stephan huller

I have always believed that if we could find a form of Aramaic or Syriac where verbs which begin with n (nun) don't drop their first letter to make nouns = by the addition of m (mem). If there are such forms then everything would be solved with respect to understanding why the Gospel of Hebrews was called 'according to Matthew' in the late second century.

Nathan (נָתָ) or instance in such a system would become something like manatan instead of the Hebrew mattan or mattanah. Are there forms where the first [n] could be kept? From memory, this does not happen in Western Aramaic.

Why does this matter? Because there is this figure 'Montanus' a figure who was actively rewriting scripture acting as the dispenser of new texts. The name is clearly an attested in Latin, but under my proposed etymology 'Matthew' would be a disguise of Montanus.

The other reason this is significant is that there already exists a prominent heretic named 'Dositheus' among the Samaritans and Christians. Hippolytus for instance was originally supposed to have made Dositheus (= gift of God) as the first Christian heretic (the position traditionally occupied by Simon Magus).

What is given by God is not the person bearing the name. The name itself is attested in the lists of Samaritan High Priests a few times. It is not common but not rare either. If it was a name favoured by Priests, it would have had to have had the connotation of the gift of the Torah. The Hebrew form in Samaritan sources is always נתנאל nātānel as I remember, but the forms Natan (Nathan) and Yonatan and Mattityahu (short form Mattai) occur as Jewish names.

There is also some confusion about the Gospel of Hebrews coming from 'Bashan' which is often related to related words.