Gospel of Matthew, Hebrew original?

[unshinbop]

The evidence in favor of a Hebrew-language original of Matthew is as follows:

1 - Eusebius says, that Papias said, Matthew originally wrote his gospel in Hebrew:

“So then Matthew wrote the oracles (Greek: logia) in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able.” (Eusebius, Church History, Book 3, Chapter 39).

2 - Irenaeus refers to the “Gospel according to the Hebrews” as the gospel of Matthew:

“Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the Gospel according to Matthew only, and repudiate the Apostle Paul, (Against Heresies, Book 1, chapter 26, line 2)

3 - Eusebius changes “Matthew” in Irenaeus to “Hebrews”

"These men, moreover, thought that it was necessary to reject all the epistles of the apostle, whom they called an apostate from the law; and they used only the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews and made small account of the rest.” ("The Heresy of the Ebionites“, Church History, Book 3, Chapter 27)

4 - Origen also believed Matthew was originally written in Hebrew:

“Concerning the four Gospels which alone are uncontroverted in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the Gospel according to Matthew, who was at one time a publican and afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, was written first; and that he composed it in the Hebrew tongue and published it for the converts from Judaism.” (Origen, Commentary on Matthew, Book 1, chapter 1)

“In the Gospel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use (which I have lately translated into Greek from the Hebrew, and which is called by many (or most) people the original of Matthew, this man who had the withered hand is described as a mason, who prays for help in such words as this: 'I was a mason seeking a livelihood with my hands: I pray thee, Jesus, to restore me mine health, that I may not beg meanly for my food.” (Commentary on Matthew, 12:13)

5 - Jerome said “many” in the church of his day, believed Matthew wrote his original in Hebrew, and that the gospel of Nazarnes/Gospel of Ebionites were the same as this Matthew gospel:

“There is a Gospel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use, which I lately translated from the Hebrew tongue into Greek and which is called by many the authentic Gospel of Matthew" (Commentary on Matthew 12:13).

“In the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is written in the Chaldee and Syrian language, but in Hebrew characters, and is used by the Nazarenes to this day (I mean the Gospel according to the Apostles, or, as is generally maintained, the Gospel according to Matthew, a copy of which is in the library at Caesarea), we find, “Behold, the mother of our Lord and His brethren said to Him, John Baptist baptizes for the remission of sins; let us go and be baptized by him. But He said to them, what sin have I committed that I should go and be baptized by him? Unless, haply, the very words which I have said are only ignorance.”“ (Against the Pelagians, 3:2)

Jerome quotes the following scene of Jesus’ baptism from the Gospel according to the Hebrews:

“Further in the Gospel which we have just mentioned (according to the Hebrews) we find the following written: “And it came to pass when the Lord was come up out of the water, the whole fount of the Holy Spirit descended upon him and rested on him and said to him: My son, in all the prophets was I waiting for thee that thou shouldest come and I might rest in thee. For thou art my rest; thou art my first-begotten Son that reignest for ever.” (Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah 4[it‘s actually Isaiah 11:2])

6 - Epiphanius knew of a Hebrew gospel of Matthew:

“They have the Gospel according to Matthew quite complete, in Hebrew: for this Gospel is certainly still preserved among them as it was first written in Hebrew letters.” (Epiphanius, Heresy xxix.9.4 (Nazoraeans).

7 - Someone may say the Greek Matthew we have today was translated from the Hebrew original. Most scholars do not think so, representative is Wallace:

“Matthew does not show strong evidence of being translation Greek.”
(Daniel B. Wallace has taught Greek and New Testament courses on a graduate school level since 1979. He has a Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary, and is currently professor of New Testament Studies at his alma mater. His Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Zondervan, 1996) has become a standard textbook in colleges and seminaries.

In summary, patristic evidence indicates that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, “many” in the early church accepted it as authentic Matthew, “many” in the early church viewed it as the same document as Gospel of Nazarenes/Gospel of Ebionites, and it contained stories that, while generally similar to canonical Greek Matthew, are obviously so different in substance and text that Greek Matthew cannot have been a mere translation from the Hebrew. Furthering this thesis is the view of most modern scholars, that Greek Matthew does not appear to be “translation-greek”.

Does not this evidence make a prima facie case that today’s canonical Greek Matthew is different from the original version of Matthew? If so, how can Christians continue to claim that today’s canonical Greek Matthew reliably preserved what Jesus said and did?

And if the “many” in the early church who held Matthew to be written in Hebrew and the same as the Ebionite/Nazarene gospel, were deceived for holding this opinion, have I not established, at least, that traditions about gospel authorship in the early church were not only subject to error, but capable of misleading “many” in the early church?

 

[unshinbop]

Here is a quote from Hebrew Matthew I found on the internet:

“And that monk replied, ‘It is written in the Gospel to the Hebrews that when Christ wished to come upon the earth to men the Good Father called a mighty “power” in the havens which was called "Michael’’, and committed Christ to the care thereof. And the “power” came down into the world, and it was called Mary and Christ was in her womb for seven months.” And the archbishop answered and said, ‘Where in the Four Gospels is it said that the holy Virgin Mary, the mother of God, is a " force "?’ And the monk answered and said, ‘In the [Gospel] to the Hebrews.’…and Saint Cyril answered and said, 'If thou speakest the truth, O brother, must we not then reject the teaching of the Christ, and follow the misleading doctrine of the Hebrews? God forbid! The Hebrews wish for doctrine of this kind greatly, so that they may cast a blemish upon our purity and honor, even as it was said by the Christ in times of old, “Thou castest out devils by Berzeboul.” (Matt 12.24 par.)… What connection can there be between the agreement of the [Gospel to the] Hebrews and the agreement of the Holy Gospels? But those heresies must spring up (Cyril of Jerusalem, Discourse on Mary as Theototokos)

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Here is a quote from Hebrew Matthew I found on the internet:

You might find this section of the introduction to Matthew (pp. 3-4) in the Sacra Pagina series useful in your investigations.
books.google.com/books?id=bNf13S3k2w0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=sacra+pagina+matthew&hl=en&ei=F7akToyBA4WRgQeF3JHQBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sacra%20pagina%20matthew&f=false

 

[Julia_Mae]

Does not this evidence make a prima facie case that today’s canonical Greek Matthew is different from the original version of Matthew? If so, how can Christians continue to claim that today’s canonical Greek Matthew reliably preserved what Jesus said and did?

You lost me. What does the original language have to do with the reliability of the witness? If anything, claiming it was actually written by Matthew the Apostle, also believed by the sources you quote, means it is exceptionally reliable.

 

[unshinbop]

You lost me. What does the original language have to do with the reliability of the witness?

Then you lost me too. I never said the reliability of the witness was linked to its original language. I said the fact that the original was in Hebrew, while the later greek does not appear to be translation-greek, means today’s greek Matthew did not derive from the original that Matthew wrote. Therefore any claim that today’s Matthew is an accurate reflection of what Matthew originally wrote is most likely untrue.

You are free to speculate blindly that surely Matthew must have later created a second edition of his gospel, this time in Greek. The problem is that the earliest patristic evidence on which you are otherwise happy to rely, Papias, came along around 180 a.d., about 100 years after Matthew died. If Matthew had created a Greek version of his gospel sometime before 100 a.d., then Papias, reporting at least 80 years later, would surely have mentioned this unique manner of production, had he known it. His silence about Greek Matthew screams. Hence, Greek Matthew likely does not have any historical claim to being written by Matthew.

You can escape this by saying Papias was wrong, and Matthew wrote originally in Greek, but the weight of patristric testimony supports him.

If anything, claiming it was actually written by Matthew the Apostle, also believed by the sources you quote, means it is exceptionally reliable.

Are you saying you think Hebrew Matthew was exceptionally reliable?

Hebrew Matthew did not include the trinitarian baptismal formula, but Greek Matthew does.

The great commission (Matt 28:19–20) in the Hebrew text lacks mention of the gentiles and the trinitarian baptismal formula.

Freedman, D. N. (1996, c1992).
The Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday.
​

​

My patristic citations indicated that many in the early church believed the Ebionite and Nazarene gospels were the same as Hebrew Matthew?

Hebrew Matthew said the abomination of desolation spoken of in Daniel, was the gentiles who were to be preached to before the end came:

Even more decisive against the inclusion of the gentiles during the present era is the Hebrew text at 24:14–15. It reads: “And this gospel . . . will be preached in all the earth for a witness concerning me to all the nations and then the end will come. . . . This is the abomination which desolates which was spoken of by Daniel as standing in the holy place. Let the one who reads understand.” Thus the Hebrew gospel interprets the “abomination which desolates” as the preaching of the gospel to the gentiles before the end.
Ibid

​

This would be the first time in my life that I have ever heard of a practicing Christian saying they think the gospel of the Ebionites and gospel of Nazarenes was exceptionally reliable, as this would make the Church Fathers roll over in their graves.

 

[unshinbop]

You might find this section of the introduction to Matthew (pp. 3-4) in the Sacra Pagina series useful in your investigations.
books.google.com/books?id=bNf13S3k2w0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=sacra+pagina+matthew&hl=en&ei=F7akToyBA4WRgQeF3JHQBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sacra%20pagina%20matthew&f=false

Because I often battle Protestant beliefs, I usually have no need to document what I say from Catholic sources, however, I find that they are just as intellectually stimulating as Protestant scholars. Thank you for this reference.

 

[fisherman_carl]

According to Fr. Mitch Pacwa on ‘Open Line’ radio, scholars believe that Matthew was pieced together from different writings or saying in Hebrew and Aramaic. He cites one example of a text that makes sense if it was written originally in Aramaic. And that is in Mt 16:18 where Jesus says ‘You are kepha and on this kepha I will build my Church’. This makes sense in Aramaic… The translation problem occurs when you translate it into Greek because you have to use the masculine petros for peter instead of the feminie petra for rock which creates confusion. (You can’t call Peter petra. It would be like calling him rockina). So, in Greek you end up with ‘You are Petros and on this Petra I will build my Church.’ It’s unlikely that Jesus spoke in Greek. It is more likely that he spoke in Aramaic or Hebrew.

 

[fisherman_carl]

In summary, patristic evidence indicates that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, “many” in the early church accepted it as authentic Matthew, “many” in the early church viewed it as the same document as Gospel of Nazarenes/Gospel of Ebionites, and it contained stories that, while generally similar to canonical Greek Matthew, are obviously so different in substance and text that Greek Matthew cannot have been a mere translation from the Hebrew. Furthering this thesis is the view of most modern scholars, that Greek Matthew does not appear to be “translation-greek”.

Does not this evidence make a prima facie case that today’s canonical Greek Matthew is different from the original version of Matthew? If so, how can Christians continue to claim that today’s canonical Greek Matthew reliably preserved what Jesus said and did?

And if the “many” in the early church who held Matthew to be written in Hebrew and the same as the Ebionite/Nazarene gospel, were deceived for holding this opinion, have I not established, at least, that traditions about gospel authorship in the early church were not only subject to error, but capable of misleading “many” in the early church?

No. I think it is the original Matthew, just translated from Hebrew/Aramaic to Greek. Because, the gospel was spreading to the Greek speaking culture and it needed to be translated to Greek. Thus, this would have occurred early on since the gospel spread rather quickly to Greek speaking people.

As a believer, I believe that the Holy Spirit protects the Church from error as well as protecting the Scriptures from error.

If you want a more definitive answer I would talk to Fr. Mitch Pacwa as he studies the languages and history. I am sure he would do his trademark laugh if he heard your question. Talk to him. He will set you straight. You can reach him through EWTN or on the EWTN radio program called Open Line on Wednesdays.

 

[patrick457]

My two cents.

It is currently thought by many scholars that all the references to a ‘Gospel of the Hebrews’ do not necessarily refer to the same thing. Since no complete text of any Jewish-Christian Gospel (i.e. Gospels that were used by Jewish Christian churches, not necessarily written in Hebrew or Aramaic) survives, a primary task of scholarship is determining how many distinct Gospels are indicated by the patristic evidence. Because we have three different surviving accounts of the Baptism of Christ all claimed to come from a ‘Hebrew’ Gospel, current thinking favors three sources: the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Nazoreans and the Gospel of the Ebionites.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Then you lost me too. I never said the reliability of the witness was linked to its original language. I said the fact that the original was in Hebrew, while the later greek does not appear to be translation-greek, means today’s greek Matthew did not derive from the original that Matthew wrote. Therefore any claim that today’s Matthew is an accurate reflection of what Matthew originally wrote is most likely untrue.

You are free to speculate blindly…

Uh-huh. How about you see if you can speak respectfully to people, me included. I didn’t presume you were a moron I’d appreciate it if you didn’t imply I am. You might be surprised at how many of us have read all of the same documents you have been quoting from. We have even read various treatments of the language issue in Matthew’s Gospel. Quite a few of us translate from original languages ourselves. I think there may be one or two who have IQs higher than their ages.

Now. It is not factual that “The later Greek does not appear to be ‘translation Greek.’” The writing being referred to was characterized in one of your quotes as being in local dialect with Hebrew letters. This was fairly common so everyone who could read, would read the local pronunciation correctly. So it was not actually Hebrew, but a dialect written in Hebrew lettering, the way I might write Shostakovich instead of Woctakobny. People heard the scriptures generally, they did not own scrolls and read them at home, so the oral presentation was very important.

Because every educated and most average people in that time and place spoke Greek and the Jews also spoke Hebrew and the local dialect, any translation from the writing to koine would have no reason to be particularly inaccurate. What is thought by some to have happened is that the book was written for the Palestinian community of Jews. When it was taken across the empire and used for evangelization in the western regions, it was translated into Greek and rearranged into a kind of three-day seminar, so it was rewritten and redacted. It was also apparently done by someone who was incredibly talented, a poet as much as a dramatist. It was probably the most effective writing for evangelization of that era.

Let’s look at Paul’s letters. Romans is first because it is longest. Do you know why? It had more and longer letters redacted together.

The oldest fragment of Scripture we have is dated to 125 A.D. and with error factors can be as new as 200 and as old as 50. That fragment matches modern Scripture pretty much exactly. For all we know, that fragment is an autograph.

Regardless of how any of these writings came to be in their final form, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is intact. Scripture affirms the teaching of the Church. The NT in the form that we have it, was in Rome by 150A.D. Read the Diatesseron if you want to see the Gospels in one of their earliest forms.

Not sure what you think is so important about any of this. As long as the Church survives, we have the Gospel.

 

[unshinbop]

According to Fr. Mitch Pacwa on ‘Open Line’ radio, scholars believe that Matthew was pieced together from different writings or saying in Hebrew and Aramaic. He cites one example of a text that makes sense if it was written originally in Aramaic. And that is in Mt 16:18 where Jesus says ‘You are kepha and on this kepha I will build my Church’. This makes sense in Aramaic… The translation problem occurs when you translate it into Greek because you have to use the masculine petros for peter instead of the feminie petra for rock which creates confusion. (You can’t call Peter petra. It would be like calling him rockina). So, in Greek you end up with ‘You are Petros and on this Petra I will build my Church.’ It’s unlikely that Jesus spoke in Greek. It is more likely that he spoke in Aramaic or Hebrew.

Then what do you with Papias, who said Matthew originally wrote in the Hebrew dialect? Was original Matthew already itself a translation from Aramaic to Hebrew?

 

[unshinbop]

Uh-huh. How about you see if you can speak respectfully to people, me included.

I wasn’t speaking disrespectfully. I see no reason to include emotions in an academic debate.

Now. It is not factual that “The later Greek does not appear to be ‘translation Greek.’”

Well I quoted a prominent Protestant scholar Daniel Wallace who said Matthew’s greek does not appear to be translated from another language. If scholars are equally divided on that question, nothing will be gained to pursue it further, since I don’t know Hebrew or Greek well enough to decide who is in the right.

The writing being referred to was characterized in one of your quotes as being in local dialect with Hebrew letters.

You have given yourself an unfair advantage by misconstruing Papias. Eusebius quotes Papias as follows:

But concerning Matthew he writes as follows: “So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able.”

Nothing is stated about a “local” dialect.

Your argument raises a possibility, but it directly contradicts Papias. Do you have a version of Eusebius where Papias says something other than “Hebrew language”?

I supplied reasons in my OP for saying canonical Matthew is inaccurate. I quoted the Anchor Bible Dictionary to show that Hebrew Matthew’s great commission lacks reference to Gentiles and lacks the trinitarian baptismal formula. I also quoted the same source to show that Hebrew Matthew characterized the preaching to the Gentiles as the “abomination of desolation”. The theory that says Greek Matthew was simply translated from the original Hebrew cannot explain why the Greek chose to chop off these bits of original text.

When it was taken across the empire and used for evangelization in the western regions, it was translated into Greek and rearranged into a kind of three-day seminar, so it was rewritten and redacted.

I have so far been unable to find a scholar of Daniel Wallace’s caliber who believes today’s Matthew looks like it was translated from another language. Harrignton’s “Sacra Pagina” says Papias’ comment raise more problems than it solves.

It was also apparently done by someone who was incredibly talented, a poet as much as a dramatist. It was probably the most effective writing for evangelization of that era.

Protestant scholar Craig Evans admitted in a debate against Bart Ehrman, that sayings of Jesus were “recontextualized” for purposes of being written down in the gospel. If I told you that my dad complained of a headache while he and I were riding in the car, but then you found out that the only time he made such complaint that day was when he wasn’t in a car, I would have “recontextualized” what he said, but this could not escape the charge of error or misrepresentation.

The only escape is to say that the gospel authors never intended for their readers to believe that what they were reading was exactly how the events literally took place.

The oldest fragment of Scripture we have is dated to 125 A.D. and with error factors can be as new as 200 and as old as 50. That fragment matches modern Scripture pretty much exactly. For all we know, that fragment is an autograph.

"…most New Testament scholars agree that the papyrus fragment should be dated “in the first half of the second century” (Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p. 39). Bibliotheca Sacra. Vol. 142, #568, Oct 1985, p. 368 (electronic edition.). Dallas, TX: Dallas Theological Seminary.

With an error factor of 150 years, I fail to see how paleography can supply anything to an apologist concerning the gospels that would be persuasive in a debate. Perhaps that is why Catholics constantly remind themselves and those they converse with that they happily admit accepting by faith, that the scriptures are preserved and without error. The evidence alone is not sufficient to suggest that informed non-believers are willfuly ignorant merely because they disagree with the confidences held by Catholics. An element of faith is required.

Regardless of how any of these writings came to be in their final form, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is intact.

I disagree. My studies into Acts, Galatians and the patristic history of James, lead me to believe that Judaizers taught nothing other than the original form of the gospel as given by Jesus, and the great heresy is Paul’s law-free gospel. I will post a new thread if you’d like to know why I think Paul perverted the original gospel of Jesus. ( I don’t mean that he is responsible for corruptions of the gospel texts, I mean that he taught Gentiles a way of salvation Jesus never taught and would never have approved of).

Scripture affirms the teaching of the Church. The NT in the form that we have it, was in Rome by 150A.D. Read the Diatesseron if you want to see the Gospels in one of their earliest forms.

Yes, I am aware of the standard early evidences for gospel texts. We have to wonder why any Catholics wish to become scholars of the bible, if, in fact, there are no difficulties of text, canon or theology that need scholars to work on them.

Not sure what you think is so important about any of this. As long as the Church survives, we have the Gospel.

Then you need to re-read most of the Catholic scholarly works you say you are familar with, because they also think Hebrew Matthew is important enough to write books about. You should then read non-Catholic works on Hebrew Matthew to discover that equally qualified scholars say there are enough problems to justify suspicion toward the Catholic claim that canonical Greek Matthew is free of any and all error.

 

[patrick457]

Then what do you with Papias, who said Matthew originally wrote in the Hebrew dialect? Was original Matthew already itself a translation from Aramaic to Hebrew?

Just so we’re clear: when early writers speak of “Hebrew”, they tend to mean ‘the language that the Hebrews happen to commonly use’ at the time, which is not always necessarily the Semitic language we call Hebrew. While we now know that Hebrew did continue to survive in some form at the time of Jesus (it was probably still spoken in a few locales down south in Judaea), Aramaic is more likely more widely spoken at the time in Palestine, especially in the northern regions.

 

[Julia_Mae]

I wasn’t speaking disrespectfully.

"You are free to speculate blindly…"

You have given yourself an unfair advantage by misconstruing Papias.

Or not:

“There is a Gospel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use, which I lately translated from the Hebrew tongue into Greek and which is called by many the authentic Gospel of Matthew" (Commentary on Matthew 12:13).

“In the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is written in the Chaldee and Syrian language, but in Hebrew characters, and is used by the Nazarenes to this day (I mean the Gospel according to the Apostles, or, as is generally maintained, the Gospel according to Matthew, a copy of which is in the library at Caesarea), we find, “Behold, the mother of our Lord and His brethren said to Him, John Baptist baptizes for the remission of sins; let us go and be baptized by him. But He said to them, what sin have I committed that I should go and be baptized by him? Unless, haply, the very words which I have said are only ignorance.”“ (Against the Pelagians, 3:2)

Nothing is stated about a “local” dialect.

See above.

Your argument raises a possibility…

Part of what you are not understanding is the complete and total lack of interest I have in anything you are promoting or your opinions in terms of my responses, which I believe you are unable to grasp. So, I will save both is us from wasting more time. I’m sure others will be happy to speak with you.

God bless you.

 

[wiggbuggie]

I don’t know much about this gospel but I was thinking we don’t have the whole gospel only fragments so we don’t know if the greek matthew gospel that we have is translated from hebrew, but the content that’s there is similar to the gospel we have:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_the_Hebrews#Matthew_and_Levi

It could of been translated and rearranged for a wider and gentile audiance the gospel of matthew as we have it. And if matthew wrote a first hand account himself, does that exclude the possibility of a q source or that mark’s gospel came first and matthew copied mark?

 

[patrick457]

I don’t know much about this gospel but I was thinking we don’t have the whole gospel only fragments so we don’t know if the greek matthew gospel that we have is translated from hebrew, but the content that’s there is similar to the gospel we have:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_the_Hebrews#Matthew_and_Levi

It could of been translated and rearranged for a wider and gentile audiance the gospel of matthew as we have it. And if matthew wrote a first hand account himself, does that exclude the possibility of a q source or that mark’s gospel came first and matthew copied mark?

The Q Theory as it is formulated today rests mainly on the assumption that Matthew and Luke could not have known each other’s Gospels: the Logienquelle aka Q is ostensibly the answer to this problem. Q according to the Two-Source Hypothesis is the source for the so-called double tradition (material absent from Mark that Matthew and Luke shares).

Personally I subscribe to the Farrer theory, which postulates that Matt and Luke did know each other’s works, thus eliminating the need for Q.

While I have come to believe in Markan priority (at least for the Greek Gospels) after dabbling in other alternatives, I personally don’t preclude the possibility that Matthew wrote the so-called ‘Logia of the Lord’, as Papias calls it, before Mark wrote his Gospel, while later he or someone close to him wrote another Gospel, this time using Mark as a base, which resulted in our canonical (Greek) Matthew. Personally (the above is just a pet theory of mine - it could have holes in it, yeah), I don’t see why one could hold that Matthew out of the Evangelists was the first to write a document, while at the same acknowledging that Mark was the first among the canonical Greek Gospels to be published.

And for the record: I do kind of have doubts about whether most of the purported citations from the ‘Gospel of the Hebrews’ are the real thing. They could very well be from later recensions or corruptions, or even different works entirely (possibly based on canonical Matthew?), only having in common the attribution to Matthew and their circulation among Jewish Christians.

 

[wiggbuggie]

It seems there is an hebrew gospel of matthew translated and avaiable:

amazon.com/HEBREW-GOSPEL-MATTHEW-George-Howard/dp/0865549893/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319758654&sr=8-1-spell

I never read it but im interested to check it out one day.

 

[annem]

You wrote: In summary, patristic evidence indicates that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, “many” in the early church accepted it as authentic Matthew, “many” in the early church viewed it as the same document as Gospel of Nazarenes/Gospel of Ebionites, and it contained stories that, while generally similar to canonical Greek Matthew, are obviously so different in substance and text that Greek Matthew cannot have been a mere translation from the Hebrew. Furthering this thesis is the view of most modern scholars, that Greek Matthew does not appear to be “translation-greek”.

??? Sorry, but aren’t you conflating apples and oranges, or rather, times that don’t go together? The Hebrew or Aramaic Matthew would have been from about the 40s or 60s. The Ebionites were much later. And not under the stern care of all those Catholic bishops. The Ebionite versions of Matthew likely were as corrupted and as late as the Gnostic rubbish…

Does not this evidence make a prima facie case that today’s canonical Greek Matthew is different from the original version of Matthew? If so, how can Christians continue to claim that today’s canonical Greek Matthew reliably preserved what Jesus said and did?

Sorry, but were you raised as a Protestant, perhaps a fundamentalist? Some of them hold to a very strict and literal view of scripture (It was Martin Luther who first insisted that “the literal is the only sense of scripture”. thus rejecting the four senses of scripture held by all Catholics)… If a word is wrong, if a name is changed, if anything anywhere in scripture appears to be a mistake, the entire of Christianity falls to the ground, etc.

But this was not the view of the Second Temple Jews. After all, the Pharisees held to both oral and written scripture as being the true and binding. And you will note that the Qumran documents held different versions of the same book.

Paul stated clearly, in the very first documents written by a Christian, that he is passing on binding oral tradition, paradidonai. And it was this tradition upon which the Catholic church was formed. Under, once again, the care of the bishops.

And if the “many” in the early church who held Matthew to be written in Hebrew and the same as the Ebionite/Nazarene gospel, were deceived for holding this opinion, have I not established, at least, that traditions about gospel authorship in the early church were not only subject to error, but capable of misleading “many” in the early church?

No. The Catholic church was organized from day one. Bishops in charge. Letters flying out every other day. In fact, there is a flood of evidence of just how closely each church followed what was going on and being taught in every other Christian church. Everyone visiting hither, thither, and yon. It is extraordinary just how much evidence we have about how interconnected all these different Christians groups were from day one. .

My studies into Acts, Galatians and the patristic history of James, lead me to believe that Judaizers taught nothing other than the original form of the gospel as given by Jesus, and the great heresy is Paul’s law-free gospel. I will post a new thread if you’d like to know why I think Paul perverted the original gospel of Jesus.

Good grief. What, what have you been reading? Bultmann’s claims are pretty threadbare nowadays, surely.

May God flood you with blessings, Annem

 

[karebear92]

Wait, most agree that the Gospel of Matthew was not written by Matthew the Apostle, and most agree that it was written in the 80s. It is the most semitic Gospel. Sorry, I don’t understand what the problem is. In addition, it was not at all a part of the canon until much later (well, that was kind of misleading because there was no canon at the time. There were many books that were taught that did not end up in the canon, so if Matthew was heretical it would have been weeded out, as books that were not even heretical, but simply supplementary and not necessarily scriptural were), and that was when the validity of it was confirmed.If it were in error, it would have been picked out at that time. Also there was not a Gospel when Paul was teaching, at least not for much of the beginning. He spent time with the Apostle Peter to ensure that everything he was teaching was absolutely correct. many of his letters predate the Gospels. Peter would have corrected him if he perverted anything, and his works would not have fit apostolic tradition and been adopted into the canon. The only thing that could be disputed is he did not think the Gentiles needed to follow semitic practices. That was the only thing he disagreed with Peter about and Peter held that belief mostly to not offend the Jews, and agreed with Paul when he presented the case.

 

[wiggbuggie]

we also have to remember that God watches over his church and people why would there be a secret gospel floating around that few people heard of? The council under the divine guidance of the holy spirt chose and canonized the bible as we have it today.