Subject: Re: P45 and SHEM-TOB's Hebrew Matthew

From: [email-masked] (William L. Petersen)
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 1997 23:50:19 -0500

In response to Alan Repurk's questions/points:

>I would suppose that all of those sources will eventually be compared.

(Repurk's "those sources" are the medieval Matt traditions surround [both
chronologically and geographically] Shem-Tob.)  Before one claims
"primitive" status for a text, or *begins* by comparing it with ancient
sources such as P45, it might be wise to check what was circulating in your
vacinity (viz., Europe, circa 1400....).

>A footnote in the article apparently addresses that Howard has evidence that
>the S-T is not from the Vg, apparently published in JBL.

Check Howard's evidence, and then start looking for agreements with the
Vetus Latina and Vulgate, and see what you decide...  Remember, a text need
not be directly "translated" from a version to be influenced by it (there
are indirect influences).

>I do have one question. Considering the purpose of the S-T, as a polemic, would
>we guess that great effort would have been made to translate a text from
>numerous sources or would it all have been derived from one source ?   

I haven't a clue.  Most works from this period (c. 1400) are mish-mashes of
stuff from here and there:  bits of Bede's commentary, bits of Vetus Latina,
bits of Bezaean readings, bits of the Vulgate, etc., etc.  All we can do,
without a clear archetype, is to note the agreements--and, at last count (to
my knowledge), Shem-Tob has, numerically, more agreements with the Liege
Harmony than with any other single source yet adduced (see the examples in
my review).  Therefore, before looking to the third or fourth centuries for
its "source," I would look at the Liege Harmony (1280 C.E.) and its
antecedents (the "Old Latin" Diatessaron, hypothesized by Th. Zahn over a
century ago, whose existence was demonstrated textually by D. Plooij and
others).

--Petersen, Penn State Univ.