We know that several verses were added hundreds of years after the originals, but I suppose it's possible they were in other sacred records that said mostly the same thing which were combined for convenience when discovered. Like the story of the woman taken in adultery and brought before Jesus Christ, which isn't part of any Bible manuscripts or commentaries before 400A.D. Mark 16: 9-20 were also put in later, and their validity is in question. Though again they might have come from a separate record that they combined for convenience. We simply don't know. But through the Holy Spirit and sincere humble seeking of the truth, God promises to guide us.
Yes, well said. And how we handle these additional materials can be a window into how we think about scripture, canon, etc. There are some complex issues here, but we can trust that the Spirit works through human history!
I think that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew and a small family of manuscripts survives that descend from that original. One of my major projects on my blog for the last few years on my blog has been pulling together the evidence that I think points that way. One of the points that I have been investigating lately is that if the ancients were wrong about the original language of Matthew, this is the only case where the ancients got it wrong. There are no other documents where modern scholarship says the ancients were wrong about the original language. We have a category for them getting the wrong author (pseudepigrapha) but not for getting the wrong language. Beyond that, every element that people point to as a reason to think that Matthew was written in Greek is at least as true if not more true when your read Matthew in Hebrew: there are more wordplays in Hebrew, there are more allusions that don't translate well in Hebrew, etc. Elements like this that aren't a part of dialog include: 8:32 The alliteration "בַּסַּעַר וּבְסָעִף." 9:9 vs 10:13 The Hebrew text spells the name "Matthew" different in these two places, but the Greek does not. 12:14-16 There's a wordplay between "פְּרוֹשִים" and "יְפַרְסְמוּהוֹ." (Pharisees and published) 21:12 There's a wordplay in "שֻׁלְחָנוֹת הַשֻּׁלְחָנִיִים." (Tables and throwing) There are also cases where the Greek translation of Matthew has assimilated readings from Luke and/or Mark. For example: Matthew 3:11 in the Greek of many manuscripts end with "βαπτίσει ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρί." (Baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire.) This matches Luke 3:16 exactly. However, the Hebrew editions almost universally read "יִטְבֹּל אֶתְכֶם בְּאֵשׁ רוּחַ הַקֹּדֶשׁ" (Baptize you in the fire of the Holy Spirit.) Matthew 10:1-4 the order is Apostles is different in the Hebrew edition, and changed to more closely match Luke in the Greek. Matthew 27:46 in the Greek includes an interpretation of Jesus's statement. The Hebrew does not include that interpretation. It might be interesting to note that the phrase is actually Aramaic, not Hebrew. Except that in the Greek, the transliteration follows Hebrew pronunciation rather than Aramaic pronunciation. This makes sense if the translator from Hebrew to Greek were thinking of Mark 15:34. I've already given some more thoughts on this in the section on translation hiccups. Matthew 8:32, the Hebrew editions skip over Jesus telling the demons to go. This information is pulled in from the parallel passages in Mark 5:13 and Luke 8:32. Matthew 3:3 and Mark 1:3 both quote Isaiah 40:3. In the Hebrew, Matthew actually quotes the verse. Interestingly, if this quote had been taken from the Septuagint, we wouldn't be able to tell if the Hebrew or the Greek were original. However, in the Greek, Mark changes "our God" to "him." This obviously doesn't change the meaning of the verse at all. However, since both the Greek edition of Matthew and Mark make the same change, it shows that one of them gets the change from the other. This makes sense under my theory that the translator of Matthew from Hebrew to Greek translated parallel passages to match. Matthew 9:6 the Hebrew reads תֵּדְעוּ כִי־יֵשׁ בֶּן־אָדָם שֶׁמּוֹשֵׁל בָּאָרֶץ לִסְלוֹחַ חָטָאוֹת. ("There is a Son of Man that is a ruler on Earth to forgive sins.") The Greek of Matthew in this place is identical to the Greek of Luke: ἐξουσίαν ἔχει ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἀφιέναι ἁμαρτίας. ("The Son of Man has power on Earth to forgive sins.") My whole document on my blog has gotten to over 50k words so I'm obviously not going to replicate that in a comment. I am actively looking for people who disagree to dialog with on this point, though. My hope is to finish getting things together, hire an editor, and start submitting to academic journals in 2025, but finding people to help smooth out the rough spots is a big part of that.
Thanks for your comment! What's the name of your blog? I'd like to check it out. I think it's clear that Matt knew Hebrew, and it's certainly plausible that canonical Matt makes use of Hebrew sources. I'm not sure I follow your argument about early church tradition. How many instances do we have of early Christians commenting on the language in which a text was written? If the data set is minute, then why would we expect an established category? It would also be a very different kind of judgment than pseudepigraphy, so I don't see the relevance of comparing the two.
@@dr.maxbotner There are a bunch of fairly early comments that Matthew wrote in Hebrew. The ones I've collected so far are: Origin, Commentary on Matthew, Book I: "Concerning the four Gospels which alone are uncontroverted in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the Gospel according to Matthew, who was at one time a publican and afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, was written first; and that he composed it in the Hebrew tongue and published it for the converts from Judaism." Ireneus, Against Heresies, Book III, chapter 1: "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church." Eusebius, Church History, Book III, chapter 24, section 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, and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence." Papias, as recorded by Eusebius, Church History, Book III, chapter 39, section 16: "So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able." Jerome, Illustrious Men: "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." Jerome, Preface to the Gospels: "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 Judæa in Hebrew characters. We must confess that as we have it in our language it is marked by discrepancies, and now that the stream is distributed into different channels we must go back to the fountainhead." Augustine, The Harmony of the Gospels, Book I, Chapter 2: "Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek." Pseudo-Hippolytus, On the Apostles and Disciples: "And Matthew wrote the Gospel in the Hebrew tongue, and published it at Jerusalem, and fell asleep at Hierees, a town of Parthia." Many early Peshitta editions of the Gospels include a postscript that have details about the traditional authorship of each Gospel. In the case of Matthew, it says that the version in the Peshitta was translated from a Hebrew original. The postscript reads: "Completion of the Holy Gospel as published by Matthew; and which he published in Hebrew, in the land of the Palestineans." No one thought that Matthew wrote in Greek before the middle ages. The first person I have been able to track down to cast doubt on a Hebrew original for Matthew was Erasmus. (Though I don't have the specific quote. When I asked for it, I was linked to a Dutch original and I didn't read Dutch. But I trust those that say he questioned it.) He may have picked up the thought from someone else, but if so I don't know who and it can't have been going on for very long. As to getting to my blog, probably the easiest way is to go to my channel, then go to the description of any video. I replicate most of my blog posts in (really bad) videos. If you go to the reply to the Masoretic Matthew Update notice on March 23, there will be a link directly to the blog post about Matthew in Hebrew in that blog post.
@@ShaunCKennedyAuthor Thanks! And I'm sorry if my response wasn't clear. I'm well aware that the early church thought that Matthew wrote in Greek (though how many of these traditions are independent of each other?), but you were suggesting that we compare this phenomenon to the phenomenon of pseudepigraphy. I don't see how the comparison works.
@@dr.maxbotner I'm sorry I misunderstood. I think I've got to take at least part of the blame there. One of the things that I like to do when figuring out what ancient authors did is compare like to like. If there are examples of something, then it happened. If there are no examples, then it likely didn't happen. Take as an example the claim that the gospels were not written by the traditional authors. We have other examples where the traditional authors have been shown to be unlikely. Off the top of my head, The Athanasian Creed most likely wasn't written by Athanasius. Why we know that can be put to one side for the purposes of a UA-cam comment, but we can take the principles that help us determine that this is pseudepigrapha and apply them to the gospels and see how they stack up. If the gospels match the principles we apply to other texts, then that's consistent. If they don't, it's special pleading. (I mean, by definition, it's special pleading. But I'll leave it to those that are more interested in that point to decide if there is special pleading.) We see the same thing when considering whether the gospels are considered historical or fictional. There are no ancient examples of fiction that uses near-contemporary public figures. Ancient fiction always used either fictional pubic figures or public figures from generations before. Similarly, ancient fiction doesn't include accurate technical information. Acts includes accurate technical details about sea travel. The accusation that the author of Acts must have used a travel log to write fiction is special pleading: there are no other examples of that in antiquity. It's just not a thing that was done. Moving to the issue at hand, there are no instances of the ancients claiming that a document was written in one language, and then modern scholarship determines that they were wrong. The lone exceptions are the Gospel of Matthew and The Gospel According to the Hebrews. And in the case if the Gospel According to the Hebrews, the idea that it was written in Greek is based on the idea that it was so closely tied to the tradition of Matthew. The ancients were able to detect the original language of documents just as well as we can. Take as an example the Wisdom of Solomon. The ancients were well aware of the fact that it was written in Greek and not by Solomon. Jerome even comments on that in his preface to Solomon's books. The ancients said that the Wisdom of Solomon was written in Greek and modern scholarship agrees. So when I started looking for other examples of pseudeglossia to determine if the gospels match, I had a bunch to compare too. And to be totally honest, those that consider parts of the Platonic Canon to be pseudepigrapha could apply similar arguments to at least Mark and Matthew. (Luke and John are their own kettle of fish and I haven't gone as deep there yet so it might work there as well, but I'm not going further than the data I've considered so far.) But when I look for other "pseudeglossia" (to coin a term) to compare to, it's an empty set. That pretty much makes the claim that the ancients were wrong about the language of Matthew special pleading. For every other point, the Hebrew matches or beats the Greek: the Hebrew doesn't read like a translation. The Hebrew has more puns, wordplays, alliteration, and rhyme. The Hebrew only has Greek loanwords where it gets them from Mark (I'm a Markan prioritist.) where are Greek has Semitic loanwords all over. Etc etc etc. So the idea that the ancients got the original language of Matthew wrong looks to me like special pleading.
@@ShaunCKennedyAuthor OK. But I see a few fundamental issues here. First, I don't see any evidence that the tradition about Matt writing in Hebrew is based on the *style* of canonical Matt. Where do we see a church father explain Matt's Greek by an appeal to it being a translation of a Hebrew text? (Also, how does a text in Hebrew make consistent improvements to Mark's Greek?) Papias was merely parroting a tradition that Matt wrote in Hebrew, which may or may not refer to canonical Matt. Second, the data set for witnesses that Matt wrote in Hebrew isn't the number of church fathers who said that he did but the number of *independent* traditions. (If everything goes back to Papias, then we really only have one tradition that Matt wrote in Hebrew.) Third, and as you note, there really aren't good comparanda to the situation with Matt. Your example of Wis is vastly different, and Jerome's point was to delineate Wis as "ecclesiastical" (later deuterocanonical). I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I very much doubt that *canonical* Matt is a translation of a Hebrew text. I still need to check out your website though! :)
According to Bishop Irenaeus, Polycarp and Ignatius knew John the Apostle. Ignatius addressed a letter to him and mentions him in his letters to the Ephesians and to the Magnesians.
Can we moot the significance of the historical reliability of the gospels on the grounds that nobody can make the case that anything Jesus said applies to 21st century people? Why should I worry about Jesus' statements about hell and judgment day, when nobody can show those stories were intended for me in the first place?
This is really *the* fundamental hermeneutical question of the Bible, not just the statements of Jesus: not a word in the Bible was written with 21st century people in mind. Does this mean the Bible is insignificant to readers beyond its original intended audiences? Speaking as someone who desires to follow Jesus, I would say, absolutely not! But it does require serious interpretation - as do the texts of any faith tradition, or frankly, any important text of the past. :)
@@dr.maxbotner Alright: then how exactly am I 'unreasonable", here in the 21st century, when I ignore 66 ancient books for which there is not the slightest shred of evidence that anything they had to say, applied to anybody in the 21st century? To this, fundamentalists screech that I know god exists and I just don't wanna believe because I find my sin more fun than obeying god.... but....screeching does not cause the above-stated problem of discernable authorial intention to disappear. I have no more reason to care about Matthew's gospel than I have to care about the Epistle of Barnabas. They are positively certain that I'm unreasonable to ignore the gospel, but they couldn't show it applied to be today if their raptures depended on it.
Have you studied this? Luke was written in the 1st century. And John was not as late as 3rd century. We know this because we have physical manuscripts (such as p52) before that.
@@Jolomon Correct! We have manuscript evidence that rules out a date for John past 120-130s (and of course, it was probably earlier). The OP sounds a lot like F. C. Baur, who developed his thesis of the late (3rd. c.) date of John prior to the discovery of P52.
Your dating of Mark and Matthew seem reasonable, and would put these Gospels within the time of eyewitnesses. I'm not sure how you can be so confident that Luke is that late. It could be, but it could also be much earlier. Your dating of John is way too late.
@@dr.maxbotner Luke copies from both Mark and Matthew, a more sensible explanation than the Q hypothesis. He also lifts from both Josephus and Marcion , which pushes authorship back into the 2nd century. John is the outlier and is more difficult to date. I said possibly as the late as the early third century, but equally possibly mid second century. P52 has been dated 125-175, but that has been questioned by some scholars.
@@neill392Your dating of the gospels is insanely inaccurate, your actually going as far as saying John could date to the 3rd century 🤦♂️ absolutely ridiculous No, the Matthew, Mark and Luke dare to before 70AD, and John In the 90’s
Let us know what you think. Leave a comment below. Thanks for watching!
ua-cam.com/video/PLKMcIz8Vd0/v-deo.htmlsi=emGmkikBCztAJQLg
We know that several verses were added hundreds of years after the originals, but I suppose it's possible they were in other sacred records that said mostly the same thing which were combined for convenience when discovered. Like the story of the woman taken in adultery and brought before Jesus Christ, which isn't part of any Bible manuscripts or commentaries before 400A.D. Mark 16: 9-20 were also put in later, and their validity is in question. Though again they might have come from a separate record that they combined for convenience. We simply don't know. But through the Holy Spirit and sincere humble seeking of the truth, God promises to guide us.
Yes, well said. And how we handle these additional materials can be a window into how we think about scripture, canon, etc. There are some complex issues here, but we can trust that the Spirit works through human history!
I think that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew and a small family of manuscripts survives that descend from that original. One of my major projects on my blog for the last few years on my blog has been pulling together the evidence that I think points that way.
One of the points that I have been investigating lately is that if the ancients were wrong about the original language of Matthew, this is the only case where the ancients got it wrong. There are no other documents where modern scholarship says the ancients were wrong about the original language. We have a category for them getting the wrong author (pseudepigrapha) but not for getting the wrong language.
Beyond that, every element that people point to as a reason to think that Matthew was written in Greek is at least as true if not more true when your read Matthew in Hebrew: there are more wordplays in Hebrew, there are more allusions that don't translate well in Hebrew, etc. Elements like this that aren't a part of dialog include:
8:32
The alliteration "בַּסַּעַר וּבְסָעִף."
9:9 vs 10:13
The Hebrew text spells the name "Matthew" different in these two places, but the Greek does not.
12:14-16
There's a wordplay between "פְּרוֹשִים" and "יְפַרְסְמוּהוֹ." (Pharisees and published)
21:12
There's a wordplay in "שֻׁלְחָנוֹת הַשֻּׁלְחָנִיִים." (Tables and throwing)
There are also cases where the Greek translation of Matthew has assimilated readings from Luke and/or Mark. For example:
Matthew 3:11 in the Greek of many manuscripts end with "βαπτίσει ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρί." (Baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire.) This matches Luke 3:16 exactly. However, the Hebrew editions almost universally read "יִטְבֹּל אֶתְכֶם בְּאֵשׁ רוּחַ הַקֹּדֶשׁ" (Baptize you in the fire of the Holy Spirit.)
Matthew 10:1-4 the order is Apostles is different in the Hebrew edition, and changed to more closely match Luke in the Greek.
Matthew 27:46 in the Greek includes an interpretation of Jesus's statement. The Hebrew does not include that interpretation. It might be interesting to note that the phrase is actually Aramaic, not Hebrew. Except that in the Greek, the transliteration follows Hebrew pronunciation rather than Aramaic pronunciation. This makes sense if the translator from Hebrew to Greek were thinking of Mark 15:34. I've already given some more thoughts on this in the section on translation hiccups.
Matthew 8:32, the Hebrew editions skip over Jesus telling the demons to go. This information is pulled in from the parallel passages in Mark 5:13 and Luke 8:32.
Matthew 3:3 and Mark 1:3 both quote Isaiah 40:3. In the Hebrew, Matthew actually quotes the verse. Interestingly, if this quote had been taken from the Septuagint, we wouldn't be able to tell if the Hebrew or the Greek were original. However, in the Greek, Mark changes "our God" to "him." This obviously doesn't change the meaning of the verse at all. However, since both the Greek edition of Matthew and Mark make the same change, it shows that one of them gets the change from the other. This makes sense under my theory that the translator of Matthew from Hebrew to Greek translated parallel passages to match.
Matthew 9:6 the Hebrew reads תֵּדְעוּ כִי־יֵשׁ בֶּן־אָדָם שֶׁמּוֹשֵׁל בָּאָרֶץ לִסְלוֹחַ חָטָאוֹת. ("There is a Son of Man that is a ruler on Earth to forgive sins.") The Greek of Matthew in this place is identical to the Greek of Luke: ἐξουσίαν ἔχει ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἀφιέναι ἁμαρτίας. ("The Son of Man has power on Earth to forgive sins.")
My whole document on my blog has gotten to over 50k words so I'm obviously not going to replicate that in a comment. I am actively looking for people who disagree to dialog with on this point, though. My hope is to finish getting things together, hire an editor, and start submitting to academic journals in 2025, but finding people to help smooth out the rough spots is a big part of that.
Thanks for your comment! What's the name of your blog? I'd like to check it out. I think it's clear that Matt knew Hebrew, and it's certainly plausible that canonical Matt makes use of Hebrew sources. I'm not sure I follow your argument about early church tradition. How many instances do we have of early Christians commenting on the language in which a text was written? If the data set is minute, then why would we expect an established category? It would also be a very different kind of judgment than pseudepigraphy, so I don't see the relevance of comparing the two.
@@dr.maxbotner There are a bunch of fairly early comments that Matthew wrote in Hebrew. The ones I've collected so far are:
Origin, Commentary on Matthew, Book I: "Concerning the four Gospels which alone are uncontroverted in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the Gospel according to Matthew, who was at one time a publican and afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, was written first; and that he composed it in the Hebrew tongue and published it for the converts from Judaism."
Ireneus, Against Heresies, Book III, chapter 1: "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church."
Eusebius, Church History, Book III, chapter 24, section 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, and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence."
Papias, as recorded by Eusebius, Church History, Book III, chapter 39, section 16: "So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able."
Jerome, Illustrious Men: "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."
Jerome, Preface to the Gospels: "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 Judæa in Hebrew characters. We must confess that as we have it in our language it is marked by discrepancies, and now that the stream is distributed into different channels we must go back to the fountainhead."
Augustine, The Harmony of the Gospels, Book I, Chapter 2: "Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek."
Pseudo-Hippolytus, On the Apostles and Disciples: "And Matthew wrote the Gospel in the Hebrew tongue, and published it at Jerusalem, and fell asleep at Hierees, a town of Parthia."
Many early Peshitta editions of the Gospels include a postscript that have details about the traditional authorship of each Gospel. In the case of Matthew, it says that the version in the Peshitta was translated from a Hebrew original. The postscript reads: "Completion of the Holy Gospel as published by Matthew; and which he published in Hebrew, in the land of the Palestineans."
No one thought that Matthew wrote in Greek before the middle ages. The first person I have been able to track down to cast doubt on a Hebrew original for Matthew was Erasmus. (Though I don't have the specific quote. When I asked for it, I was linked to a Dutch original and I didn't read Dutch. But I trust those that say he questioned it.) He may have picked up the thought from someone else, but if so I don't know who and it can't have been going on for very long.
As to getting to my blog, probably the easiest way is to go to my channel, then go to the description of any video. I replicate most of my blog posts in (really bad) videos. If you go to the reply to the Masoretic Matthew Update notice on March 23, there will be a link directly to the blog post about Matthew in Hebrew in that blog post.
@@ShaunCKennedyAuthor Thanks! And I'm sorry if my response wasn't clear. I'm well aware that the early church thought that Matthew wrote in Greek (though how many of these traditions are independent of each other?), but you were suggesting that we compare this phenomenon to the phenomenon of pseudepigraphy. I don't see how the comparison works.
@@dr.maxbotner I'm sorry I misunderstood. I think I've got to take at least part of the blame there.
One of the things that I like to do when figuring out what ancient authors did is compare like to like. If there are examples of something, then it happened. If there are no examples, then it likely didn't happen. Take as an example the claim that the gospels were not written by the traditional authors. We have other examples where the traditional authors have been shown to be unlikely. Off the top of my head, The Athanasian Creed most likely wasn't written by Athanasius. Why we know that can be put to one side for the purposes of a UA-cam comment, but we can take the principles that help us determine that this is pseudepigrapha and apply them to the gospels and see how they stack up. If the gospels match the principles we apply to other texts, then that's consistent. If they don't, it's special pleading. (I mean, by definition, it's special pleading. But I'll leave it to those that are more interested in that point to decide if there is special pleading.)
We see the same thing when considering whether the gospels are considered historical or fictional. There are no ancient examples of fiction that uses near-contemporary public figures. Ancient fiction always used either fictional pubic figures or public figures from generations before. Similarly, ancient fiction doesn't include accurate technical information. Acts includes accurate technical details about sea travel. The accusation that the author of Acts must have used a travel log to write fiction is special pleading: there are no other examples of that in antiquity. It's just not a thing that was done.
Moving to the issue at hand, there are no instances of the ancients claiming that a document was written in one language, and then modern scholarship determines that they were wrong. The lone exceptions are the Gospel of Matthew and The Gospel According to the Hebrews. And in the case if the Gospel According to the Hebrews, the idea that it was written in Greek is based on the idea that it was so closely tied to the tradition of Matthew.
The ancients were able to detect the original language of documents just as well as we can. Take as an example the Wisdom of Solomon. The ancients were well aware of the fact that it was written in Greek and not by Solomon. Jerome even comments on that in his preface to Solomon's books. The ancients said that the Wisdom of Solomon was written in Greek and modern scholarship agrees.
So when I started looking for other examples of pseudeglossia to determine if the gospels match, I had a bunch to compare too. And to be totally honest, those that consider parts of the Platonic Canon to be pseudepigrapha could apply similar arguments to at least Mark and Matthew. (Luke and John are their own kettle of fish and I haven't gone as deep there yet so it might work there as well, but I'm not going further than the data I've considered so far.)
But when I look for other "pseudeglossia" (to coin a term) to compare to, it's an empty set. That pretty much makes the claim that the ancients were wrong about the language of Matthew special pleading. For every other point, the Hebrew matches or beats the Greek: the Hebrew doesn't read like a translation. The Hebrew has more puns, wordplays, alliteration, and rhyme. The Hebrew only has Greek loanwords where it gets them from Mark (I'm a Markan prioritist.) where are Greek has Semitic loanwords all over. Etc etc etc. So the idea that the ancients got the original language of Matthew wrong looks to me like special pleading.
@@ShaunCKennedyAuthor OK. But I see a few fundamental issues here. First, I don't see any evidence that the tradition about Matt writing in Hebrew is based on the *style* of canonical Matt. Where do we see a church father explain Matt's Greek by an appeal to it being a translation of a Hebrew text? (Also, how does a text in Hebrew make consistent improvements to Mark's Greek?) Papias was merely parroting a tradition that Matt wrote in Hebrew, which may or may not refer to canonical Matt. Second, the data set for witnesses that Matt wrote in Hebrew isn't the number of church fathers who said that he did but the number of *independent* traditions. (If everything goes back to Papias, then we really only have one tradition that Matt wrote in Hebrew.) Third, and as you note, there really aren't good comparanda to the situation with Matt. Your example of Wis is vastly different, and Jerome's point was to delineate Wis as "ecclesiastical" (later deuterocanonical). I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I very much doubt that *canonical* Matt is a translation of a Hebrew text. I still need to check out your website though! :)
Is there any evidence that the Polycarp and Ignatius knew John the Apostle?
According to Bishop Irenaeus, Polycarp and Ignatius knew John the Apostle. Ignatius addressed a letter to him and mentions him in his letters to the Ephesians and to the Magnesians.
See Irenaeus, Haer 3.3.
Can we moot the significance of the historical reliability of the gospels on the grounds that nobody can make the case that anything Jesus said applies to 21st century people? Why should I worry about Jesus' statements about hell and judgment day, when nobody can show those stories were intended for me in the first place?
This is really *the* fundamental hermeneutical question of the Bible, not just the statements of Jesus: not a word in the Bible was written with 21st century people in mind. Does this mean the Bible is insignificant to readers beyond its original intended audiences? Speaking as someone who desires to follow Jesus, I would say, absolutely not! But it does require serious interpretation - as do the texts of any faith tradition, or frankly, any important text of the past. :)
@@dr.maxbotner Alright: then how exactly am I 'unreasonable", here in the 21st century, when I ignore 66 ancient books for which there is not the slightest shred of evidence that anything they had to say, applied to anybody in the 21st century? To this, fundamentalists screech that I know god exists and I just don't wanna believe because I find my sin more fun than obeying god.... but....screeching does not cause the above-stated problem of discernable authorial intention to disappear. I have no more reason to care about Matthew's gospel than I have to care about the Epistle of Barnabas. They are positively certain that I'm unreasonable to ignore the gospel, but they couldn't show it applied to be today if their raptures depended on it.
Mark 70CE, Matthew 85-90CE, Luke 110CE+, John possibly as late as the early 3rd century. Not really within the lifetime of eyewitnesses.
Have you studied this? Luke was written in the 1st century. And John was not as late as 3rd century. We know this because we have physical manuscripts (such as p52) before that.
@@Jolomon Correct! We have manuscript evidence that rules out a date for John past 120-130s (and of course, it was probably earlier). The OP sounds a lot like F. C. Baur, who developed his thesis of the late (3rd. c.) date of John prior to the discovery of P52.
Your dating of Mark and Matthew seem reasonable, and would put these Gospels within the time of eyewitnesses. I'm not sure how you can be so confident that Luke is that late. It could be, but it could also be much earlier. Your dating of John is way too late.
@@dr.maxbotner Luke copies from both Mark and Matthew, a more sensible explanation than the Q hypothesis. He also lifts from both Josephus and Marcion , which pushes authorship back into the 2nd century.
John is the outlier and is more difficult to date. I said possibly as the late as the early third century, but equally possibly mid second century. P52 has been dated 125-175, but that has been questioned by some scholars.
@@neill392Your dating of the gospels is insanely inaccurate, your actually going as far as saying John could date to the 3rd century 🤦♂️ absolutely ridiculous
No, the Matthew, Mark and Luke dare to before 70AD, and John In the 90’s