Yuri Kuchinsky

Greetings, all,

Prof. George Howard's edition of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, first published in 1987, presents us with quite a fascinating text of Matthew. Howard extracted this complete Hebrew text from a medieval Commentary "Even Bohan" by a Jewish scholar Shem-Tob, and he edited it quite competently. This version of Matthew was essentially unknown to scholarship prior to 1987... Unfortunately, as the wheels of New Testament scholarship grind rather slowly, this text still remains essentially unknown to your average NT scholar...

A close examination of this Hebrew version of Matthew reveals many surprises. Indeed, this is a very unusual text, with many unusual readings. At the same time, a great many of these unexpected readings also find close parallels in the ancient Old Syriac Aramaic versions of Mt, and in other very ancient Mt manuscripts... And so, while this is indeed a medieval text, still, it seems to have its antecedents in ancient times -- in the early Christian centuries.

One very remarkable -- and very wide-ranging -- feature of this Hebrew Matthew is its many close parallels with the gospel of Luke (both the canonical Luke, as well as the ancient Aramaic versions of Luke).

How deep are these parallels? They can be found all over -- both in the narrative parts, and in the sayings material. There seem to be literally _hundreds_ of these parallels between the Hebrew Matthew and Luke!

This unusual feature of the Hebrew Matthew was certainly duly noted by George Howard, although he mostly focused on those HMt/Lk parallels as found in the sayings material (i.e. the hypothetical "Q-Source"). But the narrative parts of Hebrew Matthew certainly do not lack in these parallels either, as we shall soon see...

So how are we to explain all these highly unusual parallels between the HMt and Lk?

Are we to suppose that they were added at some later point to an already existing Hebrew text of Matthew? In other words, let's say that, once upon a time, someone took a standard canonical text of Matthew (either in Greek or in Latin), and translated it into Hebrew. And later, someone else took this hypothetical 'pure' Hebrew Matthew, and said, "Hmm... why don't I rework this now, and start adding up -- here, there and everywhere -- all sorts of readings and passages from Luke?" (This would presumably be from a _Greek or Latin Lk_?)

Sorry, folks, but this just doesn't make any sense... There just wouldn't seem to be any rhyme or reason in this type of an activity by _any_ medieval Hebraic scribe of Matthew.

It is much more reasonable, on the other hand, to suppose that all these Lukan parallels go back to the earliest version of this Hebrew Matthew text.


THE LUKAN PRIORITY

So, essentially, what I'm saying is that all this can be seen as a good argument for Lukan priority!

Indeed, if Luke was the earliest gospel, and if Mt was originally based on Lk, then it would be quite natural for the earliest version of Mt to be quite close to Lk. Thus, Howard's edition of Hebrew Matthew still seems to preserve such an early version of Mt, that is still very close to Lk...

It's really quite hard to think of any other possibilities in this case, as far as I'm concerned.

Either all these Lukan parallels were all original to this Hebrew text of Mt, or they were all added at some later point in one fell swoop. There doesn't really seem to be any middle ground here -- i.e. it is very difficult to envision any sort of a gradual 'leaking' of all this Lukan material into HMt. And neither does any sort of a massive late Lukan 'revision' of Mt make any sense.

And now, for an illustration of what I've been saying.


HEALING OF THE BLIND BEGGAR IN THE HEBREW MATTHEW 20:29-34, AND THE LUKE 18:35-43 PARALLELS

This Healing of a Blind Beggar scene in HMt 20:29-34 is quite unusual, and it's quite unlike what we find in our standard canonical Matthew. In fact, the Hebrew Matthew version of this scene happens to be highly Lukan in its character.

So this can be seen as providing yet additional support for the idea that the earliest version of this Matthean passage had been based on Lk.

To begin with, as can be seen below, this HMt passage happens to include most of Lk 18:36-37, and some other characteristically Lukan elements, as well, especially at the end of this episode.

Also, according to HMt -- and unlike in any other known versions of Matthew -- the healing of the blind beggar takes place _at the entrance_ to Jericho, rather than at the exit, which is again very similar to what we find in Lk...

(Actually, the same feature is also found for this pericope in the Old Latin MS Bobiensis, which is widely considered as the oldest of all our Old Latin manuscripts -- but in the Bobiensis version of _Mark's_ gospel. So this would seem like a very early feature indeed. Apparently, I'm the first to point out this particular very unusual parallel.)

(Also, all these developments do have some connection with the Secret Gospel of Mark, because the Bobiensis Mk may help us to clarify that famous gap in the canonical Mk 10:46, where Jesus enters Jericho, and then mysteriously exists it right away. Since in both the Bobiensis Mk and in the HMt Jesus is credited with performing a healing miracle while entering Jericho, this incident might have filled that famous narrative gap in Mk at some stage. But now it's not the time to deal with all this -- other than just to say that the overall priority of Luke idea does seem to clarify the history of Secret Mark considerably. But I will have to save this matter for another essay.)

So let us first examine this whole passage in the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. This is how George Howard translates it (the brackets as included below are his).

*The Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, G. Howard, ed., Mercer, 1995.*

HMt 20:29 They entered into Jericho and a crowd followed him.
30 Behold, two blind men came out beside the road. They heard the noise of the multitude, and (asked) what this might be. It was said to them: The prophet Jesus from Nazareth is coming. Then they cried out saying: Son of David, have mercy on us.
31 But the crowd rebuked them (saying: Be silent); they nevertheless were crying out and saying: Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us.
32 So Jesus stopped, called them and said: What do you want [me] to do for you?
33 They said: Lord that our eyes might be opened.
34 Jesus had pity on them, touched their eyes and said to them: Your faith has healed you. Immediately they saw, praised God, and followed him. Then, all the people praised God because of this.


And now, I will point out the parallels here with Lk, with Mk, as well as with both. I will be underlining and numbering these parallels as they occur.

HMt 20:29 They _entered into_ {1Lk} Jericho and a {2Lk = omit 'great'} crowd followed him.
30 Behold, two blind men came out beside the road. They heard _the noise of the multitude, and (asked) what this might be. It was said to them: The prophet Jesus from Nazareth is coming_ {3Lk 18:36-37}. Then they cried out _saying_ {4Lk = canonical}: _Son of David, have mercy on us_ {the order of these words is according to 1Mk/Lk}.
31 But the crowd rebuked them (saying: Be silent); they nevertheless were crying out and saying: Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us {the order is 2Mk/Lk}.
32 So Jesus stopped, called them _and said_ {1Mk}: What do you want [me] to do for you?
33 They said {5Lk = omission}: Lord that our eyes might be opened.
34 Jesus had pity on them, touched their eyes _and said to them_ {3Mk/Lk}: _Your faith has healed you_ {2Mk}. Immediately they saw, _praised God_ {6Lk}, and followed him. _Then, all the people praised God because of this_ {7Lk}.

NOTES:
"the noise of" = this phrase is found in the Old Syriac Lk 18:36.
"they _saw_" = This is a well attested Western/Peripheral variant, including in the Old Syriac gospels, as well as in many other WP manuscripts.

IN TOTAL WE HAVE:

8 unique Lk features (including "the noise of").
2 unique Mk features.
3 Mk/Lk features.
-------------------
13 early features altogether

Thus, what we find here in the HMt are the 13 early features, that are also attested either in Lk, in Mk, or in both.

Clearly, this HMt text is particularly close to the Lukan version of this narrative. As I say, it makes plenty of sense to think that all these Lukan features had already been there in the earliest edition of the HMt, that was probably based on some very early version of Luke -- whatever language it may have been in, whether it was Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek...

While someone might still try to argue that these rather unusual Lukan features in the HMt were introduced at some later point, as some sort of a 'later harmonisation', there doesn't really seem to be any logical reason why anyone would want to do this during some later historical period.

Indeed, why would any late editor of this Hebrew text take the (presumably?) Greek version of Luke, and start to translate all those Greek phrases, and to incorporate them into the previously existing 'pure' Hebrew version Matthew? This really seems highly unlikely...

So what has been presented here so far is really just a tip of the iceberg. Everywhere one looks in the HMt, one sees Lukan words and phrases. (As an example, George Howard, on pp. 201-202 of his 1995 edition of Hebrew Matthew, has a long listing of such parallels that he found, although these are just in the Sayings material.)

Such abundance of Lukan features in the Hebrew Matthew certainly needs to be explained in a rational way. And the explanation that I'm offering here seems to be the only one that makes any logical sense. All these Lukan features in the HMt seem to be the remnants of a very early version of Luke, that served as the basis for the earliest version of Matthew. And this is what our Hebrew Gospel of Matthew seems to be still preserving for our benefit.

It certainly seems to me that mainstream NT scholarship should pay more attention to the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, that George Howard has uncovered for us, by rescuing it from oblivion. While it is admittedly not _the_ original version of Matthew, and while it does seem to contain, here and there, some late corruptions and elaborations, it is still substantially a very ancient and conservative text of Matthew -- preserving much precanonical material.

Thus, the solution for the Synoptic Problem that emerges from all this is that -- while admittedly not free from some later corruptions -- Luke is still substantially our earliest Christian gospel, that originally served as the basis for both Mk and Mt.

All the best,

Yuri

Jayhawker Soule

This is, quite frankly, way over my head, but I do not understand why the commentary could not have been influenced by a study of Luke irrespective of priority. What am I missing?

coloradoatheist

Like ConsequentAtheist this is over my head but I don't see how the conclussion at the end that Luke is the first gospel come from the above reasoning? I can see the case for Luke maybe being prior to Matthew but he made no case for it being before Mark. But my question in general for anyone out there is do we know about any of the collaboration between the gospel writers in terms of writing their seperate gospels(Luke and Matthew wrote together in the same room) or if Mark came along wrote his gospel and later convinced Luke and Matthew of his story they saw his flaws and figured they could fix the problems and write a new story?


Mike

Yuri Kuchinsky

Shem-Tob's Commentary preserved the text of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. This text wasn't part of Shem-Tob's Commentary as such -- it was separate from the Commentary.

I guess you'll have to read Howard's book to understand these things better.

I'm saying that the Lukan priority explains all this textual evidence very easily. Other theories cannot really explain any of this evidence in any easy way.

Yes, and this _is_ my main point!

Mk and Mt are brothers (figuratively speaking). These two gospels share lots of features that are not found anywhere else. So if Mt was based on Lk, then Mk was also likely based on Lk (or perhaps on an earlier version of Mt).

But those gospel writers were not really individuals merrily writing away in the privacy of their studies. We're talking about religious documents here, that were the results of long-time collaboration by many individuals.

These documents all belonged to their respective communities that kept 'improving' them over a long period of time... We're not talking about a bunch of novels here, that might have been written purely for entertainment.

You have to keep in mind that, in general, the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew still remains largely unknown to mainstream scholarship. It has been almost totally ignored by the mainstream scholarship since its publication.

Howard is the big expert on the HMt, and perhaps the only real expert on the subject. But in his studies, Howard completely ignored the theory of Lukan priority. So now I'm suggesting that the Lukan priority is the only theory that explains all this textual evidence in a coherent way.

All the best,

Yuri

Amaleq13

Most scholars assume/conclude that the Synoptic authors wrote independently except, I think, the few who deny the existence of Q. That group generally assumes a direct literary dependence, with varying specifics, between the Synoptics.


PS Welcome to IIDB if nobody has done so already! :wave:

Jayhawker Soule

Thanks for the response, Yuri. Let me try again - this time, hopefully, with more clarity. You write:

So how are we to explain all these highly unusual parallels between the HMt and Lk?

Are we to suppose that they were added at some later point to an already existing Hebrew text of Matthew? In other words, let's say that, once upon a time, someone took a standard canonical text of Matthew (either in Greek or in Latin), and translated it into Hebrew. And later, someone else ...

Sorry, folks, but this just doesn't make any sense... There just wouldn't seem to be any rhyme or reason in this type of an activity by _any_ medieval Hebraic scribe of Matthew.

Why "later, someone else ..."? Is it not far simpler to suppose that the "already existing Hebrew text of Matthew" was the effort of someone well versed in, and influenced by, Luke? And, if so, would that not render your hypothetical somewhat of a strawman argument?

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, ConsequentAtheist,

Please clarify what is the scenario that you're envisaging for the origins of the Hebrew Matthew. When was it produced? For what purpose?

My scenario is that HMt was produced in ancient times by Jewish-Christian believers, and it was based originally on Lk.

Regards,

Yuri.

Chris Weimer

I ardue for Lukan priority over Matthew here. While Luke has the Beatitudes incorporated into his text, Matthew lists them quote style. However, this doesn't concern Mark...

Jayhawker Soule

Perhaps starting with 2SH (although other scenarios would work) with

• gMk at t1,
• gMt at t2a,
• gLk at t2b, and
• HMt at t3,

where t3 > t2b. The only point being that if HMt was generated from gMt at any time after the availability of Luke, the differences between HMt and its vorlage and the similarities between HMt and Luke might simply reflect the fact that the redactor/translator was familiar with and influenced by Luke.

I don't insist that it happened this way. I'm just attempting to understand why you find HMt probative.

Thanks, Yuri. Sorry to be so slow at this stuff ...

coloradoatheist

Thanks Amaleq

I have assumed that the people who base Mt and Luke on Mark and Q assumed non-collaboration but I don't think that has to be the case.

With the first post it really only argued Lukan priority over Mt but then at the end it says that applies to mark as well. You need to do the same with Hebrew of Matt compared to Mark. However you have to address the criticisms of why Mark is shorter than both Luke and Matt and Mark doesn't contain some of the fantastic stories that Mt and Luke have which I would think would think added would be stronger evidence for the messiah. The number one story that comes to mine is the virgin birth (why leave that out if the previous stories had it?) To me and my opinion was that Matt and Luke add to and correct some of Mark's stories that would come after talking to people aka Why didn't Jesus fullfill the virgin of Isaiah or How do you know the body wasn't stolen (add the guards).

Mike