Subject: tc-list Semitic NT texts

From: James Trimm <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1998 20:42:01 -0500

Several Semitic versions of New Testament books have come down to
us which may have some claim to being decendants of the original Semitic
text.  These include the Shem Tob and Du Tillet Hebrew versions of Matthew;
the Old Syriac Aramaic version of the four Gospels; The Peshitta Aramaic
New Testament and the Crawford Aramaic version of Revelation.
        The DuTillet Hebrew version of Matthew is taken from a Hebrew
manuscript of Matthew which was confiscated from Jews in Rome in 1553.  It
was brought to Paris by Bishop DuTillet and placed at the Biblioteque
Nationale where it remains to this day as Hebrew ms. mo. 132.  Both Hugh
Schonfield and George Howard have stated that an ancestor of this Hebrew
text underlies our current Greek text.  Schonfield writes:

	...certain linguistic proofs... seem to show that the Hebrew
	text [DuTillet] underlies the Greek, and that certain
	renderings in the Greek may be due to a misread Hebrew
	original.
        	(An Old Hebrew Text of St. Matthew's Gospel; 1927, p. 17)

        The Shem Tob Hebrew version of Matthew was transcribed by Shem Tob
Ben Yitzach Ben Shaprut into his apologetic work Even Bohan sometime around
1380 C.E.  While the autograph of Shem Tob's Even Bohan has been lost,
several mss. dating between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries still
exist.  George Howard states of the Shem Tob version of Matthew:

	 ...an old substratum to the Hebrew in Shem Tob is a prior
	composition, not a translation.  The old substratum, however,
	has been exposed to a series of revisions so that the present
	text of Shem-Tob represents the original only in an impure
	form.
	(The Gospel of Matthew according to a Primitive Hebrew Text; 1987;p.223)

	It might appear from the linguistic and sociological
	background to early Christianity and the nature of some
	theological tendencies in Shem-Tob's Matthew that the
	Hebrew text served as a model for the Greek. The present
	writer is, in fact, inclined to that position.
	(ibid p. 225)

	Shem-Tob's Matthew... does not preserve the original in a pure
	form.  It reflects contamination by Jewish scribes during the
	Middle Ages.  Considerable parts of the original, however,
	appear to remain...
	(Hebrew Gospel of Matthew; 1995; p. 178

        In addition to the Hebrew versions of Matthew we also have an
Aramaic version of the Four Gospels known as the Old Syriac.  Two
manuscripts of this version have been discovered dating back to the 4th
century.  The firstwas discovered by Dr. William Cureton in 1842.  The
second was discovered by Mrs. Agnes Smith Lewis in 1892.  After making his
profound discovery, Dr. Cureton studied the Old Syriac text in detail.  He
concluded that at least
the version of Matthew found in the Old Syriac has its basis in the Orginal
Semitic text and was not merely at translation from the Greek.  Cureton
published his findings to the world saying:

	...this Gospel of St. Matthew appears at least to be built upon
	the orginal Aramaic text which was the work of the Apostle
	himself.
	(Remains of a Very Ancient Recension of the Four Gospels in Syriac; 1858;
p. vi)

In my book the Semitic Orgin of the New Testament I show
edivence that this is true of the whole of the Old Syriac.
        The Peshitta New Testament is the Aramaic version of the New
Testament which has been preserved by the Church of the East (mentioned
above).  It includes all of the books except 2Peter; 2John;  3John; Jude
and Revelation.  These books were not canonized by the Church of the East
until 508 C.E..  The Peshitta is not merely a translation from the Greek
text, but rather a revision of the Old Syriac, as Arthur Voobus writes:
"... the Peshitta is not a translation, but a revision pf an Old Syriac
version." (Studies in the History of the Gospel Text in Syriac; 1951; p. 46
see also pp. 54-55).

The Crawford Aramaic version of Revelation is a very rare, little known
version. 
How the ms. made its way to Europe is unknown.  What is known is that th ms. 
was purchased by the Earl of Crawford around 1860.  In his possession it
became 
catalogued Earl of Crawford's Haigh Hall, Wigin, no. 11.  It has since been
placed 
at the John Rylands Library.  Concerning the variants of this version John
Gwyn 
Writes:

	Two or three... are plausible readings; and might well be
	judged worthy of adoption if there were any ground for
	supposing the Apocalypse to have been originally written,
	or to be based on a document written, in an Aramaic idiom.
	(The Apocalypse of St. John in a Syriac Version Hitherto Unknown; 1897; p.
lxxix)

Several scholars have proposed an Aramaic or Hebrew original for this book.

       James Scott Trimm

For further reading the following two books are currently available:
					THE SEMITIC ORIGIN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
					by James Scott Trimm
					Available from:
					Heb/Aram NT Research Inst
					PO Box 471
					Hurst, TX 76053

					HEBREW GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
					by George Howard
					Mercer University Press
					6316 Peake Rd.
					Macon, GA 31210-3960

James Trimm
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