Hebrew Gospels

Comment

Comment by Rabbi Gershon Steinberg-Caudill on April 27, 2010 at 10:33am

Eliyahuk, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, in his comment on this week's Torah Parashah EMOR wrote the following: (Leviticus 23: 15-16): u-SeFaRtem / And you shall count for yourselves,

(i.e. making yourself luminous),

[NOTE: The practice of meditating Sefirah combinations as we count the Omer is embedded in the Hebrew word וספרתם which has a double meaning of counting and Sapphire, or luminous.]

from the morrow of the rest day,from the morrow of the rest day,

(i.e. the service that even transcends the Shabbat),

[NOTE: This contradicts what we say during kiddush about Shabbos, i.e., “Ki hu yom t’chilah l-mikraey kodesh,” / i.e., nothing transcends Shabbat, it is the first of all. However, according to the view of the Pharisees, the word השבת in ממחרת השבת refers to the fifteenth of Nisan i.e., Pesach.]

from the day you bring the omer as a wave offering,

(to lift up the cattle food), -

[NOTE: The reference is to offering the barley that was waved each day in Temple times, but in the Hebrew, there is a hint that what is intended is raising of the Nefesh HaBehamit / Animal soul through the meditation on the Sefirot.]

What I want to point out is that the rabbis agree with your view.

Comment by Eliyahuk on April 26, 2010 at 10:46pm

I have had Howard's book for several years now, and my interest has been whether the extant Greek texts have primacy over the Aramaic. My focus has centered on Matthew 28 because of the deliberate mistranslations of the Greek phrase 'mia twn sabbatwn' in virtually all English translations. I personally believe this phrase alludes to the beginning of the Omer count, and not to a 'sunday resurrection'. Unfortunately, the latter part of the Shem Tob has chapter 28 missing, which is most curious to me. It has been my contention for years that the 'seb' roots in the Textus Receptus provide us specific reference to Sabbath, references without which Sabbath is a rather murky topic in the New Testament. The Greek in context shows that the most severe passages of prophetic and apocalyptic warnings contain 'seb' roots in strategic places. Let me provide an example. KJV Rom. 1:18 says: "The Wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness." A translation that restores the full weight of the original intent reads as follows: "For the Wrath of Elohim is revealed from the heavens against all Sabbath-rejecting and false religion of men who suppress the truth in false religion." An investigation into this matter shows that Romans 1:18 thru 2:10 is indeed parallel to II Thess. 2:1-11. This means that we have whole books and chapters of books in the New Testament that specifically deal with the importance of Sabbath in our day. Another key verse would be Jude 1:15, taken from Enoch, which I will discuss at a further time. Sufficing for now, the Greek has specific reference to Sabbath that the Aramaic versions do not contain. As such, if they are translated directly from Hebrew, I happen to believe they are, then the Hebrew should contextually corroborate my contentions that we have whole books writtne about Sabbath in the New Testament (I Tim. and Jude). Due to the fact that Matthew 28 is missing from Shem Tob, and had to be supplied by other sources, my suspicions are piqued about the motive for it being missing. Thank you all for your time.

Comment by Rabbi Gershon Steinberg-Caudill on September 13, 2009 at 1:20pm

If, as I believe, an authentic Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, written by Jewish Christians for a Jewish Christian audience, actually exists, it is impossible to believe that the dominant Christianity through the centuries would not be opposed to it. Consider the degree of opposition that arose among the Christian churches in the early New England states when a young man, Joseph Smith, Jr., took his work of fiction about the Israelite origin of American Indians, the Book of Mormon, and found that he could pass it off as a translation (through the gift of revelation) of an ancient sacred record.

Comment by Rabbi Gershon Steinberg-Caudill on August 10, 2009 at 8:46pm

Where is it possible to obtain either a Hebrew version of Matthew as used by the Ebionites or an English translation of such?

Comment by Ross Nichols on August 9, 2009 at 11:29am

I am on the beach with my iPhone and a stack of articles written by George Howard on the Hebrew Matthew. I plan to write a few articles in the coming weeks based upon this material. My first will be on the missing trinitarian baptismal formula in Shem Tob.

Comment by James Daniel Tabor on August 5, 2009 at 10:46am

One question that many have raised, and it has just come up on the Dialogue list, is the degree to which Shem Tov's version of Hebrew Matthew might correspond to the ancient text of Matthew in Hebrew used by the Ebionites. For example, ST has chapter one of Matthew, which tells of the "virgin birth." All our copies of Shem Tov's Hebrew Matthew do in fact have the first chapter of Matthew with the "virgin birth." However, we are told in several ancient sources that the original copy of Matthew written in Hebrew, used and preserved by the Ebionites up through the 4th century, did not have this chapter. What this indicates is that the version we have via Shem Tov, even though very useful in many ways, is still coming to us in a manuscript from the 14th century and it is not wholly uninfluenced by the Greek.

Comment by David Tyler on July 31, 2009 at 9:47am

I have this book and read it 5 - 6 times. I would like to discuss the obvious lack of "defication" support in this Gospel. Especially the lack of the term "Father, Son and Holy Ghost". Which is a phrase many Christian theologians use to allude to as proof of the "Trinity".

Let us discuss:

1) Is this version "proof" or even "evidence" that the original Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew? Are there other sources or references that support this. (And please no wacked out cult leader stuff. These Charlatan's I dumped many years ago.)

2) Or, did the Jews who used this as a polemic intentionally take out phrases they considered blasphemous?

Interesting thoughts and discussions for those of us who werer "Sheperded" here by a certain Jew named Y'Shua. Please no bashing of a great historical figure. I am NOT a Chirstian, but thorugh Y'shua's writtings came to know YHWH and His Torah. It is safe to say there is a Torah in billions of Christian homes because of this man. You can't argue with that!


DVD

Comment by James Daniel Tabor on July 28, 2009 at 10:08am

I have been intending to get to this Group for some time now as I think a discussion of Hebrew Matthew and its various readings that are different from the Greek Matthew of the common New Testament will be quite fascinating. Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson, in their new book, A Prayer to our Father cover the so-called "Lord's Prayer," quite thoroughly, but there is much much more of interest in this fascinating document. I can point folks to two resources that might whet their interest a bit. First, on my University Web site, that you can easily access via http://jamestabor.com, you will find a document "The Hebrew Gospel of Matthew" that might be worth printing out and studying. The direct link is here: http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/JDTABOR/shemtovweb.html

Secondly, I do refer and use Hebrew Matthew several times in my book, The Jesus Dynasty and particularly in chapter 8 in dealing with John the Baptist.

There are a lot more interesting readings from Hebrew Matthew