Subject: tc-list Howard's response to Petersen

From: "James R. Adair" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 02:34:03 -0500 (EST)

A new article has appeared in TC, a sequel to an earlier offering:

George Howard, "A Response to William L. Petersen's Review of _Hebrew
Gospel of Matthew_"

Abstract: William L. Petersen's review article in TC 3 (1998) offers a
sharp critique of George Howard's Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. Howard
responds by reaffirming certain aspects of his argument and by pointing
out numerous instances in which he believes Petersen has misunderstood or
misrepresented his case. 

Readers of TC will want to read both the original review article and the
response carefully (preferably with a copy of Howard's book close at hand)
in order to evaluate the pros and cons of the two sides of the discussion.
Comments on the subject are welcome on this list.

I want to thank George Howard for writing his response for TC.  I should
note that his response was submitted several months ago, and the delay in
its appearance is solely the responsibility of the editor (i.e., me).  I
had hoped to have his response ready in time to incorporate it into TC 3
(1998), but failing that, I have inserted a link between TC 3 and TC 4
to allow readers to access the two articles easily.

A couple of new articles are being prepared and should appear in TC soon. 
Submissions for publication in TC are always welcome. 

***********************************************************
James R. Adair, Jr.
Director, ATLA Center for Electronic Texts in Religion

General Editor, TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism
------------------> http://purl.org/TC <-------------------
***********************************************************

---

From: Jack Kilmon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 09:51:40 -0600

> out numerous instances in which he believes Petersen has misunderstood or

I want to thank James for making Dr. Howard's response to Dr. Petersen's
review available.  I have but a few surface comments and first wish to
clarify that I am a layman with some interest in the Shem Tov Matthew.
An interested and informed lay audience is a considerable consumer base
for these discussions and publications by scholars.  As a layman with
some competence in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, debate over a putative
"Semitic original" of the Gospel of Matthew has always interested me,
with some degree of perplexity.

My view is that the Gospel of Matthew was autographed in Greek by a
Greek-speaking scribe and, in fact, I am almost convinced that the
Matthean scribe was not competent in either Hebrew OR Aramaic.  Where
certain sayings materials used by the scribe may have had oral or
written
Aramaic origins, the scribe's use of the idiom leads me to believe that
even then he used Greek translations of that material.

I must admit that I was under the impression that Dr. Howard's stance
was that Shem Tov was a witness to this putative ancient "Hebrew
Matthew" and I am pleased that this misunderstanding has been cleared
up by Dr. Howard who confirms that his primary point was only that
the Shem Tov text of Matthew predated Shem-Tov's Evan Bohan.

Dr. Petersen treated Dr. Howard's claim of agreements between Shem-Tov
and Old Latin and Old Syriac readings (against other Matthean witnesses)
as singularly found (50%) in the Middle Dutch Liege Harmony.  Dr.
Howard's
response is wondering if Dr. Petersen believes the MDLH is a "Matthew
Witness" and goes on at length to attack that position.  Perhaps I am
confused because my impression was that Petersen was attempting to
show that the textual tradition of the Western Medieval Harmonies was
a "witness" to Shem Tov.

I would ask some of the more learned scholars on the list to correct me
if I am wrong but I perceive that the issue has converged between these
two scholars that Shem-Tov Matthew is *not* a medieval witness to some
putative ancient "original Semitic Matthew" and that debate now centers
on its origins within the medieval Western tradition.  Quite frankly,
that's all I wanted to hear.

Jack
-- 
______________________________________________

taybutheh d'maran yeshua masheecha am kulkon

Jack Kilmon
[email-masked]

http://www.historian.net