Rabbinical translations of Matthew

Contents

1 Rabbinical translations of Matthew 11.1 Rabbinical Jewish versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1.1 Early Rabbinical citations of Matthew, 600-1300 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.2 Shem Tov’s Matthew, 1385 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.1.3 Sebastian Münster’s Matthew, 1537 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.4 Jean du Tillet’s Matthew, 1555 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.5 Rahabi Ezekiel’s Matthew, 1750 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.6 Elias Soloweyczyk’s Matthew, 1869 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.2 Christian Hebrew versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3 Shem Tov’s Touchstone in Christian Aramaic primacy debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.5 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Gospel of Matthew 52.1 Composition and setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.1.2 Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.1.3 Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.1.4 Setting and date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.2 Structure and content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.2.1 Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.2.2 Prologue: genealogy, nativity and infancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.2.3 First narrative and discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.2.4 Second narrative and discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.2.5 Third narrative and discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.2.6 Fourth narrative and discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.2.7 Fifth narrative and discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.2.8 Conclusion: Passion, Resurrection and Great Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.3 Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.3.1 Christology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.3.2 Relationship with the Jews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.4 Comparison with other writings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.4.1 Christological Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

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2.4.2 Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.5 In art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.6 See also . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.7 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.9 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2.9.1 Commentaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112.9.2 General works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2.10 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3 Gospel of the Nazarenes 143.1 Collation into Gospel of the Nazarenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.1.1 Text editions of Gospel of the Nazarenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143.1.2 The name Gospel of the Nazarenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.2 Background - Nazarenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143.3 Primary sources - Patristic testimony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153.4 Scholarly positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.4.1 GN dependent on Canonical Matthew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153.4.2 Matthew dependent on Gospel of Nazarenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153.4.3 Time and place of authorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.5 The extant reconstructed text of Gospel of the Nazarenes and variances with Canonical Matthew . . 163.6 See also . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.7 Primary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.9 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

4 Aramaic New Testament 204.1 Aramaic original New Testament hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204.2 Church of the East doctrine concerning the Peshitta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204.3 Other “Peshitta original” advocates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4.3.1 “Aramaic primacy” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214.4 Brief history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214.5 Methods of argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214.6 Aramaic phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

4.6.1 Perceived logical improbabilities in Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224.6.2 Polysemy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234.6.3 Puns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234.6.4 Absence or presence of Aramaic quotations and translations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

4.7 Internal disagreements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244.7.1 Advocates of the primacy of the Peshitta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244.7.2 Peshitta-critical approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244.7.3 Aramaic source criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

CONTENTS iii

4.8 Majority view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244.8.1 Response to Papias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254.8.2 Response to specific verses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254.8.3 Multiple versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

4.9 Footnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264.10 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274.11 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

5 Gospel of the Ebionites 285.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285.2 Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295.3 Christology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305.4 Vegetarianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315.5 Relationship to other texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315.6 Inferences about the Ebionites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325.7 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325.8 Citations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375.9 Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385.10 Further reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395.11 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

6 Gospel of the Hebrews 416.1 Origin and characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416.2 Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426.3 Christology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436.4 Reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436.5 Relationship to other texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446.6 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446.7 Citations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476.8 Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476.9 Further reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486.10 External links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

7 Jewish-Christian gospels 497.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

7.1.1 The Gospel of the Ebionites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497.1.2 The Gospel of the Hebrews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497.1.3 The Gospel of the Nazarenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

7.2 History of scholarship in the Jewish–Christian gospel problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507.3 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507.4 Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507.5 Further reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

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7.6 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527.6.1 Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527.6.2 Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537.6.3 Content license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Chapter 1

Rabbinical translations of Matthew

The Rabbinical translations of Matthew are rabbini-cal versions of the Gospel of Matthew that are written inHebrew; Shem-Tob’s Matthew, theDu Tillet Matthew, andthe Münster Matthew, and which were used in polemicaldebate with Catholics.These versions are to be distinguished from the GospelAccording to the Hebrews which was one or more worksfound in the Early Church, but surviving only as fragmen-tary quotations in Greek and Latin texts.Most scholars consider all the rabbinical versions to betranslated from the Greek or Latin of the canonicalMatthew, for the purpose of Jewish apologetics.[1]

1.1 Rabbinical Jewish versions

1.1.1 Early Rabbinical citations ofMatthew, 600-1300

Quotations from Hebrew translations of portions of vari-ous New Testament books - including the epistles of Paul- can be found in rabbinical treatises against Catholicism.These treatises multiplied wherever Jews lived in proxim-ity to Christians - such as Spain before the expulsion ofthe Jews from Spain in 1492.

• Sefer Nestor ha-Komer; “The Book of Nestor thePriest”, 7th century. Contains significant quotesfrom Matthew, apparently from a Latin text.[2]

• Toledot Yeshu; “Life of Jesus”, 7th century.• Milhamoth ha-Shem; “Wars of the Lord” of Ja-cob Ben Reuben 12th century, which cites texts in-cluding Matthew 1:1-16, 3:13-17, 4:1-11, 5:33-40,11:25-27, 12:1-8, 26:36-39, 28:16-20.

• Sefer Nizzahon Yashan; “The Book of Victory” (inLatin Nizzahon vetus), 13th century.

• Sefer Joseph Hamekane; “Book of Joseph the Of-ficial” of rabbi Joseph ben Nathan, 13th century(Paris MS).

Jean Carmignac (Paris 1969, BNES 1978) identified fiftyHebrew translations of the Lord’s Prayer from the 9th to

the 18th centuries.[3][4][5] Most scholars consider that themedieval Hebrew manuscripts are derived by translationfrommedieval Greek or Latin manuscripts, and thereforethat it is extremely unlikely that any of the unique read-ings found in these medieval Hebrew manuscripts couldbe ancient.[6]

Four principal versions in rabbinical Hebrew of Matthewhave survived or partially survived:

1.1.2 Shem Tov’sMatthew, 1385

The Shem Tov Matthew (or Shem Tob’s Matthew)consists of a complete text of Gospel of Matthew in theHebrew language found interspersed among anti-Catholiccommentary in the 12th volume of a polemical trea-tise The Touchstone (c.1380-85) by Shem Tov ben Isaacben Shaprut (Ibn Shaprut), a Jewish physician living inAragon, after whom the version is named. Shem Tov de-bated Cardinal Pedro de Luna (later Antipope BenedictXIII) on original sin and redemption in Pamplona, De-cember 26, 1375, in the presence of bishops and learnedtheologians. Nine manuscripts of The Touchstone sur-vive, though if an independent version of the text ofMatthew used by Ibn Shaprut ever existed then it is lost.Spanish Jews of Ibn Shaprut’s period were familiar withthe New Testament in Latin. Jacob Ben Reuben in hisWars of the LORD translated Gilbert Crispin's Dispu-tation of Jews and Christians from Latin into Hebrew,along with quotes from Matthew. Lasker (1998) re-marks that “By the fourteenth century, most likely ev-ery Iberian anti-Christian Jewish polemicist knew Latin.”Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas made proficient use ofLatin phrases. Profiat Duran (fl.1380-1420) had exten-sive knowledge of Latin Christian texts, and devoted achapter of his Disgrace of the Gentiles (Klimat ha-goyim)to criticism of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. Hayyim ben Ju-dah ibn Musa argued with Nicholas de Lyra in his Bookof Shield and Spear (Sefer magen va-romah).[7] Like-wise converts to Christianity such as Abner of Burgos(Alphonso of Valladolid, ca. 1270-1347) continued towrite polemical, theological, philosophical, and scientificworks in Hebrew.Shem Tov’s The Touchstone (Eben = stone, bohan = test)

1

2 CHAPTER 1. RABBINICAL TRANSLATIONS OF MATTHEW

has never been translated into English or published. Itfollows the model of Milhamoth ha-Shem of Jacob BenReuben in use of Matthew but contains not just sectionsof Matthew as Jacob Ben Reuben, but the whole text ofMatthew and parts of Mark. George Howard excised thetext of Matthew from among Shem Tov’s comments andpublished them separately as The Gospel of Matthew ac-cording to a primitive Hebrew text (1987), a revised ver-sion Hebrew Gospel of Matthew (1995).[8]

Shem Tov’s quotations of Matthew in The Touchstone aremarked by Jewish thought, and are interspaced with thecomments of the author. As a consequence several schol-ars feel it is difficult to determine which parts are ShemTov’s commentary, and which parts are the actual text ofthe source he was quoting. Many scholars view the text asa mediaeval translation from the Greek text of the Gospelof Matthew, as well as being the likely source of all laterHebrew versions of Matthew prior to the 20th century.Where the Tetragrammaton occurs in Tanakh quota-tions, instead one finds a single Hebrew He (ה) exceptin one place where the word “ha-shem” ,השם) the name)is spelled out. There are some interesting readings ofMatthew in The Touchstone.[9]

• Matt 12:37 “According to your words you will bejudged, and according to your deeds you will be con-victed.”

• Matt 24:40-41 “40 Then if there shall be two plough-ing in a field, one righteous and the other evil, theone will be taken and the other left. 41 Two womenwill be grinding at a mill; one will be taken and theother left. This is because the angels at the end ofthe world will remove the stumbling blocks from theworld and will separate the good from the evil.”

• Matt 28:9 “As they were going Jesus passed beforethem saying: 'May the Name deliver you.'"

• Matt 28:19-20 “Go and teach them to carry out allthe things which I have commanded you forever.”

• Mark 9:20-28 is placed into the text of Matthewbetween Matt 17:17 and 17:19. Matt 17:18 isomitted.[10]

While the quotations in Shem Tov’s The Touchstone,which are interspersed in his own commentary, divergefrom the canonical text of Matthew, the text of theMün-ster Matthew and the Du Tillet Matthew are significantlyvery close to it in many passages.

1.1.3 Sebastian Münster’sMatthew, 1537

TheMünster Matthew is printed version of the Gospelof Matthew, written in the Hebrew language published bySebastian Münster in 1537 and dedicated to King HenryVIII of England. He had received the text from Spanish

Jews he had converted to Christianity in the 1530s. Ap-parently, these Jews had been using the text to understandthe Christian religion in order to counter it. Münster feltthat the text was defective, and set about reworking it.The original manuscript he received no longer exists; onlyhis printed reworking of it survives, and it closely resem-bles the Du Tillet Matthew. Because the places whereMünster changed the text is unknown, this text can bedifficult to use for textual criticism.

1.1.4 Jean du Tillet’sMatthew, 1555

The Du Tillet Matthew is a version of the Gospel ofMatthew, written in Hebrew, known as Heb.MSS.132,and residing in the National Library, Paris. Themanuscript was obtained by Bishop Jean du Tillet fromItalian Jews on a visit to Rome in 1553, and published in1555, with editing by Jean Mercier (Hebraist) and addi-tion of a Latin version, dedicated to cardinal Charles deGuise.While the text is less divergent from the Greek textualtradition than is the Shem Tov Matthew, this version sharesome deviations in common with the Shem Tov Matthew;for example, the Tetragrammaton is replaced with a signcomposed of three yodhs or dots enclosed in a semicircle.Jean Cinqarbres (Quinquarboreus), Hebrew professor ofthe College Royal also worked on the Du Tillet Matthew.

1.1.5 Rahabi Ezekiel’sMatthew, 1750

Rabbi Rahabi Ezekiel'sHa-sepher shel we-'angilu shel ha-Nosarim shel Yeshu [The book of the Gospel belongingto the followers of Jesus] is a polemical translation ofMatthew dating from 1750.[11] This may or may not bethe same as the polemical rabbinical Hebrew New Tes-tament of Rabbi Ezekiel bought by Claudius Buchananin Cochin and known as the “Travancore Hebrew NewTestament”, which led Buchanan to urge Joseph Frey tocommence work on a Christian translation.[12]

1.1.6 Elias Soloweyczyk’sMatthew, 1869

Main article: Elias Soloweyczyk

1.2 Christian Hebrew versions

Around half of the 20 known Christian translationsof Matthew were also done by authors who wereformerly rabbis, or came from a rabbinical training:Domenico Gerosolimitano and Giovanni Battista Jona,Rudolph Bernhard, Johan Kemper, Simon Rosenbaum(of Uppsala),[13] Christian David Ginsburg and IsaacSalkinson.[14] However the principal modern Hebrew

1.4. NOTES 3

version of Matthew is based on the New Testament ofa German, Franz Delitzsch.

1.3 Shem Tov’s Touchstone inChristian Aramaic primacydebate

Main article: Aramaic primacy

The hypotheses of Hebrew and Aramaic primacy positthat the Gospel of Matthew was originally written inHebrew or Aramaic. Scholars who support these hy-potheses sometimes appeal to these 3 medieval Hebrewmanuscripts. However, the vast majority of scholars be-lieve Matthew was originally written in Greek.[15]

George Howard, Associate Professor of Religion and He-brew at the University of Georgia has argued (1995)that some or all of these three medieval Hebrew versionsmay have descended (without any intervening translation)from ancient Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew, whichmay have been used by early Christians in the 1st or 2ndcentury, but were nearly extinct by the time of Jerome,late in the 4th century.[16]

However the surviving citations from Jewish-ChristianGospels (namely Gospel of the Nazarenes, Gospel of theEbionites and Gospel of the Hebrews) preserved in thewritings of Jerome, Epiphanius and others, lead criticalscholars to conclude that those Gospels themselves eitherwere Greek or were translated from Greek Matthew.[17]In fact, most scholars consider that the medieval Hebrewmanuscripts were descended (by translation) from me-dieval Greek or Latin manuscripts, and therefore that it isextremely unlikely that any of the unique readings foundin these medieval Hebrew manuscripts could be ancient.[18]

Horbury (1999)[19] notes that the characteristics of ibnShaprut’sTouchstone are better explained by the influenceof Latin Gospel harmonies.

1.4 Notes[1] Brown

[2] Horbury, W. Appendix in Matthew 19-28 ed. WilliamDavid Davies, Dale C. Allison

[3] “Hebrew Translations of the Lord’s Prayer: An HistoricalSurvey. BNES 1978

[4] Jakob Josef Petuchowski, Michael Brocke The Lord’sPrayer and Jewish liturgy 1978

[5] Evans Jesus and His Contemporaries: Comparative Stud-ies 2001 p294 “Carmignac (“Hebrew Translations,” 21-49) provides fifty Hebrew translations of the Lord’s prayer

ranging from the ninth to the eighteenth centuries, as wellas many more from the nineteenth and twentieth cen-turies.”

[6] Petersen 1998

[7] Daniel J. Lasker in In Iberia and beyond: Hispanic Jewsbetween cultures ed. Bernard Dov Cooperman 1998 p176

[8] William Horbury Appendix pp729 in A Critical and Ex-egetical Commentary on the Gospel According to SaintMatthew ed. . D. Davies, William David Davies, DaleC. Allison

[9] Some Observations on a Recent Edition of and Introduc-tion to Shem-Tob’s “Hebrew Matthew”

[10] http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol03/Petersen1998a.htmlSome Observations on a Recent Edition of and Introduc-tion to Shem-Tob’s “Hebrew Matthew”

[11] Pinchas Lapide Hebrew in the church: the foundations ofJewish-Christian dialogue 1984

[12] Shalom Goldman God’s sacred tongue: Hebrew & theAmerican imagination p108 2004 “In Travancore he pur-chased a large collection of Hebrew manuscripts that in-cluded both a chronicle of the Jews of Cochin and a He-brew New Testament. Buchanan identified the translatorof the New Testament as one Rabbi Ezekiel,”

[13] Biblical and Near Eastern studies: essays in honor ofWilliam Sanford La Sor, Gary A. Tuttle - 1978 “1727Simon Rosenbaum: Uppsala, O. Hebr. 31, p. 7ro Thistranslation of the New Testament up to Gal 2:15 is infact anonymous, but has been attributed to Simon Rosen-baum, the successor of Johan Kemper, by Hans JoachimSchoeps”

[14] Jean Carmignac, “Hebrew Translations of the Lord’sPrayer: A Historical Survey,” in Biblical and Near Easternstudies: essays in honor of William Sanford LaSor (GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 1979), pp. 18."My list of transla-tors (or editors) is as follows: Shem Tob ben Shafrut,Sebastian Munster, Jean Cinqarbres, Jean du Tillet,Marco Marini(?), Elias Hutter, Domenico Gerosolimi-tano, Georg Mayr [Bavarian Jesuit 1564-1623], GiovanniBattista Jona, William Robertson (Hebraist), RudolphBernhard, Johannes Kemper, Simon Rosenbaum, EzekielRahabi, Richard Caddick, Thomas Yeates (orientalist),The London Society for Promoting Christianity amongstthe Jews, William Greenfield, Robert Young (Bibli-cal scholar), Elias Soloweyczyk, Franz Delitzsch, IsaacSalkinson and J. M. Paul Bauchet.”

[15] Brown 1997, p. 210 “There are medieval Hebrew formsof Matt that most scholars think of as retroversions fromthe Greek of canonical Matt, often made to serve in ar-guments between Christians and Jews. However, someclaim that these texts are a guide to the original He-brew of Matt (French scholars like J. Carmignac and M.Dubarle have contributed to this thesis...) Still other schol-ars think they can reconstruct the original Hebrew or Ara-maic underlying the whole or parts of the Greek text ofcanonical Matt on the assumption that the original was in

4 CHAPTER 1. RABBINICAL TRANSLATIONS OF MATTHEW

Semitic... The vast majority of scholars, however, con-tend that the Gospel we know as Matt was composed orig-inally in Greek and is not a translation of a Semitic orig-inal... Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the NewTestament”

[16] Howard 1995

[17] Philipp Vielhauer section in NTA1

[18] Petersen 1998

[19] Horbury W. Hebrew study from Ezra to Ben-Yehuda 1999p129 “These features are probably to be explained, how-ever, not, as Howard thinks, from the influence of a gospelin Hebrew current among the early Christians, but ratherfrom the encounter of Jews over the years with variousforms of gospel text in other languages;"

1.5 References• Brown, Raymond E. (1997), An Introduction to the

New Testament, Anchor Bible, ISBN 0-385-24767-2

• Howard, George (1995),Hebrew Gospel of Matthew(2nd ed.), Macon: Mercer University Press, ISBN0-86554-442-5

• Petersen, William L. (1998), “The Vor-lage of Shem-Tob’s 'Hebrew Matthew'",New Testament Studies 44: 490–512,doi:10.1017/S0028688500016696, OCLC1713962

Chapter 2

Gospel of Matthew

For the film, see The Gospel According to St. Matthew(film).

TheGospel According toMatthew (Greek: κατὰΜατ-θαῖον εὐαγγέλιον, kata Matthaion euangelion, τὸ εὐαγ-γέλιον κατὰ Ματθαῖον, to euangelion kata Matthaion)(Gospel of Matthew or simply Matthew) is one of thefour canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels,and the first book of the New Testament. The narra-tive tells how the Messiah, Jesus, rejected by Israel, fi-nally sends the disciples to preach his Gospel to the wholeworld.[1]

Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was com-posed between 80 and 90;[2] a pre-70 date remains aminority view.[3] The anonymous author was probably ahighly educated Jew, intimately familiar with the techni-cal aspects of Jewish law, and the disciple Matthew wasprobably honored within his circle.[4] According to themajority of modern scholars, the author drew on threemain sources to compose his gospel: the Gospel of Mark;the hypothetical collection of sayings known as the Qsource; andmaterial unique to his own community, called“Special Matthew”, or the M source.[5]

2.1 Composition and setting

2.1.1 Background

Autographs do not survive for ancient books such as theGospel of Matthew and the other Gospels. They sur-vive in scribal copies propagated over time. In the pro-cess of recopying, variations slipped in, different regionalmanuscript traditions emerged with multiple streamsof transmission, and corrections and adjustments weremade, for theological reasons or to iron out incongruen-cies between copies or different translations into numer-ous languages. The editions of biblical and other ancienttexts we read today are established by collating all ma-jor surviving manuscripts, using also the evidence fromcitations of them in Patristic writers, in order to pro-duce a version which, by the consensus of scholars oftextual criticism, most likely approximates to the form of

The Evangelist Matthew Inspired by an Angel (Rembrandt)

the lost autographs.[6] In the case of the New Testament,the oldest exemplars of relatively complete manuscriptsare the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus. Mostscholars agree, following what is known as the “Marcanhypothesis”,[7] that the authors ofMatthew and Luke usedMark as a source when writing their gospels after theGospel of Mark was completed (written 60-75 CE).[8]

2.1.2 Author

The Gospel of Matthew is anonymous: the author is notnamed within the text, and the superscription “accord-ing to Matthew” was added some time in the secondcentury.[9][10] The tradition that the author was the disci-pleMatthew begins with the early Christian bishop Papiasof Hierapolis (c.100-140 CE), who is cited by the Churchhistorian Eusebius (260-340 CE), as follows: “Matthewcollected the oracles (logia: sayings of or about Jesus) in

5

6 CHAPTER 2. GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

the Hebrew language ( Hebraïdi dialektōi), and each oneinterpreted (hērmēneusen - perhaps “translated”) them asbest he could.”[11][Notes 1] On the surface, this has beentaken to imply that Matthew’s Gospel itself was writ-ten in Hebrew or Aramaic by the apostle Matthew andlater translated into Greek, but nowhere does the au-thor claim to have been an eyewitness to events, andMatthew’s Greek “reveals none of the telltale marks ofa translation.”[12][9] Scholars have put forward severaltheories to explain Papias: perhaps Matthew wrote twogospels, one, now lost, in Hebrew, the other our Greekversion; or perhaps the logia was a collection of sayingsrather than the gospel; or by dialektōi Papias may havemeant that Matthew wrote in the Jewish style rather thanin the Hebrew language.[11] The consensus is that Papiasdoes not describe the Gospel of Matthew as we know it,and it is generally accepted that Matthew was written inGreek, not Aramaic or Hebrew.[13]

2.1.3 Sources

Relationships between theSynoptic Gospels

Unique to Mark

Mark andMatthew

Mark andLuke

Unique toLuke

DoubleTradition

Unique toMatthew

TripleTradition

35% 23%

41%1% 45%

25% 20%10%

76%

18%

3%

MARK

MATT.LUKE

3%

Matthew’s sources include the Gospel of Mark, the “shared tra-dition” called Q, and material unique to Matthew, called M.

The majority view of modern scholars is that Mark wasthe first gospel to be composed and that Matthew (whoincludes some 600 of Mark’s 661 verses) and Luke bothdrew upon it as a major source for their works.[14][15] Ifso, the author of Matthew did not, however, simply copyMark, but edited his source freely, emphasizing Jesus’place in the Jewish tradition and adding large blocks ofteaching.[16] An additional 220 (approximately) verses,shared byMatthew and Luke but not found inMark, forma second source, a hypothetical collection of sayings to

which scholars give the name “Quelle” (“source” in theGerman language), or the Q source.[17] This view, knownas the Two-source hypothesis (Mark and Q), allows for afurther body of tradition known as “Special Matthew”, orthe M source, meaning material unique to Matthew; thismay represent a separate source, or it may come from theauthor’s church, or he may have composed these verseshimself.[15] The author also had at his disposal the Jew-ish scriptures, both as book-scrolls (Greek translations ofIsaiah, the Psalms etc.) and in the form of “testimonycollections” (collections of excerpts), and, finally, the oraltraditions of his community.[18] These sources were pre-dominantly in Greek;[19] although a few scholars hold thatsome of these source documents may have been Greektranslations of older Hebrew or Aramaic sources.[20][21]

2.1.4 Setting and date

The majority view among scholars is that Matthew wasa product of the last quarter of the 1st century.[22][Notes 2]This makes it a work of the second generation of Chris-tians, for whom the defining event was the destructionof Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in 70 CEin the course of the First Jewish–Roman War (66-73CE); from this point on, what had begun with Jesus ofNazareth as a Jewish messianic movement became an in-creasingly Gentile phenomenon evolving in time into aseparate religion[23] Historically, the dating of Matthewwas less clear,[24] and even some modern scholars haveproposed that Matthew was written earlier.[25][26]

The Christian community to which Matthew belonged,like many 1st century Christians, were still part ofthe larger Jewish community: hence the designationJewish-Christian to describe them.[27] The relationship ofMatthew to this wider world of Judaism remains a subjectof study and contention, the principal question being towhat extent, if any, Matthew’s community had cut itselfoff from its Jewish roots.[28] Certainly there was conflictbetween Matthew’s group and other Jewish groups, andit is generally agreed that the root of the conflict was theMatthew community’s belief in Jesus as the messiah andauthoritative interpreter of the law, as one risen from thedead and uniquely endowed with divine authority.[29]

The author of Matthew wrote for a community of Greek-speaking Jewish Christians located probably in Syria (An-tioch, the largest city in Roman Syria and the third-largestin the empire, is often mentioned).[30] Unlike Mark, henever bothers to explain Jewish customs; unlike Luke,who traces Jesus’ ancestry back to Adam, father of thehuman race, he traces it only to Abraham, father of theJews; of his three presumed sources only “M”, the ma-terial from his own community, refers to a “church” (ec-clesia), an organised group with rules for keeping order;and the content of “M” suggests that this community wasstrict in keeping the Jewish law, holding that theymust ex-ceed the scribes and the Pharisees in “righteousness” (ad-herence to Jewish law).[31] Writing from within a Jewish-

2.2. STRUCTURE AND CONTENT 7

Christian community growing increasingly distant fromother Jews and becoming increasingly Gentile in its mem-bership and outlook, Matthew put down in his gospel hisvision “of an assembly or church in which both Jew andGentile would flourish together.”[32]

2.2 Structure and content

Beginning of the Gospel of Matthew in Minuscule 447

2.2.1 Structure

Matthew, alone among the gospels, alternates five blocksof narrative with five of discourse, marking each off withthe phrase “When Jesus had finished...”[33] (see Five Dis-courses of Matthew). Some scholars see in this a delib-erate plan to create a parallel to the first five books of theOld Testament; others see a three-part structure basedaround the idea of Jesus as Messiah; or a set of weeklyreadings spread out over the year; or no plan at all.[34]Davies and Allison, in their widely used commentary,draw attention to the use of “triads” (the gospel groupsthings in threes),[35] and R. T. France, in another influen-tial commentary, notes the geographic movement fromGalilee to Jerusalem and back, with the post-resurrectionappearances in Galilee as the culmination of the wholestory.[36]

2.2.2 Prologue: genealogy, nativity and in-fancy

Main articles: Genealogy of Jesus and Nativity of Jesus

The Gospel ofMatthew begins with the words “The Bookof Genealogy [in Greek, “Genesis"] of Jesus Christ”, de-liberately echoing the words of Genesis 2:4 in the OldTestament in Greek.[Notes 3] The genealogy tells of Jesus’descent from Abraham and King David and the mirac-ulous events surrounding his virgin birth,[Notes 4] and theinfancy narrative tells of the massacre of the innocents,the flight into Egypt, and eventual journey to Nazareth.

2.2.3 First narrative and discourse

Main articles: Baptism of Jesus and Sermon on theMount

The first narrative section begins. John baptizes Jesus,and the Holy Spirit descends upon him. Jesus praysand meditates in the wilderness for forty days, and istempted by Satan. His early ministry by word and deedin Galilee meets with much success, and leads to the Ser-mon on theMount, the first of the discourses. The sermonpresents the ethics of the kingdom of God, introduced bythe Beatitudes (“Blessed are...”). It concludes with a re-minder that the response to the kingdom will have eter-nal consequences, and the crowd’s amazed response leadsinto the next narrative block.[37]

2.2.4 Second narrative and discourse

From the authoritative words of Jesus the gospel turns tothree sets of three miracles interwoven with two sets oftwo discipleship stories (the second narrative), followedby a discourse on mission and suffering.[38] Jesus com-missions the Twelve Disciples and sends them to preachto the Jews, perform miracles, and prophesy the immi-nent coming of the Kingdom, commanding them to travellightly, without staff or sandals.[39]

2.2.5 Third narrative and discourse

Opposition to Jesus comes to a head with accusations thathis deeds are done through the power of Satan; Jesusin turn accuses his opponents of blaspheming the HolySpirit. The discourse is a set of parables emphasising thesovereignty of God, and concluding with a challenge tothe disciples to understand the teachings as scribes of thekingdom of heaven.[40] (Matthew avoids using the holyword God in the expression “Kingdom of God"; insteadhe prefers the term “Kingdom of Heaven”, reflecting theJewish tradition of not speaking the name of God).[41]

8 CHAPTER 2. GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

2.2.6 Fourth narrative and discourse

Main article: Confession of Peter

The fourth narrative section reveals that the increas-ing opposition to Jesus will result in his crucifixion inJerusalem, and that his disciples must therefore pre-pare for his absence.[42] The instructions for the post-crucifixion church emphasize responsibility and humil-ity. (This section contains Matthew 16:13–19, in whichSimon, newly renamed Peter, (πέτρος, petros, meaning“stone”), calls Jesus “the Christ, the son of the livingGod”, and Jesus states that on this “bedrock” (πέτρα, pe-tra) he will build his church—the passage forms the foun-dation for the papacy's claim of authority).

2.2.7 Fifth narrative and discourse

Main article: Second Coming

Jesus travels toward Jerusalem, and the opposition inten-sifies: he is tested by Pharisees as soon as he begins tomove towards the city, and when he arrives he is soonin conflict with the Temple and other religious leaders.The disciples ask about the future, and in his final dis-course (the Olivet Discourse) Jesus speaks of the com-ing end.[43]There will be false Messiahs, earthquakes, andpersecutions, the sun, moon, and stars will fail, but “thisgeneration” will not pass away before all the propheciesare fulfilled.[39] The disciples must steel themselves forministry to all the nations. At the end of the discourseMatthew notes that Jesus has finished all his words, andattention turns to the crucifixion.[43]

2.2.8 Conclusion: Passion, Resurrectionand Great Commission

The events of Jesus’ last week occupy a third of the con-tent of all four gospels.[44] Jesus enters Jerusalem in tri-umph and drives the money changers from the temple,holds a last supper, prays to be spared the coming agony(but concludes “if this cup may not pass away from me,except I drink it, thy will be done”), and is betrayed. Heis tried by the Jewish leaders (the Sanhedrin) and beforePontius Pilate, and Pilate washes his hands to indicate thathe does not assume responsibility. Jesus is crucified asking of the Jews, mocked by all. On his death there is anearthquake, the veil of the Temple is rent, and saints risefrom their tombs. Mary Magdalene and another Marydiscover the empty tomb, guarded by an angel, and Je-sus himself tells them to tell the disciples to meet him inGalilee.After the resurrection the remaining disciples return toGalilee, “to the mountain that Jesus had appointed,”where he comes to them and tells them that he has been

given “all authority in heaven and on Earth.” He gives theGreat Commission: “Therefore go and make disciples ofall the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Fatherand of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them toobey everything that I have commanded you;" Jesus willbe with them “to the very end of the age.”[45]

2.3 Theology

Woodcut from Anton Koberger's Bible (Nuremberg, 1483): Theangelically inspired Saint Matthewmusters the Old Testament fig-ures, led by Abraham and David

2.3.1 Christology

Christology is the theological doctrine of Christ, “theaffirmations and definitions of Christ’s humanity anddeity”.[46] There is a variety of Christologies in the NewTestament, albeit with a single centre - Jesus is the figurein whom God has acted for mankind’s salvation.[47]

Matthew has taken over his key Christological texts fromMark, but sometimes he has changed the stories he foundinMark, giving evidence of his own concerns.[48] The titleSon of David identifies Jesus as the healing and miracle-working Messiah of Israel (it is used exclusively in rela-tion to miracles), and the Jewish messiah is sent to Israelalone.[49] As Son ofMan hewill return to judge the world,a fact his disciples recognise but of which his enemies areunaware.[50] As Son of God he is named Immanuel (Godwith us) (Matthew 1:23), God revealing himself throughhis son, and Jesus proving his sonship through his obedi-ence and example.[51]

2.3.2 Relationship with the Jews

Matthew’s prime concern was that the Jewish traditionshould not be lost in a church increasingly becominggentile.[52] This concern lies behind the frequent citationsof Jewish scripture, the evocation of Jesus as the newMoses along with other events from Jewish history, andthe concern to present Jesus as fulfilling, not destroying,

2.5. IN ART 9

the Law.[53] According to Dale Allison, Matthew, unlikePaul and like Luke, believed that the Law was still inforce, which meant that Jews within the church had tokeep it.[54]

The gospel has been interpreted as reflecting the strug-gles and conflicts between the evangelist’s community andthe other Jews, particularly with its sharp criticism of thescribes and Pharisees.[55] Prior to the Crucifixion the Jewsare called Israelites, the honorific title of God’s chosenpeople; after it, they are called "Ioudaioi", Jews, a signthat through their rejection of the Christ the "Kingdomof Heaven" has been taken away from them and given in-stead to the church.[56]

2.4 Comparison with other writ-ings

2.4.1 Christological Development

The divine nature of Jesus was a major issue for the com-munity of Matthew, the crucial element marking themoff from their Jewish neighbors. Early understandings ofthis nature grew as the gospels were being written. Be-fore the gospels, that understanding was focused on therevelation of Jesus as God in his resurrection, but thegospels reflect a broadened focus extended backwards intime.[57] The gospel of Mark recounts prior revelationsin Jesus’ lifetime on earth, at his baptism and transfigu-ration. Matthew and Luke go back further still, showingJesus as the Son of God from his birth. Matthew mostof all the gospels identifies how his coming to earth wasthe fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies. Fi-nally John calls God the Word (Jesus) pre-existent beforecreation, and thus before all time.Matthew is a creative reinterpretation of Mark,[58] stress-ing Jesus’ teachings as much as his acts,[59] and makingsubtle changes in order to stress his divine nature –Mark’s“young man” who appears at Jesus’ tomb, for example,becomes a radiant angel in Matthew.[60] The miracle sto-ries in Mark do not demonstrate the divinity of Jesus, butrather confirm his status as an emissary of God (whichwas Mark’s understanding of the Messiah).[61]

2.4.2 Chronology

There is a broad disagreement over chronology betweenMatthew, Mark and Luke on one hand and John on theother: all four agree that Jesus’ public ministry began withan encounter with John the Baptist, but Matthew, Markand Luke follow this with an account of teaching and heal-ing in Galilee, then a trip to Jerusalem where there isan incident in the Temple, climaxing with the crucifix-ion on the day of the Passover holiday. John, by contrast,puts the Temple incident very early in Jesus’ ministry, has

several trips to Jerusalem, and puts the crucifixion im-mediately before the Passover holiday, on the day whenthe lambs for the Passover meal were being sacrificed inTemple.[62]

2.5 In art

The Chi Rho monogram from the Book of Kells is the most lavishsuch monogram

In Insular Gospel Books (copies of the Gospels producedin Ireland and Britain under Celtic Christianity), the firstverse of Matthew’s genealogy of Christ was often treatedin a decorative manner, as it began not only a new bookof the Bible, but was the first verse in the Gospels.

2.6 See also• Authorship of the Bible

• Godspell

• Gospel

• Gospel harmony

• Gospel of the Ebionites

• Gospel of the Hebrews

• Gospel of the Nazoraeans

• Great Commission

10 CHAPTER 2. GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

• Hebrew Gospel hypothesis

• The Visual Bible: Matthew

• Il vangelo secondo Matteo, a film by Pier Paolo Pa-solini

• Immanuel

• Jewish-Christian Gospels

• List of Gospels

• List of omitted Bible verses

• Live by the sword, die by the sword

• Matthew 16:2b–3

• Olivet discourse

• Papyrus 64

• Sermon on the Mount

• Joseph Smith—Matthew

• St Matthew Passion – an oratorio by J. S. Bach

• Synoptic gospels

• Textual variants in the Gospel of Matthew

• Woes of the Pharisees

2.7 Notes[1] Eusebius, “History of the Church” 3.39.14-17, c. 325

CE, Greek text 16: "ταῦτα μὲν οὖν ἱστόρηται τῷΠαπίᾳ περὶ τοῦ Μάρκου· περὶ δὲ τοῦ Ματθαῖου ταῦτ’εἴρηται· Ματθαῖος μὲν οὖν Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ τὰλόγια συνετάξατο, ἡρμήνευσεν δ’ αὐτὰ ὡς ἧν δυνατὸςἕκαστος. Various English translations published, stan-dard reference translation by Philip Schaff at CCEL:"[C]oncerning Matthew he [Papias] writes as follows:'So then(963) Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrewlanguage, and every one interpreted them as he wasable.'(964)" Online version includes footnotes 963 and964 by Schaff.Irenaeus of Lyons (died c. 202 CE) makes a similarcomment, possibly also drawing on Papias, in his AgainstHeresies, Book III, Chapter 1, “Matthew also issued awritten Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect”(see Dwight Jeffrey Bingham (1998), Irenaeus’ Use ofMatthew’s Gospel in Adversus Haereses, Peeters, p. 64 ff).

[2] This view is based on three arguments: (a) the setting re-flects the final separation of Church and Synagogue, about85 CE; (b) it reflects the capture of Rome and destructionof the Temple by the Romas in 70 CE; (c) it uses Mark,usually dated around 70 CE, as a source. (See R.T France(2007), “The Gospel of Matthew”, p. 18.) France himselfis not convinced by the majority – see his Commentary,pages 18-19.

[3] France, p. 26 note 1, and p. 28: “The first two words ofMatthew’s gospel are literally “book of genesis”.

[4] France, p. 28 note 7: “All MSS and versions agree inmaking it explicit that Joseph was not Jesus’ father, withthe one exception of sys, which reads “Joseph, to whomwas betrothed Mary the virgin, begot Jesus.”

2.8 References[1] Luz 2005, p. 249-250.

[2] Duling 2010, p. 298-299.

[3] France 2007, p. 19.

[4] Duling 2010, p. 298-299, 302.

[5] Burkett 2002, p. 175.

[6] Daniel B. Wallace (ed.) Revisiting the Corruption of theNew Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Ev-idence, Kregel Academic, 2011, passim.

[7] Stoldt, Hans-Herbert, History and Criticism of the MarcanHypothesis, Hardcover, 302 pages, Mercer Univ Pr; FirstEdition edition (October 1980), ISBN 978-0865540026

[8] Mark D. Roberts, Investigating the Reliability ofMatthew, Crossway Publisher, 2007, p58.

[9] Harrington 1991, p. 8.

[10] Nolland 2005, p. 16.

[11] Turner 2008, p. 15-16.

[12] Hagner 1986, p. 281.

[13] Ehrman 1999, p. 43.

[14] Turner 2008, p. 6-7.

[15] Senior 1996, p. 22.

[16] Harrington 1991, p. 5-6.

[17] McMahon 2008, p. 57.

[18] Beaton 2005, p. 116.

[19] Nolland 2005, p. 3.

[20] Casey 2010, pp. 87–8.

[21] Davies & Allison 1988, pp. 12–3.

[22] Davies & Allison 2004, p. 128].

[23] Scholtz 2009, p. 34-35.

[24] John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark, and Luke,(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1991) p116.

[25] Bernard Orchard and Harold Riley, The Order of the Syn-optics: Why Three Synoptic Gospels? (Macon: MercerUniversity Press, 1987), p275

[26] R.T France (2007), “The Gospel of Matthew”, p. 18.)

2.9. BIBLIOGRAPHY 11

[27] Saldarini 1994, p. 4.

[28] Senior 2001, p. 7-8,72.

[29] Senior 2001, p. 11.

[30] Nolland 2005, p. 18.

[31] Burkett 2002, p. 180-181.

[32] Senior 2001, p. 19.

[33] Turner 2008, p. 9.

[34] Davies & Allison 1988, p. 59-61.

[35] Davies & Allison 1988, p. 62ff.

[36] France 2007, p. 2ff.

[37] Turner 2008, p. 101.

[38] Turner 2008, p. 226.

[39] Harris 1985.

[40] Turner 2008, p. 285.

[41] Browning 2004, p. 248.

[42] Turner 2008, p. 265.

[43] Turner 2008, p. 445.

[44] Turner 2008, p. 613.

[45] Turner 2008, p. 687-688.

[46] Levison & Pope-Levison 2009, p. 167.

[47] Fuller 2001, p. 68-69.

[48] Tuckett 2001, p. 119.

[49] Luz 1995, p. 86,111.

[50] Luz 1995, p. 91,97.

[51] Luz 1995, p. 93.

[52] Davies & Allison 1997, p. 722.

[53] Senior 2001, p. 17-18.

[54] Allison 2004, p. xxvi.

[55] Burkett 2002, p. 182.

[56] Strecker 2000, pp. 369–370.

[57] Peppard 2011, p. 133.

[58] Beaton 2005, p. 117.

[59] Morris 1987, p. 114.

[60] Beaton 2005, p. 123.

[61] Aune 1987, p. 59.

[62] Levine 2001, p. 373.

2.9 Bibliography

2.9.1 Commentaries

• Allison, D.C. (2004). Matthew: A Shorter Commen-tary. T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-567-08249-7.

• Davies, W.D.; Allison, D.C. (2004). Matthew 1–7.T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-567-08355-5.

• Davies, W.D.; Allison, D.C. (1991). Matthew 8–18.T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-567-08365-4.

• Davies, W.D.; Allison, D.C. (1997). Matthew 19–28. T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-567-08375-3.

• Duling, Dennis C. (2010). “The Gospel ofMatthew”. In Aune, David E. The Blackwell Com-panion to the New Testament. Wiley-Blackwell. pp.296–318. ISBN 978-1-4051-0825-6.

• France, R.T (2007). The Gospel of Matthew. Eerd-mans. ISBN 978-0-8028-2501-8.

• Harrington, Daniel J. (1991). The Gospel ofMatthew. Liturgical Press. ISBN 9780814658031

• Keener, Craig S. (1999). A commentary on theGospel of Matthew. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-3821-6.

• Luz, Ulrich (1992). Matthew 1–7: a commentary.Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-9600-9.

• Luz, Ulrich (2001). Matthew 8–20: a commentary.Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-6034-5.

• Luz, Ulrich (2005). Matthew 21–28: a commentary.Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-3770-5.

• Morris, Leon (1992). The Gospel according toMatthew. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-85111-338-8.

• Nolland, John (2005). The Gospel of Matthew: ACommentary on the Greek Text. Eerdmans. ISBN0802823890.

• Turner, David L. (2008). Matthew. Baker. ISBN978-0-8010-2684-3.

2.9.2 General works

• Aune, David E. (ed.) (2001). The Gospel ofMatthew in current study. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-4673-0.

• Aune, David E. (1987). The New Testament in itsliterary environment. Westminster John Knox Press.ISBN 978-0-664-25018-8.

• Beaton, Richard C. (2005). “HowMatthewWrites”.In Bockmuehl, Markus; Hagner, Donald A. TheWritten Gospel. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-521-83285-4.

12 CHAPTER 2. GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

• Browning, W.R.F (2004). Oxford Dictionary of theBible. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-860890-5.

• Burkett, Delbert (2002). An introduction to the NewTestament and the origins of Christianity. Cam-bridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00720-7.

• Casey, Maurice (2010). Jesus of Nazareth: An Inde-pendent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teach-ing. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-567-64517-3.

• Clarke, Howard W. (2003). The Gospel of Matthewand Its Readers. Indiana University Press. ISBN978-0-253-34235-5.

• Cross, Frank L.; Livingstone, Elizabeth A., eds.(2005) [1997]. “Matthew, Gospel acc. to St.”. TheOxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3 ed.).Oxford University Press. p. 1064. ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3.

• Dunn, James D.G. (2003). Jesus Remembered.Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-3931-2.

• Ehrman, Bart D. (1999). Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophetof the New Millennium. Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-512474-3.

• Ehrman, Bart D. (2012). Did Jesus Exist?: TheHistorical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. Harper-Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8.

• Fuller, Reginald H. (2001). “Biblical Theology”. InMetzger, Bruce M.; Coogan, Michael D. The Ox-ford Guide to Ideas & Issues of the Bible. OxfordUniversity Press.

• Hagner, D.A. (1986). “Matthew, Gospel Accordingto”. In Bromiley, Geoffrey W. International Stan-dard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. 3: K-P.Wm. B. Eerd-mans. pp. 280–8. ISBN 978-0-8028-8163-2.

• Harris, Stephen L. (1985). Understanding the Bible.Palo Alto: Mayfield.

• Kowalczyk, A. (2008). The influence of typologyand texts of the Old Testament on the redaction ofMatthew’s Gospel. Bernardinum. ISBN 978-83-7380-625-2.

• Kupp, David D. (1996). Matthew’s Emmanuel: Di-vine Presence and God’s People in the First Gospel.Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57007-7.

• Levine, Michael D. (2001). “Visions of kingdoms:From Pompey to the first Jewish revolt”. In Coogan.The Oxford History of the Biblical World. OxfordUniversity Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513937-2.

• Levison, J.; Pope-Levison, P. (2009). “Christol-ogy”. In Dyrness, William A.; Veli-Matti. GlobalDictionary of Theology. InterVarsity Press.

• Luz, Ulrich (2005). Studies in Matthew. Eerdmans.ISBN 978-0-8028-3964-0.

• Luz, Ulrich (1995). The Theology of the Gospel ofMatthew. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-43576-5.

• McMahon, Christopher (2008). “Introduction tothe Gospels and Acts of the Apostles”. In Ruff,Jerry. Understanding the Bible: A Guide to Readingthe Scriptures. Cambridge University Press.

• Morris, Leon (1986). New Testament Theology.Zondervan. ISBN 978-0-310-45571-4.

• Peppard, Michael (2011). The Son of God in the Ro-manWorld: Divine Sonship in Its Social and PoliticalContext. Oxford University Press.

• Perkins, Pheme (1998-07-28). “The SynopticGospels and the Acts of the Apostles: Telling theChristian Story”. The Cambridge Companion to Bib-lical Interpretation. ISBN 0521485932., in Kee,Howard Clark, ed. (1997). The Cambridge com-panion to the bible: part 3. Cambridge UniversityPress. ISBN 978-0-521-48593-7.

• Saldarini, Anthony (2003). “Matthew”. Eerdmanscommentary on the Bible. ISBN 0802837115., inDunn, James D.G.; Rogerson, JohnWilliam (2003).Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible. Eerdmans.ISBN 978-0-8028-3711-0.

• Saldarini, Anthony (1994). Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community. University of Chicago Press.ISBN 978-0-226-73421-7.

• Sanford, Christopher B. (2005). Matthew: ChristianRabbi. Author House.

• Scholtz, Donald (2009). Jesus in the Gospels andActs: Introducing the New Testament. Saint Mary’sPress.

• Senior, Donald (2001). “Directions in MattheanStudies”. The Gospel of Matthew in CurrentStudy: Studies in Memory of William G. Thompson,S.J. ISBN 0802846734., in Aune, David E. (ed.)(2001). The Gospel of Matthew in current study.Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-4673-0.

• Senior, Donald (1996). What are they saying aboutMatthew?. PaulistPress. ISBN 978-0-8091-3624-7.

• Stanton, Graham (1993). A gospel for a new people:studies in Matthew. Westminster John Knox Press.ISBN 978-0-664-25499-5.

• Strecker, Georg (2000) [1996]. Theology of the NewTestament. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-0-664-22336-6.

2.10. EXTERNAL LINKS 13

• Tuckett, Christopher Mark (2001). Christology andthe New Testament: Jesus and His Earliest Followers.Westminster John Knox Press.

• Van de Sandt, H.W.M. (2005). "Introduc-tion". Matthew and the Didache: Two Docu-ments from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu ?.ISBN 9023240774., in Van de Sandt, H.W.M, ed.(2005). Matthew and the Didache. Royal Van Gor-cum&Fortress Press. ISBN 978-90-232-4077-8.

• Weren, Wim (2005). “The History and Social Set-ting of the Matthean Community”. Matthew and theDidache: Two Documents from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu ?. ISBN 9023240774., in Van deSandt, H.W.M, ed. (2005). Matthew and the Di-dache. Royal Van Gorcum&Fortress Press. ISBN978-90-232-4077-8.

2.10 External links• A list of online translations of the Gospel ofMatthew: Matthew 1–28

• Biblegateway.com (opens at Matt.1:1, NIV)

• A textual commentary on the Gospel of MatthewDetailed text-critical discussion of the 300 most im-portant variants of the Greek text (PDF, 438 pages).

• Early Christian Writings Gospel of Matthew: intro-ductions and e-texts.

• Matthew – King James Version

Chapter 3

Gospel of the Nazarenes

The Gospel of the Nazarenes (also Nazareans,Nazaraeans, Nazoreans, or Nazoraeans) is the tradi-tional but hypothetical name given by some scholarsto distinguish some of the references to, or citationsof, non-canonical Jewish-Christian Gospels extant inpatristic writings from other citations believed to derivefrom different Gospels.

3.1 Collation into Gospel of theNazarenes

Most scholars in the 20th century identified the Gospel ofthe Nazarenes as distinct from the Gospel of the Hebrewsand Gospel of the Ebionites.[1]

3.1.1 Text editions of Gospel of theNazarenes

The current standard critical edition of the text is foundin Schneemelcher's New Testament Apocrypha, where 36verses, GN 1 toGN 36, are collated.[2] GN1 toGN23 aremainly from Jerome, GN 24 to GN 36 are from medievalsources. This classification is now traditional[3] ThoughCraig A. Evans (2005) suggests that “If we have little con-fidence in the traditional identification of the three Jewishgospels (Nazarenes, Ebionites, and Hebrews), then per-haps we should work with the sources we have: (1) theJewish gospel known to Origen, (2) the Jewish gospelknown to Epiphanius, and (3) the Jewish gospel knownto Jerome.[4]

3.1.2 The name Gospel of the Nazarenes

The name Gospel of the Nazarenes was first used inLatin by Paschasius Radbertus (790-865), and aroundthe same time by Haimo, though it is a natural pro-gression from what Jerome writes.[5] The descriptions“evangelium Nazarenorum”, dative and ablative in evan-gelio Nazarenorum”, etc. become commonplace in laterdiscussion.[6]

The hypothetical name refers to a possible identificationwith the Nazarene community of Roman period Pales-tine.[7] It is a hypothetical gospel, which may or may notbe the same as, or derived from, the Gospel of the He-brews or the canonical Gospel of Matthew.[8][9] The ti-tle, Gospel of the Nazarenes, is a neologism as it was notmentioned in the Catalogues of the Early Church nor byany of the Church Fathers.[10] Today, all that remains ofits original text are notations, quotations, and commen-taries from various Church Fathers including Hegesippus,Origen, Eusebius and Jerome.[8]

TheGospel of the Nazarenes has been the subject of manycritical discussions and surmises throughout the courseof the last century. Recent discussions in a growingbody of literature have thrown considerable light uponthe problems connected with this gospel. Its sole liter-ary witnesses are brief citations found in patristic litera-ture and quotations by the Church Fathers.(Jerome, Com-mentary on Micah, 7) This bears great significance be-cause higher criticism argues that the canonical Gospelof Matthew is not a literal reproduction of Matthew’soriginal autograph, but was rather the production of anunknown redactor, composed in Greek posthumous toMatthew.[11] This aligns with Jerome’s assessment, inwhich he stated, “Matthew, also called Levi, apostle andaforetime publican, composed a gospel of Christ at firstpublished in Judea in Hebrew for the sake of those ofthe circumcision who believed, but this was afterwardstranslated into Greek, though by what author is uncer-tain."(Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men, Chapter 3) (See:Two-source hypothesis and Four Document Hypothesis)

3.2 Background - Nazarenes

Main article: Nazarene (sect)

The term Nazarene was applied to Jesus of Nazareth(Gospel of Matthew 2:23). Mention of a “sect of theNazarenes” (plural) occurs first with Tertullus (Acts24:5). After Tertullus the name does not appear again,apart from an unclear reference in Eusebius' Onomasti-con, until a similar name, "Nazoreans", is distinguished

14

3.4. SCHOLARLY POSITIONS 15

by Epiphanius in his Panarion in the 4th Century.[12]

It was the term used to identify the predominantly Jewishsect that believed Jesus was the Messiah. When this sectbranched into the Gentile world, they became known asChristians.[13]

By the 4th century, Nazarenes are generally acceptedas being the first Christians that adhered to the Mosaiclaw who were led by James the Just, the brother of Je-sus. Traditionally he led the Church from Jerusalemand according to 1 Corinthians (15:7) had a specialappearance of the resurrected Jesus, and only “then to allthe apostles”.[14]

3.3 Primary sources - Patristic tes-timony

Concerning its origin, Jerome relates that the Nazarenesbelieved that the Hebrew Gospel he received while atChalcis was written by Matthew the Evangelist. In hiswork On Illustrious Men, Jerome explains that Matthew,also called Levi, composed a gospel of Christ, which wasfirst published in Judea in Hebrew script for the sakeof those of the circumcision who believed (On Illustri-ous Men, 2) Meanwhile, in his Commentary on Matthew,Jerome refers to the Gospel of the Nazarenes and theGospel of the Hebrews.Epiphanius is of the same opinion; he states in hisPanarion that Matthew alone expounded and declaredthe gospel in Hebrew among the New Testament writers:“For in truth, Matthew alone of the New Testament writ-ers expounded and declared the Gospel in Hebrew usingHebrew script.” (Panarion 30.13.1)Origen adds to this by stating that, among the fourgospels, Matthew, the one-time tax collector who laterbecame an apostle of Jesus Christ, first composed thegospel for the converts from Judaism, published in theHebrew language.(Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, 6.25)

3.4 Scholarly positions

There exist two views concerning the relationship of thesurviving citations from the “Gospel of the Nazarenes":

3.4.1 GN dependent on CanonicalMatthew

Due to contradictions in the account of the baptism ofJesus, and other reasons, most biblical scholars considerthat the Gospel of the Nazarenes, Gospel of the Hebrews,and Gospel of the Ebionites are three separate Gospels,even though Jerome linked the Nazarenes to the Ebionitesin their use of the Gospel of the Hebrews.[15]

Philipp Vielhauer writes of the Greek/Latin fragmentscollected as the Gospel of the Nazarenes that “Its liter-ary character shows the GN secondary as compared withthe canonical Mt; again, from the point of view of form-criticism and the history of tradition, as well as from thatof language, it presents no proto-Matthew but a develop-ment of the Greek Gospel of Matthew (against Waitz).'It is scarcely to be assumed that in it we are dealing withan independent development of older Aramaic traditions;this assumption is already prohibited by the close rela-tionship with Mt.[16] Likewise, as regards the Syriac frag-ments, Vielhauer writes “the Aramaic (Syriac) GN can-not be explained as a retroversion of the Greek Mt; thenovelistic expansions, new formations, abbreviations andcorrections forbid that. In literary terms the GNmay bestbe characterised as a targum-like rendering of the canon-ical Matthew.”[17] From this view the GN fragments arelinked to the canonical version of Matthew, with minordifferences. For example, GN replaces “daily bread” with“bread for tomorrow” in the Lord’s Prayer (GN 5), statesthat the man whose hand was withered (GN 10, compareMatthew 12:10-13) was a stonemason, and narrates therehaving been two rich men addressed by Jesus in Matthew19:16-22 instead of one (GN 16).

3.4.2 Matthew dependent on Gospel ofNazarenes

James R. Edwards (2009) argues that the canonicalMatthew is based on a Hebrew original, and that the ci-tations of the Gospel of the Nazarenes are part of thatoriginal.[18]

Edwards’ view is predated by that of Edward Nicholson(1879), Bodley’s Librarian. His conclusions were as fol-lows:

1. “We find that there existed among theNazarenes andEbionites a Gospel commonly called the Gospel ac-cording to the Hebrews, written in Aramaic, but withHebrew characters. Its authorship was attributed bysome to the Apostles in general, but by very many ormost — including clearly the Nazarenes and Ebion-ites themselves — to Matthew.”[19]

2. “The Fathers of the Church, while the Gospel ac-cording to the Hebrews was yet extant in its entirety,referred to it always with respect, often with rev-erence: some of them unhesitatingly accepted it asbeing what tradition affirmed it to be — the workof Matthew — and even those who have not puton record their expression of this opinion have notquestioned it. Is such an attitude consistent withthe supposition that the Gospel according to the He-brews was a work of heretical tendencies? This ap-plies with tenfold force to Jerome. After copyingit, would he, if he had seen heresy in it, have trans-lated it for public dissemination into both Greek and

16 CHAPTER 3. GOSPEL OF THE NAZARENES

Latin, and have continued to favor the tradition of itsMatthaean authorship? And Jerome, be it observed,not only quotes all three of these passages withoutdisapprobation; he actually quotes two of them (Fr.6 and Fr. 8) with approval.”[20]

Nicholson’s position that The Gospel of the Hebrews wasthe true Gospel of Matthew is still the subject of heateddebate. However most scholars[21] now agree that theGospel of Matthew found in the Bible was not written byMatthew, but composed posthumous to him.[11]

The Talmudic evidence for early Christian gospels, com-bined with Papias’ reference to the Hebrew “logia”(Eusebius, Church History III . 39 . 16)[22] and Jerome’sdiscovery of the Gospel of the Hebrews in Aramaic(Jerome, Against Pelagius 3.2) have led scholars such asC. C. Torrey (1951) to consider an original Aramaic orHebrew gospel, meaning theGospel of the Hebrewswhichthe Nazarenes used.[23]

The Gospel of the Nazarenes (Nazoraeans) emphasizedthe Jewishness of Jesus.[24][25] According to multipleearly sources, including Jerome (Against Pelagius 3) andEpiphanius (Panarion 29-30) theGospel of the Nazareneswas synonymous with the Gospel of the Hebrews and theGospel of the Ebionites. Ron Cameron considers this adubious link.[26]

3.4.3 Time and place of authorship

The time and place of authorship are disputed, but sinceClement of Alexandria used the book in the last quar-ter of the second century, it consequently predates 200AD. Its place of origin might be Alexandria, Egypt sincetwo of its principal witnesses, Clement and Origen, wereAlexandrians. However, the original language of theGospel of the Nazarenes was Hebrew, suggesting thatit was written specifically for Hebrew-speaking JewishChristians in Palestine, Syria, and contingencies.

3.5 The extant reconstructed textof Gospel of the Nazarenesand variances with CanonicalMatthew

The following list[27][28][29] represents variant readingsfound in Gospel of the Nazarenes against the canoni-cal Gospel of Matthew:[30] Where Ehrman’s order corre-sponds to the Schneemelcher numbering "(GN 2)" etc.,is added for clarity:

• (GN 2) In Matthew 3, it reads: “Behold, the motherof the Lord and his brethren said to him, 'John theBaptist is baptizing unto the remission of sins; let us

go and be baptized by him.' But He said to them,'Wherein have I sinned that I should go and be bap-tized by him? Unless what I have just said is (a sinof?) ignorance.'"(Jerome, Against Pelagius 3.2”)[31]

• (GN 3) Matthew 4:5 has not “into the holy city” but“to Jerusalem.”

• (GN 4) Matthew 5:22 lacks the phrase “without acause” as inP א 67B 2174, some vgmss, some ethmss

• (GN 5) Matthew 6:11 reads, “Give us today ourbread for tomorrow.” (Jerome, Commentary onMatthew 6:11)[32]

• (GN 6) Matthew 7:23 adds, “If ye be in my bosom,but do not the will of my Father in heaven, out ofmy bosom I will cast you.”[27] Compare with non-canonical 2 Clement 2:15.[33]

• (GN 7) Matthew 10:16 has “wise more than ser-pents” rather than “wise as serpents.”

• (GN 23) On Matthew 10:34-36, the Syriac transla-tion of Eusebius' Theophania contains: 'He (Christ)himself taught the reason for the separations of soulsthat take place in houses, as we have found some-where in the Gospel that is spread abroad among theJews in the Hebrew tongue, in which it is said, “Ichoose for myself the most worthy; the most worthyare those whommy Father in heaven has given me."'(Eusebius, Theophania, Syriac translation 4.12)

• (GN 8) Matthew 11:12 reads “is plundered” insteadof “suffers violence.”

• (GN9)Matthew 11:25 has “I thank thee” rather than“I praise you.”

• (GN 10) AtMatthew 12:10-13, themanwho had thewithered hand is described as a mason who pleadedfor help in the following words: “I was amason seek-ing a livelihood with my hands. I beseech thee, Je-sus, to restore me to my health, that I may not inshame have to beg for my food.” (Jerome, Commen-tary on Matthew 12:13)

• (GN 11) Matthew 12:40 omits “three days and threenights” immediately preceding “in the heart of theearth.”

• (GN 12) Matthew 15:5 reads, “It is a korban (offer-ing) by which ye may be profited by me.” CompareMark 7:11.

• (GN 13) Matthew 16:2b–3 omitted, as in א B V XY Γ Uncial 047 2 34 39 44 84 151 157 180 194 272274 344 376 539 563 595 661 776 777 788 792 826828 1073 1074 1076 1078 1080 1216 2542 syrcursyrs copsa copbomss arm f13 Origen.

• (GN 14) Matthew 16:17 has Hebrew “Shimon benYochanan” (Simon son of John) instead of Aramaic“Simon Bar-Jonah” (Simon son of Jonah).

3.6. SEE ALSO 17

• (GN 15) At Matthew 18:21-22, Jesus is recorded ashaving said: “If your brother has sinned by word,and has made three reparations, receive him seventimes in a day.” Simon his disciple said to him,“Seven times in a day?" The Lord answered, sayingto him, “Yea, I say unto thee, until seventy timesseven times. For in the Prophets also, after theywere anointed with the Holy Spirit, a word of sinwas found.(Jerome, Against Pelagius 3.2)

• (GN 16) At Matthew 19:16-24, Origen, in his Com-mentary on Matthew, records there having been tworich men who approached Jesus along the way. Ori-gen records that the second rich man asked Jesus,“Rabbi, what good thing can I do that I may live?"He (Jesus) said to him, “Man, fulfill the Law and theProphets.” He answered him, “I have done (so).” Je-sus said, “Go, sell all that you have, and distributeto the poor; and come, follow me.” But the rich manbegan to fidget (some copies read, 'began to scratchhis head'), for it did not please him. And the Lordsaid to him, “How can you say, 'I have fulfilled theLaw and the Prophets’, when it is written in the Law:'You shall love your neighbor as yourself', and manyof your brothers, sons of Abraham, are covered withfilth, dying of hunger, and your house is full of manygood things, none of which goes out to them?" Andhe (Jesus) turned and said to Simon his disciple,who was sitting by him, “Simon son of John, it iseasier for a camel to go through the eye of a nee-dle than for the rich to enter into the Kingdom ofHeaven."(Origen, Commentary on Matthew 19:16-30)

• (GN 17) At Matthew 21:12, Jerome records, “For acertain fiery and starry light shone from His eyes,and the majesty of the Godhead gleamed in Hisface.”[34] Also, there is quoted in a marginal noteof a thirteenth-century manuscript of the Aurora byPeter of Riga the following: “Rays issued forth fromHis eyes which terrified them and put them to flight.”

• (GN 18) Matthew 23:35 reads “Zechariah, theson of Jehoiada" instead of “Zechariah, the sonof Barachiah."(Jerome, Commentary on Matthew23:35)

• (GN 19) Matthew 26:74 has, “And he denied, andhe swore (i.e., took an oath), and he cursed (i.e., for-swore).”

• (GN 21)Matthew 27:51 states not that the veil of thetemple was rent, but that the lintel of the temple ofwondrous size collapsed.(Jerome, Letter to Hedibia120.8)[35]

• (GN 22) Matthew 27:65 reads, “And he (Pilate) de-livered to them (the chief priests and the Pharisees)armed men, that they might sit over against the tomband guard it day and night.”

• GN 4, 6, 15a, 19, 22 come from the 'ZionGospel Edition', the subscriptions of thirty-sixGospel manuscripts dating from the 9th to the 13thcenturies.[36]

• GN 24-36 (not listed) are derived from medievalsources.

3.6 See also• Synoptic Gospels - Matthew, Mark and Luke

• Gospel of Matthew

• Jewish-Christian Gospels - overview of the topic

• Gospel of the Hebrews - 7 fragments preserved byJerome

• Gospel of the Ebionites - 7 fragments preserved byEpiphanius of Salamis.

• Hebrew Gospel of Matthew - 3 medieval rabbinicaltranslations of Greek Matthew into Hebrew.

• New Testament apocrypha - non-canonical and/orpseudepigraphical Gospels, Acts, and Epistles.

3.7 Primary Sources

Wikisource – Gospel of the Nazoraeans

3.8 References[1] Craig A. Evans Ancient texts for New Testament studies:

a guide to the background literature ISBN 978-1-56563-409-1 2005 “The JewishGospels. With one or two notabledissenters, most scholars in the last century have followedPhilipp Vielhauer and Georg Strecker (in Hennecke andSchneemelcher NTApoc), and more recently A.F.J. Klijn(1992), in extrapolating from the church fathers three dis-tinct extracanonical Jewish gospels: the Gospel of theNazarenes, the Gospel of the Ebionites, and the Gospel ofthe Hebrews. A recent study by Peter Lebrecht Schmidt(1998), however, has called this near consensus into ques-tion. Critically assessing the discussion from Schmidtketo Klijn, Schmidt thinks that originally there was onlyone Jewish gospel, probably written in Aramaic about 100CE, called the “Gospel according to the Hebrews,” whichwas subsequently... " cf. Hans-Josef Klauck Apocryphalgospels: an introduction 2003 p37

[2] Vielhauer and Strecker Gospel of the Nazaraeans inSchneemelcher NTA p.160-174 Fragments 1 to 36

[3] David Edward Aune The Westminster dictionary of NewTestament and early Christian Literature and Rhetoric.Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003 p201“Schneemelcher has reiterated the traditional classifica-tion of the various types of apocryphal gospels into three.”

18 CHAPTER 3. GOSPEL OF THE NAZARENES

[4] Craig A. Evans Ancient texts for New Testament studies: aguide to the background literature 2005

[5] Footnote 55 p81 in Ray Pritz Nazarene Jewish Christian-ity: from the end of the New Testament period until its dis-appearance in the fourth Century (Studia Post-Biblica)

[6] e.g. Johann H. Majus Repetitum examen Historia criticœtextus Novi Testamenti a PR Simonio, 1699

[7] The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, F.L. Crossand E.A. Livingston (editors), Oxford University Press,1989 p. 626.

[8] http://www.maplenet.net/~{}trowbridge/gosnaz.htm

[9] Edwards, J.R., The Hebrew Gospel and the Developmentof the Synoptic Tradition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing,(2009) ISBN 0-8028-6234-9, ISBN 978-0-8028-6234-1PP120-125

[10] F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingston, The Oxford Dictionary ofthe Christian Church,© 1989, Oxford University Press, p.626.

[11] The Interpreters Bible, Vol. VII, Abington Press, NewYork, 1951, p.64-66

[12] Lawrence H. Schiffman, James C. VanderKam Encyclo-pedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls: N-Z Nazarenes - 2000 -1132 "... occurs only once in the post-New TestamentGreek literature between Acts and Epiphanius, in Euse-bius’s Onomasticon, though it remains doubtful whetherthe term here concerns Nazoreans (rather than Christiansin general).”

[13] F.L. Cross & E.A. Livingston, The Oxford Dictionary ofthe Christian Church, Oxford University Press, 1989. p957 & 722.

[14] The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, F.L. Crossand E.A. Livingston (editors), Oxford University Press,1989. p 957 & 722.

[15] The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, F.L. Crossand E.A. Livingston (editors), Oxford University Press,1989 p. 439

[16] in Wilhelm Schneemelcher, translated Robert McLachlanWilson - New Testament Apocrypha: Gospels and relatedwritings 1991 p159

[17] Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur(Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1975) p652

[18] James R. Edwards, The Hebrew Gospel & the Develop-ment of the Synoptic Tradition, © 2009, Wm. B. Eerd-mans Publishing Co.

[19] The Gospel According to the Hebrews, Edward ByronNicholson, C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879. p.26

[20] The Gospel According to the Hebrews, Edward ByronNicholson, C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879. p.82

[21] http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/matthew.html

[22] Bart Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Mil-lennium, © 1999 Oxford University Press, p.43

[23] The Interpreters Bible, Vol. VII, Abington Press, NewYork, 1951, p.67

[24] • Ehrman, Bart (2003). The New Testament: AHistorical Introduction to the Early Christian Writ-ings. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0-19-515462-2.

[25] • Ehrman, Bart (2003). The Lost Christianities: TheBattles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew.OxfordUniversity Press, USA. ISBN0-19-514183-0.

[26] Ron Cameron, ed., The Other Gospels: Non-CanonicalGospel Texts (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press1982), pp. 97-102

[27] http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/nazoreans-ogg.html

[28] http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/gospelnazoreans.html

[29] http://www.interfaith.org/christianity/apocrypha/new-testament-apocrypha/9/4.php

[30] • Ehrman, Bart (2003). Lost Scriptures: Books thatDid Not Make It into the New Testament. OxfordUniversity Press, USA. ISBN 0-19-514182-2.

[31] Ehrman, Bart (2003). Lost Scriptures: Books that Did NotMake It into the New Testament. Oxford University Press,USA.

[32] In his Commentary on Matthew, Jerome, citing theGospel of the Hebrews which the Nazarenes used, writes:“In the so-called Gospel of the Hebrews, for bread essen-tial to existence I found MAHAR, meaning of tomorrow.So, the sense is our bread for tomorrow, that is, of thefuture, give us this day.” Latin: “In Evangelio quod ap-pellatur secundum Hebraeos, pro supersubstantiali pane,reperi MAHAR ,(מחר) quod dicitur crastinum; ut sit sen-sus: Panem nostrum crastinum, id est, futurum da nobishodie.” Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 6:11

[33] http://www.pseudepigrapha.com/LostBooks/2clement.htm

[34] Jerome Commentary on Matthew 21:12

[35] Refer to Strong’s Concordance entry H4947.

[36] Schneemelcher New Testament Apocrypha: Gospels andrelated writings p149, 160-162

3.9 External links

Online translations of the Gospel of Matthew:

• Matthew at WikiSource (KJV)

• Early Christian Writings: texts and introductions.

• Early Christian Writings: Gospel of the Hebrews

3.9. EXTERNAL LINKS 19

• Gospel of the Nazoreans at earlychristianwrit-ings.com

• Development of the Canon of the New Testament:Gospel of the Hebrews

Chapter 4

Aramaic New Testament

The Aramaic New Testament exists in two forms, theclassical Aramaic, or Syriac, New Testament, part ofthe Peshitta Bible,[1] and the “Assyrian Modern” NewTestament and Psalms published by the Bible Society inLebanon (1997) and newly translated from Greek. Theofficial Assyrian Church of the East (known by some asthe Nestorian Church) does not recognise the new “As-syrian Modern” edition, and traditionally considers theNew Testament of the Peshitta to be the original NewTestament, and Aramaic to be its original language. Thisview was popularised in theWest by the Assyrian Churchof the East scholar George Lamsa, but is not supportedby the majority of scholars, either of the Peshitta or theGreek New Testament.The traditional New Testament of the Peshitta has 22books, lacking 2 John, 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude andRevelation, which are books of the Antilegomena. Thetext of Gospels also lacks the Pericope Adulterae (John7:53–8:11) and Luke 22:17–18.[2] These missing bookswere supplemented by the Syriacist John Gwynn in 1893and 1897 from alternative manuscripts, and includedthem in the United Bible Societies edition of 1905. The1997 modern Aramaic New Testament has all 27 books.

4.1 Aramaic original New Testa-ment hypothesis

The hypothesis of an Aramaic original for the New Tes-tament holds that the original text of the New Testamentwas not written in Greek, as held by the majority of schol-ars, but in the Aramaic language, which was the primarylanguage of Jesus and his Twelve Apostles.The position of the Assyrian Church of the East, per MarEshai Shimun XXIII in 1957, is that the Syriac Peshitta(which is written in a cursive form of Aramaic), used inthat church, is the original of the New Testament. Vari-ants of this view are held by some individuals who mayargue for a lost Aramaic text preceding the Peshitta as thebasis for the New Testament.This view is to be distinguished from higher criticismand text-critical transmission theories such as the HebrewGospel hypothesis of Lessing and others. The Hebrew

Gospel or Proto-Gospel hypothesis includes either Ara-maic or Hebrew source texts for Matthew and possiblyMark.

4.2 Church of the East doctrineconcerning the Peshitta

This is a traditional belief held in the Church of the Eastthat the Peshitta text, which most scholars consider atranslation from Greek, is in fact the original source ofthe Greek:

“With reference to... the originality of thePeshitta text, as the Patriarch and Head of theHoly Apostolic and Catholic Church of theEast, we wish to state, that the Church of theEast received the scriptures from the hands ofthe blessedApostles themselves in the Aramaicoriginal, the language spoken by our Lord JesusChrist Himself, and that the Peshitta is the textof the Church of the East which has come downfrom the Biblical times without any change orrevision.” Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, by Grace,Catholicos Patriarch of the East. April 5, 1957

The most noteworthy advocate of this view in the westwas George Lamsa (1976) of the Aramaic Bible Center.However this view is rejected by the majority of scholars:

“The only complete English translation ofthe Peshitta is by G. Lamsa. This is unfortu-nately not always very accurate, and his claimsthat the Peshitta Gospels represent the Aramaicoriginal underlying the Greek Gospels are en-tirely without foundation; such views, whichare not infrequently found in more popular lit-erature, are rejected by all serious scholars.Brock, Sebastian P (2006), The Bible in theSyriac tradition, p. 58

The current Patriarch of the Church of the East, MarDinkha IV (1976–present), has not publicly pronouncedthat the Peshitta is the original New Testament.

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4.5. METHODS OF ARGUMENT 21

4.3 Other “Peshitta original” advo-cates

A tiny minority of scholars are backers of the “Peshittaoriginal” theory today, including website owners AndrewGabriel Roth (compiler of the “AENT”) and the AssyrianPaul Younan, among others.[3]

4.3.1 “Aramaic primacy”

Some advocates of the “Peshitta original” view, or theview that the Christian New Testament and/or its sourceswere originally written in the Aramaic language, also usethe term “Aramaic primacy” though this is not used inacademic sources, and appears to be a recent neologism.The words do earlier appear together in print in thesentence “according Aramaic primacy among the lan-guages,” in Lee I. Levine, Judaism and Hellenism in an-tiquity: conflict or confluence 1998[4] but only as a gen-eral expression used to note the primacy of Aramaic overother languages in specific context, and also describing“Aramaic’s predominance”[5] over Hebrew and Greek inSecond Temple Jerusalem. Levine could equally havewritten “according primacy to Aramaic.”This article titled “Aramaic primacy” appeared onWikipedia in August 2004,[6] with the first line “Ara-maic Primacists believe that the Christian NewTestamentwas originally written in Aramaic, not Greek as generallyclaimed by Churches of the West”. The term then ap-peared in print in 2008.Likewise advocates of the primacy of an Aramaic NewTestament have coined a new meaning for the phrase"Greek primacy" (earliest confirmed reference 2007[7])to describe the consensus scholarly view that the NewTestament was originally written in Greek. These termsare not used by text-critical scholarship, since in its viewthe evidence is overwhelming that the New Testamentwas written originally in Greek.[8][9]

4.4 Brief history

George Lamsa's translation of the Peshitta New Testa-ment from Syriac into English brought the claims for pri-macy of the Aramaic New Testament to the West. How-ever, his translation is poorly regarded by most scholarsin the field.[10] The Old Syriac Texts, the Sinai palimpsestand the Curetonian Gospels, have also influenced schol-ars concerning original Aramaic passages. Diatessaronictexts such as the Liege Dutch Harmony, the PepysianGospel Harmony, Codex Fuldensis, The Persian Har-mony, The Arabic Diatessaron, and the Commentary onthe Diatessaron by Ephrem the Syrian have provided re-cent insights into Aramaic origins. The Coptic Gospel ofThomas and the various versions of the medieval Hebrew

Gospel of Matthew also have provided clues to Aramaicfoundations in the New Testament especially the gospels.Many 19th Century scholars (H. Holtzmann, Wendt,Jülicher, Wernle, von Soden, Wellhausen, Harnack, B.Weiss, Nicolardot, W. Allen, Montefiore, Plummer, andStanton)[11] theorized that portions of the gospels, espe-cially Matthew, were derived from an Aramaic sourcenormally referred to as Q.

4.5 Methods of argument

Aramaic Primacists believe that New Testament is writ-ten in Aramaic, because of the below reasons.Hebrew Historian Josephus points out that his nation didnot encourage the learning of Greek. Because of this, aHebrew knowing Greek was extremely rare in first cen-tury.Josephus - "I have also taken a great deal of pains toobtain the learning of the Greeks, and understandthe elements of the Greek language, although I haveso long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue,that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exact-ness; for our nation does not encourage those thatlearn the languages of many nations, and so adorntheir discourses with the smoothness of their periods;because they look upon this sort of accomplishment ascommon, not only to all sorts of free-men, but to as manyof the servants as please to learn them. But they givehim the testimony of being a wise man who is fully ac-quainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their mean-ing; on which account, as there have been many whohave done their endeavors with great patience to ob-tain this learning, there have yet hardly been so manyas two or three that have succeeded therein, who wereimmediately well rewarded for their pains.” [12]

In the beginning of Josephus’ Antiquities of Jews, Jose-phus again points out that Greek was an unaccustomedlanguage to Hebrews in first century AD.Antiquities of Jews Book 1, Preface, Paragraph 2 - "NowI have undertaken the present work, as thinking itwill appear to all the Greeks worthy of their study; forit will contain all our antiquities, and the constitution ofour government, as interpreted out of the Hebrew Scrip-tures. And indeed I did formerly intend, when I wrote ofthe war, to explain who the Jews originally were, - whatfortunes they had been subject to, - and by what legisla-ture they had been instructed in piety, and the exerciseof other virtues, - what wars also they had made in re-mote ages, till they were unwillingly engaged in this lastwith the Romans: but because this work would take upa great compass, I separated it into a set treatise byitself, with a beginning of its own, and its own con-clusion; but in process of time, as usually happensto such as undertake great things, I grew weary andwent on slowly, it being a large subject, and a difficult

22 CHAPTER 4. ARAMAIC NEW TESTAMENT

thing to translate our history into a foreign, and to usunaccustomed language.[13]"Unlike Greek NT, Aramaic NT (Aramaic Peshitta) sup-ports Josephus who testifies (above) that Greek wasn'tspoken among Hebrews in first century Israel and also theextreme rarity in terms of a Hebrew knowing Greek.Greek NT and the translations of Greek NT say thatthere are Greeks who communicated with Jesus Christand Apostle Paul which contradict the testimony of Jose-phus. But Aramaic NT supports the testimony of Jose-phus by saying that they were either Aramaean(s) or Pa-gan(s). Below are some examples.1. Mark 7:26 (NIV Translation) - “The woman was aGreek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus todrive the demon out of her daughter.”Mark 7:26 (Aramaic NT) [14] - “But she was a paganwoman fromPhoenicia of Syria, and she was begging himto cast out the demon from her daughter.”2. John 7:35 (NIV) - “The Jews said to one another,“Where does this man intend to go that we cannot findhim? Will he go where our people live scattered amongthe Greeks, and teach the Greeks.”John 7:35 (Aramaic NT) [15] - “The Judeans were sayingamong themselves, “Where is This Man prepared to gothat we cannot be? Is He prepared to go teach the pa-gans?"".3. Acts 16:1 (NIV) - “Paul came to Derbe and then toLystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whosemother was Jewish and a believer but whose father wasa Greek.”Acts 16:1 (Aramaic NT) [16] - “And he arrived at the cityDerby and at Lystra, but a disciple was there whose namewas Timotheus, son of a certain Jewess believer, and hisfather was an Aramaean.”4. Romans 1:16 (KJV) - “For I am not ashamed of thegospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvationto every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to theGreek.”Romans 1:16 (Aramaic NT) [17] - “For I am not ashamedof The Gospel, because it is the power of God for the lifeof all who believe in it, whether of The Judeans first, orof the Aramaeans.”5. Acts 20:21 (NIV) - “I have declared to both Jews andGreeks that they must turn to God in repentance and havefaith in our Lord Jesus.”Acts 20:21 (Aramaic NT) [18] - “While I was testifyingto the Jews and to the Aramaeans about returning to Godand the faith in Our Lord Yeshua The Messiah.”6. 1 Corinthians 1:24(NIV) - “but to those whom Godhas called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power ofGod and the wisdom of God.”1 Corinthians 1:24 (Aramaic NT) [19] - “But to those

who are called, Jews and Aramaeans, The Messiah is thepower of God and the wisdom of God.”7. Galatians 2:3 (KJV) - “But neither Titus, who was withme, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised:"Galatians 2:3 (Aramaic NT) [20] - “Even Titus, an Ara-maean who was with me, was not compelled to be cir-cumcised.”8. Acts 19:17 (KJV) - “And this was known to all the JewsandGreeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on themall, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.”Acts 19:17 (Aramaic NT) [21] - “And this became knownto all the Jews and Aramaeans dwelling in Ephesaus andgreat fear fell upon all of them, and the name of Our LordYeshua The Messiah was exalted.”

4.6 Aramaic phenomena

There are many phenomena that advocates of an Aramaicoriginal for the New Testament consider to be evidencefor their case. For example, some of them include:

4.6.1 Perceived logical improbabilities inGreek

One passage that it is argued contains a logical improb-ability in Greek is Matthew 4:8. There isn't a mountainhigh enough to view “all of the kingdoms of the earth”since the earth is round. The Hebrew word found in IbnShaprut's medieval translation of the Greek Gospel ofMatthew in the appendix to The Touchstone (c.1380) uses“eretz”[22] which can be translated as earth or land.[23]By substituting the Hebrew word “eretz” into the passagemakes it possible that “all the kingdoms of the land of Is-rael” were viewed from a high mountain such as MountTabor in Israel. However the same is true for Greek gewhich can mean land or earth depending on context. Alsosince “all the kingdoms of the land of Israel” is seen as anunlikely meaning most commentators on Matthew haveseen “all the kingdoms of the land of earth” as being ei-ther hyperbole or a vision.[24]

Another proposed example concerns Matthew 24:51 andLuke 12:46. Agnes Smith Lewis (1910) noted that theverb used in all of the Syriac versions “palleg” has theprimary meaning of “cut in pieces” and the secondaryone of “appoint to some one his portion.” The primarysense leads to the possible problem of how someone cutto pieces could then be assigned to something else. But,Smith argues, if we take the secondary meaning then weare may suggest that the Greek translator misunderstooda Syriac idiom by taking it too literally. The translationwould be “and shall allot his portion and shall place himwith the unfaithful” instead of the Greek “shall cut him inpieces and shall place him with the unfaithful.”[25] HughJ. Schonfield (1927) notes that the Hebrew verb “bahkag”

4.6. ARAMAIC PHENOMENA 23

means literally to “break forth, cleave asunder” and con-cludes that the Greek translator has failed to grasp thesense in which the Hebrew word is here used.[26]

Another proposed example involves the genealogy inMatthew. Schonfield (1927) argues that the text ofMatthew indicates three genealogical groups of 14 each.However, the Greek texts of Matthew have two groupsof 14 and a final group of 13. The Syriac Curetonian andSyriac Sinaitic add the following toMatthew 1:13, “Abiudbegat Abiur, Abiur begat Eliakim. Dutillet’s Hebrew ver-sion of Matthew adds Abihud begat Abner; Abner begatEliakim.[27] In both Syriac and Hebrew the spellings be-tween Abiud and Abiur are so close that during transla-tion into Greek the second name could have been droppedmistakenly. In any case, all Greek texts contain only 13names while possibly indicating 14 should be in the finalportion of the list. The two Syriac texts and one Hebrewtext have 14 names and indicate 14 should be in the finalportion of the list.

4.6.2 Polysemy

Some treat “split words” as a distinctive subsection ofmistranslations. Sometimes it appears that a word in Ara-maic with two (or more) distinct and different meaningsappears to have been interpreted in the wrong sense, oreven translated both ways in different documents. Per-haps the most well known example that advocates of anAramaic urtext for the Gospels cite is the parable of the“camel (καμηλος) through the eye of a needle.” (Mark10:25, Matthew 19:24, Luke 18:25) In Aramaic, the wordfor “camel” (גמלא) is spelled identically to the word for“rope” ,(גמלא) suggesting that the correct phrase was“rope through the eye of a needle,” making the hyperbolemore symmetrical. The Aramaic word can also be trans-lated as “beam”, making a connection between this pas-sage and the passage on removing a beam from youreye—Matthew 7:5; Luke 6:41–42.

4.6.3 Puns

Aramaic is one of the Semitic languages, a family wheremany words come from three-letter roots. As a result,speakers of the language employ puns that play on rootswith similar sounding consonants, or with the same con-sonants re-arranged. In applying this principle, scholarshave studied the dialogues of the New Testament and insome cases claim that how a choice of words that ap-parently seem completely unrelated or awkward in Greekmay originate from an original Aramaic source that em-ployed puns, or vice-versa. Agnes Smith Lewis[28] dis-cusses how the Aramaic words for “slave” and “sin” aresimilar. “He who sins is a slave to sin” John 8:34. Sheuses this to point out Jesus used puns in Aramaic thatwere lost in the translations.For example, in the True Children of Abraham debate

within the Gospel of John, some consider the conversa-tion took place in Aramaic, note possible examples ofpunning between the words “father” ,אבא) abba), “Abra-ham” ,אברהם) abraham) and the verb “to do” ,עבד)`abad):

John 8 39

They retorted and said to him:

“Our abba (father) is Abraham!"

Jesus says to them:

“If you are Abraham’s children, `abad (do) as Abra-ham would `abad (do)!"[29]

An alternate possibility is that the above conversationwas actually conducted in Aramaic, but translated intoGreek by the gospel writer. Portions of the oral sayingsin Matthew contain vocabulary that may indicate Hebrewor Aramaic linguistic techniques involving puns, alliter-ations, and word connections. Hebrew/Aramaic vocabu-lary choices possibly underlie the text in Matthew 1:21,3:9, 4:12, 4:21–23, 5:9–10, 5:23, 5:47–48, 7:6, 8:28–31, 9:8, 10:35–39, 11:6, 11:8–10, 11:17, 11:29, 12:13–15, 12:39, 14:32, 14:35–36, 15:34–37, 16:18, 17:05,18:9, 18:16, 18:23–35, 19:9–13, 19:24, 21:19, 21:37–46,21:42, 23:25–29, 24:32, 26:28–36, 26:52.[30][31][32]

4.6.4 Absence or presence of Aramaic quo-tations and translations

In the Greek New Testament, a number of verses includeAramaic phrases or words which are then translated intoGreek. In the Peshitta, sometimes the word or phraseis quoted twice in Aramaic, indicating that the wordsneeded to be translated from one Aramaic dialect to an-other.For example, Matthew 27.46 reads:

Peshitta — And about the ninth hour Jesuscried out with a loud voice and said: "Ēl, Ēl,why have you forsaken me?"[33]

Greek — And about the ninth hour Je-sus cried with a loud voice, saying: “Eli, Eli,lamma sabacthani?" that is, “MyGod, myGod,why hast thou forsaken me?"[34]

However, the parallel verse in Mark 15:34 reads in bothin the quotation/translation form it has in the Greek:

Peshitta — And in the ninth hour, Jesuscried out in a loud voice and said: "Ēl, Ēl lmānāshvaqtāni” that is “My God, my God, why haveyou forsaken me?"[35]

24 CHAPTER 4. ARAMAIC NEW TESTAMENT

Greek — And at the ninth hour, Jesuscried out with a loud voice, saying: “Eloi,Eloi, lamma sabacthani?" Which is, being in-terpreted, “My God, my God, why hast thouforsaken me?"[36]

The evidence of these verses, some claim, tend to supportthe claims of St. Papias and Irenaeus that the Gospel ofMatthew was originally written in Aramaic presumablyfor Aramaic speakers in Syria-Palestine, while the Gospelof Mark was written for the Greek speaking Christiansof Rome, who would not have known Aramaic fluently;but, whomight have become familiar with certain phrasesfrom the preaching of the Apostles or the liturgy. This isin similar fashion to how the words “Alleluia”, “Amen”,“Abba”, “Hosanna” and “Sabaoth” are still in commonusage in the western liturgy.On the other hand, while Mark 3:17 (“Boanerges”) andMark 15:22 (“Golgatha”) is repeated and also slightlychanged in the double quotation in the Peshitta, the versesMark 5:41 (“Talitha koumi”), Mark 7.34 (“Ephphatha”)do not include any doubling.Although the aforementioned is a discussion concerningthe inclusion of quotation marks, it should be added thatthe Lamsa translated Peshitta for Matthew 27:46 reads:“And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loudvoice and said, Eli, Eli, lamana shabakthani! whichmeans, My God, My God, for this I was spared (or thiswas my destiny).”

4.7 Internal disagreements

Advocates of an Aramaic original New Testament are di-vided into several distinct camps in terms of their meth-ods of researching and reconstructing the Aramaic layerof the New Testament.

4.7.1 Advocates of the primacy of thePeshitta

According to mainstream textual scholars, the PeshittaNew Testament is translated from The Greek NewTestament.[37] However, some writers believe that theAramaic Peshitta is the closest text to the original NewTestament. Among those who side with this view wereWilliam Norton of North Devon (1880), the late Assyr-ian author George Lamsa, and the owners of several web-sites: Paul Younan (Peshitta.org), Andrew Gabriel Roth(Aramaic NT Truth), David Bauscher (aramaicnt.com)and Raphael Lataster (Aramaic Peshitta Bible Reposi-tory). In modern day, this movement is primarily basedon the internet, although some historical advocates of thepriority of the Peshitta include several Aramaic-speakingchurches.

For example, Mar Eshai Shimun, Catholicos Patriarch ofthe Assyrian Church of the East was quoted:

With reference to....the originality of thePeshitta text, as the Patriarch and Head of theHoly Apostolic and Catholic Church of theEast, we wish to state, that the Church of theEast received the scriptures from the hands ofthe blessedApostles themselves in the Aramaicoriginal, the language spoken by our Lord JesusChrist Himself, and that the Peshitta is the textof the Church of the East which has come downfrom the Biblical times without any change orrevision.[38]

4.7.2 Peshitta-critical approach

Peshitta-critical advocates of an alternative Aramaic orig-inal take both the Peshitta and the Syriac manuscripts andcritically compare them, similar to how some scholarswho hold the majority view that the language of the NewTestament is Greek take a critical approach to determin-ing which Greek text better represents the original. Nota-bles who side with this view are James Trimm (S.A.N.J.),and Joe Viel. This movement is also primarily based onthe internet.

4.7.3 Aramaic source criticism

Source-critical advocates of an Aramaic original researchfirst-century Aramaic, culture, and psychology to recon-struct the New Testament sources in dialects contempo-rary to its authors. Prominent figures that side with thisview are Matthew Black, Bruce Chilton, Maurice Casey,Geza Vermes, Frank Zimmermann, and Steven Caruso(AramaicNT.org).

4.8 Majority view

Main article: language of the New Testament

Mainstream and modern scholars have generally had astrong agreement that the New Testament was writtenin Greek and that an Aramaic source text was used forportions of the New Testament, especially the gospels.They acknowledge that many individual sayings of Je-sus as found in the Gospels are translations from an Ara-maic source normally referred to as Q, but hold that theGospels’ text in its current form was composed in Greek,and so were the other New Testament writings. Schol-ars of all stripes have had to acknowledge the presenceof scattered, Aramaic expressions, transliterated and thentranslated.An example of how mainstream scholars have dealt withAramaic influences within an overall view of the Gospels’

4.8. MAJORITY VIEW 25

original Greek-language development may be found inMartin Hengel's recent synthesis of studies of the linguis-tic situation in Palestine during the time of Jesus and theGospels:

Since non-literary, simple Greek knowl-edge or competency in multiple languages wasrelatively widespread in Jewish Palestine in-cluding Galilee, and a Greek-speaking com-munity had already developed in Jerusalemshortly after Easter, one can assume thatthis linguistic transformation [from “the Ara-maic native language of Jesus” to “the GreekGospels"] began very early. ... [M]issionaries,above all 'Hellenists’ driven out of Jerusalem,soon preached their message in the Greek lan-guage. We find them in Damascus as earlyas AD 32 or 33. A certain percentage of Je-sus’ earliest followers were presumably bilin-gual and could therefore report, at least in sim-ple Greek, what had been heard and seen. Thisprobably applies to Cephas/Peter, Andrew,Philip or John. Mark, too, who was better edu-cated in Jerusalem than the Galilean fishermen,belonged to this milieu. The great number ofphonetically correct Aramaisms and his knowl-edge of the conditions in Jewish Palestine com-pel us to assume a Palestinian Jewish-Christianauthor. Also, the author’s Aramaic native lan-guage is still discernible in theMarcan style.[39]

4.8.1 Response to Papias

Papias provides a very early source for the idea that thecanonical Gospels were either based on some non-Greekwritten sources, or (in the case of Matthew) possibly“composed” in a non-Greek language. The relevant frag-ments of Papias’ lost work An Exposition of the Sayings ofthe Lord (Logiōn kuriakōn exēgēsis, c. 110–140) are pre-served in quotations by Eusebius. In one fragment, Pa-pias cites an older source who says, “When Mark was theinterpreter [hermēneutēs, possibly “translator"] of Peter,he wrote down accurately everything that he recalled ofthe Lord’s words and deeds.” Papias’ surviving commentabout Matthew is more tantalizing, but equally cryptic:“And soMatthew composed [or collected] the sayings [orrecord] in the Hebrew tongue, and each one interpreted[hērmēneusen, possibly “translated"] them to the best ofhis ability.”[40] A similar claim comes out more clearly ina text by Irenaeus, but this testimony is later than (andprobably based on) Papias.Even if they do imply non-Greek originals, these accountshave been doubted, in part with an argument that theliterary quality of the Greek of these books indicatesthat the Greek would be the original. This argument ex-tends to the other books where the Church Fathers ac-cepted Greek as the original without debate. The Greek

New Testament’s general agreement with the Septuagintis also counted as evidence by majority view scholars.Aramaic primacists point to quotations from the Hebrew(Masoretic) Old Testament in the Alexandrian text typethat indicate at one point a non-Greek speaking audiencewas addressed (SeeMatthew 2:15, 2:18, 11:10; Mark 1:2;Luke 7:27; John 19:37; Acts 13:18; Romans 9:33, 11:35;1 Corinthians 3:19; 1Peter 2:8).[41] Aramaic primacistsquestion why the New Testament would quote from theHebrew Old Testament and not from the Septuagint if itwas written in Greek originally. Quotes from the HebrewOld Testament are present in Alexandrian texts that arethought to predate Jerome’s use of the Hebrew Old Tes-tament for the Vulgate.

4.8.2 Response to specific verses

There are also alternative explanations for the cases whereAramaic Primacists claim that the Aramaic seems to readbetter. One example (as stated above) is in the case ofthe “camel through the eye of a needle.” In Jewish andChristian literature we see the following:

"...who can make an elephant pass through theeye of a needle.”- Babylonian Talmud, Baba Mezi'a, 38b

“They do not show a man a palm tree of gold,nor an elephant going through the eye of a nee-dle.”- Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth, 55b

“13 There was a rich man named Onesiphoruswho said: If I believe, shall I be able to do won-ders? Andrew said: Yes, if you forsake yourwife and all your possessions. He was angryand put his garment about Andrew’s neck andbegan to beat him, saying: You are a wizard,why should I do so? 14 Peter saw it and toldhim to leave off. He said: I see you are wiserthan he. What do you say? Peter said: I tellyou this: it is easier for a camel to go througha needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter thekingdom of God."- Apocryphal Acts of Peter and Andrew.

Aramaic Primacists generally respond that these sourcesare late compared to the account in Q, as the Mishnah,the base document of the Babylonian Talmud was com-piled in 200, where the Acts of Peter and Andrew is a3rd-century work and therefore the original mistransla-tion of גמלא (gamlâ) predates and is potentially the sourceof these subsequent paraphrases. The Aramaic word forcamel can alsomean “beam” thus implying that the saying“it easier for a beam to go through an “eye'" is referenc-ingMatthew 7:5; Luke 6:41–42 concerning taking the log(beam) out of your eye.

26 CHAPTER 4. ARAMAIC NEW TESTAMENT

4.8.3 Multiple versions

Josephus’ The Jewish War was originally written in Ara-maic and later translated into Greek. Furthermore,the possibility that the Jewish community was morepolyglot is often overlooked by both Aramaic-supportingand Koine-supporting scholars. It is possible that Ara-maic and Koine (and even Latin) versions of the booksand oral teachings of the New Testament were circu-lating contemporaneously, similar to the situation inpresent day Orthodox Jewish communities, where popu-lar, newly written, religious works in Rabbinical Hebreware promptly translated into English and Yiddish.

4.9 Footnotes[1] 1905–1920 Edition of the Syriac New Testament pub-

lished by the British and Foreign Bible Society

[2] The text of the New Testament: an introduction to the crit-ical ... Page 194 Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland – 1995“It contains twenty-two New Testament books, lackingthe shorter Catholic letters (2–3 John, 2 Peter, Jude) andRevelation (as well as the Pericope Adulterae [John 7:53–8:11[ and Luke 22:17–18).”

[3] Michael L. Brown 60 Questions Christians Ask About Jew-ish Beliefs and Practices – 2011 “Backers of the “Peshittaoriginal” theory today are Andrew Gabriel Roth and PaulYounan, among others.[200] These views, however, rep-resent a tiny minority of scholars, since the Peshitta is al-most universally recognized as a ..”

[4] Levine p82 “Three types of evidence should be consid-ered decisive in according Aramaic primacy among thelanguages used in the city. The first is the use of Aramaictranslations of the Scriptures in this period — in syna-gogue settings "

[5] “A second indication of Aramaic’s predominance in thecity at this time can be found in the literary works writtenin this language. The last part of Daniel was composed inAramaic circa 165 BCE and thus serves as a case in pointhad already appeared in print”

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aramaic_primacy&oldid=5336618

[7] May have occurred on web/Wikipedia earlier but earliestprint reference found is Rev David Bauscher The OriginalAramaic Gospels in Plain English p59 2007

[8] Metzger B. The Text of the New Testament. Its Transmis-sion, Corruption, and Restoration. Fourth Edition. BruceM. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman

[9] Aland, K. and Aland, B. The text of the New Testament(9780802840981)

[10] Review of Lamsa’s translation by Herbert G May, Journalof Bible and Religion, Vol. 26, No. 4, Oct., 1958 (JS-TOR)Review of Lamsa’s translation by PAH de Boer, VetusTestamentum, Vol. 8, Fasc. 2, Apr., 1958 (JSTOR)

[11] Jacquier, Jacque Eugène. “Gospel of St. Matthew.” TheCatholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York: Robert Ap-pleton Company, 1911.

[12] Josephus’ Antiquities of Jews XX, XI

[13] Josephus’ Antiquities of Jews Book 1, Preface, Paragraph2

[14] Book “The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain En-glish”, Page. 68

[15] Book “The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain En-glish”, Page. 153

[16] Book “The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain En-glish”, Page. 199

[17] Book “The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain En-glish”, Page. 218

[18] Book “The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain En-glish”, Page. 206

[19] Book “The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain En-glish”, Page. 238

[20] Book “The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain En-glish”, Page. 269

[21] Book “The Original Aramaic New Testament in Plain En-glish”, Page. 204

[22] Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, George Howard, 1995, p.12

[23] Clontz, T.E. and J., “The Comprehensive New Testamentwith complete textual variant mapping and references forthe Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus, Nag Hammadi Li-brary, Pseudepigrapha, Apocrypha, Plato, Egyptian Bookof the Dead, Talmud, Old Testament, Patristic Writings,Dhammapada, Tacitus, Epic of Gilgamesh”, CornerstonePublications, 2008, p. 444,ISBN 978-0-9778737-1-5

[24] John Nolland The Gospel Of Matthew: A CommentaryOn The Greek Text (New International Greek TestamentCommentary) (9780802823892)

[25] The Old Syriac Gospels or Evangelion Da-Mepharreshe,P. XXVI, Agnes Smith Lewis, 1910

[26] An Old Hebrew Text of St. Matthew’s Gospel, HughSchonfield, 1927, p. 162

[27] An Old Hebrew Text of St. Matthew’s Gospel, HughSchonfield, 1927 p. 21-22

[28] Lewis, A.S. (1894; 2005) “Introduction” in “TheFour Gospels in Syriac Transcribed from the SinaiticPalimpsest , ed. R Bensly, J. R. Harris, & F C. Burkitt(Cambridge: University Press) reprint by Gorgias Press2005

[29] The Aramaic Behind the True Children of Abraham De-bate

[30] Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, George Howard, 1995, p.184-190

4.11. EXTERNAL LINKS 27

[31] Clontz, T.E. and J., “The Comprehensive New Testamentwith complete textual variant mapping and references forthe Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus, Nag Hammadi Li-brary, Pseudepigrapha, Apocrypha, Plato, Egyptian Bookof the Dead, Talmud, Old Testament, Patristic Writings,Dhammapada, Tacitus, Epic of Gilgamesh”, CornerstonePublications, 2008, p. 439-498, ISBN 978-0-9778737-1-5

[32] An Old Hebrew Text of St. Matthew’s Gospel, HughSchonfield, 1927, p.160

[33] , : ̈ ̈

[34] Douay-Rheims Bible, Gospel According to SaintMatthewChapter 27

[35] , : ̈

[36] Douay-Rheims Bible, Gospel According to Saint MarkChapter 15

[37] David Bauscher Divine Contact-Discovery of the OriginalNew Testament 2007 115 “Generally, according to mosttextual scholars, the Peshitta is supposed to be translatedfrom The Greek T circa AD 400. The alternative viewis , of course , that The Greek texts are a translation, ortranslations of The Peshitta.”

[38] Peshitta Aramaic/English Interlinear New Testament

[39] Martin Hengel. 2005. “Eye-witness memory and the writ-ing of the Gospels: Form criticism, community traditionand the authority of the authors.” In The Written Gospel,ed. by Markus Bockmuehl and Donald A. Hagner. Cam-bridge University Press. Pp. 89f.

[40] Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 3.39.15–16, as translatedby Bart D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, Vol. II, LoebClassical Library, 2003, p. 103. For the word translated“composed,” Ehrman prints sunetaxato in his facing-pageGreek text, rather than the variant reading found in somemanuscripts, sunegrapsato. But, whereas sunegrapsatodefinitely means “composed,” other scholars have takenthe reading sunetaxato to mean “collected.” The CatholicEncyclopedia offers a fuller discussion in the section of itsarticle on the Gospel of St. Matthew entitled “Authentic-ity of the First Gospel,” and in the article on Papias.

[41] Clontz, pp. 2,3,15,52,109,189,222,268,271,280,381

4.10 Bibliography• Ben-Hayyim, Z. (1957-77), The Literary and Oral

Tradition of Hebrew and Aramaic amongst theSamaritans, Jerusalem Academy of the HebrewLanguage Check date values in: |date= (help)

• Black, M. (1967), An Aramaic Approach to theGospels and Acts. 3rd Ed., Hendrickson Publishers

• Burney, C. F. (1922), The Aramaic Origin of theFourth Gospel, Oxford at the Clarendon Press

• Casey, M. (1998), The Aramaic Sources of Marks’Gospel, Cambridge University Press

• Casey,M. (2002),AnAramaic Approach to Q, Cam-bridge University Press

• Fitzmyer, J. (1997), The Semitic Background of theNew Testament, Eerdmans Publishing

• Lamsa, G. (1976), New Testament Origin, AramaicBible Center

• Torrey, C. (1941), Documents of the PrimitiveChurch, Harper & Brothers

• Zimmermann, F. (1979), The Aramaic Origin of theFour Gospels, Ktav Publishing House

4.11 External links• AramaicNT.org— collection of articles onAramaicsource criticism

• Dukhrana.com — site contains the transcription ofthe Khaboris Codex

• AramaicNT.com – research articles and twelve pub-lished books on the Peshitta Bible, including N.T.interlinear translation and plain English N.T. trans-lation plus Peshitta interlinear Psalms, Proverbs &Ecclesiastes.

Chapter 5

Gospel of the Ebionites

Epiphanius of Salamis' book the Panarion is the main source ofinformation regarding the Gospel of the Ebionites.

See also: Jewish-Christian gospels, Gospel of the He-brews and Gospel of the Nazarenes

The Gospel of the Ebionites is the conventional namegiven by scholars[n 1] to an apocryphal gospel extant onlyas seven brief quotations in a heresiology known as thePanarion, by Epiphanius of Salamis;[n 2] he misidenti-fied it as the “Hebrew” gospel, believing it to be a trun-cated and modified version of the Gospel of Matthew.[1]The quotations were embedded in a polemic to point outinconsistencies in the beliefs and practices of a JewishChristian sect known as the Ebionites relative to Niceneorthodoxy.[n 3]

The surviving fragments derive from a gospel harmonyof the Synoptic Gospels, composed in Greek with vari-ous expansions and abridgments reflecting the theology ofthe writer. Distinctive features include the absence of thevirgin birth and of the genealogy of Jesus; an AdoptionistChristology,[n 4] in which Jesus is chosen to be God’s Sonat the time of his Baptism; the abolition of the Jewishsacrifices by Jesus; and an advocacy of vegetarianism.[n 5]It is believed to have been composed some time during

the middle of the 2nd century[2] in or around the regioneast of the Jordan River.[n 6] Although the gospel was saidto be used by “Ebionites” during the time of the earlychurch,[n 7] the identity of the group or groups that usedit remains a matter of conjecture.[n 8]

The Gospel of the Ebionites is one of several Jewish–Christian gospels, along with the Gospel of the Hebrewsand the Gospel of the Nazarenes; all survive only as frag-ments in quotations of the early Church Fathers. Due totheir fragmentary state, the relationships, if any, betweenthe Jewish–Christian gospels and a hypothetical originalHebrew Gospel are uncertain and have been a subject ofintensive scholarly investigation.[n 9] The Ebionite gospelhas been recognized as distinct from the others,[n 10] andit has been identified more closely with the lost Gospel ofthe Twelve.[n 11] It shows no dependence on the Gospel ofJohn and is similar in nature to the harmonized gospelsayings based on the Synoptic Gospels used by JustinMartyr, although a relationship between them, if any,is uncertain.[3] There is a similarity between the gospeland a source document contained within the ClementineRecognitions (1.27–71), conventionally referred to byscholars as the Ascents of James, with respect to the com-mand to abolish the Jewish sacrifices.[n 12]

5.1 Background

Epiphanius is believed to have come into possession ofa gospel that he attributed to the Ebionites when he wasbishop of Salamis, Cyprus.[4] He alone among the ChurchFathers identifies Cyprus as one of the “roots” of theEbionites.[4] The gospel survives only in seven brief quo-tations by Epiphanius in Chapter 30 of his heresiologythe Panarion, or “Medicine Chest”, (c. 377)[n 13] as apolemic against the Ebionites.[5] His citations are oftencontradictory and thought to be based in part on his ownconjecture.[n 14][n 15] The various, sometimes conflicting,sources of information were combined to point out in-consistencies in Ebionite beliefs and practices relative toNicene orthodoxy,[n 16] possibly to serve, indirectly, as apolemic against the Arians of his time.[n 3]

The term Gospel of the Ebionites is a modern convention;

28

5.2. COMPOSITION 29

no surviving document of the early church mentions agospel by that name.[6] Epiphanius identifies the gospelonly as “in the Gospel used by them, called 'according toMatthew'" and “they call it 'the Hebrew [gospel]'".[n 17][7]As early as 1689 the French priest Richard Simon calledthe text “Gospel of the Ebionites”.[8] The name is usedby modern scholars as a convenient way to distinguish agospel text that was probably used by the Ebionites fromEpiphanius’ mistaken belief that it was a Hebrew versionof the Gospel of Matthew.[2][n 18] Its place of origin isuncertain; one speculation is that it was composed in theregion east of the Jordan where the Ebionites were saidto have been present, according to the accounts of theChurch Fathers.[n 6] It is thought to have been composedduring the middle of the 2nd century, since several othergospel harmonies are known to be from this period.[2]

5.2 Composition

According to scholars Oskar Skarsaune and Glenn AlanKoch, Epiphanius incorporated excerpts from the gospeltext at a late stage in the composition of Panarion 30,primarily in chapters 13 and 14[n 19][n 20] As Epiphaniusdescribes it, “The Gospel which is found among them... is not complete, but falsified and distorted ...” (13.1–2). In particular, it lacked some or all of the first twochapters of Matthew, which contain the infancy narra-tive of the virgin birth of Jesus and the Davidic geneal-ogy via Solomon, “They have removed the genealogies ofMatthew ...” (14.2–3).[7]

There is general agreement about the seven quotations byEpiphanius cited in the critical edition of “Jewish Chris-tian gospels” by Philipp Vielhauer and Georg Strecker,translated by George Ogg, in Schneemelcher's New Tes-tament Apocrypha.[n 21][n 22] The translations of BernhardPick (1908),[9] with the sequence of four fragments ar-ranged in the order of Vielhauer & Strecker from the be-ginning of the gospel are as follows:

It came to pass in the days of Herod, Kingof Judaea under the high priest Caiaphas, thatJohn came and baptized with the baptism ofrepentance in the river Jordan; he is said to befrom the tribe of Aaron and a son of Zachariasthe priest and of Elizabeth and all went out tohim. (13.6) And it came to pass when Johnbaptized, that the Pharisees came to him andwere baptized, and all Jerusalem also. He hada garment of camels’ hair, and a leather girdleabout his loins. And his meat was wild honey,which tasted like manna, formed like cakes ofoil. (13.4) The people having been baptized,Jesus came also, and was baptized by John.And as he came out of the water the heavensopened, and he saw the Holy Spirit descend-ing under the form of a dove, and entering

into him. And a voice was heard from heaven:'Thou art my beloved Son, and in thee am I wellpleased'. And again: 'This day have I begot-ten thee'. And suddenly shone a great light inthat place. And John seeing him, said, 'Whoart thou, Lord'? Then a voice was heard fromheaven: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I amwell pleased'. Thereat John fell at his feet andsaid: 'I pray thee, Lord, baptize me'. But hewould not, saying 'Suffer it, for so it behoveththat all should be accomplished'. (13.7)

“There was a man named Jesus, and hewas about thirty years old; he has chosen us.And He came into Capernaum and entered intothe house of Simon, surnamed Peter, and Heopened His mouth and said, 'As I walked bythe Sea of Tiberias, I chose John and James,the sons of Zebedee, and Simon and Andrewand Thaddaeus and Simon Zelotes, and JudasIscariot; thee also, Matthew, when thou wastsitting at the receipt of custom, did I call andthou didst follow me. According to my inten-tion ye shall be twelve apostles for a testimonyunto Israel'.” (13.2b–3)

Matthew the Apostle is depicted as narrating directly to the readerin the Ebionite gospel, having been sent by Jesus “for a testimonyto Israel”.

The three quotations by Epiphanius in Panarion 30.13.6,4, and 7, respectively, form the opening of the gospel nar-rative, including the mission of John the Baptist, his ap-pearance and diet, and the baptism of Jesus by John.[n 23]

30 CHAPTER 5. GOSPEL OF THE EBIONITES

The beginning of the gospel (13.6) has parallels to theGospel of Luke but in abbreviated form. The text showsa familiarity with the infancy narrative of Luke 1:5 de-spite lacking a birth narrative of its own. Quoting fromthe text regarding the diet of John (13.4), Epiphaniuscomplains that the Ebionites have falsified the text bysubstituting the word “cake” (egkris ἐγκρίς) for “locust”(akris ἀκρίς, in Matthew 3:4).[10][11] The similarity ofthe wording in Greek has led scholars to conclude thatGreek was the original language of composition.[n 24] Inthe narrative of the baptism of Jesus by John (13.7), thevoice of God speaks three times in close parallels to theGospel of Mark 1:11, Luke 3:23 (Western text-type), andMatthew 3:17, respectively. The presence of multiplebaptismal theophanies has led to a consensus amongmod-ern scholars that the text quoted by Epiphanius is a gospelharmony[n 25] of the Synoptic Gospels.[n 26] The appear-ance of a great light on the water may be an echo of St.Paul's conversion or an additional harmonization of theGospel of the Hebrews to this work.[n 27]

Epiphanius begins his description of the gospel text(13.2b–3) with a quotation which has the apostleMatthew narrating directly to the reader. Jesus re-calls how the twelve apostles were chosen and addressesMatthew in the second person as “you also Matthew”.Although twelve apostles are mentioned, only eight arenamed.[n 28] They are said to be chosen by Jesus, “fora testimony to Israel”. The phrase “who chose us” hasbeen interpreted as evidence that the text may be the lostGospel of the Twelve mentioned by Origen. However,the identification of the gospel text quoted by Epiphaniuswith this otherwise unknown gospel is disputed.[n 29] Theposition of this quotation was tentatively assigned basedon a parallel to the Synoptic Gospels.[n 30]

The fifth and sixth quotations (following Vielhauer &Strecker’s order) are associated with a Christological con-troversy. The polemics of Epiphanius along with his quo-tations of the gospel text (in italics) are shown in parallel:

“Moreover they deny that he was a man,evidently on the ground of the word which theSavior spoke when it was reported to him: 'Be-hold, thy mother and thy brethren stand with-out' , namely: 'Who is my mother and who aremy brethren'? And he stretched forth his handtowards his disciples and said: 'These are mybrethren and mother and sisters, which do thewill of my Father'." (14.5)

“They say that he was not begotten of Godthe Father, but created as one of the archangels... that he rules over the angels and all the crea-tures of the Almighty, and that he came anddeclared, as their Gospel, which is called ac-cording to the Hebrews, reports: 'I am cometo abolish the sacrifices, if ye cease not fromsacrificing, the wrath will not cease from you'."(16.4–5)

The fifth quotation (14.5) appears to be a harmony ofMatthew 12:47–48 and its Synoptic parallels. However,Jesus’ final proclamation shows a closer agreement to 2Clement 9:11 than any of the Synoptics.[n 31] The unity ofthis quotation with the gospel text in Chapter 13 has beenquestioned.[n 32] The command to abolish the sacrifices inthe sixth quotation (16.5) is unparalleled in the CanonicalGospels, and it suggests a relationship toMatthew 5:17 (“Idid not come to abolish the Law”)[12] that is echoed in theClementine literature.[n 33]

Referring to a parallel passage in Luke 22:15, Epipha-nius complains that the Ebionites have again falsified thegospel text:

“They destroyed the true order andchanged the passage ... they made the disci-ples say, 'Where wilt Thou that we preparefor Thee to eat the Passover'? To which Hereplied: 'I have no desire to eat the flesh ofthis Paschal Lamb with you'." (22.4)

thereby making Jesus declare that he would not eatmeat during the Passover. The immediate contextsuggests the possible attribution of the quotation to aClementine source;[n 34] however a linkage between thegospel fragments and the Clementine literature remainsuncertain.[13]

5.3 Christology

The baptismal scene of the gospel text (13.7) is a har-mony of the Synoptic Gospels, but one in which the HolySpirit is said to descend to Jesus in the form of a doveand enter into him. This divine election at the time of hisbaptism is known as an Adoptionist Christology,[n 4][n 35]and it is emphasized by the quotation of Psalm 2:7, asfound in the “Western text” of Luke 3:23, “You are myson, this day I have begotten you.”[n 36][n 37] The Spiritentering into Jesus and the great light on the water arethought to be based on the prophecies of Isaiah 61:1 and9:1, respectively.[n 38] His Adoptionist son-ship is charac-terized by the belief that Jesus was a mere man, who, byvirtue of his perfect righteousness, was imbued with thedivinity of the eternal Christ through his Baptism in or-der to carry out the prophetic task for which he had beenchosen.[n 39][n 40]

The absence of any reference to a Davidic son-ship inthe gospel text suggests that Jesus has been elected to bethe end-time prophet, the Chosen One, sent to abolishthe Jewish sacrifices.[n 5][n 41] The Prophet-Christology ofthe gospel text quoted by Epiphanius is more at homewith the Clementine literature than the Christology ofthe Ebionites known to Irenaeus.[n 42][n 43] According toscholars Richard Bauckham and Petri Luomanen, Je-sus is understood in this gospel as having come to abol-ish the sacrifices rather than substituting for them;[14]

5.5. RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER TEXTS 31

Jesus became one with God by Adoption at his Baptism accordingto theGospel of the Ebionites, fulfilling a proclamation of Psalm2:7 “You are my son, this day I have begotten you.”

thus it is unlikely that it contained the same institu-tion of the Eucharist as practiced by Nicene orthodoxChristianity.[n 44] However, scholars have yet to reach aconsensus over the sacrificial significance of Jesus’ mis-sion as depicted in the Ebionite gospel.[n 45]

5.4 Vegetarianism

The change in wording of the gospel text from “locust”(akris) to “cake” (egkris) for John the Baptist’s diet (13.4)has been interpreted as evidence of Jewish vegetarian-ism.[n 46][n 47] However, the association of the diet ofJohn the Baptist with vegetarianism has been questioned.Epiphanius gives no indication of concern for vegetarian-ism in this part of the Gospel text,[7] and it may insteadbe an allusion to the manna in the wilderness of Exodus16:31 and Numbers 11:8,[n 48] or, according to scholarGlenn Alan Koch, to 1 Kings 19:6 where Elijah eats cakesin oil.[n 49]

Further evidence has been found in the quotation basedon Luke 22:15 (22.4), where the saying has been mod-ified by insertion of the word “flesh” to provide a ra-tionale for vegetarianism.[n 50] The immediate context ofthe quotation suggests that it may be closely related to aClementine source, the Journeys of Peter. Reading fromthe same source, Epiphanius states that the Ebionites ab-stained from “meat with soul in it” (15.3), and he at-tributes this teaching to Ebionite interpolations “they cor-rupt the contents and leave a few genuine items”. Due to

the close association of this saying with the Clementineliterature of the 3rd and 4th century, the earlier practiceof vegetarianism by the 2nd-century Ebionites known toIrenaeus has been questioned.[n 51] The strict vegetarian-ism of the Ebionites known to Epiphanius may have beena reaction to the cessation of Jewish sacrifices and a safe-guard against the consumption of unclean meat in a paganenvironment.[n 52][15]

5.5 Relationship to other texts

Epiphanius incorrectly refers to the gospel in his posses-sion as the Gospel of Matthew and the gospel “accord-ing to the Hebrews”, perhaps relying upon and conflat-ing the writings of the earlier Church Fathers, Irenaeusand Eusebius, respectively.[n 53][n 54] His 4th century col-league Jerome remarks that the Nazarenes and Ebionitesboth used the Gospel of the Hebrews, which was consid-ered the original Matthew by many of them. Jerome’sreport is consistent with the prior accounts of Irenaeusand Eusebius.[n 55]

The relationship between the Gospel of the Ebionites, theGospel of the Hebrews, and the Gospel of the Nazarenesremains unclear. All the Jewish–Christian gospels sur-vive only as fragments in quotations, so it is difficult totell if they are independent texts or variations of eachother. Scholar Albertus Klijn established the modernconsensus, concluding that the gospel harmony composedin Greek appears to be a distinctive text known onlyto Epiphanius.[n 10] Scholar Marie-Émile Boismard hasclaimed the Ebionite gospel is partly dependent upon ahypothetical Hebrew gospel as a source; however thisconjecture remains a minority view.[n 9][n 56] Its puta-tive relationship to the gospel text known to Origen asthe Gospel of the Twelve remains a subject of scholarlydebate.[n 11]

The Ebionite gospel is one example of a type of gospelharmony that used the Gospel of Matthew as a base textbut did not include the Gospel of John; it is believed topre-date Tatian's Diatessaron (c. 170) which includedall four canonical gospels.[16] The gospel has a paral-lel to a quotation in a mid-2nd-century homily knownas 2 Clement, suggesting that both may be dependenton a harmonizing tradition from an earlier 2nd centurysource.[n 57][n 58] The harmonized gospel sayings sourcesused by Justin Martyr to compose his First Apology andDialogue with Trypho were similarly based on the Syn-optic Gospels.[n 59] According to scholar George Howard,harmonization was a widely used method of compositionin the early Patristic period. Many of the heterodox vari-ants found in the Gospel of the Ebionites may have beenadopted from a larger pool of variants that were in circu-lation; an example is the appearance of a great light thatshone during Jesus’ Baptism which is also found in theDiatessaron.[17]

32 CHAPTER 5. GOSPEL OF THE EBIONITES

The Recognitions of Clement contains a source document(Rec. 1.27–71), conventionally referred to by scholarsas the Ascents of James,[n 60] which is believed to be ofJewish–Christian origin.[n 61] The Ascents shares a sim-ilarity to the Gospel of the Ebionites with regard to thebaptism of the Pharisees by John (Pan. 30.13.4; Rec.1.54.6–7)[18] and the command to abolish the Jewishsacrifices,[n 12] adding that a Christian water baptism isto be substituted for the remission of sins.[n 62][19] Basedon these similarities, scholars Richard Bauckham and F.Stanley Jones have postulated a direct dependence of theAscents of James on the Gospel of the Ebionites.[20]

5.6 Inferences about the Ebionites

The gospel Epiphanius attributed to the Ebionites is avaluable source of information that provides modernscholars with insights into the distinctive characteristicsof a vanished branch of Jewish Christianity.[n 63] How-ever, scholars disagree on whether the information con-tained within the seven fragments preserved by Epipha-nius accurately reflects the traditions of the second-century Ebionite sect known to Irenaeus, or if their be-lief system changed, perhaps greatly, over a span of200 years compared to this early group.[n 64][21] TheEbionites[n 65][n 66] known to Irenaeus (first mentioned inAdversus Haereses 1.26.2, written around 185) and otherChurch Fathers prior to Epiphanius were described as aJewish sect that regarded Jesus as the Messiah but not asdivine. They insisted on the necessity of following Jewishlaw and rites and they used only the Jewish–Christiangospel.[22] The Ebionites rejected the epistles of Paulof Tarsus, whom they regarded as an apostate from theLaw.[23]

In Epiphanius’ polemic against the Ebionites found inPanarion 30, a complex picture emerges of the beliefsand practices of the 4th century Ebionites that can-not easily be separated from his method of combiningtogether disparate sources.[n 14] While scholars such asHans-Joachim Schoeps literally interpreted Epiphanius’account as describing a later syncretic development ofEbionism,[n 67][n 68] more recent scholarship has found itdifficult to reconcile his report with those of the earlierChurch Fathers, leading to a conjecture by scholar PetriLuomanen that a second group of Hellenistic-SamaritanEbionites may also have been present.[n 8][n 69][n 70] Therejection of the Jewish sacrifices and the implication ofan end-time prophet Christology due to the lack of a birthnarrative lend support for the association of the Gospel ofthe Ebionites with a group or groups different from theEbionites known to Irenaeus.[n 71]

Scholarship in the area of Jewish Christian studies hastended to be based on artificial constructs similar to thosedeveloped by the early Christian heresiologists, with theunderlying assumption that all of the beliefs and practicesof these groups were based on theology.[n 72] This has

led to the perpetuation of ideological definitions that failto take into account the pluriformity of these groups,[24]reflecting differences in geography[n 73][n 74], time peri-ods in history[n 75], and ethnicity[n 76]. With respect toEpiphanius, and the Ebionites in particular, insufficientattention has been paid to the highly speculative nature ofhis theological constructs[n 77] and his mixing together ofdisparate sources[n 78], including his use of a gospel har-mony that may have had nothing to do with the Ebionitesect known to Irenaeus[n 79]. In the end, he presents anenigmatic picture of the Ebionites and their place in earlyChristian history.[n 80] These gospel fragments offer oneof the few glimpses into their world.

5.7 Notes

[1] Cameron 1982, p. 103; The original title of the gospel isunknown.

[2] Paget 2010, pp. 325–80; Paget provides a scholarly reviewof the recent academic literature on the Ebionites.

[3] Finley 2009, pp. 291–3; p. 291 – “Unfortunately, Epipha-nius’ reliability as an historical witness is less than couldbe hoped. The statements hemade about the Ebionites arerelatively inconsistent, and cover a wide range of subjects.Epithanius did notmake any statement about the Ebionitescontrary to his strident sense of Nicene orthodoxy. There-fore, it seems possible that Epiphanius was merely usingthe Ebionites and literature that may or may not have beenassociated with the Ebionites to argue against all typesof heretical views.” p. 292 – “Epiphanius’ main focusin the chapter on the Ebionites was Christological, andbecause of Epiphanius’ efforts in support of the NiceneChristology, we should regard his statements about Ebion-ite Christology as particularly suspect.” p. 293 – “It seemsto me quite plain that Epiphanius was not attacking Jew-ish Christianity in Panarion 30, but instead Christologicalbeliefs and Scriptural interpretations.”

[4] Kloppenborg 1994, pp. 435–9; p. 435 – “This belief,known as “adoptionism”, held that Jesus was not divineby nature or by birth, but that God chose him to becomehis son, i.e., adopted him.”

[5] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 166–71; p. 168 – “Jesus’task is to do awaywith the 'sacrifices’. In this saying (16.4–5), the hostility of the Ebionites against the Temple cult isdocumented.”

[6] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 166–71; p. 169 – “Theplace of origin is uncertain. It was possibly composed inthe region east of Jordan,”

[7] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 457–61; p. 461 – “To conclude,Epiphanius’ portrayal of the Ebionites in Pan. 30 is alearned construction, based almost exclusively on writ-ten sources, ... At no point is there any certain evidencethat Epiphanius’ knowledge is based on firsthand, per-sonal contact with Ebionites who called themselves by thisname.”

5.7. NOTES 33

[8] Luomanen 2007, pp. 101–2,115; pp. 101–2 – “Thus,we may have to reckon with the possibility that, fromvery early on, there may have been at least two types ofEbionites: (1) Hebrew/Aramaic-speaking Ebionites (Ire-naeus Ebionites?) who shared James the Just’s positive at-titude toward the temple, used only Matthew’s Gospel andaccepted all the prophets; and (2) Hellenistic-SamaritanEbionites (Epiphanius’ Ebionites) who totally rejectedworship in the temple, used only the Pentateuch, and, car-rying with them the memory of Stephen’s execution, per-ceived Paul as one of their major opponents.”, p. 115 –“The Jewish Christianity of Irenaeus’ Ebionites involvedobedience to Jewish laws (including circumcision), anti-Paulinism, rejection of Jesus’ virginal conception, rever-ence for Jerusalem (direction of prayer), use of Matthew’sGospel, Eucharist with water, and possibly the idea thatChrist/Spirit entered Jesus at his baptism. ... However,the explicit rejection of the temple and its cult, the ideaof the True Prophet and the (selective) acceptance of thePentateuch only, show that Epiphanius’ Ebionites were notdirect successors of Irenaeus’ Ebionites. Because it is noteasy to picture a linear development from Irenaeus’ Ebion-ites to Epiphanius’ Ebionites, and because the Samaritansseem to link Epiphanius’ Ebionites with the Hellenists ofthe early Jerusalem community, I am inclined to assumethat Epiphanius’ Ebionites were in fact successors of theHellenistic “poor” of the early Jerusalem community, andthat Irenaeus’ Ebionites were successors of the Hebrews(see Acts 6–8) of the same community.”

[9] Petersen 1992, p. 262 – “A dissenting position, however,is that of Boismard, who detects two traditions in Epipha-nius’ quotations from the gospel used by the Ebionites.One is a later, more developed tradition, which is proba-bly a Greek language original; the second is a much moreprimitive tradition and has a strong imprint of a Semiticlanguage. It is this latter tradition which Boismard equateswith the Hebrew (i.e. pre-Greek) recension of Matthew -the document described by Epiphanius.” For further de-tails, see Boismard 1966, p. 351.

[10] Klijn 1992, pp. 27–30; p. 27 – “we have to reckon withat least two different Gospels because we meet two dif-ferent versions of the Baptism of Jesus, one referred toby Epiphanius, Panarion 30.13.7–8 and another one byJerome, in Es. 11,1–3. At present it is generally assumedthat Epiphanius quoted from a Gospel that was known tohim only.”

[11] Puech & Blatz 1991, p. 374 – “the majority of criticstoday are inclined to identify it (the Gospel of the Twelve)with the Gospel of the Ebionites,”

[12] Luomanen 2007, p. 95 – “there is such a fundamentalagreement among the Pseudo-Clementine sources (espe-cially Rec. 1.27–71), the “Gospel of the Ebionites”, andEpiphanius’ description of the Ebionites that there hasto be a connection between them. The idea that Jesuscame to abolish the sacrifices and that the temple was de-stroyed because the people were reluctant to cease sacri-ficing is unique within the early Christian tradition, mak-ing its appearance both in Rec. 1.27–71 and the “Gospelof the Ebionites” hardly coincidental.” (Bauckham 2003,p. 168)

[13] Williams 1987, p. xvi – “It was begun in 374 or 375 (Pa-narion Proem II 2,3) and was written in great haste in lessthan three years.

[14] Koch 1976, pp. 366–7; p. 366 – “It would seem thatEpiphanius has composed Panarion 30 by combining var-ious resources at hand. At several points he contradictshimself, which is largely occasioned by his method ofcomposition – the juxtaposing of different sources.” p.367 – “One could choose to believe that Ebionitism inEpiphanius’ day had become quite syncretistic. ... How-ever, it should be underscored that this picture is presentedonly by Epiphanius, and once his literary method is rec-ognized as a juxtaposition of sources, it is more difficultto accept this evolution of Ebionite thought as historicalfact.”

[15] Williams 1987, p. xix – “In Epiphanius’ view, then, thethree bases of the Panarion are observation, documenta-tion, and oral testimony. In some cases we should add afourth to these: historical conjecture on Epiphanius’ ownpart. ... In other words, Epiphanius may not without fur-ther investigation be assumed to be in possession of muchhistorical information about the origins of the sects he dis-cusses.”

[16] Klijn 1992, p. 41 – “The Gospel according to the Ebion-ites was quoted by Epiphanius to show its absurdities.The selection of the references is, therefore, arbitraryand probably does not indicate the real contents of theGospel.”

[17] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, p. 140 – “That the two cannotbe identical and are not so for Epiphanius, is shown byanother note on theGospel of the Ebionites: 'In theGospelused by them',..”

[18] Jones 2000, p. 364 – “Epiphanius connects his Ebioniteswith the Pseudo-Clementines, with the anti-Pauline As-cents of James, and with a gospel conveniently called theGospel of the Ebionites by modern scholars.”

[19] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 457–61; p. 457 – “At a late stagein the writing of his Panarion, Epiphanius chanced upona fourth source (a Greek gospel), which he immediatelytook to be Ebionite. He interpolated fragments from thisGospel in 30.13–4, at the end of another large interpola-tion, the Count Joseph story in 30.4–12.”

[20] Koch 1976, pp. 359–68; Koch provides a detailed analy-sis of Epiphanius’ use of disparate sources and his edito-rial method of combining them to produce Panarion 30,including a gospel in his possession, which he attributedto the Ebionites. pp. 359–60 – “The GE materials arealso clustered, which suggests that when Epiphanius de-cided to include these materials, he inserted them into theolder materials in clusters. In other words, the additionof these materials to previous knowledge of the Ebionitesis Epiphanius’ own contribution to the subject.” p. 365 –“An analysis of the distribution of the sources shows thatthe earlier patristic information is distributed throughoutthe chapters without obvious clustering. However, follow-ing the digression of chapters 4–12, clustering is quite ev-ident in the other materials: the Ebionite Gospel materialsare given for the most part in chapters 13 and 14.”

34 CHAPTER 5. GOSPEL OF THE EBIONITES

[21] Elliott 2005, pp. 5–6,14–6; Elliott’s 1993 critical editionhas a similar list of 7 quotations.

[22] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 166–71; Vielhauer &Strecker; Schneemelcher’sNew Testament Apocrypha 2ndedition (6th German edition) is considered the standardedition for new testament apocryphal writings. Three tes-timonies to that effect are as follows: 1. ChristopherR. Matthews Philip, Apostle and Evangelist: configura-tions of a tradition 2002 " given the high visibility ofSchneemelcher’s assessment in the standard edition of theNew Testament Apocrypha, ...”, 2. Helmut Koester FromJesus to the Gospels: interpreting the New Testament 2007p311 “The new standard edition of the New TestamentApocrypha in English translation is somewhat more cau-tious. Wilhelm Schneemelcher grants that some of theapocryphal writings “appear in ...”, 3. Michael J. Wilkins,James Porter Moreland – Jesus under fire 1995 “The stan-dard edition is the two-volume work of E. Hennecke andW. Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, trans. R.McL. Wilson (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965)"

[23] Kloppenborg 1994, pp. 435–9; p. 437 – Note: The com-position of the opening narrative with the first 3 quotationsfollows Pick’s order.

[24] Klijn 1992, pp. 67–8 – “The quotation shows the influenceof the LXX. This and the word-play with regard to ἐγκρίςand ἀκρίς definitely shows that we are dealing with anoriginal Greek work.”

[25] A gospel harmony is a blending of two or more gospelsinto a single narrative; the earliest known examples, datingto the 2nd or 3rd century, are Tatian's Diatessaron, DuraParchment 24, and, possibly, an unnamed gospel conven-tionally known as the Egerton Gospel.

[26] Ehrman 2005, p. 102 – “this particular Gospel of theEbionites appears to have been a “harmonization” of theNew Testament Gospels ofMatthew, Mark and Luke. Ev-idence that it harmonized the earlier sources comes in theaccount that it gave of Jesus’ baptism. As careful readershave long noticed, the three Synoptic Gospels all recordthe words spoken by a voice from heaven as Jesus emergesfrom the water; but the voice says something different inall three accounts: “This is my Son in whom I am wellpleased” (Matt. 3:17); “You are my Son, in whom I amwell pleased” (Mark 1:11); and, in the oldest witness toLuke’s Gospel, “You are my Son, today I have begottenyou” (Luke 3:23). ... In the Gospel of the Ebionites ...the voice speaks three times, saying something differenton each occasion.”

[27] Edwards 2009, pp. 71–4; p. 71, referencing E.B. Nichol-son (1879), The Gospel according to the Hebrews, pp. 40–2, on the great light on the water during the baptism ofJesus.

[28] Kloppenborg 1994, pp. 435–9; p. 438, fn. 2:5 – “Ebion-ites specifies twelve apostles, while Epiphanius names onlyeight.”

[29] Klijn 1992, pp. 6,28; p. 6 – “The Gospel of the Twelveis sometimes identified with the Gospel of the Ebionitesmentioned by Epiphanius. If this were true, the Gospelcould be called Jewish–Christian, but this identification

is a matter of dispute.” p. 28 – Klijn follows Waitz andZahn in tentatively assigning this text as the Gospel of TheTwelve, “At the beginning of this quotation there is a men-tion of us, viz. the twelve apostles, who also seem to be re-sponsible for the contents of this Gospel. This wouldmeanthat the Gospel could be called 'Gospel of the Twelve',which is the name of a Gospel mentioned in a passage inOrigen. (Origen, Comm. Matt. 1:1–10)"

[30] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 166–71; p. 166 – “De-spite the arguments advanced by Waitz, it remains ques-tionable whether the fragment cited by Epiphanius is to bereckoned with the GE.”

[31] Koester 1990, p. 351 – “The same harmonization ofMatthean and Lukan redactional changes ofMark’s text ofthis saying appears in its quotation in Clement of Alexan-dria (Eclogae propheticae 20.3) and the Gospel of theEbionites. 2 Clem. 9.11 thus presupposes a more widelyknown document or a tradition in which this saying al-ready appeared in a harmonized version.”

[32] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 457–61; p. 458, referencing AlfredSchmidtke (1911), Neue Fragmente, p. 223: Schmidtkespeculated that the fragment may derive from Origen’scommentary on John, (Comm. Jo. 2.12), which quotesfrom the Gospel of the Hebrews.

[33] Kloppenborg 1994, pp. 435–9; p. 439 – “In saying, 'I didnot come to do away with the law', and yet doing awaywith something, he indicated that what he did away withhad not originally been part of the law.” (Ps-Cl Homilies3.51.2)

[34] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 457–61; p. 459 – “It is far fromcertain, however, that this saying derives from the EbioniteGospel.”, p. 460 – “The probability that Epiphanius tookthis from the same source he is exploiting in the context –the Pseudo-Clementine Journeys – seems to me so greatthat attributing the saying to the Ebionite Gospel is the lesslikely hypothesis.”

[35] Paget 2010, pp. 349–57; Paget provides an overview ofthe recent scholarly literature on the Adoptionism of theEbionites.

[36] Evans 2007, pp. 251–3; p. 251 – “This Gospel’s statementthat the Spirit “entered into” Jesus is an important additionto the story. This Gospel also adds a quotation of part ofPsalm 2:7 (“Today I have begotten you”).”

[37] Ehrman 1993, pp. 49–51,62–7; p. 49 – “With respectto other New Testament traditions concerning Jesus’ bap-tism, the earliest textual witnesses of the Gospel accordingto Luke preserve a conspicuously adoptionistic formula inthe voice from heaven, 'You are my son, today I have be-gotten you' (Luke 3:22).” p. 62 – “This is the reading ofcodex Bezae and a number of ecclesiastical writers fromthe second century onward.”

[38] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 457–61; p. 461 – “The Spirit “goinginto” Jesus recalls prophetical endowment with the Spirit,cf. Isa 61:1: 'The Spirit of the Lord is with me, for hehas anointed me to preach good news to the poor..'. Thegreat light shining recalls Isa 9:1: 'The people wanderingin darkness shall see a great light; those who dwell in theland and shadow of death, over you the light shall shine.'"

5.7. NOTES 35

[39] Lapham2003, pp. 84–7; p. 86 – “Christ was nomore thana man (albeit the most righteous and wisest of all) uponwhom, after his baptism by John, the eternal Christ of theheavens descended and rested upon him until the time ofhis Passion. This idea is clearly represented in another ofEpiphanius’ quotations from the Ebionite Gospel.” (Pa-narion 30.13.7)

[40] Häkkinen 2008, pp. 267–8; Häkkinen provides a detaileddescription of the Christology of the Ebionite gospel. Atranslation of Epiphanius’ commentary relevant to Jesus’Adoption reads as follows: p. 267 - (1) “This is becausethey mean that Jesus is really a man, as I said, but thatChrist, who descended in the form of a dove, has enteredhim - as we have found already in other sects - <and> beenunited with him. Christ himself <is from God on high,but Jesus> is the product of a man’s seed and a woman.”(Pan. 30.14.4); (2) “And they say that this is why Jesuswas begotten of the seed of a man and chosen, and thusnamed the Son of God by election, after the Christ, whohad come to him from on high in the form of a dove.”(Pan. 30.16.3); (3) “They say, however, that Christ isprophet of truth and Christ; <but> that he is Son of Godby promotion, and by his connection with the elevationgiven to him from above. ... He alone, they would haveit, is prophet, man, Son of God, and Christ - and yet amere man, as I said, though owing to virtue of life he hascome to be called the Son of God.” (Pan. 30.18.5-6); Foradditional details, see Verheyden 2003, pp. 193–4.

[41] Klijn 1992, p. 41 – “During his baptism, Jesus is chosenas God’s son. At that moment, God generated him. ... Heis the Chosen One, and at the moment that this becomesevident a light radiates.”

[42] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 457–61; p. 461 – “it does not seemfar-fetched to conclude that the Ebionite Gospel under-stood Jesus’ baptism as his being called and endowed tobe the end-time prophet (rather than the Davidic Mes-siah). ... It is clear, however, that he (Epiphanius) wasquite mistaken in identifying the group authoring or us-ing this Gospel with the Irenaen Ebionites. The Prophet-Christology of the Gospel would rather point to the groupbehind the Pseudo-Clementines Grundschrift as near the-ological relatives.”

[43] Luomanen 2007, p. 92 – “The idea that Jesus, the TrueProphet, came to abolish the sacrifices is central to thePseudo-Clementines. In this regard, it is clear that the'Gospel of the Ebionites’ agreed with them.”

[44] Luomanen 2012, pp. 153–4; p. 153 – “The Ebionitesdid not believe that the sacrifices could be abolished byreplacing them with Jesus’ own once-and-for-all sacrifice.In this regard, the Ebionites theology clearly differed fromthe theology expressed in the Letter to the Hebrews.” p.154 – “To summarize the conclusions of the reconstruc-tion: Epiphanius’ quotation from the Gospel of the Ebion-ites indicates that there was a description of preparationsfor the Last Supper where Jesus says he does not wantto eat meat. Because another quotation from the Gospelof the Ebionites reveals that the Ebionites opposed sacri-fices, it is unlikely that they would have granted a sacrifi-cial value to Jesus’ blood. Thus, it is also unlikely that the

Gospel of the Ebionites would have included the institu-tion of the Eucharistic cup of blood. Epiphanius’ remarka bit earlier in the Panarion about the Ebionites practiceof celebrating Passover year after year with unleavenedbread and water confirms that the assumption that therecould not have been any institution of the Eucharistic cupof blood in the Gospel of the Ebionites.

[45] Ehrman & Pleše 2011, p. 211 – “In particular, it is clearthat theymaintained that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice forsins, so that there was no longer any need for the Jewishsacrificial cult.”

[46] Klijn 1992, pp. 67–8; p. 68 – “John the Baptist is sup-posed to have followed a vegetarian life-style.” with a ref-erence to S. Brock, (1970) The Baptists Diet in SyriacSources, Oriens Christianus, vol.54, pp. 113–24

[47] Lapham 2003, pp. 84–7; p. 85 – “The deviation in thedescription of John’s food is doubtless an indication of thevegetarian customs of the Ebionites.”

[48] Evans 2007, pp. 251–3; p. 251 – “Linking John’s wilder-ness food with the food the Israelites ate while crossing thewilderness and preparing for entry into the promised landmay lend an additional element of restoration theology tothe ministry and activity of John.”

[49] Koch 1976, pp. 328–9; p. 328 – “While it is not clearwhich version is older, one might perhaps see at work herean exegetical principle which was practiced in Judaism ...– the change in meaning occasioned by the change of asyllable.” p. 329 – “On the other hand, one might arguejust as convincingly that the Exodus-manna typology isolder than the “locust” texts, ... This would have the ef-fect of identifying John the Baptist with the desert expe-rience, perhaps conveying the impression that he was thenew prophet like Moses.”

[50] Evans 2007, pp. 251–3; p. 253 – The saying may indi-cate that Christ is the Passover sacrifice, so that eating thePassover lamb is no longer required and a vegetarian dietmay be observed.

[51] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 454–5; p. 454 – “The 'Ebionite' rea-son for not eating meat seems to be based on a fear ofeating souls, which was the main reason for Pythagoreanvegetarianism.” p. 455 – “In summary, Epiphanius’ reportof the vegetarianism of the 'Ebionites’ seems to be basedon his reading of the Pseudo-Clementine Journeys of Pe-ter (and possibly other pseudo-apostolic works) ... whichmakes one hesitate very much in ascribing any of this tothe Ebionites of Irenaeus and his followers.”

[52] Gregory 2008, pp. 61–66; p. 65 – “There may also beevidence for vegetarianism elsewhere in Epiphanius’ ci-tations from the Gospel of the Ebionites, for it has Je-sus deny that he wished to eat meat with his disciples atPassover (Pan. 30.22.4). Yet care must be taken in assess-ing this evidence. The link between those whose practicesare reflected in the Pseudo-Clementines and in the Gospelof the Ebionites is by no means certain, and Jesus’ state-ment about the Passover may reflect an aversion primarilyto sacrifices and to meat associated with sacrifices ratherthan to meat as such.”

36 CHAPTER 5. GOSPEL OF THE EBIONITES

[53] Paget 2010, pp. 331–2,341; pp. 321-2 - “Epiphaniusseems simply to have combined the claim of Irenaeus andmany others that the Ebionites used Matthew only, theclaim of Papias that Matthew was written in Hebrew (Eu-sebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.16), and the claim of Eusebiusthat they called their Gospel 'according to the Hebrews’.”p. 341 - “most scholars would accept that Epiphanius’ in-troduction to the Gospel is an odd amalgam of differentstatements about the Ebionite gospel.”

[54] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 435,446,457–8; p. 435, Irenaeus– “For the Ebionites who use the Gospel according toMatthew only, are confuted of this very same book, whenthey make false suppositions with regard to the Lord.”(Haer. 3.11.7); p. 446, Eusebius – “These men more-over thought that it was necessary to reject all the epis-tles of the Apostle, whom they called an apostate fromthe Law; and they used only the so-called Gospel accord-ing to the Hebrews and made small account of the rest.”(Hist. eccl. 3.27.1); p. 457, Epiphanius – “They also ac-cept the Gospel according to Matthew. For they too useonly this like the followers of Cerinthus and Merinthus.They call it, however, 'according to the Hebrews’, whichname is correct since Matthew is the only one in the NewTestament who issued the Gospel and the proclamation inHebrew and with Hebrew letters.” (Panarion 30.3.7); p.458 – “It seems rather clear that Epiphanius’ characteri-zation of the Gospel used by the Ebionites in (30.)3.7 isnot based on firsthand knowledge of the Gospel quotedin (30.)13–14, nor are the contents of the introductoryremarks in (30.)13.2 taken from the Gospel itself. Theyare rather an attempt to adjust the traditional descriptionin (30.)3.7 to the new document Epiphanius has got holdof and which he took to be the Gospel his predecessorsamong the Fathers had been talking about.”

[55] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 544–5 Jerome – “In the Gospelwhich the Nazoraeans and the Ebionites use which wetranslated recently from Hebrew to Greek and which iscalled the authentic text of Matthew by a good many, it iswritten ...” Comm. Matt. 12.13

[56] Boismard 1966, p. 351 – “Si ce renseignementd'Épiphane est exact, Ébion. 2 pourrait representer uneforme plus ou moins remaniée, de l'évangile primitif deMatthieu, lequel correspondrait donc au texte que nousavons appele Y (Éb. 2).”

[57] Luomanen 2012, pp. 206–12,223–5; Luomanen providesa detailed text-critical analysis of the synoptic and non-canonical parallels to the Gospel of the Ebionites frag-ment Pan. 30.14.5, including Gospel of Thomas logion99. He concludes that the Gospel of the Ebionites, Gospelof Thomas, and 2 Clement are dependent upon a pre-Diatessaronic harmonizing gospel tradition.

[58] Tuckett 2012, pp. 201–2; p. 202 – “we may also note thepresence of a similar harmonized version of the saying (2Clem. 9.11) in Gos. Eb. (Pan. 30.14.5) and in Clementof Alexandria (Ecl. 20.3). Hence it may well be that 2Clement here is dependent on a separate source that hadalready harmonized the different versions of the saying inthe synoptics into its present form here.

[59] Bellinzoni 1967, pp. 140–1; Bellinzoni states that Justinwas primarily dependent upon an early Christian cate-chism and a reference manual (vade mecum) of sayingsagainst heresies for his sources of harmonized gospel say-ings. According to Bellinzoni, p. 141 – “It must, however,be emphasized that there is absolutely no evidence thatJustin ever composed a complete harmony of the Synop-tic Gospels; his harmonies were of limited scope and wereapparently composed for didactic purposes.”

[60] Luomanen 2007, p. 93 – “Scholars also largely agree thatone section of the Recognitions, Rec. 1.27–71, is based onan independent source, but there is no consensus about thepossible original title of the writing. Some think that thissection of the Recognitions (Rec. 1.27–71) may indeedpreserve the Ascents of James, which Epiphanius ascribesto the Ebionites in Pan. 30.16.7 (Van Voorst 1989).”

[61] Van Voorst 1989, pp. 177,180; p. 177 – “There is, in fact,no section of the Clementine literature about whose originin Jewish Christianity one may be more certain.” (quotingthe conclusion of Martyn 1978, p. 271)

[62] Skarsaune 2007, p. 395 – “The most striking parallel tothis concept (Christian baptism as a substitute for sacri-fices for purification from sin) is to be found in the Jewish–Christian source in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions,1.27–71. Here we read the following: '[The prophet likeMoses] would first of all admonish them ... to cease withsacrifices; lest they think that with the ceasing of the sacri-fices remission of sins could not be effected for them, [he]instituted for them baptism by water, in which they mightbe absolved of all sins through the invocation of his name,... [so that] henceforth following a perfect life they mightremain in immortality, purified not through the blood ofanimals but through the purification of God’s wisdom'.”(Rec. 1.39.1–2)

[63] Bauckham 2003, pp. 162–4,172; p.163 – “Epiphanius’much fuller and not entirely consistent account of theEbionites draws on significant literary sources unknownto the earlier Fathers as well as his own deductions andguesses. His most valuable contribution is the quotationshe provides from a gospel he attributes to them, and whichis therefore called by modern scholars the Gospel of theEbionites.” p. 172 – “If the Gospel of the Ebionites andthe Ascents of James were Ebionite texts, the implica-tions, not only for their beliefs, but also for their origins,are considerable.”

[64] Luomanen 2007, p. 88 – “Much of what Epiphanius re-ports about the Ebionites is consistent with the accounts ofhis predecessors, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Origen, and Euse-bius.” p. 314, notes: See Irenaeus, Haer. 1.26.2; 3.11.7;Hippolytus, Haer. 7.34.1–2; 10.22; Origen, Cels. 5.65;Hom. Gen. 3.5; Hom. Jer. 19.12.2; Eusebius, Hist. eccl.3.27.1–6; 6.17.

[65] Ehrman 2005, pp. 95–103; Ehrman offers a populartreatment of the subject, see pp. 95–103.

[66] Klijn & Reinink 1973, pp. 19–43; Klijn & Reinink offersa rigorous academic treatment of the subject, see pp. 19–43.

5.8. CITATIONS 37

[67] Schoeps 1969, pp. 9–17; p. 12 – “That the “patriarch oforthodoxy,” as Epiphanius was called, had in any event apositive knowledge of the Ebionites, and that the originalClementines, in some form or another, were connectedwith them, I believe I have irrefutably demonstrated.”

[68] Bauckham 2003, pp. 163–4; In a recent affirmation ofthis view, Bauckham argues that the Gospel of the Ebion-ites was written by the same group of Ebionites known toIrenaeus. He further states that Irenaeus’ report that the2nd-century Ebionites used the Gospel of Matthew was areference to their name for the Ebionite gospel.

[69] Luomanen 2012, pp. 17–49,161–5,233–5,241; See Lu-omanen 2012 for further details on the origins andcharacteristics of the Ebionites known to Epiphanius;p. 241 – Summary and Conclusion: "Epiphanius’Ebionites/Hellenistic–Samaritan Ebionites probably werean offspring of the missionary activity of the Hellenistsof the early Jerusalem community among the Samari-tans. Later on, they also adopted some Elchasaite ideas.Epiphanius found the Gospel of the Ebionites amongthem.”

[70] Van Voorst 1989, pp. 177,180; Similarly, Van Voorstconcludes that the Jewish–Christian tradition on whichRec. 1.33–71 is based may be traced back, albeit indi-rectly, to the Hellenists of the Jerusalem Church; p. 180– “While there is not enough evidence to conclude thatthe community of the AJ (Ascents of James) is the linealphysical descendent of the Hellenist Jewish Christians ofActs, it certainly is a spiritual descendant of Stephen andhis circle.”

[71] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 457–61; pp. 460–1 – “There is onemore feature of this Gospel that clearly makes it distinct ...it contained no genealogy of Jesus. According to Epipha-nius, it began with a short version of Luke 3:1–3. ... Thisprobably reveals something about the genre this Gospelwas intended to represent. This is clearly the beginning ofa prophet’s book. We have seen repeatedly how importantthe Davidic genealogy was for Ebionite Christology; it wasthe importance of this Davidic lineage through Joseph thatmade them deny the virgin birth. For them, Jesus was theDavidic Messiah. For the author of the Ebionite Gospelthis seems to have been no concern at all. Instead, he mayhave conceived of Jesus as the end-time prophet, endowedwith the Spirit at his calling – his baptism by John.”

[72] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 745–7; p. 746 – “Especially in stud-ies of 'Jewish Christianity', a history of ideas approachhas often been dominant, constructing an ideological en-tity that was studied as such. Quite apart from the fact thatthis entity had all the marks of being a modern scholarlyconstruct based on similar constructs by the early Chris-tian heresiologists, this Jewish Christianity was often con-structed as a uniform entity. ... And it was assumed thattheir practice was determined by their theology. If, there-fore, differences of practice were observed among mem-bers of Jewish Christianity, this was explained by differ-ences in theology.

[73] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 745–7,755–67; The synchronic per-spective distinguishes differences in practice based on ge-ographic location and social setting.

[74] Lapham 2003, pp. 84–7; Fred Lapham takes a geographi-cal approach to describing different forms of early JewishChristianity; he classifies the Gospel of the Ebionites as adocument of the “Church in Samaria”.

[75] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 745–7,767–77; The diachronic per-spective distinguishes differences in practice based ontime periods in history, e.g. the “Constantinian Revolu-tion”.

[76] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 748–9; p. 748 – “In the ancientChristian sources a clear distinction is made between Jew-ish believers in Jesus and Gentile believers in Jesus. Thetwo groups were not distinguished from each other by any-thing that was believed or done by all within each group.... This was defined by their ethnic background and bythis only. The border line between Jewish and Gentile be-lievers in Jesus was exactly as sharp and as blurred as theborder line between Jews and Gentiles in general.”

[77] Skarsaune 2007, p. 754 – “It is understandable thatmany modern histories of Jewish Christianity have takenEpiphanius and his predecessors as their starting point andhave taken over his classification of the Jewish Christiansects. ... This approach was, in my view, based on aninsufficient awareness of the highly speculative nature ofEpiphanius’ constructions. If any description of heresiesshould be characterized as little more than artificial con-structs, Epiphanius’ reports on the Jewish Christian sectsare worthy candidates.”

[78] Paget 2010, pp. 332–3 – “Epiphanius’ account of theEbionites is obviously polemical in intent and that polemicmanifests itself not least in a desire to make the Ebioniteslook hybrid ... Such a presentation obviously leads to aview of the sect as inconsistent, and 'the receptical of allsorts of heretical ideas’. ... These so-called 'conflictingaccounts’, as Epiphanius calls them, come from a medleyof sources.”

[79] Skarsaune 2007, p. 754 – “His (Epiphanius’) portrait ofthe Ebionites is not based on firsthand knowledge of thisgroup. It is a very mixed composite of every scrap of lit-erary information Epiphanius thought he could ascribe tothem. ... As a consequence he attributed to them bothElkesaite ideas and a harmonistic gospel that apparentlyhad nothing to do with the Ebionites.”

[80] Paget 2010, pp. 341,376; p. 341 – “in the end we arewholly dependent upon Epiphanius for the view that theGE is Ebionite and that such dependence raises consid-erable problems, not least because the contents of theEpiphanian GE do not obviously square with what we hearabout either the Gospel or the Ebionites in earlier sources.p. 376 - “In the end the Ebionites, in spite of, perhaps evenbecause of, the plentiful information we potentially haveabout them, remain somewhat of a mysterious witness toan important aspect of early Christian history.”

5.8 Citations[1] Koch 1990, pp. 224–5.

[2] Cameron 1982, pp. 103–6.

38 CHAPTER 5. GOSPEL OF THE EBIONITES

[3] Petersen 1992, p. 262.

[4] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 451–5.

[5] Gregory 2008, pp. 61–2.

[6] Edwards 2009, p. 65.

[7] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 457–61.

[8] Simon 1689, p. 74.

[9] Pick 1908, pp. 14–8.

[10] Klauck 2003, p. 51.

[11] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, p. 167.

[12] Edwards 2009, pp. 71–4.

[13] Gregory 2008, p. 65.

[14] Bauckham 2003, p. 168.

[15] Klauck 2003, p. 52.

[16] Bertrand 1980, pp. 548–63.

[17] Howard 1988, pp. 4039,4043,4049.

[18] Luomanen 2012, pp. 217–8.

[19] Bauckham 2003, pp. 176–7.

[20] Bauckham 2003, pp. 166–7,172–3.

[21] Luomanen 2012, pp. 30–4,45–9.

[22] Goranson 1992, p. 261.

[23] Jones 2000, p. 364.

[24] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 747–8,779-80.

5.9 Sources

• Bauckham, Richard (2003). “The Origin of theEbionites”. In Tomson, Peter J.; Lambers-Petry,Doris. The Image of the Judeo-Christians in AncientJewish and Christian Literature. Brill. pp. 162–81.ISBN 978-3-16-148094-2.

• Bellinzoni, Arthur J. (1967). The Sayings of Je-sus in the Writings of Justin Martyr. Brill. ASINB0007ISJW6.

• Bertrand, Daniel A. (1980). “L'Evangile Des Ebion-ites: Une Harmonie Evangelique Anterieure AuDiatessaron”. New Testament Studies (in French)(Cambridge University Press) 26 (4): 548–63.doi:10.1017/S0028688500005816.

• Boismard, Marie-Émile (1966). "Évangile desÉbionites et problème synoptique”. Revue biblique(in French) (Lecoffre) 73 (1–4): 321–52. ISSN0035-0907.

• Cameron, Ron (1982). The Other Gospels: Non-Canonical Gospel Texts. Westminster/John KnoxPress. ISBN 978-0-664-24428-6.

• Edwards, James R. (2009). The Hebrew Gospel andthe Development of the Synoptic Tradition. Wm. B.Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-6234-1.

• Ehrman, Bart D. (1993). The Orthodox Corruptionof Scripture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508078-5.

• Ehrman, Bart D. (2005) [2003]. Lost Christianities:The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We NeverKnew. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514183-2.

• Ehrman, Bart D.; Pleše, Zlatko (2011). “TheGospelof the Ebionites”. The Apocryphal Gospels: Textsand Translations. Oxford University Press. pp.210–5. ISBN 978-0-19-973210-4.

• Elliott, James Keith (2005) [1993]. The ApocryphalNew Testament. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-826181-0.

• Evans, Craig A. (2007). “The Jewish ChristianGospel Tradition”. In Skarsaune, Oskar; Hvalvik,Reidar. Jewish Believers in Jesus. Hendrickson Pub-lishers. pp. 241–77. ISBN 978-1-56563-763-4.

• Finley, Gregory C. (2009). “The Ebionites and“Jewish Christianity": Examining Heresy and theAttitudes of the Church Fathers” (PhD Thesis). TheCatholic University of America. ISBN 978-1-109-04546-8.

• Goranson, Stephen (1992). “Ebionites”. In Freed-man, David Noel. The Anchor Bible Dictionary 2(1 ed.). Doubleday. pp. 260–1. ISBN 978-0-385-42583-4.

• Gregory, Andrew (2008). “Jewish–ChristianGospels”. In Foster, Paul. The Non-CanonicalGospels. T&T Clark. pp. 54–67. ISBN 978-0-567-03302-4.

• Häkkinen, Sakari (2008) [2005]. “Ebionites”. InMarjanen, Antti; Luomanen, Petri. A Companion toSecond Century Christian Heretics. Brill. pp. 247–78. ISBN 978-90-04-17038-4.

• Howard, George (1988). “The Gospel of the Ebion-ites”. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt(Walter De Gruyter) 2 (25.5): 4034–53. ISBN 978-3-11-001885-1.

• Jones, F. Stanley (2000). “Ebionites”. In Freed-man, David Noel; Myers, Allen C.; Beck, Astrid B.Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible. Wm. B. Eerd-mans Publishing. p. 364. ISBN 978-0-8028-2400-4.

5.10. FURTHER READING 39

• Klauck, Hans-Josef (2003). The ApocryphalGospels: An Introduction. Continuum InternationalPublishing Group. ISBN 978-0-567-08390-6.

• Klijn, Albertus F.J.; Reinink, Gerrit J. (1973).Patristic evidence for Jewish–Christian sects. Brill.ISBN 90-04-03763-2.

• Klijn, Albertus F.J. (1992). Jewish–ChristianGospel Tradition. Brill. ISBN 90-04-09453-9.

• Kloppenborg, John S. (1994) [1992]. “The Gospelof the Ebionites”. In Miller, Robert J. The CompleteGospels. Polebridge Press. pp. 435–40. ISBN 0-06-065587-9.

• Koch, Glenn Alan (1976). “A Critical Investiga-tion of Epiphanius’ Knowledge of the Ebionites: ATranslation and Critical Discussion of 'Panarion' 30”(PhD Thesis). University of Pennsylvania.

• Koch, Glenn Alan (1990). “Ebionites, Gospel ofthe”. In Mills, Watson E.; Bullard, Roger Aubrey.Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer UniversityPress. pp. 224–5. ISBN 978-0-86554-373-7.

• Koester, Helmut (1990). Ancient Christian Gospels:Their History and Development. Trinity Press.ISBN 978-0-334-02459-0.

• Lapham, Fred (2003). An Introduction to the NewTestament Apocrypha. Continuum InternationalPublishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-6979-3.

• Luomanen, Petri (2007). “Ebionites andNazarenes”. In Jackson-McCabe, Matt. Jew-ish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking AncientGroups and Texts. Fortress Press. pp. 81–118.ISBN 978-0-8006-3865-8.

• Luomanen, Petri (2012). Recovering Jewish Chris-tian Sects and Gospels. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-20971-8.

• Martyn, J.L. (1978). “Clementine Recognitions1.33 to 71, Jewish Christianity, and the FourthGospel”. In Jervel, Jacob; Meeks, Wayne A. God’sChrist and his People. Studies in honor of N.A. Dahl.Universitetsforlaget. ISBN 978-82-00-04979-1.

• Paget, James Carleton (2010). “The Ebionites inrecent research”. Jews, Christians, and Jewish–Christians in Antiquity. Mohr Siebeck. pp. 325–80.ISBN 978-3-16-150312-2.

• Petersen, William L. (1992). “Ebionites, Gospel ofthe”. In Freedman, David Noel. The Anchor BibleDictionary 2 (1 ed.). Doubleday. pp. 261–2. ISBN978-0-385-42583-4.

• Pick, Bernhard (1908). Paralipomena: Remains ofGospels and Sayings of Christ. Bibliolife (repub-lished). ISBN 978-1-113-44804-0. Republished in2009.

• Puech, Henri-Charles; Blatz, Beate (1991).“Gospels Attributed to the Apostles”. InSchneemelcher, Wilhelm; Wilson, Robert McLach-lan. New Testament Apocrypha. John Knox Press.ISBN 0-664-22721-X.

• Schoeps, Hans-Joachim (1969). Jewish Christian-ity: Factional Disputes in the Early Church. FortressPress. ASIN B0006BYSW4. (translated by Dou-glas R.A. Hare)

• Simon, Richard (1689). A critical history of thetext of the New Testament: wherein is firmly estab-lished the truth of those acts on which the founda-tion of Christian religion is laid. R. Taylor. OCLC228723131.

• Skarsaune, Oskar (2007). “The Ebionites”. InSkarsaune, Oskar; Hvalvik, Reidar. Jewish Believ-ers in Jesus. Hendrickson Publishers. pp. 419–62.ISBN 978-1-56563-763-4.

• Tuckett, Christopher M. (2012). 2 Clement: Intro-duction, Text, and Commentary. Oxford UniversityPress. ISBN 978-0-19-969460-0.

• Van Voorst, Robert E. (1989). The Ascents ofJames: History and Theology of a Jewish–ChristianCommunity. Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN978-1-55540-293-8.

• Verheyden, Joseph (2003). “Epiphanius on theEbionites”. In Tomson, Peter J.; Lambers-Petry,Doris. The Image of the Judeo-Christians in AncientJewish and Christian Literature. Brill. pp. 182–208.ISBN 978-3-16-148094-2.

• Vielhauer, Philipp; Strecker, Georg (1991).“Jewish–Christian gospels”. In Schneemelcher,Wilhelm; Wilson, Robert McLachlan. New Tes-tament Apocrypha: Gospels and Related WritingsVolume 1 (2 ed.). John Knox Press. pp. 134–78. ISBN 0-664-22721-X. (6th German edition,translated by George Ogg)

• Williams, Frank (1987). The Panarion of Epipha-nius of Salamis Book 1 (Sections 1–46). Brill. ISBN90-04-07926-2.

5.10 Further reading• Broadhead, Edwin K. (2010). Jewish Ways of Fol-

lowing Jesus: Redrawing the Religious Map of Antiq-uity. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3-16-150304-7.

• Frey, Jörg (2012). “Die Fragmente des Ebionäere-vangeliums”. In Markschies, Christoph; Schröter,Jens. Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscherÜbersetzung: I. Band – Evangelien und Verwandtes(in German) (7 ed.). Mohr Siebeck. pp. 607–22.ISBN 978-3-16-149951-7.

40 CHAPTER 5. GOSPEL OF THE EBIONITES

• Petersen, William Lawrence (1994). Tatian’s Di-atessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance,and History in Scholarship. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-09469-7.

5.11 External links• Apocryphal Gospels at DMOZ

• Early Christian Writings – Gospel of the Ebionites

Chapter 6

Gospel of the Hebrews

Origen is the Church Father most closely associated with using theGospel of the Hebrews as a prooftext for scriptural exegesis.[1]

See also: Jewish-Christian gospels, Gospel of theNazarenes and Gospel of the Ebionites

The Gospel of the Hebrews (Greek: τὸ καθ' Ἑβραίουςεὐαγγέλιον), or Gospel according to the Hebrews, wasa syncretic Jewish–Christian gospel which survives onlyas brief quotations by the early Church Fathers whichpreserve fragments of the original text. The fragmentscontain traditions of Jesus’ pre-existence, incarnation,baptism, and probable temptation, along with some ofhis sayings.[2] Distinctive features include a Christologycharacterized by the belief that the Holy Spirit is Je-sus’ Divine Mother and a first resurrection appearance

to James, the brother of Jesus, showing a high regardfor James as the leader of the Jewish Christian church inJerusalem.[3] It was probably composed in Greek in thefirst decades of the 2nd century, and is believed to havebeen used by Greek-speaking Jewish Christians in Egyptduring that century.[4]

It is the only Jewish–Christian gospel which the ChurchFathers referred to by name, believing there was only oneHebrew Gospel, perhaps in different versions.[5] Passagesfrom the gospel were quoted or summarized by threeAlexandrian Fathers – Clement, Origen and Didymus theBlind; it was also quoted by Jerome, either directly orthrough the commentaries of Origen.[6][7] The gospel wasused as a supplement to the canonical gospels to pro-vide source material for their commentaries based onscripture.[8] Eusebius of Caesarea included it in his listof disputed writings known as the Antilegomena, notingthat it was used by “Hebrews” within the Church; it fellout of use when the New Testament canon was codifiedat the end of the 4th century.[9]

The Gospel of the Hebrews is classified as one of thethree Jewish–Christian gospels bymodern scholars, alongwith the Gospel of the Nazarenes and the Gospel of theEbionites. All are known today only from fragmentspreserved in quotations by the early Church Fathers.[10]The relationship between the Jewish–Christian gospelsand a hypothetical original Hebrew Gospel remains aspeculation.[11]

6.1 Origin and characteristics

The Gospel of the Hebrews is the only Jewish–Christiangospel which the Church Fathers refer to by name.The language of composition is thought to be Greek.[7]The provenance has been associated with Egypt;[n 1]it probably began circulating in Alexandria, Egypt inthe first decades of the 2nd century and was used byGreek-speaking Jewish–Christian communities there.[4]The communities to which they belonged were tradi-tional, conservative Christians who followed the teachingof the primitive Christian church in Jerusalem, integrat-ing their understanding of Jesus with strict observance

41

42 CHAPTER 6. GOSPEL OF THE HEBREWS

of Jewish customs and law, which they regarded as es-sential to salvation.[12] Despite this, the gospel displaysno connection with other Jewish–Christian literature, nordoes it appear to be based on the Gospel of Matthew[n 2]

or the other canonical gospels of what is now orthodoxChristianity.[13] Instead, it seems to be taken from alter-native oral forms of the same underlying traditions.[14]Some of the fragments suggest a syncretic gnostic influ-ence, while others support close ties to traditional JewishWisdom literature.[7]

6.2 Content

The Gospel of the Hebrews is preserved in fragmentsquoted or summarized by various early Church Fathers.The full extent of the original gospel is unknown; accord-ing to a list of canonical and apocryphal works drawn upin the 9th century known as the Stichometry of Nicepho-rus, the gospel was 2200 lines, just 300 lines shorter thanMatthew. Based on the surviving fragments, the over-all structure of the gospel appears to have been simi-lar to the canonical ones. It consisted of a narrative ofthe life of Jesus which included his baptism, temptationor transfiguration, last supper, crucifixion, and resurrec-tion. The gospel also contained sayings of Jesus. Theevents in the life of Jesus have been interpreted in a waythat reflects Jewish ideas present in a Hellenistic culturalenvironment.[15]

There is wide agreement about seven quotations cited byPhilipp Vielhauer in the critical 3rd German edition ofSchneemelcher's New Testament Apocrypha, translatedby George Ogg.[16] The translations below follow Viel-hauer’s order:[n 3][n 4]

1. When Christ wished to come upon the earth to men,the good Father summoned a mighty power in heaven,which was called Michael, and entrusted Christ to the carethereof. And the power came into the world and wascalled Mary, and Christ was in her womb seven months.(Cyril of Jerusalem, Discourse on Mary Theotokos 12)

Fragment 1 identifies Jesus as the son of theHoly Spirit; this idea is found also in the Egyp-tian Coptic Epistle of James, another indica-tion of the Egyptian origin of the gospel.[n 5]

2. And it came to pass when the Lord was come up outof the water, the whole fount of the Holy Spirit descendedupon him and rested on him and said to him: My Son, inall the prophets was I waiting for thee that thou shouldestcome and I might rest in thee. For thou art my rest; thouart my first-begotten Son that reignest for ever. (Jerome,Commentary on Isaiah 4)

Fragment 2 uses the language of Jewish Wis-dom literature,[n 6] but applies it to the Holy

Spirit: the Spirit has waited in vain throughall the prophets for the Son. The “rest” thatthe Holy Spirit finds in the Son belongs tothe Christian gnostic idea of the pre-existentRedeemer who finally becomes incarnate inJesus.[17]

3. Even so did my mother, the Holy Spirit, take me by oneof my hairs and carry me away on to the great mountainTabor. (Origen, Commentary on John 2.12.87)

Fragments 2 and 3, giving accounts of Je-sus’ baptism and temptation or transfigura-tion, spring from thewidespreadGreco-Romanmyth of the descent of divine Wisdom; thisunderlies the parallel passages in the gospelsof Matthew (11.25–30), Luke (7.18–35 and11.49–51) and John (1.1–18), as well as theGospel of Thomas.[13] The differences be-tween fragment 3 and the orthodox canoni-cal gospels are considerable: their third-personnarrative has become an account by Jesus him-self, Satan is replaced by the Holy Spirit, andthe Holy Spirit is identified as Jesus’ mother.[18]

4a. He that marvels shall reign, and he that has reignedshall rest. (Clement, Stromateis 2.9.45.5)4b. He that seeks will not rest till he finds; and he that hasfound shall marvel; and he that has marveled shall reign;and he that has reigned shall rest. (Clement, Stromateis5.14.96.3)

Fragment 4 is a “chain-saying”, seek–find–marvel–reign–rest, describing the steps to-wards salvation, where “rest” equals the stateof salvation.[17] The saying is similar to themesfound in Jewish Wisdom literature,[n 7] and thesimilarity to a saying in the Gospel of Thomassuggests that the text may have been influencedby gnostic Wisdom teaching.[7][n 8]

5. And never be ye joyful, save when ye behold yourbrother with love. (Jerome, Commentary on Ephesians 3)6. In the Gospel according to the Hebrews ...there iscounted among the most grievous offenses: He that hasgrieved the spirit of his brother. (Jerome, Commentary onEzekiel 6)

Fragments 5 (on Ephesians 5.4) and 6 (onEzekiel 18.7) are ethical saying of Jesus, sug-gesting that such teachings formed a significantpart of the gospel.[13]

7. The Gospel according to the Hebrews ...records afterthe resurrection of the Savior: And when the Lord hadgiven the linen cloth to the servant of the priest, he went

6.3. CHRISTOLOGY 43

to James and appeared to him. For James had sworn thathe would not eat bread from that hour in which he haddrunk the cup of the Lord until he should see him risenfrom among them that sleep. And shortly thereafter theLord said: Bring a table and bread! And immediately it isadded: He took the bread, blessed it and brake it and gaveit to James the Just and said to him: My brother, eat thybread, for the Son of man is risen from among them thatsleep. (Jerome, De viris inlustribus 2)

Fragment 7 emphasizes the importance ofJames, the brother of Jesus and head of theJewish–Christian movement in Jerusalem af-ter Jesus’ death, thereby testifying to the Jewishcharacter of the community of the gospel.[14]

In addition to direct quotations, other gospel stories weresummarized or cited by the Church Fathers. The transla-tions below are fromVielhauer & Strecker (1991), except“b2” which is from Klauck (2003):[n 9]

a. (Scripture) seems to call Matthew “Levi” in the Gospelof Luke. Yet it is not a question of one and the same per-son. Rather Matthias, who was installed (as apostle) inplace of Judas, and Levi are the same person with a dou-ble name. This is clear from the Gospel of the Hebrews.(Didymus the Blind, Commentary on the Psalms 184.9–10)

The summary of a gospel passage identifiesMattias, rather than Matthew, as the nameof the tax-collector who was called to followJesus.[19][n 10]

b1. And he (Papias) has adduced another story of awoman who was accused of many sins before the Lord,which is contained in the Gospel according to the He-brews. (Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 3.39.17)

The citation by Eusebius of a story he foundin the writings of Papias is believed to referto an alternate version of the account in John’sgospel of Jesus and the woman taken in adul-tery.[20][21]

b2. It is related in some gospels that a woman was con-demned by the Jews because of a sin and was taken tothe customary place of stoning, in order that she mightbe stoned. We are told that when the Savior caught sightof her and saw that they were ready to stone her, he saidto those who wanted to throw stones at her: Let the onewho has not sinned, lift a stone and throw it. If some-one is certain that he has not sinned, let him take a stoneand hit her. And no one dared to do so. When theyexamined themselves and they recognized that they toobore responsibility for certain actions, they did not dareto stone her. (Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Eccle-siastes 4.223.6–13)

Although Didymus does not name his source,he found this independent tradition of the storyof the sinful woman in a non-canonical gospelin Alexandria which may have been the Gospelof the Hebrews.[22][n 11]

6.3 Christology

The theology of the gospel is strongly influenced byJewish–Christian wisdom teaching. The Holy Spirit isrepresented as a manifestation of Divine Wisdom whois called “Mother”.[n 12] The feminine aspect of the Spiritis an indication of Semitic influence on the language ofthe gospel. The Spirit takes Jesus to Mount Tabor bya single hair, echoing Old Testament themes in the sto-ries of Ezekiel (Ezk. 8.3) and Habbakuk (Dan. 14.36LXX).[n 13] The gospel emphasizes the fulfillment of theprophecy of Isaiah 11.2 in Jesus’ baptism, but also adoptselements of Jewish Wisdom theology.[n 14] The Spirithas been gathered in one place at the moment of Je-sus’ baptism, so that he has become the only Son of theSpirit in which he has found eternal “rest” and reignsforever.[23] The “seek–find” and “rule–rest” language alsocomes from JewishWisdom tradition as stages on the wayto salvation during which the believer is encouraged toemulate divine Wisdom.[n 15]

The “rest” that the Holy Spirit waits for and finally findsin the Son is also found in gnostic speculations.[n 16] Thewisdom chain-saying which describes the progression ofseeking, marveling, and finding salvation, is similar to theHermetic conception of salvation found in the Alexan-drian Corpus Hermetica.[n 17][n 18] “Rest” is not only to beunderstood as the ultimate goal of the seeker after truth,which leads to salvation; it is also descriptive of a unitywith the wisdom which lies at the heart of the Godhead.The “resting” of the Holy Spirit at the moment of Jesus’Baptism may also be understood in this timeless sense,as the union and rest of the pre-existent Son with his Fa-ther, in keeping with the gnostic conception of “rest” asthe highest gift of salvation.[n 19]

6.4 Reception

Eusebius listed the Gospel of the Hebrews in his Anti-legomena as one of the disputed writings of the earlyChurch.[n 20][n 21] Despite this, the Church Fathers occa-sionally used it, with reservations, as a source to sup-port their exegetical arguments. Eusebius reports that the2nd century Church Father Hegesippus used the gospel asa source for writing his Hypomneumata (“Memoranda”)in Rome (c. 175–180).[n 22] The Alexandrian Fathers –Clement, Origen, and Didymus the Blind – relied directlyon the gospel to provide prooftexts as a supplement to thecanonical gospels. Clement quoted from the gospel aspart of a discourse on divine Wisdom.[n 23] Origen used

44 CHAPTER 6. GOSPEL OF THE HEBREWS

Eusebius of Caesarea's list of disputed writings, known as theAntilegomena, included the Gospel of the Hebrews.

it to compare differing views of the relationship betweentheWord and theHoly Spirit.[n 24] Jerome claimed to haveused the gospel as a prooftext, although he may have re-lied in part on excerpts from the commentaries of Ori-gen. He quoted from it as a proof from prophecy basedon Isaiah 11.2 to explain how Jesus was the fulfillment ofmessianic expectations.[n 25] The Gospel of the Hebrewswas rejected as heretical by the Latin Church with theclosing of the New Testament canon at the end of the 4thcentury, and was no longer cited as a source in Churchliterature.[n 26]

Subsequent to the closing of the canon, the gospel ismentioned in a homily “On the Virgin Mary” attributedto Cyril of Jerusalem in a collection of apocryphal sto-ries believed to have been written in Coptic in the firsthalf of the 6th century. The author (known to schol-ars as Pseudo-Cyril) refers to the Gospel of the Hebrewsin a polemical dialogue between a monk and Cyril overthe nature of Mary, whom the monk contends was adivine Power sent from heaven. Cyril condemns themonk’s teaching as a heresy, which the author attributesto Carpocrates, Satornilus, and Ebionites.[n 27][n 28] Notall later mentions of the gospel were polemical; Bede(c. 673–735), after listing some apocryphal gospels re-jected by the Church, includes the Gospel of the Hebrewsamong the “ecclesiastical histories” and refers to its usageby Jerome.[n 29]

6.5 Relationship to other texts

The early Church Fathers believed there was only oneJewish–Christian gospel, perhaps in different versions;however, scholars have long recognized the possibilitythere were at least two or three.[5] Jerome’s references to aGospel of the Hebrews, or variants of that name, are par-ticularly problematic because it is unclear which gospelhe is referring to as the source of his quotations.[25] Hege-sippus, Eusebius, and Jerome all used an Aramaic gospel,which Jerome referred to as the gospel used by a JewishChristian sect known as the Nazarenes.[n 30] Gospel of theNazarenes is the name adopted by scholars to describethe fragments of quotations believed to originate from anAramaic gospel that was based on traditions similar to theGospel of Matthew.[26] A third gospel was known onlyto Epiphanius of Salamis, which he attributed to a sec-ond Jewish Christian group known as the Ebionites.[n 31]Scholars have conventionally referred to seven fragmentsof a Greek gospel harmony preserved in quotations byEpiphanius as the Gospel of the Ebionites.[27] The exis-tence of three independent Jewish–Christian gospels withdistinct characteristics has been regarded as an estab-lished consensus.[n 32] However, that conclusion has re-cently been challenged with respect to the composition ofthe gospel known to the Nazarenes and its relationship tothe Gospel of the Hebrews.[n 33] The relationship betweentheGospel of the Hebrews and the other Jewish–Christiangospels, as well as a hypothetical original Hebrew Gospel,is uncertain and has been an ongoing subject of scholarlyinvestigation.[11]

6.6 Notes

[1] Klijn 1992, p. 42 – “The GH is an authentic product ofEgyptian Christianity.”

[2] Jones 2000, pp. 709–10; Matthew, while not itselfa Jewish–Christian gospel, draws on Jewish–Christiansources

[3] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 177–8; Material in italicsare quotations from the Gospel of the Hebrews, and thematerial in normal type-face in fragments 6 and 7 is fromJerome.

[4] Elliott 2005, pp. 5,9–10; Ehrman 2005b, pp. 15–6; andKlijn 1992, p. 31; all omit fragment 1.

[5] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 150,174–6; Vielhauerincludes fragment 1 with reservations, p. 150 – “it isquestionable whether it actually goes back to Cyril, andabove all whether the citation comes from the GH”. Klijn1992, pp. 134–7; Klijn concludes it is not from one of theJewish–Christian gospels and suggests the Gospel of Peteras a possible source.

[6] Kloppenborg 1994, pp. 427–34Wisdom of Solomon 7.27Wisdom of Sirach 24.6–7

6.6. NOTES 45

[7] Kloppenborg 1994, pp. 427–34; Wisdom of Solomon6.20, Wisdom of Sirach 6.26–28

[8] Klauck 2003, p. 39 – “The logion contains an intentionalparadox: only the restless activity of seeking leads to therest for which one yearns.” (For further details, see p. 39table comparing Strom. 2.45.5 and Strom. 5.96.3 withGThom 2 and POxy 645.5–9.)

[9] Ehrman 2005b, pp. 15–6 includes fragment “a”. Elliott2005, pp. 5,9–10 includes fragment “b1/b2”. Vielhauer& Strecker 1991, pp. 138,175 includes fragments “a” and“b1” (“b2” is not mentioned). Klijn 1992, pp. 31,116–9 includes fragment “a” and discusses fragment “b1/b2”separately, stating that its inclusion in the gospel is possiblebut not definitive.

[10] Lührmann 2004, pp. 183–91,234–5; Lührmann has a de-tailed analysis and discussion of the “call of Levi” story.

[11] Klauck 2003, pp. 40–1; Klauck, p. 41 – “It is probably notan abbreviated version of Jn 8:3–11, but an independentvariant tradition, found by Didymus in a non-canonicalgospel which was available in Alexandria.” (for a detailedanalysis and discussion, see Lührmann 2004, pp. 191–215,236–7).

[12] Klijn 1992, p. 39 – “The theological conception of thisGospel is dominated by Jewish–Christian Wisdom The-ology. Wisdom is represented in this Gospel by the HolySpirit who is called “Mother”. ... “The Spirit descendsuponman but according to this Gospel, it is Jesus in partic-ular who is looked for. Anybody who possesses the Spiritmay be called Son but Jesus is the Son with a very specialmission. One of the characteristics of the Spirit is thata man starts a new life during which he gradually comesnearer to his destination. The final stage is to reign andrest. In this situation man has arrived at a point at whichhe is invulnerable to evil forces which are now subjectedto him. After his baptism Jesus is said to reign for eter-nity.”

[13] Klauck 2003, p. 40; Chapter 14 is an apocryphal additionto Daniel in the Greek text of the LXX known as Bel andthe Dragon.

[14] Klijn 1992, p. 55 – “For example, we find in Philo, deebr. 30 'One mentions father and mother together, buttheir significance is different. Thus we shall, for exam-ple, call the creator rightly also Father of what has comeinto existence, but Mother the knowledge of him who cre-ated. With her God has lived together and she has broughtforth creation, but not in the way of men. She, however,receivedGod’s seed and she brought forth the only belovedperceptible son, this world, as a ripe fruit with pains.' Thisidea was taken over by Christian tradition. Wisdom is heldto have sons not only in Sir. 4.11, but also according toLuke 7.35. ... This means that the passage has to be un-derstood against the background of Jewish Hellenistic tra-ditions.”

[15] Kloppenborg 1994, p. 428,433; Kloppenborg, p. 433– "Whoever marvels will rule is a concept from Jewishwisdom tradition: 'The desire for wisdom leads to ruling'(Wis. 6.20).”

[16] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 174–6; p. 174 –“This is also the objective of the pre-existent Redeemerwho, according to the Jewish–Christian–gnostic Keryg-mata Petrou, after endless change in form becomes theincarnate in Jesus: 'From the beginning of the world heruns through the ages, changing his form at the same timeas his name, until in his time, anointed of God’s mercyfor his toil, he shall find his rest forever.' (ps.Clem. Hom.3.20.2) To the circle of such gnostic speculations belongsthe Christology of the baptism pericope of the GH.”

[17] Lapham 2003, p. 160 – Quotation from the Corpus Her-metica: “Tis from Thy Aeon I have found praise-giving,and in Thy will, the object of my search, have I foundrest.” (C.H. 13.20)

[18] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 174–6; p. 175 – “Thechain saying ... with its climax 'seek–find–reign–rest'points to the same religious milieu (of gnostic specula-tions). ... (It) describes the steps of revelation of salvationand of the way of salvation. This description is character-istic of the Hermetic gnosis, ... here also 'to marvel' isfound as a step (Corp. Hermet. 4.2,14.4) and the 'rest'as escatological salvation (Corp. Hermet. 9.10,13.20). ...Because of the scantiness of the material we cannot sayhow strongly this mystic-gnostic religiosity has influencedthe GH, whether it is an essential or merely an infusedelement.”

[19] Lapham 2003, pp. 160–2; Lapham, p. 162 – “The im-portance of this passage lies in the christological insightsit affords. In one sense it might be taken to imply thepre-existence of the Son, rather than his adoption at themoment of his baptism. From the beginning of time ('inall the prophets’) the Father had awaited the eschatolog-ical moment of the union and rest with his pre-existentSon. ... It is this concept of unity within the Godhead thatunderlies this pericope from the Gospel of the Hebrews.”

[20] Ehrman 2005a, pp. 164–8,243–4; Ehrman 2005b, pp.337–9; Ehrman offers a popular account of the canon ofEusebius and the controversies of the 4th century Churchwhich led up to the closing of the canon.

[21] Metzger 1997, pp. 203–5; Eusebius places the Gospel ofthe Hebrews in the list of disputed writings he refers to asnotha, or spurious. He classifies books of this type as or-thodox but uncanonical because they were not believed tobe written by the apostles or their immediate followers –Schneemelcher 1991, p. 47; “Moreover, many have alsoreckoned among these writings the Gospel according tothe Hebrews, in which those especially from among theHebrews who have accepted Christ find delight” (Euse-bius, Hist. eccl. 3.25.5).

[22] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 18,338–44; Eusebius briefly sum-marizes the contents of a heresiology of Jewish, Jewish–Christian, and Gnostic sects contained in the Hypomneu-mata (Hist. eccl. 4.22.5–7), and immediately afterward,offers an assurance of the testimony of Hegesippus as fol-lows: “He sets down certain things from the Gospel of theHebrews and the Syriac (Gospel) and, in particular, from(writings in) the Hebrew tongue, thus showing that that hewas himself a believer of Hebrew origin. And he relatesother matters as well, on the strength of unwritten Jewishtradition.” (Hist. eccl. 4.22.8)

46 CHAPTER 6. GOSPEL OF THE HEBREWS

[23] Klijn 1992, pp. 4–8; In a commentary on divine Wis-dom, Clement attempts to reconcile Platonic philosophywith Christian wisdom tradition. He states that, unlike thephilosophical virtues, wisdom that teaches truth is a powerfromGod. Clement quotes fromPlato (Theaetetus 155) toemphasize that astonishment is the beginning of philoso-phy and from the Traditions of Matthias to emphasize thatthis is the first step to knowledge. He reinforces the pointby quoting the second half of the wisdom chain-saying intheGospel of the Hebrews, concluding from these readingsthat the “unlearned man” can never be a philosopher.

[24] Klijn 1992, pp. 4–8; In his commentary on John 1.1–3, Origen disagrees with the theology of the Gospel ofthe Hebrews, which places the Holy Spirit over the Word,but rather than refute it, he creates a new argument basedon scripture to reconcile the difference between the twogospels. Origen resolves the difficulty using Matthew12.50, which says that all who do the will of the Fatherare the brothers, sisters, and mother of Jesus. By arguingthis also applies to the divine world, he reasons the HolySpirit is called Mother because she has done the will ofthe Father.

[25] Klijn 1992, pp. 16–9,31,98–101; As part of his commen-tary on Isaiah (Comm. Isa. 4), Jerome uses the baptismaltheophany from the Gospel of the Hebrews to demonstratethat Jesus is the fulfillment of messianic expectations witha proof from prophecy based on Isaiah 11.2. See Evans2007, pp. 255–6 The gospel quotation is part of a largercollection of prooftexts on the salvation history of Israel inwhich Jerome incorporates quotations from a commentaryon Isaiah he claimed to have received from the Nazarenes(Comm. Isa. 3.26 on Isa. 8.11–15; Comm. Isa. 3.29 onIsa. 8.19–22; Comm. Isa. 3.30 on Isa. 9.1).[24]

[26] Metzger 1997, pp. 236–8,314–5; The canon of theRoman Catholic Church containing the 27 books of theNew Testament was ratified at the Third Council ofCarthage in 397 for confirmation by the Church of Rome,reaffirming an earlier decision reached at the Synod ofHippo in 393. Bruce 1988, p. 234; A letter by Pope Inno-cent I to Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse in 405 confirmsthe canon list, adding that whatever other books there maybe should be rejected and condemned. Metzger 1997, pp.169–70; Metzger, p. 170 – “we can understand why its(theGospel of the Hebrews) use was limited, chiefly amongJewish Christians (some of whomwere regarded as hereti-cal), and passed over by the Great Church in the periodwhen the canon was closed.”

[27] van den Broek 2013, pp. 93–7; pp. 94,97 – van denBroek regards the attribution of the monk’s 'quotation' tothe Gospel of the Hebrews to be spurious and motivatedby the author’s belief that it was written by Jews to distortthe doctrines of the Church.

[28] Budge 1977, p. 637; The English translation of the Coptictext by Wallis Budge contains the full quotation. It is writ-ten in the Gospel of the Hebrews that when Christ wishedto come upon the earth to men the Good Father called amighty power in the heavens which was called Michael,and committed Christ to the care thereof. And the powercame down into the world, and it was called Mary, and[Christ] was in her womb for seven months. Afterwards

she gave birth to Him, and He increased in stature, andHe chose the Apostles, who preached Him in every place.He fulfilled the appointed time that was decreed for Him.And the Jews became envious of Him, they hated Him, theychanged the custom of their Law, and they rose up againstHim and laid a trap and caught Him, and they deliveredHim to the governor, and he gave Him to them to crucifyHim. And after they had raised Him up on the Cross theFather took Him up into heaven unto Himself.

[29] Klijn 1992, pp. 23–4; Edwards 2009, p. 40; Bede appearsto have no direct knowledge of the gospel and is dependentupon Jerome. Edwards translates the Latin text of Bedeas follows: “Here it must be noted that the Gospel accord-ing to the Hebrews, as it is called, is not to be reckonedamong the apocryphal but among ecclesiastical histories;for it seemed good even to the translator of Holy Scripturehimself, Jerome, to cite many testimonies from it, and totranslate it into the Latin and Greek language.”

[30] Klijn 1992, pp. 12–3,16–9,29–32,60–5; See Klijn: p. 12– Eusebius reports in his ecclesiastical history that Hege-sippus used a Syriac (Aramaic) gospel as a source for hisHypomneumata (for additional details on Hegesippus, seeSkarsaune 2007, pp. 18,338–44). pp. 13,29–32 – Euse-bius cites an unnamed Aramaic gospel written in Hebrewletters as a source for his Theophaneia. pp. 60–5 – Hequotes a saying of Jesus ('I choose for myself the goodones, the good ones whom my Father in heaven has givenme') to expound on the reasons for divisions within theChurch (Theophaneia 4.12), and he comments on a vari-ant version of the Parable of the Talents in Mt. 25.14–30(Theophaneia 4.22). pp. 16–9,29–32 – Jerome is our ma-jor source of knowledge about the content of an Aramaicgospel. He quoted from an unnamed gospel in Hebrewscript as a source for several commentaries (for furtherdetails on Jerome’s citations by date, see Skarsaune 2007,pp. 541–9).

[31] Klijn 1992, pp. 14–6,28–9; Epiphanius mistakenly be-lieved it to be an abridged and corrupted Hebrew versionof the Gospel of Matthew, which he also referred to as the“Hebrew” gospel or Gospel of the Hebrews.

[32] Klijn 1992, pp. 30,41; Klijn, p. 30 – “Our conclusion isthat from the various references in Christian authors threeJewish–Christian Gospels can be traced. They belong tothree individual Jewish–Christian circles.” p. 41 – “Thepresence of three Jewish–Christian Gospels is an estab-lished fact.”

[33] Klauck 2003, p. 37 – “it has become almost canonical intwentieth-century scholarship to speak of three Jewish–Christian gospels: a Gospel of the Hebrews (EvHeb), aGospel of the Nazaraeans (EvNaz) and a Gospel of theEbionites (EvEb) ...Textual attestation of EvNaz is at-tained by dividing passages in Jerome between EvHeb andEvNaz.” ... “Materials which earlier scholars had appor-tioned between EvHeb and EvNaz are now attributed toEvHeb alone, so that we are left with only two Jewish–Christian gospels, EvEb and EvHeb. Against this hypoth-esis, however, it must be pointed out that we possess threeextra-canonical narratives of the baptism of Jesus whichvary to such an extent that they cannot come from one or

6.8. SOURCES 47

even two gospels alone. Rather, they presuppose three in-dependent contexts.” ... “I add a question mark in bracketsto the title EvNaz, in order to indicate the precarious sta-tus of this text.” (For a rebuttal to Klauck’s assertion andmore details on the 3GH vs. alternative hypotheses, seeGregory 2008, pp. 56–61; Gregory, p. 58 – “Thus thequestion of whether or not there was ever a Gospel of theNazoraeans should be considered as remaining very muchopen”.)

6.7 Citations[1] Evans 2007, pp. 247–50.

[2] Cameron 1992, pp. 105–6.

[3] Koch 1990, p. 364.

[4] Lapham 2003, pp. 159,163.

[5] Gregory 2008, pp. 56–9.

[6] Howard 2000, p. 570.

[7] Ehrman & Pleše 2011, p. 216.

[8] Klijn 1992, pp. 4–8.

[9] Metzger 1997, pp. 169–70,203–5.

[10] Lapham 2003, p. 9.

[11] Gregory 2008, p. 55.

[12] Lapham 2003, pp. 9,16.

[13] Cameron 1982, pp. 83–4.

[14] Ehrman 2005b, pp. 15–6.

[15] Klijn 1992, p. 36.

[16] Vielhauer 1963, pp. 163–5.

[17] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 174–6.

[18] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 137–8.

[19] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, p. 175.

[20] Vielhauer 1963, p. 121.

[21] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, p. 138.

[22] MacDonald 2012, pp. 18–21.

[23] Klijn 1992, pp. 99–101.

[24] Skarsaune 2007, pp. 373–8.

[25] Cameron 1992, p. 105.

[26] Ehrman, & Pleše 2011, pp. 201–2.

[27] Ehrman, & Pleše 2011, pp. 210–1.

6.8 Sources

• Bruce, F.F. (1988). The Canon of Scripture. Inter-Varsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-1258-5.

• Budge, E. A. Wallis (1977) [1915]. “Discourseon Mary Theotokos by Cyril, Archbishop ofJerusalem”. Coptic Texts: Miscellaneous Coptic textsin the dialect of Upper Egypt, Part 2 Volume 5. AMSPress. ISBN 978-0-404-11556-2.

• Cameron, Ron (1982). The Other Gospels: Non-Canonical Gospel Texts. Westminster/John Knox.ISBN 978-0-664-24428-6.

• Cameron, Ron (1992). “Hebrews, Gospel of the”.In Freedman, David Noel. The Anchor Bible Dic-tionary 3 (1 ed.). Doubleday. pp. 105–6. ISBN978-0-385-42583-4.

• Edwards, James R. (2009). The Hebrew Gospel andthe Development of the Synoptic Tradition. Wm. B.Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-6234-1.

• Ehrman, Bart D. (2005a) [2003]. Lost Christianities.Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518249-1.

• Ehrman, Bart D. (2005b) [2003]. Lost Scriptures.Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518250-7.

• Ehrman, Bart D.; Pleše, Zlatko (2011). “TheGospel according to the Hebrews”. The ApocryphalGospels: Texts and Translations. Oxford UniversityPress. pp. 216–21. ISBN 978-0-19-973210-4.

• Elliott, James Keith (2005) [1993]. The ApocryphalNew Testament. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-826181-0.

• Evans, Craig A. (2007). “The Jewish ChristianGospel Tradition”. In Skarsaune, Oskar; Hvalvik,Reidar. Jewish Believers in Jesus. Hendrickson Pub-lishers. pp. 241–77. ISBN 978-1-56563-763-4.

• Gregory, Andrew (2008). “Jewish–ChristianGospels”. In Foster, Paul. The Non-CanonicalGospels. T&T Clark. pp. 54–67. ISBN 978-0-567-03302-4.

• Howard, George (2000). “Hebrews, Gospel Ac-cording to the”. In Freedman, David Noel; Myers,Allen C. Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Wm. B.Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-2400-4.

• Jones, F. Stanley (2000). “Jewish Christians”. InFreedman, David Noel; Myers, Allen C. EerdmansDictionary of the Bible. Wm. B. Eerdmans. ISBN978-0-8028-2400-4.

48 CHAPTER 6. GOSPEL OF THE HEBREWS

• Klauck, Hans-Josef (2003). The ApocryphalGospels: An Introduction. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-567-08390-6.

• Klijn, Albertus F.J. (1992). Jewish–ChristianGospel Tradition. Brill. ISBN 90-04-09453-9.

• Kloppenborg, John S. (1994) [1992]. “The Gospelof the Hebrews”. In Miller, Robert J. The CompleteGospels. Polebridge Press. pp. 427–34. ISBN 0-06-065587-9.

• Koch, Glenn Alan (1990). “Hebrews, Gospel ofthe”. In Mills, Watson E.; Bullard, Roger Aubrey.Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer UniversityPress. p. 364. ISBN 978-0-86554-373-7.

• Lapham, Fred (2003). An Introduction to the NewTestament Apocrypha. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-6979-3.

• Lührmann, Dieter (2004). Die Apokryph Geworde-nen Evangelien: Studien Zu Neuen Texten Und ZuNeuen Fragen (in German). Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-12867-5.

• MacDonald, Dennis R. (2012). Two ShipwreckedGospels: The Logoi of Jesus and Papias’s Expositionof Logia about the Lord. Society of Biblical Lit.ISBN 978-1-58983-691-4.

• Metzger, Bruce M. (1997) [1987]. The Canon ofthe New Testament:Its Origin, Development, and Sig-nificance. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-160687-8.

• Schneemelcher, Wilhelm (1991). “General Intro-duction”. In Schneemelcher, Wilhelm; Wilson,Robert McLachlan. New Testament Apocrypha,Volume 1: Gospels and Related Writings (2 ed.).John Knox Press. pp. 9–75. ISBN 0-664-22721-X. (6th German edition, translated by George Ogg)

• Skarsaune, Oskar (2007). “Fragments of JewishChristian Literature Quoted in Some Greek andLatin Fathers”. In Skarsaune, Oskar; Hvalvik, Rei-dar. Jewish Believers in Jesus. Hendrickson Publish-ers. pp. 325–78. ISBN 978-1-56563-763-4.

• van den Broek, Roelof (2013). Pseudo-Cyril ofJerusalem On the Life and the Passion of Christ: ACoptic Apocryphon. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-23757-5.

• Vielhauer, Philipp (1963). “Jewish ChristianGospels”. In Schneemelcher, Wilhelm; Wilson,Robert McLachlan. New Testament Apocrypha,Volume 1: Gospels and Related Writings (1 ed.).Westminster Press. pp. 117–65. ISBN 0-664-20385-X. (3rd German edition, translated byGeorge Ogg)

• Vielhauer, Philipp; Strecker, Georg (1991). “Jew-ish ChristianGospels”. In Schneemelcher,Wilhelm;Wilson, Robert McLachlan. New Testament Apoc-rypha, Volume 1: Gospels and Related Writings (2ed.). Westminster/John Knox Press. pp. 134–78.ISBN 0-664-22721-X. (6th German edition, trans-lated by George Ogg)

6.9 Further reading• Broadhead, Edwin K. (2010). “The Earliest Com-munities of Jesus’ Followers – 5. Alexandria”.Jewish Ways of Following Jesus: Redrawing the Re-ligious Map of Antiquity. Mohr Siebeck. pp. 115–9.ISBN 978-3-16-150304-7.

• Frey, Jörg (2012). “Die Fragmente des Hebräere-vangeliums”. In Markschies, Christoph; Schröter,Jens. Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscherÜbersetzung: I. Band – Evangelien und Verwandtes(in German) (7 ed.). Mohr Siebeck. pp. 593–606.ISBN 978-3-16-149951-7.

• Klijn, Albertus F.J. (1986). “Jewish Christianity inEgypt”. In Pearson, Birger A.; Goehring, JamesE. The Roots of Egyption Christianity. AugsburgFortress. pp. 161–77. ISBN 978-0-8006-3100-0.

• Luomanen, Petri (2012). “Jewish Christian GospelsRecovered”. Recovering Jewish Christian Sects andGospels. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-20971-8.

• Paget, James Carleton (2010). “Christians inAlexandria”. Jews, Christians, and Jewish–Christians in Antiquity. Mohr Siebeck. pp. 137–48.ISBN 978-3-16-150312-2.

• Pearson, Birger A. (2006) [1990]. Gnosticism,Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity. AugsburgFortress. ISBN 978-0-8006-3741-5.

• Pearson, Birger A. (2007). “Earliest Christianity inEgypt”. In Goehring, James E.; Timbie, Janet A.The World of Early Egyptian Christianity. CatholicUniversity of America Press. pp. 97–112. ISBN978-0-8132-1480-1.

• van den Broek, Roelof (1986). “Jewish and PlatonicSpeculations in Early Alexandrian Theology: Eug-nostos, Philo, Valentinus, and Origen”. In Pearson,Birger A.; Goehring, James E. The Roots of Egyp-tion Christianity. Augsburg Fortress. pp. 190–203.ISBN 978-0-8006-3100-0.

6.10 External links• Early Christian Writings – Gospel of the Hebrews

Chapter 7

Jewish-Christian gospels

The Jewish–ChristianGospelswere gospels of a JewishChristian character quoted by Clement of Alexandria,Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome and probablyDidymus the Blind.[1] Most modern scholars have con-cluded that there was one gospel in Aramaic/Hebrew andat least two in Greek, although a minority argue that therewere only two, Aramaic/Hebrew and Greek.[2]

None of these gospels survives today, but attempts havebeen made to reconstruct them from references in theChurch Fathers. The reconstructed texts of the gospelsare usually categorized under New Testament Apoc-rypha. The standard edition of Schneemelcher describesthe texts of three Jewish–Christian gospels as follows:[3]

1) The Gospel of the Ebionites(“GE”) – 7 quotations by Epipha-nius.2) The Gospel of the Hebrews(“GH”) – 1 quotation ascribed toCyril of Jerusalem, plus GH 2–7quotations by Clement, Origen, andJerome.3) The Gospel of the Nazarenes(“GN”) – GN 1 to GN 23 aremainly from Jerome; GN 24 to GN36 are from medieval sources.

7.1 Overview

The Jewish–Christian gospels are known through quota-tions in the works of the early church fathers Clement ofAlexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome andprobably Didymus the Blind.[1] These all assumed thatonly one Jewish Christian gospel existed, although invarious versions and languages, which they attributed towell-known sects such as the Ebionites and Nazarenes.The majority of critical scholars have rejected this viewand identify at least two and possibly three separateJewish–Christian gospels.[1] The standard collection ofthe Jewish–Christian gospels is found in Schneemelcher'sNew Testament Apocrypha; Scheemelcher, followingJohannes Waitz, groups the extant sayings into three lostgospels:[4]

• Gospel of the Ebionites, consisting of seven citationsby Epiphanius, GE-1 to GE-7[5]

• Gospel of the Hebrews, consisting of seven versesnumbered GH-1 to GH-7[6]

• Gospel of the Nazarenes, consisting of citations andmarginal notes by Jerome and others GN-1 to GN-36[7]

7.1.1 The Gospel of the Ebionites

The Gospel of the Ebionites is the name given by mod-ern scholars to a lost gospel thought to lie behind frag-ments quoted by Epiphanius in his Panarion. Epipha-nius quotes a fragment which states the gospel is nar-rated by the twelve apostles. It began with the Baptismof Jesus (presumably because the Ebionites denied theVirgin Birth) and included a narrative of the Last Sup-per. It is thought to have been a gospel harmony basedon the Synoptic Gospels composed in Greek in the firsthalf of the 2nd century, and it possibly originated in theTransjordan region (the home of the Ebionites). It isprobably the same as the lost Gospel of the Twelve, orGospel of the Apostles, referred to by Origen and Jerome,respectively.[8]

7.1.2 The Gospel of the Hebrews

The Gospel of the Hebrews presented traditions ofChrist’s pre-existence, coming into the world, baptismand temptation, with some of his sayings.[9] It was prob-ably composed in Greek in the first half of the 2nd cen-tury and used among Greek-speaking Jewish Christiansin Egypt.[10] It is known from fragments preserved chieflyby Clement, Origen and Jerome, and shows a high regardfor James, the brother of Jesus and head of the JewishChristian church in Jerusalem.[10]

7.1.3 The Gospel of the Nazarenes

The Gospel of the Nazarenes (a modern scholarly name)has been deduced from references in Jerome and Ori-

49

50 CHAPTER 7. JEWISH-CHRISTIAN GOSPELS

gen. It seems to have much in common with the canon-ical Gospel of Matthew, and would have been written inPalestinian Aramaic in the first half of the 2nd centuryfor use by Nazarenes in the neighborhood of Beroea nearAleppo in Syria.[2]

7.2 History of scholarship in theJewish–Christian gospel prob-lem

Our sources for the Jewish–Christian gospels are the earlychurch fathers of the late 2nd to the early 5th centuries –Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Didymus theBlind, Epiphanius and Jerome. Not all of them wereaware that there were different Jewish Christian commu-nities with varying theologies, or that some of them (or atleast one) was Aramaic-speaking while others knew onlyGreek; as a result they frequently confused one gospelwith another, and all with a supposed Hebrew version ofthe Gospel of Matthew.[11]

This confusion has created uncertainty for modern schol-ars. There is agreement that the fragments cannot betraced back to a Hebrew/Aramaic version or revision ofMatthew’s gospel, as most of them have no parallel in thecanonical gospels. There are good reasons for thinkingthat there must have been at least two Jewish–Christiangospels, since there are two differing accounts of thebaptism and good evidence that some fragments wereoriginally in Aramaic and others in Greek. Most mod-ern scholars have concluded that there was one Jewish–Christian gospel in Aramaic/Hebrew and at least two inGreek. Most have argued that the total number was three(Bauer, Vielhauer and Strecker, Klijn), a minority thatthere were only two (Schlarb and Luhrmann).[2][12]

7.3 References[1] Elliott 2005, p. 3.

[2] Ehrman & Pleše 2011, p. 199.

[3] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 134–78.

[4] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 134–53.

[5] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 166–71.

[6] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 172–78.

[7] Vielhauer & Strecker 1991, pp. 154–65.

[8] Elliott 2005, pp. 5–6.

[9] Cameron 1982, p. 83.

[10] Yamauchi 1979, p. 184.

[11] Ehrman & Pleše 2011, p. 198.

[12] Schlarb & Lührmann 2000, pp. 40–55.

7.4 Sources• Cameron, Ron (1982). The Other Gospels: Non-

Canonical Gospel Texts. Westminster/John Knox.ISBN 978-0-664-24428-6.

• Ehrman, Bart D.; Pleše, Zlatko (2011). “The Jew-ish Christian Gospels”. The Apocryphal Gospels:Texts and Translations. Oxford University Press.pp. 197–216. ISBN 978-0-19-973210-4.

• Elliott, James Keith (2005) [1993]. The ApocryphalNew Testament. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-826181-0.

• Schlarb, Egbert; Lührmann, Dieter (2000). “He-bräerevangelium”. Fragmente apokryph gewordenerEvangelien in griechischer und lateinischer Sprache(in German). N.G. Elwert Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7708-1144-1.

• Vielhauer, Philipp; Strecker, Georg (1991).Schneemelcher, Wilhelm; Wilson, Robert McLach-lan, eds. New Testament Apocrypha: Gospels andRelated Writings Volume 1 (2 ed.). John KnoxPress. ISBN 0-664-22721-X. (6th German edition,translated by George Ogg)

• Yamauchi, Edwin M. (1979). “ApocryphalGospels”. In Bromiley, Geoffrey W.. InternationalStandard Bible Encyclopedia: A–D Volume 1. Wm.B. Eerdmans. pp. 181–88. ISBN 978-0-8028-3781-3.

7.5 Further reading• Bauer, Walter (1971) [1934]. Kraft, Robert A.;Krodel, Gerhard, eds. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Ear-liest Christianity. SCM Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-0055-6. (2nd German edition)

• Broadhead, Edwin K. (2010). Jewish Ways of Fol-lowing Jesus: Redrawing the Religious Map of Antiq-uity. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3-16-150304-7.

• Duling, Dennis C (2010). “The Gospel ofMatthew”. In Aune, David E. Blackwell compan-ion to the New Testament. Wiley–Blackwell. ISBN978-1-4051-0825-6.

• Ehrman, Bart D. (2003). Lost Scriptures. OxfordUniversity Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518250-7.

• Evans, Craig A. (2007). Skarsaune, Oskar; Hvalvik,Reidar, eds. Jewish Believers in Jesus. HendricksonPublishers. ISBN 978-1-56563-763-4.

• Evans, Craig A. (2012) [2005]. Ancient Texts ForNew Testament Studies: A Guide To The BackgroundLiterature. Baker Academic. ISBN 978-0-8010-4842-5.

7.5. FURTHER READING 51

• Frey, Jörg (2012). “Die Fragmente ju-denchristlicher Evangelien”. In Markschies,Christoph; Schröter, Jens. Antike christlicheApokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung: I. Band– Evangelien und Verwandtes (in German) (7ed.). Mohr Siebeck. pp. 560–592. ISBN978-3-16-149951-7.

• Gregory, Andrew (2008). Foster, Paul, ed. TheNon-Canonical Gospels. T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-567-03302-4.

• Howard, George (2000). “Hebrews, Gospel Ac-cording to the”. In Freedman, David Noel; Myers,Allen C. Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Eerd-mans. ISBN 978-0-8028-2400-4.

• Jones, F. Stanley (2000). “Jewish Christians”. InFreedman, David Noel; Myers, Allen C. EerdmansDictionary of the Bible. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-2400-4.

• Klauck, Hans-Josef (2003). The ApocryphalGospels: An Introduction. Continuum InternationalPublishing Group. ISBN 978-0-567-08390-6.

• Klijn, Albertus F.J. (1992). Jewish–ChristianGospel Tradition. Brill. ISBN 90-04-09453-9.

• Kloppenborg, John S. (1994) [1992]. “Jewish-Christian Gospels”. In Miller, Robert J. The Com-plete Gospels. Polebridge Press. pp. 425–46. ISBN0-06-065587-9.

• Lapham, Fred (2003). An Introduction to the NewTestament Apocrypha. Continuum InternationalPublishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-6979-3.

• Lührmann, Dieter (2000). Fragmente apokryphgewordener Evangelien: in griechischer und lateinis-cher Sprache (in German). Elwert. ISBN 978-3-374-02535-0.

• Lührmann, Dieter (2004). Die Apokryph Geworde-nen Evangelien: Studien Zu Neuen Texten Und ZuNeuen Fragen (in German). Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-12867-5.

• Luomanen, Petri (2012). “Jewish Christian GospelsRecovered”. Recovering Jewish Christian Sects andGospels. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-20971-8.

• MacDonald, Dennis R. (2012). Two ShipwreckedGospels: The Logoi of Jesus and Papias’s Expositionof Logia about the Lord. Society of Biblical Lit.ISBN 978-1-58983-691-4.

• Menzies, Allan (2004) [1898]. “Hebrews, Gospelaccording to the”. In Hastings, James. A Dictio-nary Of The Bible: Volume V: Supplement – Articles.Minerva Group. pp. 338–43. ISBN 978-1-4102-1730-1.

• Mimouni, Simon Claude (1998). Le Judéo-christianisme ancien: Essais historiques (in French).Les Éditions du Cerf. ISBN 978-2-204-05937-4.

• Nicholson, Edward W.B. (1879). The Gospel ac-cording to the Hebrews : its fragments translated andannotated with a critical analysis of the external andinternal evidence relating to it. C.K. Paul & Co.OCLC 603790634.

• Paget, James Carleton (2010). Jews, Christians, andJewish-Christians in Antiquity. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN978-3-16-150312-2.

• Pick, Bernhard (1908). Paralipomena: Remains ofGospels and Sayings of Christ. Open court Publish-ing. pp. 1–18. OCLC 4428187.

• Schmidtke, Alfred (1911). Neue Fragmente undUn-tersuchungen zu den judenchristlichen Evangelien (inGerman). J.C. Hinrichs. OCLC 30304268.

• Waitz, Hans (1924). “Judenchristliche Evangelien”.In Hennecke, Edgar. Neutestamentliche Apokryphen(in German) (2 ed.). J.C.B. Mohr. pp. 10–55.OCLC 4581923.

52 CHAPTER 7. JEWISH-CHRISTIAN GOSPELS

7.6 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

7.6.1 Text• Rabbinical translations of Matthew Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbinical%20translations%20of%20Matthew?oldid=

612080721 Contributors: Charles Matthews, Zero0000, Anthony Appleyard, Jheald, TShilo12, -Ril-, DePiep, Ciroa, Ligulem, Fang Aili,SmackBot, Hmains, Clinkophonist, Andrew c, Lambiam, Eluchil404, Pseudo-Richard, Shaunckennedy, Alaibot, Goldenrowley, AlastairHaines, Hugo999, John Carter, UnitedStatesian, StAnselm, Fadesga, Joaopaulopontes, Elikakohen, EGMichaels, Fontwords, Editor2020,Leszek Jańczuk, Arcasa73, Dyuku, Lightbot, Yobot, AnomieBOT, Citation bot, In ictu oculi, Helpful Pixie Bot, Mehroe, JohnChrysostom,Marcocapelle and Anonymous: 19

• Gospel of Matthew Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel%20of%20Matthew?oldid=636643796 Contributors: AxelBoldt, TobiasHoevekamp, MichaelTinkler, Wesley, Bryan Derksen, Zundark, RK, Amillar, Andre Engels, SimonP, Zoe, Panairjdde, Stevertigo, Teun-Spaans, Stephen C. Carlson, Tgeorgescu, Sannse, Greenman, Mpolo, Angela, Den fjättrade ankan, Steffen, Andres, John K, Vargenau,JASpencer, Hashar, Emperorbma, Andrevan, RickK, Reddi, DJ Clayworth, Grendelkhan, Itai, Paul-L, Ahqeter, Kkmetron, Kenatipo,Wetman, Josh Cherry, Jredmond, Goethean, Romanm, Amgine, Academic Challenger, Superm401, David Gerard, Smjg, DocWatson42,Colemanyee, Meursault2004, Quadra23, Everyking, Zhen Lin, Jason Quinn, Mboverload, SWAdair, Wmahan, Andycjp, DavidBrooks,Sonjaaa, Quadell, Hurtstotalktoyou, Rdsmith4, JimWae, Maximaximax, Pmanderson, Zfr, Gary D, Klemen Kocjancic, Adashiel, TrevorMacInnis, ELApro, Lacrimosus, Kate, Jayjg, Discospinster, Rich Farmbrough, Rhobite, Cjoshuav, Pmsyyz, Pjacobi, Marinos, SocratesJedi,Byrial, Pavel Vozenilek, Paul August, Gonzalo Diethelm, Bender235, Ignocrates, Cap'n Refsmmat, Mwanner, Tom, Susvolans, Bobo192,Foobaz, Jonathunder, HasharBot, Knucmo2, Alansohn, Interiot, Eric Kvaalen, Snowolf, Knowledge Seeker, Tarakananda, Bookandcoffee,Markaci, Cipherswarm, Michael Gäbler, WilliamKF, Thryduulf, Woohookitty, LOL, Sesmith, Uncle G, Peter Hitchmough, Macronyx,Striver, Brendanconway, Wayward, Fr.Bryan, Melissadolbeer, Palica, KHM03, Graham87, Chris Weimer, Cuchullain, BD2412, Kb-dank71, FreplySpang, Dpr, Rjwilmsi, Koavf, Josiah Rowe, Tawker, Lairor, Fred Bradstadt, Yamamoto Ichiro, Fish and karate, Janothird,Doc glasgow, Mark J, Str1977, Codex Sinaiticus, Sexy Schoolgirl, Chobot, Gregorik, Josephconklin, Portress, EamonnPKeane, YurikBot,Wavelength, RussBot, Petiatil, Red Slash, Lord Voldemort, CambridgeBayWeather, Wiki alf, Deskana, Robert McClenon, JRG, Kdbuffalo,LaraCroft NYC, Ari89, GHcool, Roy Brumback, BOT-Superzerocool, Bota47, Rayc, Zzuuzz, Castjean, Silverhorse, Peter Kirby, Coontie,May the Willy on Wheels be with you!, Fram, Anclation, ArielGold, Kungfuadam, That Guy, From That Show!, McA, SmackBot, PiCo,MegamanXplosion, Sticky Parkin, AFBorchert, Unyoyega, C.Fred, Rbreen, Stuckerj, KocjoBot, Ilmbaba, Anastrophe, Heesung, RachelPearce, Yamaguchi , Vassyana, Hmains, Skizzik, Carl.bunderson, ERcheck, Psiphiorg, Jeffro77, Kc8ukw, Chris the speller, Enkyklios,LaggedOnUser, Mdwh, Neo-Jay, Sadads, Duncaniso, Baronnet, DHN-bot, Eusebeus, Aoclery, Clinkophonist, Rrburke, Addshore, Grovercleveland, E4mmacro, Stevenmitchell, Pepsidrinka, Yermiyahu, Nibuod, Decltype, A J Hay, Severinus, Epaga, LoveMonkey, Iridescence,Andrew c, Bejnar, SashatoBot, AAA765, Ishmaelblues, Mon Vier, Mr. Lefty, The Man in Question, Stephlet, JHunterJ, Kirbytime,AdultSwim, Jose77, Lord Anubis, Dave Runger, Jäger, CmdrObot, TheEditrix, Baiji, DeLarge, Bbagot, Shaunckennedy, Jonathan Tweet,MC10, Gogo Dodo, Nmajdan, Miguel de Servet, B, Tawkerbot4, Dougweller, Iliank, Ssluiter, Mikewax, JodyB, Nishidani, Satori Son,Thijs!bot, Epbr123, Qwyrxian, Bloodknight, Headbomb, Kathovo, BILLK2006, A.J.Chesswas, Hadoren, Natalie Erin, Ambarawa, Ale-fZet, Escarbot, Trengarasu, AntiVandalBot, Luna Santin, Lostcaesar, Tjmayerinsf, Fayenatic london, Rtrev, Mercury543210, Gökhan,JAnDbot, Husond, Tony Myers, MER-C, Epeefleche, Hello32020, Githoniel, Hut 8.5, Joshua, Bongwarrior, VoABot II, Websterweb-foot, JNW, Scipio Carthage, Lord Seth, Kman90, JMyrleFuller, DerHexer, JaGa, PeteSF, Kkrystian, MartinBot, Sseiter, Roastytoast,R'n'B, CommonsDelinker, J.delanoy, Trusilver, Ian.thomson, KingJohn23, Kzflags, G. Campbell, Johnbod, AntiSpamBot, SuzanneKn,NewEnglandYankee, In Transit, Kraftlos, Natl1, JavierMC, Coggers420, Opaanderson, Idioma-bot, Nouky, VolkovBot, CWii, Nino Schi-betta, EchoBravo, Aesopos, Philip Trueman, DoorsAjar, TXiKiBoT, Java7837, Rei-bot, Ajrabagl, Vanished user ikijeirw34iuaeolaseriffic,Anna Lincoln, LeaveSleaves, Supernerd 10, Hyper3, BankingBum, Synthebot, VanishedUserABC, Brianga, Polylepis, Monty845, Lo-gan, Legoktm, Imperfection, StAnselm, Hawaii518437, JTPC2, Mungo Kitsch, Caltas, Luffshoo, Exert, Grimey109, PerioMadeira,Demack, Lightmouse, Iain99, Alex.muller, BenoniBot, C'est moi, Vanished user ewfisn2348tui2f8n2fio2utjfeoi210r39jf, Jonpartin, Ja-cob.jose, Nahums1, A Georgian, Randy Kryn, RomanHistorian, Atif.t2, Bibliaromana, ClueBot, The Thing That Should Not Be, Nan-cyHeise, Metzujan, Mild Bill Hiccup, Kathleen.wright5, Bhulme, Leadwind, Venmon, Robert Skyhawk, Bean159, Abrech, Esdraelon,500cake, Jotterbot, CowboySpartan, Elizium23, Xabiereus, BOTarate, Jorsak, Aitias, Mattissa, Valistad, Jerryofaiken, Swift as an Ea-gle, NEABEN, JS747, Little Mountain 5, Jamesgtmoore, ZooFari, Good Olfactory, Addbot, Atethnekos, Leszek Jańczuk, Groundsquir-rel13, Damiens.rf, Musdan77, Ka Faraq Gatri, Jim10701, MrOllie, Tsange, Тиверополник, Numbo3-bot, Tide rolls, Lightbot, Ret.Prof,Fishthrowing16, Teysz Kamieński, Legobot, Luckas-bot, Yobot, Vague, Bunnyhop11, WKPEditor, EnochBethany, Egosintrick, THENWHOWAS PHONE?, CPX, AnakngAraw, Eric-Wester, Tonyrex, AnomieBOT, Rubinbot, Jim1138, Rain00334, AdjustShift, Bobisbob2,Kingpin13, Ulric1313, Limideen, Ckruschke, Citation bot, Xqbot, JimVC3, Dethlock99, XZeroBot, Srich32977, Praiseandworship, Grou-choBot, A.amitkumar, Captain-n00dle, FrescoBot, LucienBOT, Paine Ellsworth, Ac adrian, Brianja2, Deadtotruth, DrilBot, Biker Biker,ElijahBenedict, Triplestop, Gmasterman, BRUTE, ReaverFlash, 3centsoap, Mjs1991, Lotje, Oaklandguy, Dinamik-bot, LilyKitty, Retsin-ner, Jeffrd10, Tiled, Theophilus947, DARTH SIDIOUS 2, Jacynth11, Jasondulle, Carlos Sánchez, Awayforawhile, RjwilmsiBot, TjBot,Ripchip Bot, Noommos, In ictu oculi, DASHBot, EmausBot, John of Reading, OrphanWiki, Noexit2002, Racerx11, Themindsurgeon, Go-ingBatty, PoeticVerse, DiiCinta, Wujot, Wikipelli, Evanh2008, ZéroBot, Livingholysaints, Oncenawhile, Dffgd, Smirnoff171, Nernorking,Wayne Slam, SHEEHANSUCKS, Δ, Coasterlover1994, Donner60, Orange Suede Sofa, Alexandriensis, ChuispastonBot, Dylan Flaherty,EdoBot, DASHBotAV, ClueBot NG, Matthew00800, This lousy T-shirt, Cadetgray, Logan778, Widr, Rcameron2003, Helpful Pixie Bot,Nightenbelle, Ehersber, Cursethenight, MusikAnimal, Marcocapelle, Jlrigamonti, Rhokk, Smeat75, CitationCleanerBot, Thebrunner808,Nicola.Manini, DaBo$$4DaWin, Snow Blizzard, Justincheng12345-bot, Wvpspdude, Ashay Gupta, ChrisGualtieri, Soni, Dexbot, Wetts,SorryTheTruthHurts, Frosty, Matthewrobertolson, Assaf.vilmovski, Donterry, Cantab83, Annekanno, Kanaina, DavidLeighEllis, Even-steven, Davidbena, Thrub, Alan Cossey, Skr15081997, Cancina5645, FelixRosch, Writers Bond, Mad Pedant, Snowstorm26, G2 1998,Bernasay, Rollincr, JudeccaXIII, Evansjanek and Anonymous: 618

• Gospel of the Nazarenes Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel%20of%20the%20Nazarenes?oldid=616845990 Contributors:Slrubenstein, Infrogmation, Uriber, Tb, Wetman, Varlaam, Loremaster, Jayjg, Rich Farmbrough, Bender235, Ignocrates, Zeality, Circeus,Anthony Appleyard, Mel Etitis, Woohookitty, -Ril-, Melissadolbeer, WBardwin, BD2412, Angusmclellan, Koavf, By George, MarSch,Codex Sinaiticus, Noitall, RussBot, Angel77, Nicke L, BirgitteSB, Mshecket, Zwobot, Tomisti, Peter Kirby, SmackBot, Reedy, Hmains,Mycota, Jon513, Clinkophonist, Andrew Dalby, JoeBot, Shaunckennedy, Nick Number, Edward321, HornColumbia, VolkovBot, Allebor-goBot, StAnselm, Aolrnin, JL-Bot, Timberframe, Torkmusik, SchreiberBike, Graham1973, Editor2020, Bionite, Addbot, Gabeedman,Leszek Jańczuk, RTG, Ret.Prof, AnomieBOT, Citation bot, Aa77zz, J04n, FrescoBot, Yekcidmij, In ictu oculi, GoingBatty, Helpful PixieBot, Khazar2, JesseAlanGordon and Anonymous: 23

7.6. TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES 53

• Aramaic New Testament Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic%20New%20Testament?oldid=623543477 Contributors: Si-monP, Llywrch, Charles Matthews, Timwi, Dogface, AnonMoos, Altenmann, PBP, Jdavidb, Mboverload, Poccil, Haruo, Zappaz, EliasAlu-card, Bender235, Livajo, Carltonh, Wareh, Man vyi, Jonathunder, Wgw2024, Garzo, David Haslam, -Ril-, Search4Lancer, Koavf, Bob A,Miskin, Tedder, Colenso, RussBot, Semolo75, Buster79, The Thadman, Yahnatan, SmackBot, The Monster, Rbreen, El Cubano, Bluebot,Andrew c, Abyler, Eluchil404, Stephen Silver, Garik, Kathovo, Jimhoward72, Tamu02aggie, WhatamIdoing, BrettAllen, TreasuryTag,HeretiKc, Laerwen, Byrnes777, Thanatos666, Runewiki777, StAnselm, Stephendcole, Albion G, Leadwind, Editor2020, Bogorm, DumZ-iBoT, PvtKing, Addbot, Luckas-bot, Yobot, Konway87, Jdefancisco, AnomieBOT, DynamoDegsy, LilHelpa, ZheXueJia, Koinedoctor,Adhitthana, Lupusmaximus, ,تسلیم FrescoBot, Citation bot 1, Deadtotruth, Godhasnomother, RYUS, Mitchell Powell, Bornemix, Inictu oculi, EmausBot, John of Reading, Davebauscher, Evanh2008, Misty MH, DeistCosmos, Helpful Pixie Bot, BG19bot, Gbausc, Mar-cocapelle, ChrisGualtieri, Khazar2, RPrice7889 and Anonymous: 83

• Gospel of the Ebionites Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel%20of%20the%20Ebionites?oldid=616845520 Contributors: Si-monP, Llywrch, DonPaolo, Tpbradbury, Wetman, David Gerard, BozMo, Kaldari, DNewhall, Jayjg, Ignocrates, Ziggurat, Woohookitty,Uncle G, Melissadolbeer, Koavf, Darkhorse82, Gaius Cornelius, Nirvana2013, Grafen, Pyrotec, Tomisti, Peter Kirby, SmackBot, Ezra-trumpet, Hardyplants, Ian Rose, Gilliam, Hmains, Bluebot, Mladifilozof, Clinkophonist, Das Baz, Tim riley, AndrewDalby, RomanSpa, MrStephen, Mig77, Shaunckennedy, Michael C Price, Alaibot, Nishidani, JamesAM, Malleus Fatuorum, Bencherlite, Dudley Miles, Johnbod,John Carter, StAnselm, Joaopaulopontes, P. S. Burton, Piledhigheranddeeper, Addacat, Torkmusik, Sun Creator, Editor2020, Addbot,Alorkezas, Ashton1983, Favonian, Lavivier, Tassedethe, Ret.Prof, Yobot, DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered, Gongshow, AnomieBOT,Citation bot, Xqbot, Aa77zz, J04n, Doremo, Altrinsic, Citation bot 1, MastiBot, RjwilmsiBot, In ictu oculi, H3llBot, Jbribeiro1, German-Joe, ClueBot NG, Snotbot, Widr, Helpful Pixie Bot, Lowercase sigmabot, BG19bot, Ebiodays, ChrisGualtieri, Hmainsbot1, Jamesx12345,VoxelBot, ElHef, K00lKatLFC and Anonymous: 17

• Gospel of the Hebrews Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel%20of%20the%20Hebrews?oldid=617382235 Contributors: Shii,Llywrch, DopefishJustin, Snoyes, Emperorbma, Charles Matthews, Jwrosenzweig, Robertb-dc, Jnc, Omegatron, AnonMoos, Wetman,Rursus, Alpharigel, Matthew Stannard, Anym, MSGJ, Neilc, Gary D, MakeRocketGoNow, Ignocrates, QuartierLatin1968, Ricky81682,CheeseDreams, TShilo12, Woohookitty, Bertrand77, -Ril-, Melissadolbeer, Grammarbot, AllanBz, Koavf, Sbp, Doc glasgow, Dark-horse82, LeCire, YurikBot, Hairy Dude, Kauffner, Warshy, Pigman, Nicke L, Welsh, Pyrotec, Malcolma, Ari89, Maunus, Tomisti, 2over0,Peter Kirby, Ephilei, That Guy, From That Show!, SmackBot, PiCo, Eaglizard, Timotheus Canens, Hmains, Eusebeus, Mladifilozof,Clinkophonist, Grover cleveland, Salamurai, Andrew Dalby, Vriullop, Soap, LinuxDude, Mr Stephen, Tapatio, Shaunckennedy, JonathanTweet, Miguel de Servet, B, Michael C Price, Dougweller, DumbBOT, Nishidani, Headbomb, Fayenatic london, Aquatiki, Igodard, Xeno,AJWittenberg, Doug Coldwell, Adavies42, JMyrleFuller, R'n'B, Jobbus McKnockey, PStrait, LordAnubisBOT, BrettAllen, VolkovBot,Messir, FolkenFanel, Isaac Sanolnacov, TXiKiBoT, John Carter, VanishedUserABC, AlleborgoBot, StAnselm, Calliopejen1, KittySilver-moon, PbBot, Vanished user ewfisn2348tui2f8n2fio2utjfeoi210r39jf, Sitush, ClueBot, AnthonyUK, Sahansdal, Torkmusik, Brianboulton,Rahaeli, Teacherbrock, Editor2020, DumZiBoT, Heironymous Rowe, WikHead, Addbot, Gabeedman, Leszek Jańczuk, Chzz, Lavivier,Тиверополник, Ret.Prof, Legobot II, Gongshow, KamikazeBot, AnomieBOT, LilHelpa, Xqbot, Dadcracker, DustFormsWords, Tcw8048,Aa77zz, J04n, Erik9bot, FrescoBot, Paine Ellsworth, Cdw1952, TommyT33, Calmer Waters, Alvanx, Bejinhan, Lotje, Tbhotch, Difu Wu,RjwilmsiBot, In ictu oculi, EmausBot, John of Reading, GoingBatty, RenamedUser01302013, Mmeijeri, BlueEyedM, Mikhael1C, Δ,Chiverisimilidude, LutherVinci, Snotbot, Helpful Pixie Bot, Lowercase sigmabot, Marcocapelle, Mhakcm, HectorMoffet, Tahc, Lgfcd,Evensteven, Lordazoroth, MagicatthemovieS and Anonymous: 70

• Jewish-Christian gospels Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish-Christian%20gospels?oldid=633768215 Contributors: Bearcat,Oknazevad, Ignocrates, GordyB, Woohookitty, John Broughton, SmackBot, PiCo, Hmains, Eusebeus, Wideangle, Mr Stephen, Iridescent,Cydebot, JamesAM, Northumbrian, Fayenatic london, StAnselm, Jojalozzo, PbBot, Vanished user ewfisn2348tui2f8n2fio2utjfeoi210r39jf,Niceguyedc, Torkmusik, Catalographer, Editor2020, Addbot, Gabeedman, Leszek Jańczuk, Ret.Prof, Yobot, Gongshow, AnomieBOT,Bob Burkhardt, J04n, Nantucketnoon, FrescoBot, Paine Ellsworth, MastiBot, In ictu oculi, EmausBot, Wurmanx, Playmobilonhishorse,Moswento, BlueEyedM, Turmerick, Helpful Pixie Bot, TheNuszAbides, BattyBot and Anonymous: 34

7.6.2 Images• File:'Saint_Matthew',_oil_on_canvas_painting_by_Jusepe_de_Ribera,_1632.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/

commons/1/12/%27Saint_Matthew%27%2C_oil_on_canvas_painting_by_Jusepe_de_Ribera%2C_1632.jpg License: Public domainContributors: Kimbell Art Museum Original artist: José de Ribera

• File:Ambox_important.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Ambox_important.svg License: Public do-main Contributors: Own work, based off of Image:Ambox scales.svg Original artist: Dsmurat (talk · contribs)

• File:Baptism-of-Christ-xx-Francesco-Alban.JPG Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Baptism-of-Christ-xx-Francesco-Alban.JPG License: Public domain Contributors: http://www.oceansbridge.com/oil-paintings/product/73240/baptismofchrist Original artist: Francesco Albani

• File:Bloch-SermonOnTheMount.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Bloch-SermonOnTheMount.jpgLicense: Public domain Contributors: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ycv0BE0wFr4/TU8WRXJmxYI/AAAAAAAAAgI/2QjVrd4bEHo/s1600/Sermon_on_the_Mount_Carl_Bloch.jpg and Carl Bloch, p. 313, ISBN 9788798746591 Original artist: Carl Heinrich Bloch

• File:Codex_Tchacos_p33.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Codex_Tchacos_p33.jpg License: Publicdomain Contributors: The Gospel of Judas. Critical Edition. Washington 2007 Original artist: WolfgangRieger

• File:Commons-logo.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: ? Contributors: ? Originalartist: ?

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• File:Eusebius_of_Caesarea.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Eusebius_of_Caesarea.jpg License:Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

54 CHAPTER 7. JEWISH-CHRISTIAN GOSPELS

• File:KellsFol034rChiRhoMonogram.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/KellsFol034rChiRhoMonogram.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

• File:Matthew_Evangelist_Incunabula_Koberger_Bible_wiki.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Matthew_Evangelist_Incunabula_Koberger_Bible_wiki.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Koberger Bible Original artist: AntonKoberger

• File:Minuscule_447.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Minuscule_447.jpg License: Public domainContributors: Codex Harleianus 5784, numbered by 447 on the list Gregory-Aland Original artist: Gerardos

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