The Delitzsch text is a translation from Greek. Shem-Tob's Hebrew may not be a translation at all (though I am not certain that it isn't). What I am certain of is that the Shem-Tob Hebrew Matthew reflects a more primitive state of the Gospel of Matthew than does canonical, Greek Matthew. I have written in some detail on this subject in my Synoptica series, in this blog. So has Professor Howard, in his book. For now, I just want to focus on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, 7), examining both texts and trying to better understand the relationship between the two textual traditions, the Hebrew and the Greek, in the Gospel according to Matthew.

The list of Beatitudes (Mt. 5:3-12) in the Received Text and in Delitzsch's translation contains nine Beatitudes. But the list in Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew contains fewer, as does the parallel text in Luke 6:20-23. The list in Luke is shorter, in fact, than those in both Shem-Tob and the Received Text.

Here is a handy comparison of Matthew (Received Text), Matthew (Shem-Tob ben Shaprut), and Luke:

Luke 6:20-23 (reflects "Matthew I"):

1) Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

2) Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.

3) Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude and insult you and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man,

4) Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.

Matthew 5:3-11, in the Shaprut version (reflects "Matthew II"):

1) (Blessed are the humble of spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.)

2) Blessed are those who wait, for they shall be comforted.

3) (Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.)

4) Blessed are the innocent of heart, for they shall see God.

5) Blessed are those who PURSUE peace for they shall be called sons of God.

6) Blessed are those who are PERSECUTED for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

7) Blessed are you when they persecute and revile you and say against you all kinds of evil for my sake, but speak falsely.

8) Rejoice and be glad for your reward is very great in heaven, for thus they persecuted the prophets.

Matthew 5:3-11, in the canonical version ("Matthew III"):

1) Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

2) Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

3) Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

4) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

5) Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

6) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

7) Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

8) Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

9) Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The two lines that George Howard placed in parentheses appear only in ms. A; they are absent from the Brit. Lib. ms. which was the main basis for his printed text, and also from BCDEFG. H is not mentioned, but that ms. is only fragmentary and does not include this part of the text. The first of these parenthetical Beatitudes corresponds roughly to the first Beatitude in canonical Luke and Matthew, but it says "humble" rather than "poor," and it does say "of spirit," a phrase that is found in canonical Matthew, but not in Luke. At this point I would have to say that ms. A either represents a later text type, or has been more assimilated to the canonical text than the others. Howard expresses the latter opinion on p. XIII of his 1995 edition. The second of the Beatitudes in parentheses is not in Luke at all, and is clearly an assimilation in ms. A to the text of canonical Matthew.

"those who wait" is analogous to "those who mourn" in canonical Matthew. According to George Howard (p. 226, op. cit.), this is a translation variant, due to similarity in appearance between the Hebrew words החוכים, (those who) wait, and הבוכים, (those who) mourn. In a footnote on the same page, he refers us to Gen 23:2 for an example of this usage of the verb בכה. That verb, however, literally means "to weep." Bearing this in mind, we see that Hebrew Matthew's "those who wait" is analogous both to the "those who weep" of Luke 6:21b and to the "those who mourn" of canonical Matthew 5:4. The translation variant is thus really "wait/weep," with "mourn" figuring only in the Greek translation. Since this similarity of "wait" and "weep" exists in Hebrew, but not in Greek or Latin, it is a safe assumption that 1) the original language of the Gospel of Matthew was Hebrew, and 2) Shem Tob's Hebrew Matthew is not a translation from Greek or Latin. In fact, if anyone thinks that Shen Tob's Hebrew Matthew is a translation, the burden of proof is on them.

Verses corresponding to Mt. 5:6 and 5:7 ("those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," and "the merciful," respectively) are not present in Hebrew Matthew (Matthew IIb according to my theory) at all. The first of these is half-present in a quasi-analogous version in Luke ("you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied"). According to my Layered Matthew Hypothesis, Luke used a version of Matthew (Matthew IIa) still older than the Hebrew Matthew that has survived (Matthew IIb). So what is going on here? The following is pure speculation on my part: Perhaps it was felt that physical hunger being satisfied was a promise (in Mt. IIa) that could not be kept, so it was removed (in Mt. IIb). But by the time of canonical Matthew (Mt. III) it had been put back, but reinterpreted as hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

Canonical Matthew 5:7 (the merciful) must have been a late addition, made too late to appear either in Luke or in Hebrew Matthew. This is unfortunate. It's one of my favorites of the Beatitudes.

We have now seen evidence, in the form of the wait/weep translation variant, that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew. George Howard found eighteen such translation variants and listed them on pp. 226-228 of his book (op. cit.). They are to be explained by similarities in appearance between Hebrew words with different meanings, where no such similarity exists in Greek or Latin. Now we are going to take a look at another type of evidence: catchwords.

Catchwords are words used to connect different thoughts or sayings, for later recitation. They are a mnemonic usually associated with the oral transmission stage, including the material that we call "Q." Now it happens that some of these catchwords exist in the Beatitudes, and you can see more of them when you read the Beatitudes in Hebrew, because they involve an idiomatic play on words that exists in Hebrew, but not in Greek.

In canonical, Greek Matthew 5:9, we have a Beatitude that can be translated as: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." But in Hebrew one does not speak of "peacemakers," but rather of "peace-pursuers" or "those who pursue peace." Thus, Mt. 5:9 in Hebrew Matthew reads "Blessed are those who pursue peace, for they shall be called sons of God." The verb used in Hebrew is רדף, which happens to mean both "pursue" and "persecute." Because of that double meaning in Hebrew, there is a catchword connection between verse 9 and verse 10. That catchword is, in fact, what connects the two verses (other than the words "blessed are"), and it only works in Hebrew. In Greek such people are called "peace-doers," or "peacemakers." This tells us that the Beatitudes were first composed in Hebrew, whether in oral or written form, and in this case even their order depends upon the Hebrew language.

That same רדף catchword also connects verse 10 to verse 11, and verse 11 to verse 12. These Beatitudes are probably original, and probably go back to the oral tradition. It no doubt took Matthew some time to collect them all from that tradition, which I believe is why Luke has fewer Beatitudes.

It is worth noting that the רדף catchwords survived intact in Delitzsch's nineteenth-century translation into Hebrew. He translated them as they would be said in Hebrew, not as they would customarily be said in Greek. This illustrates, for me, the value and importance of Franz Delitzsch's translation.

When you read the next few verses, on Salt and Light in Hebrew, you see that they are connected by the following catchwords: "world," "hidden," and "light." But if you read them in canonical, Greek Matthew, you will only see "light." This, of course, is further evidence for the original language of the Gospel of Matthew, and justifies the order of these verses. There is more evidence along these lines, but I think the point has been made.

(to be continued)