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 (in the
early Christian community there), Arabia, and Israel
itself. In all of these reports, this original Matthew is reported as
being in Hebrew. There is no similar historical evidence for a Hebrew original of any other book in the New Testament.
That Matthew was originally written in Hebrew is sometimes contested by scholars who cling to the outdated notion that Jesus taught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.
