Subject: tc-list Re: Du tillet text of Matthew

From: Jack Kilmon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997 16:17:14 -0500

Jim Deardorff wrote:

> Hi Jack,
>
> What do you think of the possibility that an early Vorlage to the
> Shem-Tob text was sufficiently early that it lacked the longer ending
> of
> Matthew (Mt 28:19), and so the Shem-Tob does also?

    I believe the Shem-Tob text was a product of medieval Judaism to use
as
a tool to argue *against* the messianic claims of the Gospel.  I do not
have my references handy at the moment but if memory serves me, it
was constructed from a Latin diatessaronic style text reminiscent of
the Middle Dutch Liege Harmony that itself preserves Semitisms from
the Syriac texts.  It is not surprising to me that a Tatian style
"Harmony"
would drop the longer Matthean ending over Mark.  These harmonies were
prevalent at the time of the making of Shem-Tob.  Howard's claim in
his 1988 work "The Gospel of Matthew according to a Primitive
Hebrew Text" that Shem-Tob represented an original Matthean
composition, just does not hold up.  I think he backed off of this some
in his 1995 edition.

    The Gospel of Matthew is clearly, to me, the work of a Syrian
Greek-speaking Jew of Asia Minor (Antioch or Ephesus) stimulated
by the recent expulsion of the "minim" (which included Christians)
from the synagogues in 85 CE.  I think the Matthean scribe used
Greek translations of earlier Aramaic sources as well as Mark.  I
don't think he was that competent in Hebrew and Aramaic.  His audience
was Greek-speaking Jews of the diaspora to convince them, through
OT prophecies...sometimes forced....that Jesus was the expected
Messiah.

    Eusebius cites Papias as reporting that the disciple Matthew
compiled the "sayings" (logia) of Jesus in Aramaic and "everyone
translated them as well as he could."  This makes sense...Matthew,
perhaps a cousin of Jesus, was a scribe.  He was best suited to set down

many of Jesus sayings almost as he spoke them..or shortly after.

    Eusebius refers to these sayings as a "Gospel" in his account
that "Matthew published a gospel for the Hebrews in their own
tongue (Aramaic)."

    Now let's go to Pantaenus, an Alexandrian of Stoic philosophical
background, reminiscent of Apollos, who goes to India and finds
a "Hebrew" (Aramaic) Matthew already in use.  Taken to India
by Nathanael bar Tolmai (Bartholomew) and Yehuda Toma
(Thomas), this is a link between Thomas and the Aramaic "sayings."
This, of course, depends on what credibility we give Eusebius
and the apostolic traditions.

    Accordingly, I believe the original "Matthew" (sayings) and
the Aramaic "proto-Thomas" were one and the same...also called
the "Gospel of the Hebrews."  Thereafter, the Matthean "Logia"
became the "Gospel of Thomas."  The "Gospel of the Hebrews"
was not lost...just renamed.

    These written sayings included with oral tradition may have later
been set down in Greek to became what is now known as the
"Q" source and the Greek GThomas (POxy) of the latter 1st
century and then later redacted in Coptic in the 2nd century
by Gnostics (Nag Hammadi).

    The Matthean scribe used the "logia" for which reason the
gospel was titled the "Book of Matthew."  He added these sayings
to Mark along with other sources (special M) and collated various
OT references to convince Greek-speaking Jews that Jesus was
the Messiah.

    Therefore, the canonical Gospel of Matthew was never, in my
view, penned originally in Hebrew or Aramaic, but instead in Greek
using Greek translations of Aramaic source material following the
scribe's same pattern of using the LXX instead of the Masoretic text for

his OT citations.  It is for this, and other reasons why I view Thiede's

interpretation of the 2nd century Magdalen Papyri as a 1st century
"Eyewitness to Jesus" as untenable.

    As Christian/Jewish polemic continued into the Medieval period,
mainly from the Christian side, and the Gospel of Matthew being a
primary "weapon" against Jews, it became necessary for scholarly
Jews to disemminate Matthew in Hebrew to answer the anti-Jewish
and Messianic claims of the Gospel, hence the du Tillet and Shem-Tob
mss.

    As you know, however, I am but a humble layman compared to the
knowledgable scholars of the list, but I think your question is a good
one which may be better treated by such experts as Bill Peterson who
has published on Shem-Tob (JBL 108, 1989).  I may have gone afield
from matters TC in my reply but certainly the textual relationship
between Shem-Tob and the contemporary medieval texts is pertinent.
    Accordingly, I will post this on-list, if you don't mind, since we
both may benefit from the views of the pros.

Jack

--
D’man dith laych idneh d’nishMA nishMA
   Jack Kilmon ([email-masked])

 http://users.accesscomm.net/scriptorium

---

From: Jean VALENTIN <[email-masked]>
Date: Jeu, 9 Oct 97 23:54:07 +0200

>would drop the longer Matthean ending over Mark.

About the Shem-Tob text, have you noticed how many of the "peraqim" begin 
with formulae like "in that time", "Jesus said again", etc... Such 
formulae we find in lectionaries. It would be interesting to know if 
there's a lectionary system that allows for the same formulae at the same 
places. Once I consulted somebody who told me that the "cutting in parts" 
(how am I to call that? the beginnings and ends of the pericopae) of the 
text resembles that of Spanish lectionaries (which is quite normal, as 
the text is coming down from Spain).

I'm glad to hear on the list that Bill Petersen is working on an article 
on the Shem-Tob text. Please, please, let us know when it is published.

Jean V.

_________________________________________________
Jean Valentin - Bruxelles - Belgique
e-mail: [email-masked]
_________________________________________________
"Ce qui est trop simple est faux, ce qui est trop complexe est 
inutilisable"
"What's too simple is wrong, what's too complex is unusable"
"Wat te eenvoudig is, is verkeerd; wat te ingewikkeld is, is onbruikbaar"
_________________________________________________

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From: Mark Gipe <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997 22:44:56 -0700

I can see you guys are having fun with this..... GOOD! As I am new to the
list please let 
me know if I am ever out of line. 

First of all I am not a dogmatic person. The older I get the less I know. As
I friend told me 
once "We know what we know, but the problem is - we don't even know what we
don't 
know!" 

Thanks Jean Valentin for your ideas. Thanks to  William Peterson, Jack
Kilmon, Jim 
Deardorff, Ulrich Schmid and Larry Kruper.

My ideas might be from a different point of view. I don't think that the
text known as the 
Du Tillet Hebrew text of Matthew is just what Matthew penned. I have not
seen any 
manuscript of the Bible that I think is just the way the original writer
wrote it! I do not 
think that the original writers of the Greek N.T used the Nomina Sacra. The
M.T. is not 
the same as the Dead Sea Scrolls and so on .....................

The Du Tillet text is very interesting to me. I first got photographs of the
whole text in 
1980. Yes I have seen James Trimm's Book. I do not like the lay out of his
book, it was a 
10 cent job to a dollar question. The book I am hoping to publish within the
next six 
months, is with the Hebrew of the text in nice block Hebrew, so that anyone
that can read 
Hebrew what-so-ever without points can read this text, as I have put in
verse numbers to 
it and translated it into English, added notes in Aramaic, Syriac, Greek and
Latin with 
Manuscript #s. After it is published you can really have fun with it. 

I plan to reply to Jean's comments in detail this weekend, as I do not have
the time to 
write them down at this moment.

Yes Jean I have noticed the inconstancy of the definite article, I have also
noticed the 
inconstancy of the definite article in the M.T. I will write the verses down
in my reply this 
weekend. I know that in some places the Du Tillet text is not good Hebrew.
English is my 
mother tongue...and some times what I write is not good English. I have also
noticed that 
the Greek of Revelation is very bad Greek as are also a number of other
books of the 
Bible, were they from Latin? If Jerome had anything to do with the Latin
Vulgate and IF 
he ever really saw a Hebrew version of the book of Matthew that he says (
that is the 
writings that we think he wrote says ) he holds in high esteem - would it be
that surprising 
that the Latin would be close to the Hebrew. Do not get me wrong, I think
that there were 
a number of Hebrew versions of N.T. books in the 1st and 2nd century and
this is just one 
that MIGHT have come from these, with changes along the way. It has many
interesting 
readings and I like them, which is right, which is wrong? Who knows.

Just to make this point clear - The quotations of the Tanach in the Du
Tillet Hebrew text 
of Matthew are almost letter for letter to the M.T. and in some of the
places that it is not, 
it is letter for letter with older Hebrew manuscripts such as - some of Dead
Sea scroll 
texts.

To give a short answer to Larry Kruper. The Du Tillet text uses the
abbreviation of three 
yods for the Divine Name ( with the center yod  raised ) 17 times Matt 1:22;
1:24;  2:13,  
2:15;  2:19;  3:3;  4:4;  4:7  4:10;  5:33;  21:9;  21:42;  22:37;  22:44;
23:39;  27:10;  
28:2.    The Sham Tov Hebrew text of Matthew uses the abbreviation of the
Hebrew letter 
"He" for the Divine Name which is an abbreviation for the phase "HaShem"
meaning "The 
Name" 18 times - Matt 1:22;  1:24;  2:13;  2:19;  3:13;  4:14;  4:7;  4:10;
5:33;  21:9;  
21:12;  21:31&32;  21:42;  22:37;  22:44;  27:9  28:2; And in Matt 28:9 the
Shem Tov 
text uses the full phase of "HaShem" written out in full. Does this mean
that Greek 
speaking Christians used the Divine Name? - There is no proof of this
anywhere. Does this 
mean that Hebrew speaking Christians used the Divine Name? The Babylonian
Talmud in 
the book of Shabbat chapter 16 says that they wrote it. Read the whole
chapter ( in 
Aramaic ) before you say that these persons were not Christians.  

Thanks for reading

I will reply again sometime Monday 10/13/97

Lehitraot 

Mark Gipe
[email-masked]

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From: Mark Gipe <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 21:43:34 -0700

TC list

I just received a copy of a version of Matthew in Hebrew printed  by
Sebaftiani Munfteri in Switzerland 1537. I have read about this book before,
but I have never seen it. It is in pointed Hebrew with Latin translation.
Munfteri says that he has corrected the Hebrew from a Manuscript which he
found. It seems to me that Munfteri must have had a copy of a manuscript
very close to what Du Tillet found in 1553. As the texts have readings in
common that I have never seen anywhere else, but in the Du Tillet text. I
can see how Munfteri might have changed some of the readings from a
manuscript that was like the text that Du Tillet found, as the Du Tillet
text is a little rough sometimes. But never would anyone produce a
manuscript like the Du Tillet text if he had a text like Munfteri's in front
of him. As the Muntferi text reads almost perfect.  So it seems to me that
the Du Tillet Manuscript must have the older readings, but I will need some
more time with this.

As I have a lot of work right now that I must do being that I run my own
company, so will have to answer Jean Valentin in detail in a few days from now. 
Sorry  ani mitzta'er.

BeShem HaElohim VeAvi Adonenu Yeshua

Mark Gipe