The Hebrew Gospel of Matthew and other Horseshit

[Xephyr]

This is sorta a language-related question, so I figured I'd ask it here.

You know those ideas floating around that the books of the New Testament were not written in Koine Greek, but were instead composed originally in Aramaic? Or the idea that the Gospel of Matthew was originally a Hebrew text, which the Greek was a translation out of? The latter seems to be mostly advocated by this this guy. (Watch the first half for an extremely unbiased *wink wink* overview of pharisaical-rabbinical Judaism, watch the third quarter for a few genuinely-intriguing arguments, and watch the end for some ignorant-ass lunacy about why Jesus didn't speak Aramaic.)

There are tons of books on Amazon arguing for these alternative theories, but where are the arguments for why they're [at least in the opinion of the vast majority of Biblical scholars] wrong? I've read in dozens of places that you can tell when a text has been translated, rather than originally composed, but how? Nobody wants to give any of the details. I asked a professor at U of C, and the best answer I could get was:

It goes far beyond style and comprises and entire range of phenomena unique to the process of rendering one language in another, like syntactical constructions, expressions and idioms, names, and, when you can identify it, a variety of techniques for handling difficulties in the text being translated (unknown words, unusual verb forms, an illegible scroll).

Does anybody know anything beyond this, or can direct me to any books or articles that argue in favor of New Testament Greek primacy?

[el imiradu]

Surely I would think it is possible to translate a text with absolutely no indicatino remaining in that text that it has been translated, if it's done well enough? Though of course unless you had genuine evidence (from the text or otherwise) in favour of the argument that it was translated from somewhere else, you would probably be best off avoiding that argument altogrher.

[Mornche Geddick]

The one I heard about was Mark's Gospel. It is said to have been written in rather poor Greek, but when it was translated word for word it made very good Aramaic. I don't know either language, unfortunately, so can't confirm or disprove it.

[Nortaneous]

The one I heard about was Mark's Gospel. It is said to have been written in rather poor Greek, but when it was translated word for word it made very good Aramaic. I don't know either language, unfortunately, so can't confirm or disprove it.

Thomas Cahill said the same thing, although I'm not sure which gospels, and IIRC there were varying degrees of Aramaic influence elsewhere. But he chalked it up to them being written by people much more fluent in Aramaic than in Greek.

[Xephyr]

Looking further, I suppose it's not difficult at all to find problems in the arguments of the Aramaic primacists. Just looking at two of the first PDF results you get from a Google search...:

“Split words”, are polysemous words (polysemy – having multiple meanings). The relevance of
polysemy in the case for Peshitta primacy (the belief that the New Testament was written not in Greek,
but in Aramaic, and that the Peshitta is the closest Bible we have to the original) is mind-blowing. In a
more general sense, a split word isn’t confined to Greek variants where a single Aramaic word or root is
in question. Examples where Greek translators clearly confused two similarly spelt Aramaic words,
leading to variances in the Greek are also split words, as are examples where a variant is caused by
differing translations of an Aramaic idiom. This is how it works:
When comparing different Greek NT (New Testament) manuscripts and/or the English translations of
said manuscripts, many differences are apparent. Sometimes, there is just a one-word difference among
verses from different manuscripts. In basic cases, some Greek texts will have the word “Y” (as an
example) and some will have the word “Z”. Now this one word often changes the meaning of the verse,
so these variants are quite important. Now, suppose we have a manuscript that has as the word in
question, the word known as “X”. Suppose also that this manuscript is in another language, an ancient
Semitic language, and that “X” in this language can be translated to mean “Y” and “Z”! Which
manuscript would be more reliable? The one that says “Y”, “Z” or “X”?

That sounds like Babelfish mentality, i.e. that all translations of a sentence would be the same. If this guy is suggesting that the discrepant manuscripts originate from different translations of an Aramaic original, then they would be entirely different-- every sentence would be radically different in style and syntax, not just in the ways they translate individual words.

Much more sensible is to say that a scribe was familiar with a reading of a particular verse from an Aramaic version (the scribe was maybe a native syrophone himself) and made the correction/miscorrection for the individual word.

The statistical study of "kai" vs "de" later on in that PDF is also extremely poorly done-- the data scatters all over the place. However, considering that the author apparently learned how to transliterate Greek from looking at the letter assignments of the Σψμβολ font (cf. p 9), that's hardly surprising.


This pdf, on the other hand, seems to be basing all its arguments on the presumption that the original New Testament (whichever version that one is) must have been infallible, therefore the version that can be interpreted to have the fewest number of factual errors or inconsistencies must have been the original version. Yeah I don't think I have to explain to anyone the problem with this argument.

Matthew 1:21
The KJV says: “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people
from their sins.”
The NIV says: “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his
people from their sins."”

Here is the problem for Greek primacists: Mary was the one who named Him Jesus.

Luke 1:31
KJV: “And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.”
NIV: “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.”

Does the Peshitta also have this “contradiction”?

The Peshitta says (Matthew 1:21, direct translation by Paul Younan): “And she will bear a son, and she will call his
name Yeshua; for he will save his people from their sins."”

The Peshitta shows us that Mary named Jesus, and thus does not share this contradiction with the Greek texts.
While unfortunate that Zorba (a nickname for the people who translated the Aramaic original into Greek) created a
contradiction here, it is understandable. The error they made is so common, even Lamsa did not avoid it in his
translation. The error came about because the Aramaic word ܬܩܪܐ can be translated as 2nd-person masculine, or
3rd-person feminine. i.e. the same text can mean “you will call…” and “she will call…”

That one doesn't even make sense economically. The Aramaic word ܬܩܪܐ can by his own admission give either interpretation, so he conveniently chooses the one that supports his argument. Much more likely is that a Greek word that was unambiguous (but which contradicted Matthew zomg!!) was translated into Aramaic which was then given different interpretations because of homography.

[Ars Lande]

I am a bit more familiar with the argument that the writers of the gospels, being L1 Aramaic speakers, wrote not entirely idiomatic Greek.
This seems a lot more believable.

[Salmoneus]

That one doesn't even make sense economically. The Aramaic word ܬܩܪܐ can by his own admission give either interpretation, so he conveniently chooses the one that supports his argument. Much more likely is that a Greek word that was unambiguous (but which contradicted Matthew zomg!!) was translated into Aramaic which was then given different interpretations because of homography.

Actually, that does make sense.
If the same word, X, occured twice in the text, but had two different meanings, the scribe (or scribes) might have translated it as Y in one case but as Z in another case, particularly if the two instances were a long way apart. This could then give two sentences that directly contradict each other.

You don't have to assume the bible is infallible - you just have to assume the bible is not inherently nonsense. Normally, if you're reading a text and there's a clear contradiction, you ask 'why is there that contradiction?' - In this case, 'why does he say that she does it, here, but elsewhere, talking about the same thing, that he does it?'

There are many possible reasons - maybe the writer lost track of what was going on, maybe he was compiling multiple conflicting sources, maybe there's not actually a contradiction (there were two events, perhaps, or they both did it). But if you think it's possible that the text was translated from a language in which the two contradictory words are actually the same word - well, that enables you to posit an original text without the puzzling contradiction, which produced the contradictory text through the perfectly non-puzzling actions of a scribe translating the same word differently in two different places. And that's prima facie a better theory, because it contains fewer improbabilities.

It's not infallibilism to reason in this way - because infallible or not, most texts strive to avoid contradictions, so each contradiction is an improbability if you're looking at an original text.

Of course, no individual polysemy like this is sufficient evidence to ascribe the original to one language or another, because, as I say, there are other alternative explanations for the contradiction (in this particularly case, it's reasonable that both people named the child (even perhaps that there wasn't a modern sense of one person 'naming' another, but just of the person 'being called' something by the community? I don't know about naming practices at the time), so the writer didn't think there was a contradiction). But if lots of biblical self-contradictions happened to coincide with Aramaic polysemies, and none at all happened to coincide with Greek polysemies, that would certainly be prima facie evidence in favour of an Aramaic original.

[I've no idea whether this is in fact the case]

[merijn]

If I recall correctly when I was still lurking on forums about Biblical criticism, one main argument against the primacy of Aramaic is that in one of the gospels there is in Greek a verse that goes, "and Jesus said X(in Aramaic) which means Y (in Greek)", which in the Aramaic version is "And Jesus said X, which means X.". This makes more sense if the Greek is the original and the Aramaic translator wanted to translate it as faithfully as possible than the other way around.

[Xephyr]

(stuff)

(more stuff)

The rubric that "texts tend to not be inherently nonsense" doesn't entirely apply when looking at two different books, though... in this case, the gospels of Luke and Matthew. The two books were written by different people and so are gonna have differences. Of course you don't have to be very fundamentalist of a Christian to believe that the two books both should describe more-or-less the same events and are both valid as Scripture, so that there's going to be a good amount of reciprocity, but... "Who gave Jesus his name?" doesn't seem like a very theologically-loaded issue to me. At all. So if you are going to insist that two separately-composed books should agree with each other on that very obscure point, you are already very near to arguing for inerrancy?

(Otherwise, I see your point.)

[Morrígan]

Shit, I'll have to try and find it, but there was something about words used in talking about either casting the moneylenders out of the temple, or something involving John the Baptist where the Greek words used make it highly unlikely that they were translated from Aramaic. I probably read this in something from Bart Ehrman.


I'm vaguely thinking it might have involved the idea of being "born again" when talking about John the Baptist.

[Salmoneus]

(stuff)

(more stuff)

The rubric that "texts tend to not be inherently nonsense" doesn't entirely apply when looking at two different books, though... in this case, the gospels of Luke and Matthew. The two books were written by different people and so are gonna have differences. Of course you don't have to be very fundamentalist of a Christian to believe that the two books both should describe more-or-less the same events and are both valid as Scripture, so that there's going to be a good amount of reciprocity, but... "Who gave Jesus his name?" doesn't seem like a very theologically-loaded issue to me. At all. So if you are going to insist that two separately-composed books should agree with each other on that very obscure point, you are already very near to arguing for inerrancy?

(Otherwise, I see your point.)

I see your point also.

However, as well as these being two books talking about the same events, they're also books that were not written independently.

One of the two main hypotheses says that Luke wrote his gospel with, effectively, a copy of Matthew in front of him, copying large chunks verbatim and rephrasing other parts. So Luke would have known exactly what Matthew at said, and looking at the quotes he was probably paraphrasing Matthew directly in this passage. So it's a valid question why Luke would use a different pronoun from the text in front of him, and 'he didn't use a different pronouns' (ie both gospels were in aramaic) or 'he used the same pronoun pronoun' (ie at least matthew was in aramaic and translated independently of luke) are both appealing answers.
The other hypothesis is that Luke and Matthew were themselves both copying Mark, and a fourth document that does not survive. Again, if they are both copying another document, you'd expect them to use the same pronouns.

Anyway, whichever theory you take, it seems there are quite a few hypothetical or recorded gospels that were or are thought not to be, or have originally been, in greek: proto-matthew, Q, and the gospels of the hebrews, nazarenes and ebionites. It's not unrealistic that the early greek accounts may at least have borrowed from, if not been based on, some of these hebrew or aramaic documents.

[Xephyr]

I'm vaguely thinking it might have involved the idea of being "born again" when talking about John the Baptist.

It's that the Greek word that means "born again" also means "from above". It's from the Gospel of John where Jesus is talking to Nicodemus: Nicodemus misunderstands Jesus, and thinks he's telling him to be born again, and has to be corrected because the intended meaning was "born from above". The homophony only occurs in Greek, so that story (at least) must have originated among the hellenophone Christians.

This kind of thing isn't really evidence for compositional primacy, though. IIRC there are also stories from the Gospels that make more sense in Aramaic, so there are stories that originated among hellenophones and ones that originated among syrophones. Whichever was written down first is another matter.

[Ars Lande]

It's that the Greek word that means "born again" also means "from above". It's from the Gospel of John where Jesus is talking to Nicodemus: Nicodemus misunderstands Jesus, and thinks he's telling him to be born again, and has to be corrected because the intended meaning was "born from above". The homophony only occurs in Greek, so that story (at least) must have originated among the hellenophone Christians.

Just a minor nitpick, but I reread the passage in KJV and French translation.
The French version translates it as 'from above', and the passage is frankly obscure. The KJV, with 'born again' makes a lot more sense.
(Jesus then replies to Nicodemus on what exactly he meant by 'born again', that is "be born of water and of the Spirit", which I take as a reference to baptism as a second birth).
I'd argue the intending meaning was 'born again', and that the homophony was entirely unintentional. The confusion seems to be only on the part of the translator.

Of course, this does not prove anything one way or another. Don't mind me, please go on

[Xephyr]

Hmm.. yeah. The NRSV (a.k.a. the """best""" translation) also has "from above", but yeah, it seems to make perfect sense with a consistent meaning of "again" (or "anew", as my annotations prefer). Now I'm wondering what the reasoning is for supposing a "from above" meaning. A quick Google search doesn't come up with anything other than saccharine religious websites...

The word is ανωθεν btw.

[Ars Lande]

No idea. I thought it might come from the Vulgate, but it has "quis natus fuerit denuo non potest videre regnum Dei".
My Latin is very rusty, but I believe the sense is 'born again'.

This passage makes no sense with 'born form above', but the polysemy is interesting ('born again' / 'born from above/God').
Maybe the translator considered that the double meaning was intentional?

My best guess is that there this is due to theological dispute on this verse, as many protestant denominations, from the not-so-recent anabaptists (and also methodists, I believe?) to the recent born-again Christian have interpreted in, ahem, interesting ways. Not to mention those who take it as proof that Jesus taught about reincarnation!
Hence the change to a translation that leaves open no alternate interpretation, by allowing no interpretation at all. (But frankly, most Bible translations are awkward, as if the translator thought: it's the fucking Bible, it should be hard to read anyway).

[Xephyr]

No idea. I thought it might come from the Vulgate, but it has "quis natus fuerit denuo non potest videre regnum Dei".
My Latin is very rusty, but I believe the sense is 'born again'.

Nah, it wouldn't "come from" the Vulgate... people haven't used that as the basis for translation since the Douay-Rheims was made.

I doubt it's some kind of Protestant or anti-Protestant conspiracy, either. I'll maybe try and e-mail another New Testament scholar and ask about this.

[Ars Lande]

Oh, in French they did, at least for some Catholic versions
Until the early 20th century, I believe. (or was it Vatican II? I'm not so sure about that).
Of course, it turns out that the version I was checking was a protestant one which was indeed translated from the Greek original, and of course my neat little theory falls apart.

Let me know if you get an answer; I'm intrigued now.

[Salmoneus]

Douay-Rheims has 'born again'.

Looking at bible.cc, it seems the 2008 International Standard Version has 'from above', as do God's Word and Young's Literal. Everything else there has 'again', although the KJV notes 'or from above' in the margin.

Barnes (presbyterian, American, 19th century) notes the ambiguity of the original Greek word (doesn't say what it is), but also notes that all the 'ancient' translations of the text read it as inarguably 'again', rather than 'from above', and hypothesises that the 'original' language that Nicodemus spoke in probably didn't have the ambiguity. Clarke, however (19th century, Irish, methodist) seems to think the ambiguity is intentional and significant, with both meanings meant entirely, contrasting christian baptism (from above) with jewish baptism (from below, with water rather than with the holy spirit). Gill (18th century, English, Baptist/Calvinist), doesn't seem aware of the ambiguity in the slightest, going with 'born again'.

"Vincent's Word Studies" is more helpful. Apparently the word is 'anothen', and appears 13 times in the NT. It normally seems to mean 'from above', or sometimes 'from the top', and a couple of time 'from the beginning'. The only other time it looks like meaning 'again' is in Galatians, but that's pretty plain: "How is it that you are turning back to these weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them again?" - seems to make a lot more sense than 'enslaved from above'.

In the context, the meaning seems clear. 'Born from above' is weird, given that there's no explanation given in the text, and no parallels elsewhere (whereas the idea of baptism as a rebirth is common throughout the NT). Moreover, it's generally assumed that as both Jesus and Nicodemus are natively Aramaic-speakers, and there's no particular reason why they'd be speaking Greek at that point, the conversation probably took place in Aramaic to begin with, meaning that Nicodemus' interpretation of th word as 'again' should probably be taken at face value.

[Xephyr]

However, as well as these being two books talking about the same events, they're also books that were not written independently.

One of the two main hypotheses says that Luke wrote his gospel with, effectively, a copy of Matthew in front of him, copying large chunks verbatim and rephrasing other parts. So Luke would have known exactly what Matthew at said, and looking at the quotes he was probably paraphrasing Matthew directly in this passage. So it's a valid question why Luke would use a different pronoun from the text in front of him, and 'he didn't use a different pronouns' (ie both gospels were in aramaic) or 'he used the same pronoun pronoun' (ie at least matthew was in aramaic and translated independently of luke) are both appealing answers.
The other hypothesis is that Luke and Matthew were themselves both copying Mark, and a fourth document that does not survive. Again, if they are both copying another document, you'd expect them to use the same pronouns.

It just occurred to me. The theories that Luke used either Matthew or Q are based off of verbatim correspondences between Matthew and Luke in Greek, correct? So, the theories are contingent on (and are evidence for, for Luke in one case and for both Luke and Matthew in the other) the premise that they were written originally in Greek, unless the wording is also a perfect verbatim correspondence in the Aramaic versions (which I doubt). If Luke copied Matthew and they both wrote in Aramaic, then the confusion of "you shall name" vs "she shall name" could be a homography issue, but you can't really say that Luke did copy Matthew unless you also say that Luke at least (and probably Matthew as well) was originally a Greek book.

[Salmoneus]

However, as well as these being two books talking about the same events, they're also books that were not written independently.

One of the two main hypotheses says that Luke wrote his gospel with, effectively, a copy of Matthew in front of him, copying large chunks verbatim and rephrasing other parts. So Luke would have known exactly what Matthew at said, and looking at the quotes he was probably paraphrasing Matthew directly in this passage. So it's a valid question why Luke would use a different pronoun from the text in front of him, and 'he didn't use a different pronouns' (ie both gospels were in aramaic) or 'he used the same pronoun pronoun' (ie at least matthew was in aramaic and translated independently of luke) are both appealing answers.
The other hypothesis is that Luke and Matthew were themselves both copying Mark, and a fourth document that does not survive. Again, if they are both copying another document, you'd expect them to use the same pronouns.

It just occurred to me. The theories that Luke used either Matthew or Q are based off of verbatim correspondences between Matthew and Luke in Greek, correct? So, the theories are contingent on (and are evidence for, for Luke in one case and for both Luke and Matthew in the other) the premise that they were written originally in Greek, unless the wording is also a perfect verbatim correspondence in the Aramaic versions (which I doubt). If Luke copied Matthew and they both wrote in Aramaic, then the confusion of "you shall name" vs "she shall name" could be a homography issue, but you can't really say that Luke did copy Matthew unless you also say that Luke at least (and probably Matthew as well) was originally a Greek book.

Well, I believe there are verbatim sections in Greek, yes, as well as paraphrases, and differently-written accounts of the same material. I don't know the relative proportions thereof. And it may be that verbatim or near-verbatim correspondences could be based on similar translations of identical Aramaic text - I know it's possible to translate many things differently, but different translators would often translate many things the same way, wouldn't they? Particular since in this hypothesis the translators, if different people at all, would at least have been both translating in very similar circumstances.

Or, you could say that the original text was aramaic, but not necessarily the original version of EACH gospel. Eg, if the original is an aramaic proto-matthew, and luke is either based on that or based directly on the greek matthew - the original of the text would be in aramaic, though not the original luke.

I don't know who you're talking about, though, so I don't know whether they would be particularly attached to the idea that each 'gospel', as a platonic entity, was originally in aramaic, or if they only need the broader conclusion that the original texts from which the modern gospels are derived were all in aramaic.