Rabbinical Translations of Matthew - Shem Tov's Touchstone in Christian Aramaic Primacy Debate

Shem Tov's Touchstone in Christian Aramaic Primacy Debate

The hypotheses of Hebrew and Aramaic primacy posit that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic. Scholars who support these hypotheses sometimes appeal to these 3 medieval Hebrew manuscripts. However, the vast majority of scholars believe Matthew was originally written in Greek.

George Howard (Hebraist), Associate Professor of Religion and Hebrew at the University of Georgia has argued (1995) that some or all of these three medieval Hebrew versions may have descended (without any intervening translation) from ancient Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew, which may have been used by early Christians in the 1st or 2nd century, but were nearly extinct by the time of Jerome, late in the 4th century.

However the surviving citations from Jewish-Christian Gospels (namely Gospel of the Nazarenes, Gospel of the Ebionites and Gospel of the Hebrews) preserved in the writings of Jerome, Epiphanius and others, lead critical scholars to conclude that those Gospels themselves either were Greek or were translated from Greek Matthew. In fact, most scholars consider that the medieval Hebrew manuscripts were descended (by translation) from medieval Greek or Latin manuscripts, and therefore that it is extremely unlikely that any of the unique readings found in these medieval Hebrew manuscripts could be ancient.

Horbury (1999) notes that the characteristics of ibn Shaprut's Touchstone are better explained by the influence of Latin Gospel harmonies.