Was The Gospel of Matthew Originally Written In Hebrew?

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New evidence indicates that the Gospel of Matthew was an original Hebrew composition. Indeed, it is now possible to recover much of this original Hebrew composition from an extant manuscript. But before explaining how this can be done, let me set the stage with a little background. Until now, the four canonical Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—have come down to us only in Greek. The Gospels we use today—in English or in other 016languages—are translations from old Greek manuscripts. By contrast, what Christians call the Old Testament—the Hebrew Bible—was written in Hebrew, with a few short sections in a sister language called Aramaic.

Were the canonical Gospels originally written in Greek? Over the centuries, scholars have argued various positions. Some indeed have suggested that one or more of the Gospels were originally written in Hebrew and then translated into Greek. Others have argued that one or more of the Gospels were written in Aramaic and then translated into Greek. Still others have contended that the Gospels were written in Greek, but that their authors used collections of Aramaic or Hebrew sayings or traditions then extant but now lost. But no original Hebrew or Aramaic manuscripts of the Gospels have ever been recovered.

One early Christian writer named Papias, who lived between about 60 and 130 A.D. in Hierapolis in Asia Minor (he was bishop of Hierapolis), wrote that “Matthew arranged the oracles in the Hebrew language and each interpreted them as best he could.”¹ Many other early Christian writers—like Irenaeus,² Origen,³ Eusebius,⁴ Epiphanius⁵ and Jerome⁶—assert that Matthew wrote in Hebrew.

Whether these ancient authors were referring to Hebrew or Aramaic, however, is not entirely clear. Some scholars have argued that when Papias said “Hebrew” he really meant “Aramaic.”⁷ The difference between Aramaic and Hebrew is not great. The two languages are related to each other roughly like Spanish and French. Both languages share many words, either in an exact or similar form, and have a similar grammar; there are of course many differences as well, both in vocabulary and grammar, as one would expect in different though cognate languages. By the first century A.D. both languages, Hebrew and Aramaic, also used the same script, so that by that time they even looked alike.

The argument that Matthew originally wrote in Aramaic, rather than Hebrew, was made as early as the 16th century.⁸

Support for this position is sometimes sought in the supposed fact that Hebrew was no longer in use as a vernacular in first-century Palestine, but had been replaced by Aramaic. Jesus, it is said, spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew. This is by no means clear, however. In 1954 the Scandinavian Semitist Harris Birkeland published his seminal book entitled The Language of Jesus,⁹ which collected the evidence and reopened the debate as to what language Jesus spoke. A spate of studies soon appeared in which a number of prominent scholars concluded that Jesus indeed spoke Hebrew or that the sayings of Jesus and other traditional materials were preserved in Hebrew and that Hebrew served as a primitive base for the canonical Gospels.¹⁰

One leading specialist, Joseph Fitzmyer of The Catholic University in Washington, D.C., has summarized the situation this way: Aramaic was the most commonly spoken language in first-century Palestine; Greek was a second language to many Palestinian Jews, but “pockets of Palestinian Jews used Hebrew, even though its use was not widespread.”¹¹

But quite apart from whether Hebrew was widely used as a spoken language in first-century Palestine, it seems clear that it was used as a literary medium. The many Hebrew documents among the Dead Sea Scrolls easily provide the evidence. A rabbinic classic known as the Mishnah, compiled about 200 A.D., also shows that Hebrew continued to be used as a literary medium.

Scholars who contend one or more of the canonical Gospels were originally written in Aramaic or were based on collections of sayings or traditions in Aramaic base their arguments on a variety of linguistic clues. For example, in 1905 the famous German scholar Julius Wellhausen (see “Julius Wellhausen,” sidebar to “The Documentary Hypothesis in Trouble,” BR 01:04) argued that some differences between the Gospels were the result of different translations from an Aramaic original. In one instance, where Matthew has “cleanse” (Matthew 23:26) Luke has “give for alms” (Luke 11:41) in a parallel passage. According to Wellhausen these words represent zakkau and dakkau, respectively, in Aramaic. Luke, says Wellhausen, misread zakkau for dakkau in the Aramaic original and thus produced a different translation in Greek.¹²

In 1946 a British scholar named Matthew Black published a book on the Aramaic background to the Gospels and Acts; subsequently this book went through two revisions (1954, 1967).¹³ It is a comprehensive study that analyzes all the various linguistic and textual evidence for Aramaic influence on the Greek text Black concludes that Aramaic sources, especially a collection of sayings, 017lie behind the Gospels.

This is different, however, from saying that the Gospels are translations of Aramaic originals. That contention has been made in a recent study by Frank Zimmermann, reviving an earlier theory of C. C. Torrey¹⁴ that the four canonical Gospels are translations of Aramaic originals.¹⁵ Building on the work of Wellhausen, Torrey, Black and many other scholars, and adding some 200 new examples of his own, Zimmermann concludes his Aramaic hypothesis is irrefutable.

That there is at least a Semitic flavor to the Gospels cannot be doubted. But many scholars trace this not to original Aramaic gospels that were later translated into Greek, or even to Aramaic sources that stand behind the canonical Gospels. They trace it primarily to the Greek that was used by Palestinian (and even Diaspora) Jews at the time. These scholars—men like Henry J. Cadbury,¹⁶ Edgar J. Goodspeed¹⁷ and E. C. Colwell¹⁸—point to the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, which, like the Gospels, is full of Hebrew idiom, or simply to the common Greek used in that day. These scholars thus defend the Greek Gospel as originals, despite the sometimes obvious Semitisms and occasional Semitic sources and translations.

Although the debate has been extended and widespread, no one has ever claimed, however, to have found an original canonical Gospel in either Aramaic or Hebrew. I now make that claim, though with some qualification.

I found it embedded in a 14th-century Hebrew treatise written by a rabbi named Shem-Tob Ben Shaprut, which means “the good name, son of Shaprut.” The treatise is called Even Bohan, “the Touchstone.”

In the medieval period, Christian theologians for some reason needed to prove the superiority of Christianity over Judaism. To do this, they forced rabbis to engage in public debates, which the Christian theologians always won. But the rabbis did not lose willingly or easily. Some vigorously argued the superiority of Judaism. In this context, a vast polemical literature, both Christian and Jewish, was created. The Even Bohan is Shem-Tob’s polemical treatise against Christianity.

Shem-Tob himself was born in Tudela in Castile in the middle of the 14th century. He later settled in Tarazona in Aragon where he practiced medicine. There he completed the Even Bohan about 1380. He revised it several times: in 1385, about 1400 and, even later, by adding to the original 12 books or sections another 5.

In the polemical literature of the period, it is not uncommon to find Hebrew translations of the 019Greek Gospels. The Jewish defenders of their faith would translate the Gospels from Greek (or from a Latin translation of the Greek) to Hebrew so that their co-religionists could understand the arguments and also so that they themselves might have a Gospel text they could work with more easily than the Greek originals.

Shem-Tob’s Even Bohan contains a Hebrew text of the Gospel of Matthew. Until now it was thought that this Hebrew Matthew is a 14th-century Hebrew translation of the Greek, or its Latin version. It is interesting how this came to be accepted. In 1537 and 1555 two Hebrew Matthews were published, one by Sebastian Münster in Basel and the other by Jean du Tillet in Paris. Both reflect to a minor degree the same Hebrew tradition of Matthew preserved in Shem-Tob. In their ancestry, however, wide-scale revision had occurred, designed to make the Hebrew read like the Greek. So extensive was the revision that these texts, as published, basically represent fresh translations from Greek or Latin to Hebrew, not original Hebrew compositions.¹⁹ They are therefore virtually worthless for determining the original language in which the Gospel of Matthew was written. In 1690 Richard Simon—in his Histoire Critique des Versions du Nouveau Testament (Rotterdam: R. Leers, 1690, p. 231)—mistakenly identified the Hebrew Matthew in Shem-Tob’s work with the Hebrew Matthew in Münster and du Tillet. All three were essentially the same, Simon said. If true, Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew would likewise have been worthless for determining the original language of the Gospel of Matthew. For centuries no one bothered to check Simon’s statement—perhaps because it is not easy to do.

Shem-Tob’s Even Bohan has never been published; it exists only in manuscript form. It can be examined only by locating a handwritten copy in a library or museum. Such manuscripts exist primarily in various 15th- to 17th-century rabbinic scripts and are often difficult to decipher. As a result few scholars in modern times have read the Even Bohan and even fewer have sought to determine whether, as Simon wrote in 1690, the Hebrew Matthew contained in it was the same as the Hebrew Matthew published by Münster and du Tillet.

In the course of my own research on the Semitic origins of the Gospels, I came across a reference to a Hebrew Matthew preserved in Shem-Tob’s Even Bohan, and, out of sheer curiosity, I ordered a photostat of a manuscript of it from the British Library in London. To my surprise, I found Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew radically different from the texts of Münster and du Tillet.²⁰ Münster 020and du Tillet might be worthless in determining the original language of Matthew, but this was not necessarily true for Shem-Tob.

When I examined Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew more carefully, I was astounded to discover that its core was an original Hebrew composition, not a translation. Moreover, the kind of Hebrew in which it was written is just what one would expect of a document composed in the first century A.D. and preserved by Jews during the Middle Ages.

I have now made a through and detailed study of this document, which has confirmed my initial findings. This study will soon be published in book form. Only in this way can the scholarly community be satisfied with the correctness of my conclusion. In the meantime I would like to explain to the readers of Bible Review the kind of evidence that supports my conclusion.

The conclusion that Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew is an original Hebrew composition is based in large part on the fact that many literary elements of the composition “work” in Hebrew, but not in Greek or Latin. These elements include puns, word-connections and alliterations. Let me give just a small sampling from a very large collection.

Puns

Consider first some of the puns in Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew: In Matthew 7:6 the Shem-Tob text reads: “Do not place your pearls before swine lest they chew them before you and turn to rend you.” The word used for “swine” is hazir and for “turn,” yahzeru. Both come from the Hebrew root h-z-r. The pun is lost in the Greek language.

In Matthew 10:36 the Shem-Tob text reads: “The enemies will be loved ones.” The word for “enemies” is haoyevim; for “loved ones,” ahuvim.

In Matthew 18:27, the Shem-Tob text reads: “Then his master had pity on him and forgave him everything.” The word for “had pity” is hamal; for “forgave,” mahal.

These puns are completely lost in Greek and could never work there.

A famous pun does occur in the Greek Matthew at 16:18: “You are Peter (petros) and on this rock (petra) I will build my church.” Because of the petros/petra wordplay, some have argued that this saying originated in Greek and goes back to the Greek-speaking segment of the Church rather than to Jesus.²¹ In Shem-Tob’s Matthew, however, there is a totally different pun—one that works in Hebrew but not in Greek. The Hebrew text reads: “You are a stone (even) and, upon you I will build (evneh) my house of prayer.”

Word-Connections

In addition to puns, the Hebrew text of Shem-Tob’s Matthew is replete with Hebrew word-connections that intensify the text. Many of these are not reflected in the Greek text at all. They consist of words that are the same or of similar appearance and either give structure to individual sayings and episodes or tie together different sayings and episodes. Here are some examples taken from Shem-Tob’s Hebrew text:

Matthew 5:9–10

9 “Blessed are those who pursue peace for they shall be called the sons of God.”

10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“To pursue” is radaph in Hebrew; “to persecute” is the same word.

Matthew 8:28, 31

28 “There met him two demon-possessed men.”

31 “Then the demons entreated him.”

“Met” is paga in Hebrew; “entreated” is the same word.

Matthew 10:36, 37, 39

36 “The enemies will be loved ones.”

37 “He who loves his father and mother more than me ….”

38 [lacking in Shem-Tob.]

39 “He who loves his life will lose it.”

“Loved ones” comes from ahav in Hebrew; “to love” comes from the same word.

Matthew 14:35, 36

35 “They brought to him all those who were sick ….”

36 “They implored him ….”

“Sick” comes from halah; “implored” comes from hilah.

Matthew 26:28, 34–36

28 “This is my blood of the new covenant which was poured out for many for the atonement of sins.”

34 “Jesus said: ‘Truly I say to you, this night before the cock-crow you will deny me three times.’ ”

35 “Peter said to him: ‘If it is possible for me to die with you, I will not deny you …. ’ ”

36 “Then Jesus came with them to the village of Geshemonim and said: ‘Sit now until I go there and pray.’ ”

“Atonement” is kaparah; “deny” is kaphar, and “village” is kephar.

Alliterations

In addition to puns and word-connections, Shem-Tob’s Hebrew text of Matthew has many other words that are similar in appearance, rhyme, or are otherwise alliterative. Here is a sampling:

Matthew 4:12

“It came to pass in those days Jesus heard that John had been delivered up (nimsar) into prison (bemaasar).”

Matthew 4:21

“He turned from there and saw two other brothers (ahim aherim).”

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Matthew 9:8

“The crowds saw (vayiru) and feared (vayiru).”

Matthew 18:9

“If your eye causes you to stumble (takhshileha) … cast (tashlikheha) it from you.”

There is another reason to believe the oldest layer of the Hebrew Matthew in Shem-Tob is an original composition, not a translation. Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew contains a number of variances from the Greek text that have theological implications. These variances would never have been introduced by a medieval Jewish translator, especially someone who was engaged in polemical disputation with Christians, because they either portray Christianity more, not less, attractively or fail to enhance the Jewish polemic against Christianity. Instead, these variances appear to belong to a more primitive form of the Matthean tradition than the Greek Matthew. This is a powerful argument that Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew is not a late medieval product.

I have said these theological variances in Hebrew appear to belong to a more primitive form of the Matthew tradition—one that antedates the tradition preserved in the Greek Matthew. We know that during the early Christian centuries the disparity between Judaism and Christianity gradually increased. But the theological variances in Shem-Tob’s Hebrew text often reflect less disparity between the two religions than does the Greek text.

Jesus and the Law

For example, let’s look at Jesus’ attitude toward the law, a subject treated in Matthew 5. In Matthew 5:17–19 we read Jesus’ famous statement about the perdurability of the law:

“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

In Matthew 5:21–48 the so-called antitheses follow. Each antithesis (except the last one) first quotes from the law and then gives Jesus’ extension or comment on the law. The form is basically the same in each antithesis: “You have heard that it was said …. But I say to you ….” The subjects are killing, adultery, divorce, false swearing, the lex talionis (an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth) and hating your enemies.

In the Greek text of Matthew, Jesus’ comment on some of the antitheses—like killing and adultery—seems to radicalize and internalize the law without, however, revoking it. In other antitheses—divorce and false swearing—Jesus’ comment seems to revoke and annul the letter of the law. At least this is true in the Greek Matthew.

But in Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew that is not the case with respect to divorce and false swearing. Instead, in these instances, Jesus’ comment on the antitheses suggests he is radicalizing and internalizing the law but not revoking it. It may well be that the Greek Matthew represents a later corrective to the more ancient statements in the Hebrew, made only after the disparity between Church and Synagogue grew.

Compare the Greek Matthew and Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew on divorce and false swearing:

The differences between the Greek and the Hebrew are striking. In the Greek Jesus seems to revoke the law. In the Hebrew, he internalizes and radicalizes it, but does not revoke it.

John the Baptist

Another difference between the Greek and Hebrew Matthew is in the character of John the Baptist. We know from extra-biblical sources there was a John the Baptist sect that existed from early times and continued perhaps for centuries.²² In Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew John the Baptist emerges as a much more important figure than in the Greek Matthew. The Greek Matthew may well represent a later corrective to the more primitive statements made about John the Baptist in the Hebrew Matthew before the followers of John the Baptist were seen as a threat to trunkline Christianity.

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Look at some of the differences between the Hebrew and Greek texts in the portrayal of John the Baptist.

In Matthew 21:32 Jesus speaks some harsh words to those who failed to heed the warnings of John the Baptist: “For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the harlots believed him; and even when you saw it, you did not afterward repent and believe him.” In the Greek Matthew these harsh words are said to the chief priests and the elders of the people (verse 23), but in Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew these harsh words spoken to Jesus’ own disciples (verse 28) and the following comment, omitted from the Greek text is added, “He who has ears to hear let him hear in disgrace.”

This series of readings can hardly be taken lightly. They point to an ancient tradition in which John the Baptist was even more important than the portrayal of him given in the Greek text of Matthew.

Divine name of God

Another characteristic of Shem-Tob’s Matthew indicates it is not a translation, but an original Hebrew composition. This is its use of the divine name. In Hebrew the ineffable, unpronounceable name of the Israelite God is written with four Hebrew consonants, YHWH, known as the tetragrammaton. Modern scholars pronounce and write it Yahweh. In ancient times it was pronounced only once a year—on the Day of Atonement—by the high priest in the Holy of Holies in Temple.

In prayer, ancient Jews—and modern ones well—read (or pronounced) these four consonants adonai; that is, even though the text contains the letters YHWH, the reader reads adonai. Adonai is a more generic word for lord.

In Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew a common abbreviation for the divine name of the Israelite God YHWH appears some 15 times. The abbreviation is H (yyh) which stands for ha-shem, “the name,” a circumlocution for the tetragrammaton.

If this were a Hebrew translation of a Greek Christian document, we would surely expect to find adonai in the text, not an abbreviation for the ineffable divine name YHWH. For Shem-Tob the Gospel of Matthew was an object of attack, a heretical writing that needed to be exposed for fallacies. For him to have added the ineffable name would be inexplicable. The repeated appearance of an abbreviation for the divine name strongly suggests that Shem-Tob received his Matthew with the divine name already in the text; he probably preserved it rather than run the risk of being guilty of removing it.²³

I do not mean to suggest that the Hebrew in Shem-Tob’s text is pure first-century A.D. Hebrew, for it clearly is not. The first-century text must be linguistically excavated, so to speak. Shem-Tob’s Matthew is written in biblical Hebrew with a healthy mixture of mishnaic Hebrew and later rabbinic vocabulary and idiom. It also reflects changes by medieval Jewish scribes who, among other things, attempted to make it read more like the Greek.

Moreover, the most primitive layer of Shem-Tob’s Matthew is written in an unpolished style and is filled with ungrammatical constructions and Aramaicized forms and idioms. In these characteristics it resembles many of the Dead Sea Scroll fragments and gives the appearance of belonging to the same time frame. Reading Shem-Tob’s Matthew is often like reading one of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Hebrew style

Despite the numerous medieval revisions, Shem-Tob’s Matthew basically consists of the kind biblical and mishnaic Hebrew that one would expect to find in a first-century document.

The linguistic layers in Shem-Tob’s Matthew are similar to those found in another medieval text for which an earlier first-century B.C. manuscript was subsequently found. In the late 19th century, fragments of a Hebrew text were discovered that a Cambridge University scholar named Solomon Schechter identified as coming from the Book of Ben Sira, a Jewish writing of the second century B.C. Also known as Ecclesiasticus, the Book of Ben Sira is considered part of the Bible by Catholics, but as an apocryphal writing by Protestants and Jews. These fragments were traced to the genizah^a of an old Cairo synagogue and were 024dated to sometime before the 12th century A.D. Until the discovery of these Hebrew fragments, however, Ben Sira had been known primarily in its Greek form, just as was true of the Gospel of Matthew until my examination of Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew.

When the Hebrew fragments of Ben Sira were found in 1896, some scholars contended they represented a medieval Hebrew translation from the Greek. Others, using the kind of analysis I have used here, argued that they reflected an original Hebrew composition. Then in 1964 Yigael Yadin, excavating at Masada, unearthed fragments of Ben Sira in Hebrew from the first century B.C., which clearly demonstrated that the medieval copies were descended from an original Hebrew composition.²⁴ This was true even though there were clear differences between the first-century B.C. fragments from Masada and the medieval fragments that came from the Cairo Genizah. On the original biblical and mishnaic Hebrew base medieval scribes had made numerous changes to bring the text into a more contemporary form in regard to spelling, vocabulary and other linguistic phenomena.²⁵

The same thing happened in the case of the Hebrew Matthew preserved in the Shem-Tob manuscript. Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew does not preserve the original Hebrew in a pure form. It was edited and emended by Jewish scribes in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, enough of the original text is left intact to reveal its original character. Even though it often reflects a later style, it is clear that its base is biblical and mishnaic Hebrew.

Comparison to other Hebrew quotations

I have also compared Shem-Tob’s Matthew with Hebrew quotations from Matthew preserved in earlier Christian and Jewish documents. In the work of Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius and especially Jerome we find a number of quotations from the so-called Hebrew/Aramaic Matthew and from apocryphal Hebrew/Aramaic gospels. A comparison of these texts with Shem-Tob’s Matthew shows little or no relationship between them. But the situation was quite different when I compared Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew with quotations from or allusions to Matthew in a series of early Jewish writings beginning with the Talmud²⁶ and extending through the late 13th century A.D.²⁷ This comparison revealed a number of unique textual links between Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew and the Hebrew Matthew preserved or alluded to in these Jewish sources. The conclusion seems inescapable that the Hebrew Matthew preserved by Shem-Tob was known to Jews and perhaps Jewish Christians in the early medieval period, but not to gentile Christians.

When I arranged the Hebrew quotations of Matthew from early Jewish writings in chronological sequence, it became clear that a gradual evolution in the Hebrew tradition had taken place beginning with the earliest quotations, and continuing through Shem-Tob’s Matthew. The evolution involves two kinds of changes: (1) stylistic modifications consisting primarily of improvements in grammar and the substitution of synonymous words and phrases, and (2) revisions designed to bring the Hebrew into closer harmony with the Greek. Perhaps these latter revisions were for the purpose of establishing a common textual base for discussion and debate between Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages.

Once the course of this textual development is understood, the task of the linguistic excavator is to recapture as much of the unrevised text as possible. Those Hebrew readings that are furthest from the Greek Matthew and least polished stylistically are considered as belonging to the oldest form of the text. Those that are closest to the Greek and are in polished style, especially when these elements reflect a later rabbinic hand, are rejected as later revisions. The task is aided by the fact that we have numerous manuscripts of Shem-Tob’s text that themselves contain variations.

Although stylistic and literary criticism is more easily said than done, by exercising caution we are able to get a fair picture of the original Hebrew text of Matthew preserved by Shem-Tob.

The final question we must ask is whether the Greek Matthew is a translation from the Hebrew. This does not appear to be the case. Although the Greek and the Hebrew are accounts of the same events, basically in the same order, careful analysis of their lexical and grammatical features—and their lack of correspondence—indicates the Greek is not a translation. All efforts to prove that the Greek Matthew is a translation (and that the other canonical Gospels are as well) have utterly failed to convince. Although the canonical Gospels reflect a Semitic background, they are nonetheless Greek compositions, not translations.

It appears that both the Hebrew and the Greek Matthew represent compositions in their own original language. The two texts appear to be two editions in different languages of the same traditional material; neither is a translation of the other.

The existence of two basically identical compositions in different languages is not a unique occurrence. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus tells us that his Jewish War was first written in Aramaic or Hebrew and then translated into Greek.²⁸ An examination of the Greek text, however, reveals that Josephus did not actually 025translate the Semitic original in a literal sense but basically rewrote the whole account.²⁹ The Aramaic/Hebrew apparently served only as a model for the Greek versions to follow. The same thing appears to have occurred with regard to the Gospel of Matthew.

The similarities in arrangement and wording of the Hebrew and Greek texts of Matthew clearly suggest that one text served as a model for the other. Which came first, however, we do not know. But whether Greek or Hebrew, the second was written as an original composition, not as a translation.

New evidence indicates that the Gospel of Matthew was an original Hebrew composition. Indeed, it is now possible to recover much of this original Hebrew composition from an extant manuscript. But before explaining how this can be done, let me set the stage with a little background. Until now, the four canonical Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—have come down to us only in Greek. The Gospels we use today—in English or in other 016languages—are translations from old Greek manuscripts. By contrast, what Christians call the Old Testament—the Hebrew Bible—was written in Hebrew, with a few short sections in a […]