The rabbinical translations of Matthew are rabbinical versions of the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and for ...

that are written in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

;

Shem Tob's Hebrew Gospel of Matthew Shem Tob's Hebrew Gospel of Matthew is the oldest extant Hebrew language, Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew. It was included in the 14th-century work ''Eben Boḥan'' (''The Touchstone'') by the Spanish Jewish Rabbi Ibn Shaprut, Shem-Tov ben ...

, the Du Tillet Matthew, and the Münster Matthew, and which were used in polemical debate with Catholics. These versions are to be distinguished from the

Gospel of the Hebrews The Gospel of the Hebrews ( grc, τὸ καθ' Ἑβραίους εὐαγγέλιον), or Gospel according to the Hebrews, is a lost Jewish–Christian gospel. The text of the gospel is lost, with only fragments of it surviving as brief quot ...

which was one or more works found in the

Early Church Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewish ...

, but surviving only as fragmentary quotations in Greek and Latin texts. Some scholars consider all the rabbinical versions to be translated from the Greek or Latin of the canonical Matthew, for the purpose of Jewish apologetics. This conclusion is not unanimous. Other scholars have provided linguistic and historic evidence of Shem Tov's Matthew coming from a much earlier Hebrew text that was later translated into Greek and other languages. Early Christian author Papias wrote around the year 100 that, "Matthew composed his history in the Hebrew language, and everyone translated it as he was able".

Rabbinical Jewish versions

Early rabbinical citations of Matthew, 600-1300

Quotations from Hebrew translations of portions of various New Testament books - including the epistles of Paul - can be found in rabbinical treatises against Catholicism. These treatises multiplied wherever Jews lived in proximity to Christians - such as Spain before the

expulsion of the Jews from Spain The Expulsion of Jews from Spain was the expulsion from Spain following the Alhambra Decree in 1492, which was enacted in order to eliminate their influence on Spain's large ''converso'' population and to ensure its members did not revert to Judai ...

in 1492. * '' Sefer Nestor ha-Komer''; "The Book of Nestor the Priest", 7th century. Contains significant quotes from Matthew, apparently from a Latin text. * ''

Toledot Yeshu (, ''The Book of the Generations/History/Life of Jesus''), often abbreviated as ''Toledot Yeshu'', is an early Jewish text taken to be an alternative biography of Jesus of Nazareth. It exists in a number of different versions, none of which is c ...

''; "Life of Jesus", 7th century. * '' Milhamoth ha-Shem''; "Wars of the Lord" of Jacob Ben Reuben 12th century, which cites texts including Matthew 1:1-16, 3:13-17, 4:1-11, 5:33-40, 11:25-27, 12:1-8, 26:36-39, 28:16-20. * '' Sefer Nizzahon Yashan''; "The Book of Victory" (in Latin ''Nizzahon vetus''), 13th century. * '' Sefer Joseph Hamekane''; "Book of Joseph the Official" of rabbi Joseph ben Nathan, 13th century (Paris MS). * A 13th century polemical anthology (Paris MS). Jean Carmignac (Paris 1969, BNES 1978) identified fifty Hebrew translations of the

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...

from the 9th to the 18th centuries. Most scholars consider that the medieval Hebrew manuscripts are derived by translation from Koiné Greek or Latin manuscripts, and therefore that it is extremely unlikely that any of the unique readings found in these medieval Hebrew manuscripts could be ancient. Four principal versions in rabbinical Hebrew of Matthew have survived or partially survived:

Shem Tov's ''Matthew'', 1385

The Shem Tov Matthew (or Shem Tob's Matthew) consists of a complete text of

in the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

found interspersed among anti-Catholic commentary in the 12th volume of a polemical treatise ''The Touchstone'' (c.1380-85) by Shem Tov ben Isaac ben Shaprut (Ibn Shaprut), a Jewish physician living in

Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and an, Aragón ; ca, Aragó ) is an autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces (from north to sou ...

, after whom the version is named. Shem Tov debated Cardinal Pedro de Luna (later

Antipope Benedict XIII Pedro Martínez de Luna y Pérez de Gotor (25 November 1328 – 23 May 1423), known as in Spanish and Pope Luna in English, was an Aragonese nobleman who, as Benedict XIII, is considered an antipope (see Western Schism) by the Catholic Church ...

) on

original sin Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Genesis 3 (t ...

and redemption in Pamplona, December 26, 1375, in the presence of bishops and learned theologians. Nine manuscripts of ''The Touchstone'' survive, though if an independent version of the text of Matthew used by Ibn Shaprut ever existed then it is lost. Spanish Jews of Ibn Shaprut's period were familiar with the New Testament in Latin. Jacob Ben Reuben in his '' Wars of the Lord'' translated

Gilbert Crispin Gilbert Crispin ( 1055 – 1117) was a Christian author and Anglo-Norman monk, appointed by Archbishop Lanfranc in 1085 to be the abbot, proctor and servant of Westminster Abbey, England. Gilbert became the third Norman Abbot of Westminster to b ...

's ''Disputation of Jews and Christians'' from Latin into Hebrew, along with quotes from Matthew. Lasker (1998) remarks that "By the fourteenth century, most likely every Iberian anti-Christian Jewish polemicist knew Latin."

Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas ( fl. 1370s) ( he, משה הכהן) was a Spanish Jewish controversialist of the fourteenth century. An attempt was made to convert him to Christianity by force. Despite persecution, he remained true to his convictions ...

made proficient use of Latin phrases. Profiat Duran (fl.1380-1420) had extensive knowledge of Latin Christian texts, and devoted a chapter of his ''Disgrace of the Gentiles'' (Klimat ha-goyim) to criticism of Jerome's

Latin Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels us ...

. Hayyim ben Judah ibn Musa argued with

Nicholas de Lyra Nicolas de Lyra __notoc__ 1479 Nicholas of Lyra (french: Nicolas de Lyre; – October 1349), or Nicolaus Lyranus, a Franciscan teacher, was among the most influential practitioners of biblical exegesis in the Middle Ages. Little is kno ...

in his ''Book of Shield and Spear'' (Sefer magen va-romah). Likewise converts to Christianity such as

Abner of Burgos Abner of Burgos (c. 1270 – c. 1347, or a little later) was a Jewish philosopher, a convert to Christianity and polemical writer against his former religion. Known after his conversion as Alfonso of Valladolid. Life As a student he acquired a ce ...

(

Alphonso of Valladolid Abner of Burgos (c. 1270 – c. 1347, or a little later) was a Jewish philosopher, a convert to Christianity and polemical writer against his former religion. Known after his conversion as Alfonso of Valladolid. Life As a student he acquired a ce ...

, ca. 1270–1347) continued to write polemical, theological, philosophical, and scientific works in Hebrew. Shem Tov's ''The Touchstone'' (''Eben = stone, bohan = test'') has never been translated into English or published. It follows the model of '' Milhamoth ha-Shem'' of Jacob Ben Reuben in use of Matthew but contains not just sections of Matthew as Jacob Ben Reuben, but the whole text of Matthew and parts of Mark. George Howard excised the text of Matthew from among Shem Tov's comments and published it separately as ''The Gospel of Matthew according to a primitive Hebrew text'' (1987), and then a revised second edition ''Hebrew Gospel of Matthew'' (1995). Shem Tov's quotations of Matthew in ''The Touchstone'' are marked by

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

thought, and are interspaced with the comments of the author. As a consequence several scholars feel it is difficult to determine which parts are Shem Tov's commentary, and which parts are the actual text of the source he was quoting. Many scholars view the text as a mediaeval translation from the Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew, as well as being the likely source of all later Hebrew versions of Matthew prior to the 20th century. Where the

Tetragrammaton The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew language, Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', ''he (l ...

occurs in

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''

He'' (ה) except in one place where the word "ha-shem" (השם, the name) is spelled out. There are some interesting readings of Matthew in ''The Touchstone''. * Matt 12:37 "According to your words you will be judged, and according to your deeds you will be convicted." * Matt 24:40-41 "40 Then if there shall be two ploughing in a field, one righteous and the other evil, the one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding at a mill; one will be taken and the other left. This is because the angels at the end of the world will remove the stumbling blocks from the world and will separate the good from the evil." * Matt 28:9 "As they were going Jesus passed before them saying: 'May the Name deliver you.'" * Matt 28:19-20 "Go and teach them to carry out all the things which I have commanded you forever." * Mark 9:20-28 is placed into the text of Matthew between Matt 17:17 and 17:19. Matt 17:18 is omitted. While the quotations in Shem Tov's ''The Touchstone'', which are interspersed in his own commentary, diverge from the canonical text of Matthew, the text of the ''Münster Matthew'' and the ''Du Tillet Matthew'' are significantly very close to it in many passages.

Sebastian Münster's ''Matthew,'' 1537

The Münster Matthew is a printed version of the

, written in

published by

Sebastian Münster Sebastian Münster (20 January 1488 – 26 May 1552) was a German cartographer and cosmographer. He also was a Christian Hebraist scholar who taught as a professor at the University of Basel. His well-known work, the highly accurate world map, '' ...

in 1537 and dedicated to King Henry VIII of England. It is disputed as to whether Münster's prefatory language refers to an actual manuscript that he used. Münster's text closely resembles the ''Du Tillet Matthew''. Since the places where Münster altered the text are indeterminate, using the Münster text for

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in ...

is problematic.

Jean du Tillet's ''Matthew,'' 1555

The Du Tillet Matthew is a version of the

, written in

, known as Heb.MSS.132, and residing in the National Library, Paris. The manuscript was obtained by Bishop Jean du Tillet from Italian Jews on a visit to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

in 1553, and published in 1555, with editing by

Jean Mercier (Hebraist) Jean Mercier, Latin Joannes Mercerus (Uzès ca. 15101570) was a French Hebraist. Mercier was a pupil of the less known François Vatable, and succeeded Vatable as professor of Hebrew at the Collège Royal. His students included Philippe du Pless ...

and addition of a Latin version, dedicated to cardinal Charles de Guise.

Jean Cinqarbres Jean Cinqarbres (Latin name Quinquarboreus) (c.1520s in Aurillac – June 1565) was a French grammarian of Hebrew. With his colleague Jean Mercier (Hebraist) (Mercerus) he shared the role of conjunct royal professor of Hebrew and Syriac Syriac may ...

(Quinquarboreus), Hebrew professor of the College Royal also worked on the Du Tillet Matthew. While the text is less divergent from the Greek textual tradition than is the ''Shem Tov Matthew'', this version share some deviations in common with the ''Shem Tov Matthew''; for example, the

is replaced with a sign composed of three

yodh Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Yōd /𐤉, Hebrew Yōd , Aramaic Yod , Syriac Yōḏ ܝ, and Arabic . Its sound value is in all languages for which it is used; in many lan ...

s or dots enclosed in a semicircle.

Rahabi Ezekiel's ''Matthew,'' 1750

Rabbi

Rahabi Ezekiel Ezekiel Rahabi (1694–1771) was the chief Jewish merchant of the Dutch East India Company in Cochin, India for almost 50 years. Rabbi ''Rahabi Ezekiel'', (or ''Ezekiel Rahabi'') also was a rabbinical writer known only through his polemical Heb ...

's ''Ha-sepher shel we-'angilu shel ha-Nosarim shel Yeshu''

he book of the Gospel belonging to the followers of Jesus He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

is a polemical translation of Matthew dating from 1750. This may or may not be the same as the polemical rabbinical Hebrew New Testament of Rabbi Ezekiel bought by Claudius Buchanan in

Cochin Kochi (), also known as Cochin ( ) ( the official name until 1996) is a major port city on the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea, which is a part of the Arabian Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of K ...

and known as the "Travancore Hebrew New Testament", which led Buchanan to urge

Joseph Frey Joseph Samuel Christian Frederick Frey (born Joseph Levi; 1771–1850) was a missionary to Jews. In 1809 he founded the London Society for promoting Christianity amongst the Jews after disagreements with the London Missionary Society The London ...

to commence work on a Christian translation.

Elias Soloweyczyk's ''Matthew,'' 1869

Christian Hebrew versions

Around half of the 20 known Christian translations of Matthew were also done by authors who were formerly rabbis, or came from a rabbinical training: Domenico Gerosolimitano and Giovanni Battista Jona, Rudolph Bernhard,

Johan Kemper ) , birth_date = c. 1670 , birth_place = Kraków, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , death_date = 3 May 1716 ( O.S.)14 May 1716 ( N.S.) , death_place = Uppsala, Swedish Empire , spouse = SiphraAnna Strömer (m. 1701) , othe ...

, Simon Rosenbaum (of Uppsala),

Christian David Ginsburg Christian David Ginsburg (, 25 December 1831 – 7 March 1914) was a Polish-born British Bible scholar and a student of the Masoretic tradition in Judaism. He was born to a Jewish family in Warsaw but converted to Christianity at the age of 15. ...

and Isaac Salkinson. However the principal modern Hebrew version of Matthew is based on the New Testament of a German,

Franz Delitzsch Franz Delitzsch (23 February 1813, in Leipzig – 4 March 1890, in Leipzig) was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist. Delitzsch wrote many commentaries on books of the Bible, Jewish antiquities, Biblical psychology, as well as a history of ...

Shem Tov's ''Touchstone'' in Christian Aramaic primacy debate

The Hebrew and

Aramaic primacy The Aramaic original New Testament theory is the belief that the Christian New Testament was originally written in Aramaic. There are six versions of the New Testament in Aramaic languages: #the ''Vetus Syra'' (Old Syriac), a translation fr ...

hypotheses posits that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic. Scholars who support these hypotheses sometimes appeal to these 3 medieval Hebrew manuscripts. However, the vast majority of scholars believe Matthew was originally written in Greek. George Howard, Associate Professor of Religion and Hebrew at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

has argued (1995) that some or all of these three medieval Hebrew versions may have descended (without any intervening translation) from ancient Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew, which may have been used by early Christians in the 1st or 2nd century, but were nearly extinct by the time of Jerome, late in the 4th century. However the surviving citations from

Jewish-Christian Gospels Jewish Christians ( he, יהודים נוצרים, yehudim notzrim) were the followers of a Jewish religious sect that emerged in Judea during the late Second Temple period (first century AD). The Nazarene Jews integrated the belief of Jesus ...

(namely

Gospel of the Nazarenes The Gospel of the Nazarenes (also ''Nazareans'', ''Nazaraeans'', ''Nazoreans'', or ''Nazoraeans'') is the traditional but hypothetical name given by some scholars to distinguish some of the references to, or citations of, non-canonical Jewish-Chri ...

, Gospel of the Ebionites and

) preserved in the writings of

Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, th ...

, Epiphanius and others, lead critical scholars to conclude that those Gospels themselves either were Greek or were translated from Greek Matthew. In fact, most scholars consider that the medieval Hebrew manuscripts were descended (by translation) from Koiné Greek or Latin manuscripts, and therefore that it is extremely unlikely that any of the unique readings found in these medieval Hebrew manuscripts could be ancient. Horbury (1999) notes that the characteristics of ibn Shaprut's ''Touchstone'' are better explained by the influence of Latin Gospel harmonies.

Notes

References

* * * *{{Citation , last=Petersen , first=William L. , year=1998 , title=The Vorlage of Shem-Tob's 'Hebrew Matthew' , journal=New Testament Studies , volume=44 , pages=490–512 , oclc=1713962 , doi=10.1017/S0028688500016696 Medieval manuscripts Biblical manuscripts Hebrew manuscripts Jewish–Christian debate Jewish outreach Jews and Judaism in Spain Jewish Spanish history Jewish apologetics Gospel of Matthew