Q: [In response to our Q&A on the Du Tillet
manuscript:] ...I believe, based on the
statements of various "early church fathers," that the Gospel of
Matthew WAS written in Aramaic. I do not agree with those who try to
"prove" that the other Gospels or even the entire New Testament were
written in Hebrew or Aramaic!!!!!!!!!! If you would like I can e-mail you
a website that I know about that shows many of the textual variants of the
New Testament. Yet the issue of who the manuscripts of the New Testament come
from bothers me. What do you think of the fact that it is said that Jerome
got manuscripts for his gospel of Matthew from Jewish believers in
Yeshua?...--Jeremy J.
A: You are right that there is quite a bit
of evidence among the early church fathers for a non-Greek original to the
gospel of Matthew. This evidence comes from places as diverse as India Arabia , and Israel
That Matthew was originally written in Hebrew is sometimes contested by scholars who cling to the outdated notion that Jesus taught in Aramaic. But the evidence for Hebrew literacy in Israel in the Second Temple period is clear, both from archeology and textual sources. Today there is no legitimate reason to deny that these church fathers knew what they were talking about when they said that Matthew wrote in Hebrew.
The issue of textual variants is minor compared to
this. Most textual variants can be resolved as simple copying errors. None affects
any major doctrine, and only a tiny minority affect the meaning of any sentence
in the Bible in any significant way.
The claim that Jerome obtained a copy of the Hebrew
version of Matthew from Jewish believers in Jesus (Nazarenes) is one that he
makes himself (in his "Concerning Illustrious Men" section on
Matthew). He claims not only to have seen it, but to have made a
copy of it. Unfortunately that is now lost to us, aside from a few comments
he made about its contents.
On the other hand, Jerome's Latin translation
of Matthew's gospel, or rather his "correction" of the Latin as
he puts it, was made from the Greek (as he says in his preface to the
Gospels), which it closely matches. Why he didn't make more direct use of
the Hebrew is not explained. However, I can't imagine that he was not
influenced in some way by the Hebrew original he had copied.
Jerome, by the way, also had access to some
scrolls from the Dead Sea area--the first
reported Dead Sea scrolls--that he used in his
translation of the Old Testament!
(For
more on this topic, see the index category Matthew.)
Home | Seminars | Teachings | Media | About Us | Support | Search
Copyright © 2018, 2020 by To The Ends Of The Earth Ministries
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comments on our To The Ends Of The Earth blog. Comments will be published that seek to establish a meaningful dialogue or response to the subject of the blog. It may take several days before comments are posted.