Endnote 27 – Was The Gospel of Matthew Originally Written In Hebrew?

These include the Book of Nestor Hakomer (perhaps between the sixth and ninth centuries [this is according to Lapide, Hebrew in the Church, p. 23—the text may be found in Judah D. Eisenstein, A Collection of Polemics and Disputations [Israel, 1969], pp. 310–315 [in Hebrew], the editor there dates it in the ninth century, p. 310); the Milhamot Hashem by Jacob ben Reuben (1170) (see Judah Rosenthal, Jacob ben Reuben, Milhamot Hashem [Israel, 1963], p. 8 [in Hebrew]; see also Judah Rosenthal, “Translation of the Gospel according to Matthew by Jacob ben Reuben,“Tarbiz 32 [1962], pp. 48–66 [in Hebrew]); Sepher Joseph Hamekane by Rabbi Joseph ben Nathan Official (13th century) (see Rosenthal, Sepher Joseph Hamekane [Jerusalem, 1970] 17 [in Hebrew]. A manuscript of the Biblioteca Nationale Centrale in Rome [= Ms. Or. #53] includes material quite close to the Paris manuscript of Sepher Joseph Hamekane; see Efraim E. Urbach, “Études sur la littérature polémique au moyenage,” Revue des études juives C (1935), pp 49–77; Rosenthal published the material on the gospels in Ms. Or., Rome, #53 in “Jewish Investigation into the New Testament from the Twelfth Century” [in Hebrew], in Studies in Jewish Bibliography, History and Literature in Honor of I. Edward Kiev, ed. Charles Berlin [New York: KTAV, 1971], pp. 123–139) and the Nizzahon Vetus (latter part of the 13th century; see David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages [philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979], p.33).