but I think I was wondering about Matthew writing in Hebrew. I clearly see that in all existing documents, he wrote in Aramaic, but I still had that nagging remembrance of hearing, like someone mentioned, that he wrote in Hebrew.
that's still a big negative on both counts. matthew wrote in koine greek, as did every other author of the new testament.
it's
possible that source documents (or possibly an original) in aramaic exists, but i find this idea quite unlikely. there are other gospels that DO exist in aramaic, but to my knowledge there is no known aramaic manuscript of matthew.
Then Brian mentioned Papias, and Papias claimed Matthew wrote in Hebrew.
this is actually more likely than aramaic. let me make an argument based on a number of faulty assumptions for a second. let's assume for a second that the gospel is entirely accurate and unchanged from it's original form (it's not). and let's also assume that the name attached to the gospel is accurate, and refers to
the matthew in the gospel (also unlikely).
supposing these two facts are true... matthew is called "levi" a number of times other gospels, and it's possible he is a levite, the only family of jews at the time that would be in a position to even
know hebrew. although he was a tax-collector and not a pharisee, it's somewhat possible.
but let's look a verse or two, say the last words of jesus.
quote:
Around the ninth hour, Jesus shouted in a loud voice, saying "Eli Eli lema sabachthani?" which is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
now, the statement jesus utters,
— — — ‘, is a transliteration of the aramaic into greek (and into english). he says "elahi, elahi, lamah shabaqt-ani?" which in itself is a reference to the twenty second psalm. but imagine that matthew wrote in aramaic for a second. what's the purpose of the included translation?
the equivalent in aramaic would read:
quote:
"my god, my god, why have you abandoned me?" meaning "my god, my god, why have you abandoned me?"
matthew includes a number of places where jesus speaks in aramaic, and then matthew translates it into some other language (say, greek). NONE of these can possibly make any sense if the language of the text is aramaic. but it
can in hebrew.
in hebrew, that verse of matthew would be the aramaic jesus said, and the hebrew rendering of it, which is
— —, — —‘ with
ezbetani instead of
shabaqtani.
but there are problems with this, of course. for instance, the fact that
anyone who spoke hebrew in that place and time also spoke aramaic. the languages are very, very similar. similar enough that my untrained ear catches about as much of what jesus says in
the passion of the christ as it does a native
hebrew speaker speaking fluently.
hebrew, at that time, was more or less only spoken by the pharisees. matthew is NOT addressed to them. aramaic would get the book to the masses
locally but matthew is aimed at a much larger audience. and even if it's only addressed to jews, there were much more that spoke greek abroad than there that spoke aramaic in judea. it also gets the book to non-jews, and helps save it for posterity in a very hellenized world.
the arguments for greek authorship really are just the most convincing.
I may have phrased my questions wrong; I did think that Hebrew was the older language, but my point was whether or not Papias could have called Aramaic 'Hebrew' as in 'the language of the Hebrews'? I mean, was Aramaic called Aramaic then?
"hebrew" and "the language of the hebrews" could be different things, i'm not sure.
I mean, was Aramaic called Aramaic then?
quote:
Gen 10:22 The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.
aram is a son of shem ("semitic"), according to genesis. this is a neighboring country, just to the south east of judah. the name exists in genesis, so i'm going to wager a guess of "yes." aram's brother, arpakshad, is the father of eber,
‘ as in
‘ or
‘, "hebrew." so we have the name "aram" existing in biblical times, and aram being older than eber according to genesis. but whatever stock into that you will, but the function of genesis is partially to explain the origins of names -- so these names had to exist at the time.
It may seem like a silly question, but I am thinking about a scenerio like with Old Church Slavonic, the language (now dead) used by Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics. This language has progressed into other slavic languages, but at the time when the liturgies of the Orthodox churches were written, I do not think it was called 'Old Church Slavonic'.
aramaic was a foriegn language (but full of cognates, and using the same alef-bet) that slowly infiltrated judea through foreign influence, and became the vernacular dialect after some time. at this point, sometime while the ot was still being written, hebrew essentially became a dead language. some time between 600bc and 200ad (they might have a date, i'm not sure) the original hebrew alef-bet was replaced with one resembling aramaic. our oldest hebrew copy of the complete tanakh (masoretic) is written in the aramaic-influenced script. most of the dss scrolls are in this script too, though some inclusions of ancient hebrew exist. we have some older documents in ancient hebrew.
hebrew, especially ancient/biblical hebrew, was then considered a "holy language" for some time, spoken only by rabbis performing ceremonies. because of this, it stayed dead until about 1940 something, around the time israel became a country. it seemed the perfect language to make the official state language, but even still there were a number of objections based on the dilution of the language through use, and avoiding using holy things.
since 1948 or so, hebrew has continued to evolve, and now incorporates many arabic, aramaic, and even english terms. they have a council that regulates this, but nobody cares. but anyways, hebrew comes from the eberites (hebrews), aramaic from the arameans. two different languages.
Edited by arachnophilia, : typo
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