Talk:Hebrew Gospel of Matthew

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This article was nominated for deletion on 15 April 2006. The result of the discussion was keep (no consensus).

Howard's response to Petersen's review also ought to be taken into consideration. http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol04/Howard1999.html

I added a link to Petersen's review http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol03/Petersen1998a.html the content of which should probably be integrated into the article. Eluchil404 12:12, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I have moved a copy and paste duplication of Talk:Gospel of the Hebrews#Added by MeBee to Talk:Gospel of the Hebrews#Added by MeBee. Clinkophonist 22:48, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the POV and accuracy tags since anything that could be challenged has been removed. Eluchil404 15:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] From Full Article to Stub ?

I've just looked over the edit history of this article and find myself a bit confused. Generally, Wikipedia likes to build up its articles...not wittle them back down to stubs. Clinkophonist's motives here seem POV-ish to me. Is there absolutely nothing interesting to say about the phrase "Hebrew Gospel of Matthew" other than to point to three other articles? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.20.190.160 (talk) 06:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

There were issues of this being a POV fork of Gospel of Matthew and issues dealing with redundancy, because we already have Aramaic primacy. There also was NPOV issues dealing with undue weight given to fringe theories and OR concerns. Also, there was confusion over what the term actually meant, so the article was disjointed. While blanking all the content may not have been the best idea, the article was problematic. Perhaps, we could merge the 3 individual articles on the medieval manuscripts here? Or we should turn this into a disambiguation page if we think we could eventually write full articles on each manuscript. DO you have any specific suggestions? I'd love to hear any other ideas for this article.-Andrew c 14:01, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Heh, heh...I was the one who added "undue weight" to the WP:NPOV policy. I love seeing people cite it. ;-)

[edit] Merge proposal

I propose that we merge the 3 articles about the Hebrew manuscripts here: Shem Tov Matthew, the DuTillet Matthew, and the Munster Matthew. All three are stubs and this article is even moreso a stub. By combining the forces of all 4 of these articles, we could create a more robust single article.-Andrew c 01:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Good set of decisions Andrew. I can imagine expanding and splitting from here, but it will take some time and research. There are some fringe Aramaic primacists, however, there are many mainstream scholars who consider the gospel of Matthew to reflect an earlier, Aramaic (not Hebrew) version. Regarding the NT, Aramaic primacy is fringe, regarding Matthew, it is quite a viable alternative hypothesis, though out of fashion now. Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke by the highly reputable John Wenham is an excellent source on this issue. Alastair Haines 18:31, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead issues

[note: copied from User talk:Andrew c]

There's a bit of a problem with the last sentence of the introduction of Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. Your version of the sentence seems to ignore, or miscategorize, or deny the existence of, these sets of scholars: (a) those who believe that the autograph was in Hebrew, and early Christians translated it into Greek, and Shem-Tov et al. are descendants of that early Greek translation; (b) those who believe that the autograph was in Greek, and early Christians translated it into Hebrew, and Shem-Tov et al. are descendants of that early Hebrew translation; (c) those who believe that the original author wrote in both Greek and Hebrew, and Shem-Tov et al. are descendants of the Greek autograph; et cetera.

My version of the sentence was phrased to account for all those possibilities. It is possible to believe in Greek primacy, and simultaneously believe that Shem-Tov is descended from 2nd-century Hebrew manuscripts. It is also possible to believe in Aramaic/Hebrew primacy, and simultaneously believe that Shem-Tov is descended from 14th-century Latin manuscripts. Can you think of a good way to address this problem? -- 70.171.6.98 14:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the issue is that the lead was drastically changed, yet no sources were provided to support any of the claims. I believe the first major overhaul of the lead was inaccurately representing the scholarly consensus, so I changed it. However, without sources, my view of the scholarly community vs. your view of the scholarly community conflict. What we really need is to have the lead verifiable, and we do that here on wikipedia by citing sources. I'm going to revert to the dumbed down, previous longstanding version of the lead. We can hammer out a proposal and citing sources here on talk. I'll start: There are medieval Hebrew forms of Matt that most scholars think of as retroversions from the Greek of canonical Matt, often made to serve in arguments between Christians and Jews. However, some claim that these texts are a guide to the original Hebrew of Matt (French scholars like J Carmignac and M. Dubarle have contributed to this thesis...) Still other scholars think they can reconstruct the original Hebrew or Aramaic underlying the whole or parts of the Greek text of canonical Matt on the assumption that the original was in Semitic... The vast majority of scholars, however, contend that the Gospel we know as Matt was composed originally in Greek and is not a translation of a Semitic original... Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament p. 210. -Andrew c ^[talk] 15:07, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Andrew. Sorry about the lack of citations. I was going to add them eventually, but was too lazy to do it immediately.

If you think I misrepresented the scholarly consensus, then I think you may have been reading too fast; I didn't say anything at all about the scholarly consensus. I provided a brief explanation of the conclusions of both sides of the controversy, but I didn't say anything about which side is right, or even about which side is in the majority.

If someone wants to add a statement about which side is in the majority, I don't have any objection. I just didn't feel comfortable personally making a statement on behalf of the entire "scholarly community," so instead I simply presented the two sides without any value judgment.

Regarding your suggested introduction: not bad, but I think you are still putting too much focus on the question of Greek primacy, which is adequately covered elsewhere, and which isn't the most interesting question here anyway. The interesting question here, the question which drives the controversy, is this: Are the unique readings in Shem-Tov et al. ancient or medieval? If Shem-Tov was translated from Latin by a 14th-century polemicist, using no source material except a garden-variety medieval Latin vorlage, then the unique readings are surely medieval and we can ignore them, regardless of whether Matthew was originally written in Greek. If Shem-Tov was descended from the Hebrew manuscripts which are mentioned in various Patristic writings, without any intervening act of translation, then some of the unique readings may indeed be ancient, and we need to study them, regardless of whether Matthew was originally written in Greek.

For the record, here is the introduction I added, with citations:

Manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew, written in the Hebrew language, were used by Jewish polemicists during the Middle Ages. The most important are described briefly, below.

Some scholars have argued that these medieval Hebrew manuscripts may have been descended (without any intervening translation) from ancient Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew, which were used by early Christians in the first or second century, but were nearly extinct by the time of Jerome, late in the fourth century (Howard 1995).

Other scholars reject this theory, and argue that the medieval Hebrew manuscripts were instead descended (by translation) from medieval Greek or Latin manuscripts, and therefore that it is extremely unlikely that any of the unique readings found in these medieval Hebrew manuscripts could be ancient (Petersen 1998). These scholars believe that the ancient Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew, if they ever existed, are lost and have no extant untranslated descendants.

==References==

Howard, George (1995), Hebrew Gospel of Matthew (2nd ed.), Macon: Mercer University Press, ISBN 0865544425 

Petersen, William L. (1998), “The Vorlage of Shem-Tob's 'Hebrew Matthew'”, New Testament Studies 44: 490-512, ISSN 0028-6885, OCLC 1713962 

-- 68.101.73.190 10:51, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I don't have time now to fully reply, but I'll say this much now. WP:NPOV does not say we have to give all views equal space. It actually say that we cannot give undue weight to minority views. Brown clearly states that the vast majority of scholars do not believe the autograph of Matthew was written in Hebrew/Aramaic, and I believe we need to make this clear in the lead (which is why I altered your last sentence, which is still the sentence in your proposal I have the most problem with. Is that sentence supported by the Petersen citation as well, or just the preceding content?-Andrew c ^[talk] 14:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Petersen mounts a determined assault against Howard's thesis, attacking it from several angles; but Petersen never even mentions Greek primacy, IIRC. Presumably this is because Petersen understands that the question of Greek primacy would be a "red herring" in the context of this particular controversy. As I explained above, ancient unique readings would make Shem-Tov et al. extremely valuable, with or without Greek primacy. Conversely, the absence of ancient unique readings (leaving only medieval unique readings) would make Shem-Tov et al. very much less valuable, with or without Greek primacy.

I think you must be mis-parsing my last sentence. The sentence does not say, or even imply, that any scholars believe that the autograph was written in Hebrew. Page 210 of Brown does not challenge my last sentence. To mount a successful challenge, you would need to cite an assertion by Fr. Brown that no ancient Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew ever existed, not even as a translation of a Greek original. You won't find such an assertion.

On the other hand... your continued mis-parsing of my last sentence demonstrates that it did not succeed in its intended purpose, which was to clarify the positions of Petersen and others who disagree with Howard. Therefore I now agree with you that the last sentence should be removed, though we disagree about the reason. I will re-insert my introduction, with citations and without the last sentence, in a few days if there aren't any objections here.

-- 70.171.47.195 08:17, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I have adding the bulk of your text (minus the first and last senteces) into a section on "A Hebrew Gospel of Matthew". I do not believe it is appropriate for the lead, because it would set the tone of this article primarily being about these ideas. Instead, this article is primarily about the individual manuscripts, so I felt a section discussing various ideas dealing with all 3 manuscripts was appropriate. I also added a sentence describing Aramaic primacy, and inserted a sentence from Raymond Brown about the scholarly opinion. I however do not have a citation that those who favor Aramaic primacy use these manuscripts to buttress their arguments. I was wondering if you did?-Andrew c ^[talk] 14:17, 16 October 2007 (UTC)