Shem Tov Matthew

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The Shem Tov Matthew is a mediaeval manuscript containing a version of the Gospel of Matthew, written in the Hebrew language. The version is preserved within a work named Eben Bohen, which was written by a Jewish physician living in Aragon, Spain, named Shem Tov ben Isaac ben Shaprut Ibn Shaprut, and after whom the manuscript is named. The text of Eben Bohen is preserved in a number of manuscripts, although the manuscript of Matthew that it quotes is lost, if it ever existed independently.

The Shem Tov Matthew is marked by its Jewish thought, and is interspaced with the comments of Shem Tov himself. As a consequence several scholars feel it is difficult to determine which parts are Shem Tov's commentary, and which parts are the actual text of the manuscript he was copying. Many scholars view the text as a mediaeval translation from the Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew, as well as being the likely source of all later Hebrew versions of Matthew prior to the 20th century.

Where one would expect to find the Tetragrammaton in Tanakh quotations, instead one finds a single Hebrew He (ה) except in one place where the word השם (the name) is spelled out.