The Hebrew of Matthew

Hebrew of Matthew

The testimony of early Christian writers furnishes us with conclusive witness that Matthew wrote a Gospel, or some portion thereof, in Hebrew or Aramaic. Here are some quotes:

... but with regard to Matthew he (Papias) has made the following statements]: Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could....
Fragments of Papias, Fragment VI, (Quoted by Eusebius)

... Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect ... .
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter I (This Quote is also found in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book V, Chapter VIII)

6. For Matthew, who had at first preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples, committed his Gospel to writing in his native tongue ... .
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chapter XXIV, § 6

3 Pantaenus ... is said to have gone to India. It is reported that among persons there who knew of Christ, he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his own arrival. For Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached to them, and left with them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language, which they had preserved till that time.
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book V, Chapter X, § 3

4 "Among the four Gospels, which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism, and published in the Hebrew language.
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book VI, Chapter XXV, § 4 (quoting Origen)

Matthew, also called Levi, apostle and aforetimes publican, composed a gospel of Christ at first published in Judea in Hebrew for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed, but this was afterwards translated into Greek though by what author is uncertain. The Hebrew itself has been preserved until the present day in the library at Caesarea which Pamphilus so diligently gathered. I have also had the opportunity of having the volume described to me by the Nazarenes of Beroea, a city of Syria, who use it. In this it is to be noted that wherever the Evangelist, whether on his own account or in the person of our Lord the Saviour quotes the testimony of the Old Testament he does not follow the authority of the translators of the Septuagint but the Hebrew. Wherefore these two forms exist "Out of Egypt have I called my son," and "for he shall be called a Nazarene."
Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men, Chapter III

Pantaenus, a philosopher of the stoic school, according to some old Alexandrian custom, where, from the time of Mark the evangelist the ecclesiastics were always doctors, was of so great prudence and erudition both in scripture and secular literature that, on the request of the legates of that nation, he was sent to India by Demetrius bishop of Alexandria, where he found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles, had preached the advent of the Lord Jesus according to the gospel of Matthew, and on his return to Alexandria he brought this with him written in Hebrew characters.
Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men, Chapter XXXVI

2. In the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is written in the Chaldee and Syrian language, but in Hebrew characters, and is used by the Nazarenes to this day (I mean the Gospel according to the Apostles, or, as is generally maintained, the Gospel according to Matthew, a copy of which is in the library at Caesarea), we find ... .
Jerome, Against the Pelagians, Book III, § 2

... I am now speaking of the New Testament. This was undoubtedly composed in Greek, with the exception of the work of Matthew the Apostle, who was the first to commit to writing the Gospel of Christ, and who published his work in Judaea in Hebrew characters.... I therefore promise in this short Preface the four Gospels only, which are to be taken in the following order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, as they have been revised by a comparison of the Greek manuscripts....
Jerome, Preface to the Vulgate Version of the New Testament
{Here it appears that Jerome, (circa 383) had to work with the Greek copy of Matthew.}

The first evangelist is Matthew, the publican, who was surnamed Levi. He published his Gospel in Judaea in the Hebrew language, chiefly for the sake of Jewish believers in Christ, who adhered in vain to the shadow of the law, although the substance of the Gospel had come....
Jerome, The Commmentaries, Matthew

There are other similar testimonies, but these should suffice.

So what does this mean?

Those who would defend the papacy are quick to raise the issue of an original Hebrew of Matthew as a response to the standard petros/petra argument of Matthew 16.18. Their argument is that Jesus spoke in Aramaic and used Cephas (Kepa) in both places. However, this is by no means certain, and only raises more questions. What has happened to the original Hebrew of Matthew? And how does our current Greek text relate to that original Hebrew?

Our Greek text is believed to not be a translation from the Hebrew. One of the footnotes (#199) to Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chapter 24 (see link and quote above) says, in part:

The question as to the relation of this Hebrew original to our present Greek Matthew is much more difficult. That our Greek Matthew is a mere translation of the original Hebrew was once a prevailing theory, but is now completely abandoned. That Matthew himself wrote both is a common conservative position, but is denied by most critical scholars … .

Nigel Turner, in Vol IV - Style (pp. 37-38), of A Grammar of New Testament Greek by James Hope Moulten, writes:

Matthew's Greek is assuredly not a translation, in spite of its Semitic idiom, for its style is too smooth, too much interspersed with subordinate clauses and genitives absolute, one of the latter appearing every twenty verses. Men...de, not at all characteristic of translation Greek, occurs in the teaching of Jesus, his disciples, and the Baptist. The Greek puns are too complex to have been transmitted in a translation.

So, if it is not a translation from a Hebrew, where did our current Greek text come from? Did Matthew write both the Hebrew and Greek? How can we be sure that petros/petra in Greek was translated from Kepa/kepa in Aramaic? How can we know that any of today's Hebrew/Aramaic Matthew texts are a faithful copy of the Hebrew autograph, rather than a translation from Greek?

A persuasive argument suggesting that the original Aramaic, if the Lord spoke this in Aramaic, was not Kepa/kepa, but Kepa/shua, is made by Pastor David Stark here.

A study of all of the instances of Aramaic kepa and shua in the Peshitta, and the Greek words from which they were translated, is found here.

David Biven, in his study Matthew 16:18: The Petros-petra Wordplay: Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew?, sets forth the hypothesis that Christ actually spoke these words in Hebrew. Perhaps the part of the study most relevant to this present discussion is found in footnote 14, which says:

It is very difficult to determine whether the petra in Jesus' saying refers to Peter's declaration or to Peter himself. Commentators, and theologians, are divided on this question. Two major suggestions have been put forward by scholars: that the petra is Peter; that the petra is Peter's declaration, "You are the Messiah of God" (Lk. 9:20).

In favor of petra being a reference to Peter: 1) Jesus hinted at the Abraham-petra midrash. Since this midrash speaks of God finding a man (Abraham) on whom he could build, then Jesus was probably hinting that he had found a man like Abraham (i.e., Peter) on whom he could build. 2) In the following verse (Mt. 16:19), Jesus invests Peter with great authority in the kingdom of Heaven (Jesus' movement), giving Peter the "keys of the kingdom of Heaven." We learn from the book of Acts that Peter was indeed the leader and spokesman of the early church.

In favor of petra referring to Peter's declaration: 1) The word "this" in the phrase "and on this rock" seems to indicate a switch to a subject other than Peter. By using a·LE·cha, for example, Jesus could have clearly indicated Peter had he wanted. The words "and on this rock" following "you are Peter" only make sense if Jesus was speaking about Peter to others. Since he is not, there must be a switch to a subject other than Peter. 2) Jesus may have alluded to the Num. 23:9 midrash, not to introduce the "dependable man" motif, but rather the "solid foundation" motif. 3) Jesus may have hinted at this midrash to indicate that he would build, not on a man, but rather on Peter's declaration.
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The Peshitta New Testament, the Syriac/Aramaic New Testament with the deepest linear roots into antiquity, is believed to be a revision of the Old Syriac text. There are only two extant Old Syriac manuscripts. The Siniatic Syriac palimpsest, of the late fourth century, is missing that portion that includes Matthew 16.18. The Curetonian Syriac of the late fifth century has kipha/kipha for the petros/petra of Matthew 16.18. Where did the Old Syriac text have its origins? From the Greek? Jerome wrote that the New Testament, except for Matthew, was "undoubtedly composed in Greek" (see Preface to the Vulgate New Testament, above). Did the Old Syriac of Matthew derive from the original Hebrew Matthew? Or was it a translation of a Greek Matthew?

Further compounding the problem is the fact that Tatian's Diatessaron was the standard Gospel text used in the Syriac Churches until the late 4th/early 5th century, when it was replaced by the Peshitta.

The problem is to definitively trace today's Peshitta, or some other Hebrew/Aramaic text of Matthew, to either an original Hebrew or to a Greek parent. Further, the origin of our current Greek Matthew must be understood, and its relationship, if any, to a Hebrew original. Until these questions can be answered, we don't have a reason to abandon the current Greek, with its petros/petra in Matthew 16.18.

Jerome writes in Lives of Illustrious Men, Chapter III, that Matthew's Hebrew was in use among the Nazarenes of Beroea (modern Haleb), a city of Syria, in his day (see quote above). Encyclopedia Brittanica says:

The Peshitta (common, simple) Syriac (known as syr^pesh) became the Syrian 22-book Vulgate of the New Testament and, at the end of the 4th century, its text was transmitted with great fidelity."

This would seem to indicate that the Hebrew Matthew was available for that late 4th century transmission. However, nothing indicates that it was used. And Jerome indicates in his Preface to the Vulgate that he relied on a Greek Matthew.

I therefore promise in this short Preface the four Gospels only, which are to be taken in the following order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, as they have been revised by a comparison of the Greek manuscripts. Only early ones have been used.

Brittanica also says:

The Bible of the Syriac Churches is known as the Peshitta ("simple" translation). Though neither the reason for the title nor the origins of the versions are known....

In the end, the question remains open as to what was the reading of the original Hebrew in Matthew 16.18. The question also remains as to the origin of our current Greek text. If it is not a translation of the Hebrew, was it penned by Matthew as well? These are questions that must be answered before we presume to reject the petros/petra of our Greek text. And regardless of what be the answers to these questions, nothing can justify the lofty claims which Rome makes regarding its bishop on the basis of their interpretation of this verse.

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