Hebrew Gospel of Matthew?

Some scholars maintain that idea of a Semitic origin to the Gospel of Matthew is preposterous. Nevertheless, here I will delineate several features of the Gospel of Matthew in Greek that lends credibility to the idea that it is was originally written in Hebrew.

1. First is the idea of biblical numerology, or gematria.

In the first chapter of Matthew's Gospel, the author employs a technique that would either only make sense in the Hebrew language or that would require his readers to immediately understand or know the Hebrew language. The author begins his book with the words, the book of the birth of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (βιβλος γενεσεως ιησου χριστου υιου δαυιδ υιου αβρααμ). He then begins to recount Jesus' genealogy from the patriarch Avraham, through King David. Matthew divided the genealogy into three segments:

1. The first segment is from Avraham to King David.
2. The second segment is from King David to the deportation of Babylon (της μετοικεσιας βαβυλωνος).
3. The final and third segment is from the deportation of Babylon to Jesus, who is called Christ (ο λεγομενος χριστος).

After Matthew is done recounting the genealogy, he notes that each segment happens to have 14 generations.

1:17 Therefore all the generations from Abraam until David [were] 14 generations, and from David until the deportation of Babylon [were] 14 generations, and from the deportation of Babylon until the Christ [were] 14 generations. (πασαι ουν αι γενεαι απο αβρααμ εως δαυιδ γενεαι δεκατεσσαρες και απο δαυιδ εως της μετοικεσιας βαβυλωνος γενεαι δεκατεσσαρες και απο της μετοικεσιας βαβυλωνος εως του χριστου γενεαι δεκατεσσαρες)

I will argue that Matthew has some purpose for 14, that it is more than simply an antiquarian note. In fact, 14 is tremendously important, not just in the genealogy itself, but in the reason why Matthew incorporates the genealogy in the first place. Matthew needed to make sure that the three segments of the genealogy each had 14 generations.

What's so important about 14? Return to the first line: the book of the birth of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matthew is, obviously, trying to show that Jesus is the descendant of David and hence a candidate for the messianic redemption. But Matthew is not just doing so through the genealogical descent, he is also using gematria.

In Hebrew, each letter of the alphabet has a numeric value. That is, if you wanted to write 1 in numeral form in Hebrew, you would write the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph. If you wanted to write the numeral 2 in Hebrew, you would write the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, bet.

1. aleph א
2. bet ב
3. gimel ג
4. daleth ד
5. he ה
6. waw ו

...and so on down the alphabet

In this genealogy, Matthew is using gematria on David's name in Hebrew. David's name in Hebrew is D-V-D (דוד), or Daleth-Waw-Daleth. Can you figure out the numerical value of that name? (Daleth = 4) + (Waw = 6) + (Daleth = 4). 4 + 6 + 4 = 14. David in Hebrew has the numerical value of 14! And Matthew's important number is 14! Basically, Matthew is saying that Jesus is David three times, or in other words, Jesus' fulfills David's kingly role thrice. Jesus is thrice David.

This feature is only apparent in the Hebrew language, in Greek it does not work. This fact means that Matthew wrote in the Hebrew language or that he wrote in another language but intended his audience to understand this Hebrew-language gematria. As to the latter possibility, it would be unlikely that Matthew would have written in another language (Greek) and would have intended his audience to understand Hebrew. If they understood Hebrew, he might as well have written in Hebrew. Since it would have been unhelpful to write in Greek—the gematria would have been lost—it appears that the former option is more likely. The gematria is only present in the Hebrew, and therefore it is more likely that he wrote in Hebrew.

2. The second line of evidence for an Hebraic autograph of Matthew is the Gospel's introduction of the name Jesus.

Matthew introduces Jesus' name first in the genealogy, and then in the narrative recounts how the messenger, or angel, of the lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him that Mary was having a child from holy spirit (no definite article, interestingly enough). The angel tells Joseph:

v. 20 Yosef, son of David, do not fear to take Miryam, your wife, for the thing in her, begotten out of spirit, is holy. (ιωσηφ υιος δαυιδ μη φοβηθης παραλαβειν μαριαν την γυναικα σου το γαρ εν αυτη γεννηθεν εκ πνευματος εστιν αγιου)

v. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you shall call his name Yesous, for he himself shall save his people from their sins. (τεξεται δε υιον και καλεσεις το ονομα αυτου ιησουν αυτος γαρ σωσει τον λαον αυτου απο των αμαρτιων αυτων)

That's all well and good until you realize that Yesous or Iesous has absolutely no meaning in the Greek language. (In Greek, if an i, or iota, appears at the beginning of a word followed by a vowel, it ends up making a /y/ sound; hence why Iesous in Greek is pronounced Yesous.) It is clear from the grammatical construction that the angel intends the statement to be an explanation of the child's name (you shall name him...because he will...). There is something about that name that the angel intends to connect with the following statement.

People who are familiar with the Messianic movement will know that Jesus' Hebrew name is Yeshua. Such people may also know that Yeshua is the Aramaic shortened form of the Hebrew Yehoshua (from whence we derive Joshua). In Hebrew, the Yeho- prefix as in Yehoshua refers to "Yah," the god of the Israelites. "Shua" means salvation, and so Yehoshua means Yah is salvation. Since Yeshua is a shortened form of Yehoshua, Yeshua also means Yah is salvation.

In Hebrew, the angelic announcement would have an alliteration on the name of Yeshua. One Hebrew translators translates it thus:

וְהִיא יֹלֶדֶת בֵּן וְקָרָאתָ אֶת־שְׁמוֹ יֵשׁוּעַ כִּי הוּא יוֹשִׁיעַ אֶת־עַמּוֹ מֵחַטֹּאתֵיהֶם

In English transliteration, the angel says: you shall his name, Yeshua, ki hu yoshia (...Jesus, because he will save...).

Notice the alliteration. In the explanations of name in the Book of Genesis, one will find a lot of these explanatory alliterations. If we were to reproduce this alliteration into English it could be something like:

You shall call his name Savior, because he will save...

This alliteration is significant, because it links the name (Yeshua) with the act (yoshia). However, this alliteration, which the author intended, is not found in the Greek. The alliteration is only found in Hebrew, which is another reason why it is more likely that Matthew wrote in Hebrew.

The scholar and poet Willis Barnstone offers this comment on the angel's introduction of Jesus' name:

The naming of the infant messiah as Jesus, Iesous in the Greek, is followed by the reason for naming Jesus, explaining that the name means he will save. But Jesus in the Greek, Iesous (Ἱησοῡς), has no meaning in the Greek other than being a transliteration of the Hebrew Yeshua, from Yehoshua, which does mean Yahweh saves. This passage suggests either an earlier text in the Hebrew or the Aramaic or that the author of the Greek Matthew was a Greek- and Hebrew-speaking who had in mind the Hebrew or Aramaic name Yeshua or Yehoshua for the salvific lord and expected the readers or listeners to understand the name of the salvific lord in Hebrew embedded in the name Yeshua or Yehoshua. There seems to be no other explanation for attributing he will save to a Greek name which itself is meaningless.

Thus writes Barnstone. As far as we can tell, either Matthew wrote in Hebrew or he was a bilingual Jew who thought in Hebrew, wrote in Greek and expected his readers to do the same. While the latter would be fun, the former seems to be more likely.

The Origins of the Jewish People

1. Adam
   --> humanity
   
2. Sheth
3. Enosh
4. Keinan
5. Mahalal'el
6. Yered
7. Hanokh
8. Methushelach
9. Lamech
10. Noach
1. Cham
2. Yefet
3. Shem
   --> Shemites (Semites)
   
11. Arpakhshad
12. Shelach
13. 'Ever
    --> 'Evri, or Hebrews
    
14. Peleg
15. Re'u
16. S'erug
17. Nachor
18. Terach
19. Avram aka Avraham --> father of the monotheistic, Abrahamaic religions
1. Yishma'el --> Ismhaelites aka Arabs
2. Yitz'chak (Isaac)
20. Yaakov (Jacob) aka Yisra'el (Israel)
    --> Israelites
    

On what to call the 'Bible'

"Bible" refers to the various collections of authoritative texts for the Christian and Jewish communities. The word itself entered Middle English during the middle ages from the Old French language, deriving from ecclesiastical Latin biblia.

Latin biblia was itself derived from Greek plural βιβλια biblia ‘books,’ from Greek singular βιβλιον biblion ‘book,’ which was originally a diminutive of βιβλος biblos ‘papyrus, scroll,’ which came from a word of unknown Semitic origin.

So, from an etymological perspective, bible means "papyrus books." Many people forget that the word bible is a plural - books. So a better translation for bible might be "collection," "anthology," or "library." I like to read the books, I like to read the library, I like to read the anthology, or the collection.

But then the question arises: to which books or to which library or collection are you referring?

Well, I respond, I am referring to the Judaeo-Christian books.

There are many books in the world. And there are many sacred books, books considered holy and authoritative to given religious communities.

So just saying the books to refer to what we now call the Bible might be confusing to some. Are you referring to the Buddhist books, or the Hindu books, or the Celtic books, or to all the books of the world?

So now we have to modify these books with a qualifier. Jewish books. Christian books. But how are we to separate books written by Jews and Christians nowadays from the sacred books used by Jews and Christians?

Jewish sacred text and Christian sacred text is clumsy, but could work. Scholars call the Jewish sacred text the Hebrew Scriptures or the Hebrew Bible. But there is a problem: not everything in the Jewish sacred text is written in Hebrew, so calling it the Hebrew Scriptures is misleading. True, most of it is written in Hebrew, but large sections (Genesis 31:47; Jeremiah 10:10-11; Daniel 2:4 - 7:28; Ezra 4:8 - 6:18, 7:12-26) are written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. Should we call it the Hebrew/Aramaic Scriptures?

And calling it the Jewish Scriptures, as some do, is problematic too, because the writings which are commonly called the New Testament were also written by Jews, so the New Testament writings deserve to be called the Jewish Scriptures just as much as the "old testament" writings do.

Also, restricting the term Hebrew Scriptures to the "old testament" also neglects the fact that scholars believe that many books of the new testament were written in Hebrew too (e.g., the Gospel of Matthew).

So far, we have learned that calling it the Hebrew Scriptures overlooks the Aramaic text, and that both what are called the old testament and the new testament equally deserve the titles Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish Scriptures, as both were written by Jews and both had parts written in Hebrew.

So what are we to call the old and the new testaments?

I suggest we use the Hebrew terms for them. (Gasp! What a surprise that I am saying this!)

The Hebrew term for the "old testament" is Tanak, the English transliteration of the Hebrew acronym תַּנַ"ךְ‎.

תַּנַ"ךְ is an acronym for the three divisions of the "old testament":

1. ת, the first letter of תּוֹרָה, torah, which means "teaching," "direction," "orientation," or "instruction"
2. נ, the first letter of נְבִיאִים, Nəḇî'îm, which means "prophets"
3. כ, the first letter of כְּתוּבִים, Kəṯûḇîm, which means "writings"

Thus, combining T and N and K and filling in with some vowels gives one TaNaK. Sometimes you might see it vocalized as Tenak or Tenakh or Tenach.

Thus, our 'new' word for the old testament is Tanak - which sounds cooler anyway.

How about the "new testament"?

In Hebrew, the new testament is called the בְרִית חֲדָשָׁה, or berith khadashah.

Like the Tanak, the בְרִית חֲדָשָׁה too has three divisions:

1. בְּשׂוֹרָת הַגְּאֻלָּה, besorath hageulah, the "good news of redemption," or the four gospels and Acts = five books
2. הִתְגַּלּוּת, hithgaluth, "unveiling" or "uncovering," aka the Revelation, comparable to the Prophets in Tanak
3. אִגְּרוֹת, 'iggeroth, "letters," or epistles, comparable to the Writings in Tanak

בְרִית means a "covenant."

And חֲדָשָׁה, well that will take some more time to explain. חֲדָשָׁה is the feminine singular form of the masculine singular adjective חָדָשׁ, khadash.

חָדָשׁ derives from the noun חֹ֫דֶשׁ, khodesh. חֹ֫דֶשׁ means roughly "new moon" or "month."

But the "true" meaning is found in the verb which all these words are related to: חָדַשׁ, khadash.

חָדַשׁ means to "repair" or to "renew" or to "restore," or to make new or even to refresh or make fresh.

The Hebrews thought symbolically. They called the moon חֹ֫דֶשׁ because the new moon is always restored or renewed to its previous location. חָדַשׁ, then, means to bring back to a prior state.

So if a בְרִית, a covenant, is brought back to a prior state, what does that make it?

Well it makes the covenant a renewed covenant, or a restored, or even a refreshed covenant. And that's what the new testament is.

It's a renewed covenant. A covenant that went through a development and came back to its original state. It's not necessarily a "new" covenant, but a restored covenant. A refreshed covenant.

G-d renewed, restored, refreshed his covenant. It's not a completely new covenant. It's the same "old" covenant restored, refreshed, and renewed. It's actually going back in time and bringing the past to the present. The new covenant is actually an old covenant.

The covenant was: I will be your god and you will be my people, and I will protect you and deliver you. Now walk in my statutes and keep my commandments and worship Me only.

The covenant is: I will be your god and you will be my people, and I will protect you and deliver you. Now walk in my statutes and keep my commandments and worship Me only.

The covenant was just for the people of Israel and to any aliens or strangers who might reside in their encampments. But with the restored covenant, G-d adds gentiles to the mix. In the restoration of the world, returning to as it was supposed to be, not only Jews but also gentiles will worship G-d. Through the mashiakh, G-d will bring all peoples back to himself, to enjoy a period of peace and shalom.

So maybe, in light of that restoration, we should call the "Bible" by its proper name: Tanak and B'rit Khadashah. One bible. Two mirrors reflecting that one truth, in three divisions each.

Jesus, the Woman at the Well, and John's Gospel

The story recorded in the Gospel of Yokhannon (John) about Yeshua's interaction with the woman from Shomron (Samaria) is one of my favorite encounters recorded in the Gospels. Not only is the encounter touching and tender, but it is also intriguing from a cultural, linguistic, and religious point of view. In fact, despite Yeshua's compassionate treatment of the woman, it seems that they do experience a sort of standoff between each other. To see this standoff, follow the narrative:

When Yeshua mentions that he possesses the mayim khayim (living water in Hebrew; מַיָא חַיֵא, maya khaye in Aramaic), the Shomroni woman eagerly asks that he give this water to her, so that she won't be thirsty again. Then Yeshua tells her to get her husband and bring him.

She answered and said to him, "I have no husband."
And then Yeshua says to her,

You are right to say, "I have no husband."
You have had five husbands and the one
you have now
is not your husband.
What you have spoke is the truth.

Touche. That hurts.

Then the woman realizes that Yeshua is a prophet and tries to take the focus of the conversation away from herself (feeling guilty at this point, undoubtedly) and onto a certain theological squabble that the Jews and Samaritans had at this time in history.

First, a quick history of the relationship between the two groups. Essentially, the Samaritans (Shomronim in Hebrew) were part of those Israelites who remained in the land of Israel (the northern half) when the Assyrians deported many of the Judaeans in 722 BCE. The Shomronim claim that they are direct descendants of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Shomroni historiography reports that there was a schism in the days of Eli the high priest, and that one part of the people stayed loyal to Eli (who became the Samaritans), and the other part went astray and worshipped other gods. Needless to say, saying that most of the Jews don't have the truth is a theological affront. Therefore, the Jews and Samaritans have always been claiming that each other is wrong and that they themselves have the truth. I suppose the relationship between Jews and Samaritans (who still exist to this day, with a population of around 700 people) resembles the relationship between Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians - originally the same, yet now strongly differentiated into rival factions with major theological differences.

The Shomronim claim that their mountain, Mount Gerizim, is the mountain upon which God wants people to worship. In fact, according to them, Eli built a temple there in his day. The Jews, obviously, claim that Zion is God's mountain and there they have built the Jerusalem temple. Additionally, the Shomronim even have their own version of the Torah, which is quite different in places from the Jewish Torah, and reject anything beyond these five books of Mosheh. So needless to say, the relationship between Jews and Samaritans is tense, especially more so in the first century.

And it is toward these differences that the woman at the well redirects the conversation, away from herself.

My lord, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain [Mount Gerizim], but you say Yerushalayim is the place where we must worship.

The woman tries to incite a theological argument. Yeshua responds,

Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
when not on this mountain
nor in Yerushalayim will you worship the father.
You worship what you do not know.
We worship what we do know
since salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming and is it now
when the true worshippers will worship the father
in spirit and truth,
for the father seeks such people to worship him.
God is spirit
and those worshipping him must worship him
in spirit and truth.

Can you say intolerant? Yeshua basically says to the girl that the Samaritans don't even know how to worship God correctly. But he couches the correction with compassion, claiming that in a certain time, God won't care how you worship him or who worships him, as long as they worship him "in spirit and truth" (Complete Jewish Bible: "spiritually and truly). It won't matter if you're Jewish, Samaritan, or whatever. As long as you worship the father in spirit and truth, then God won't care who or how it is. Form (liturgy, order, etc.) will be replaced with heart - intention. In that day, all who call upon the name of YHWH shall be saved. This sentiment is also echoed in Rabbi Sha'ul's statement in his epistles thirty years later that, "in messiah, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female; for you are all one in messiah." Yeshua was evidently speaking of the messianic age, which he was inaugurating with his life's work.

The woman responds to the effect that she'll ponder what Yeshua has told her, almost dismissing him to the effect that she can't decide now but that she'll consider it at a later time.

"I know that messiah is coming (the one who has been called christ). When he comes, he will declare to us all."

The woman dismisses Yeshua with the statement that when messiah comes, everyone will know the truth.

Then Yeshua is like, um, just look at me.

Yeshua says to her, ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ λαλῶν σοι.

I, he who is speaking to you, am.

Yeshua lets her know that she is speaking to none other than the messiah himself. In the Greek, Yeshua only says ἐγώ εἰμι, one of the fabled "I am" sayings of Jesus supposedly asserting his divinity, but which merely assert, if anything, his 'messianity.' In context, ἐγώ εἰμι means not, "I am" as in the One who exists eternally without beginning or end, but rather, "I am the person you are talking about," or, as most modern translations render it, "I am he" (i.e., in this context, the messiah). Even the blind beggar whom Yeshua heals in chapter 9 says ἐγώ εἰμι, in context meaning, "I am the man you are looking for." Obviously, the blind man was not making a claim to deity.

Eventually, the woman at the well does believe that Yeshua is messiah and goes on to tell everyone else in the town of Shekhem, who also come out to listen to him and subsequently believe in him.

Anyways, I love the narrative drama in this encounter. The years of tension and hatred are boiling beneath the surface, and it takes a stubborn woman and an itinerant carpenter and rabbi to ease it. This passage is also eye-opening from a grammatical perspective. I wish to focus on verse 25, the woman's statement that she knows messiah is coming.

In the Greek, it reads:

(John 4:25 MGNT) λέγει αὐτῷ ἡ γυνή οἶδα ὅτι Μεσσίας ἔρχεται ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός ὅταν ἔλθῃ ἐκεῖνος ἀναγγελεῖ ἡμῖν ἅπαντα
legei auto hay gunay oida hoti messias erkhetai ho legomenos khristos hotan elthay ekeinos anangelei haymin hapanta.
The woman says to him, "I know that messiah is coming, he who has been called christ. When this man comes, he will announce everything to us."

The interesting thing is the line ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός, "he who has been called christ." What is extraordinarily interesting is that the woman, in the Greek text, uses both the Hebraic and Greek words to reference the messiah. First, the woman uses the Hebraic word Μεσσίας (messiah) to reference the messiah, and then uses the Greek word Χριστός (Christ), which also means messiah. The woman, then, uses two words for messiah that are equivalent in meaning, although different in etymology — one derived from the Greek and one derived from the Hebrew

Μεσσίας is a transliteration into Greek of a Hebrew word, מָשִׁיחַ, mashiakh, that means "anointed (one)." A מָשִׁיחַ is a person that God has anointed with oil (i.e., consecrated or chosen) for a specific task or mission. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh, מָשִׁיחַ variously describes Israelite kings, Israelite high priests, a future prince (in Daniel 9:25f), the Hebrew patriarchs, and the Persian prince Cyrus, whom God used in his plan to bring back the Jews from Babylon to Israel. In summary, Μεσσίας is a transliteration into Greek letters of the Hebrew word meaning "anointed."

Now Χριστός, on the other hand, is the native Greek word for the same concept. Χριστός also means "anointed." Χριστός is used in the Greek-language translation of the Tanakh (that is, the Septuagint, abbreviated by scholars as LXX - a reference to the seventy scholars that translated it, according to legend) and in the New Covenant texts. Χριστός in the plays of the Greek playwrights Aeschylus and Euripedes refers to that which is rubbed on, that is, ointment or salve. When one anoints someone with oil, they rub the oil over them, so Χριστός means anointed. In summary, Χριστός is the Greek word that means "anointed."

So Χριστός, not the transliteration Μεσσίας, is the word that a Greek-speaker would use for the messiah. If the woman and Yeshua both spoke Greek, she would not have said, "I know that the Μεσσίας is coming, he who has been called Χριστός." She is basically repeating herself, in two different languages. If she spoke Greek, there would have been no reason to use Μεσσίας and then use Χριστός. She would have just used Χριστός. This doubling of meaning suggests, rather, that the Greek explanation with is not original to the woman, but is an authorial or scribal gloss. In other words, the woman never said Χριστός - that word was added later by the author or the scribe so that the Greek-speaking reading audience would know what Μεσσίας, a Hebraic word, meant.

Moreover, this doubling of terms suggests that the evangelist (the gospel-writer) did not write in Greek, unless he were merely recording the woman's words. But if he were recording her words, the only reason to not use Χριστός in her mouth would be for stylistic effect. Surely, the woman did not say, "οἶδα ὅτι Μεσσίας ἔρχεται ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός" (I know that Messiah, the one called christ, is coming)! Are we expected to believe that the woman said, in her language, "I know that messiah is coming, he who has been called christ"??? The woman, who is not a Greek-speaker, would not have explained to Yeshua what Μεσσίας means, much more less in a language that neither of them knew (namely, Greek). Yeshua and the woman did not know what a christ was, as they did not speak Greek. The only option is that ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός is not what the woman spoke to Yeshua. Rather, those words are a scribal gloss, either by the evangelist himself or a later scribe.

Μεσσίας is used in the New Covenant scriptures only twice, both in John, one of them being here. The other is in the first chapter of Yokhannon's gospel, when Yeshua is entering his ministry. One of the talmidim (students, learners) of Yokhannon the immerser (aka John the Baptist/Baptizer) meets Yeshua and goes to tell his brother, who happens to be none other than Shimon Kefa (Simon Peter).

"First," the writer tells us, "he finds his own brother Shimon and says to him, 'We have found the messiah' (which is, having been translated, 'christ')."
(John 1:41 MGNT) εὑρίσκει οὗτος πρῶτον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τὸν ἴδιον Σίμωνα καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ εὑρήκαμεν τὸν Μεσσίαν ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Χριστός

Here, we have another gloss, obviously not spoken by Shimon, a Jew, to his brother, both of whom spoke Aramaic and would have known some Hebrew from synagogue, but certainly not Greek. The words ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Χριστός, explaining in Greek the meaning of "messiah," were added by the writer or another scribe.

Another gloss of a like nature in the same chapter suggests that the gospel-writer himself did not originally write the gospel in Greek.

Just beforehand, the talmidim of Yokhannon the immerser ran after Yeshua and ask him where he is staying the night.

(John 1:38 MGNT) στραφεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ θεασάμενος αὐτοὺς ἀκολουθοῦντας λέγει αὐτοῖς τί ζητεῖτε οἱ δὲ εἶπαν αὐτῷ ῥαββί ὃ λέγεται μεθερμηνευόμενον διδάσκαλε ποῦ μένεις 
And having turned and having seen those following him, Jesus says to them, "What are you seeking?"
And they said to him, "Rabbi! — which says, having been translated, 'teacher!' — where are you staying?"

Again, are we to believe that these Jewish talmidim interjected a translation into Greek of rabbi while speaking to a rabbi? Did Rabbi Yeshua not know what a rabbi was? Did he not know that a rabbi was a teacher? Obviously the words ὃ λέγεται μεθερμηνευόμενον διδάσκαλε are a scribal or authorial gloss.

A final instance is in verse 42, where Yeshua gives to Shimon the appellation "Peter."

(John 1:42 MGNT) ἤγαγεν αὐτὸν πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐμβλέψας αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν σὺ εἶ Σίμων ὁ υἱὸς Ἰωάννου σὺ κληθήσῃ Κηφᾶς ὃ ἑρμηνεύεται Πέτρος.
And he led him to Jesus. Having looked at him, Jesus said, "You are Shimon, the son of Yokhannon. You shall be called Kefa" — which is interpreted, "peter."

In his native tongue, Yeshua calls Shimon Kefa, which is the Aramaic word for stone or rock. Similarly, Greek Πέτρος means stone or rock. Are we to expect that Yeshua, in their native Aramaic, calls Shimon a "stone," and then, to make sure he got the message, also calls him a "stone" in Greek, a language which they did not speak? Surely, Yeshua renamed Shimon "rock" or "stone" in their native Aramaic, and the Greek explanation is a later gloss for a Greek-speaking audience.

These examples serve to show some of the many instances where Yokhannon's gospel (and the other gospels) retains spoken Hebrew or Aramaic terms and then renders them into Greek as an explanatory gloss for Greek-speaking readers.

Now the question remains, why did the author retain these Hebraic and Aramaic terms in the first place? Why not simply use the Greek word, since they are writing the rest of the sentences in Greek?

Obviously, as I stated above, these glosses could be stylistic elements included by the author. Sort of like local color or William Faulkner or Mark Twain writing in "Black" English (or more academically, "African American Vernacular English"). But, for being supposedly literary effects, these glosses seem awfully stilted ("which, having been translated, means...").

On the other hand, it would make more sense that Yokhannon wrote his gospel in Aramaic and that a later scribe added these glossal emendations when the gospel was translated into Greek.

For evidence of an Aramaic primacy for Yokhannon, compare the Gospel as rendered in Aramaic with the Gospel as rendered in Hebrew.

John 1:38 in the ancient Aramaic/Syriac text does not have the gloss ῥαββί ὃ λέγεται μεθερμηνευόμενον διδάσκαλε (...rabbi! — which says, having been translated, 'teacher!'). Instead, the Aramaic text simply has רַבַּן, rabban, without any Greek gloss.

However, the modern Hebrew translation of the Society for Distributing Hebrew Scriptures has רַבִּי אֲשֶׁר יֵאָמֵר מוֹרִי, "...rabbi — which says, 'my teacher!'" Professor Franz Delitzsch's modern Hebrew translation, however, omits the scribal gloss.

John 1:41 in the ancient Aramaic/Syriac text reads simply, without a gloss, אֵשׁכַּחנָיהי לַמשִׁיחָא "we have found the messiah." (In Aramaic messiah is mashikha; in Hebrew it is mashiakh.)

In the modern Hebrew translation, it is, מָצָאנוּ אֶת־הַמָּשִׁיחַ אֲשֶׁר בִּלְשׁוֹן יָוָן כְּרִיסְטוֹס, "we have found the mashiakh, which, in the Greek tongue, is Keristos." The Hebrew translation is trying to transliterate Greek Χριστός into Hebrew as כְּרִיסְטוֹס, keristos. How barbaric! Delitzsch, in his Hebrew translation, omits the scribal gloss.

John 1:42 in the ancient Aramaic/Syriac text omits the gloss, reading, תֵּתקרֵא כּאִפָא, "you shall be called Kifa."

The Society Hebrew translation reads, לְךָ יִקָּרֵא כֵיפָא וּבִלְשׁוֹן יָוָן פֶּטְרוֹס, "and to you it shall be called Keifa, and in the Greek tongue, Petros." Delitzsch renders it לְךָ יִקָּרֵא כֵּיפָא וְהוּא בִיוָנִית פֶּטְרוֹס, "and to you shall be called Keifa and it, in Greek, is Petros."

John 4:25 in the ancient Aramaic/Syriac texts also omits the gloss, reading דַּמשִׁיחָא, mashikha.

The Society Hebrew translation reads, מָשִׁיחַ הַנִּקְרָא כְרִיסְטוֹס, "mashiakh, called keristos." Similarly, Delitzsch too keeps the gloss, הַמָּשִׁיחַ אֲשֶׁר יִקָּרֵא לוֹ כְּרִיסְטוֹס, "mashiakh, which is called to him keristos."

The pattern is striking. The ancient Aramaic and Syriac texts uniformly do not render the glosses, simply omitting them. But the Hebrew translations alternately render or omit the glosses — Delitzsch renders two of them and omits the other two, while the Society for Distributing Hebrew Scriptures translation always renders the glosses in its own peculiar way into Hebrew.

The conclusion? There are two options. (a) Somewhere along the line, the Aramaic scribes omitted the glosses when they were translating the Gospel of Yokhannon into Aramaic. (b) The Gospel of Yokhannon was originally written in Aramaic, and the glosses were added when it was translated into Greek. The answer is up to you, the reader. Maybe by the time we are worshiping the father in spirit and truth we will have found the answer.

Sources

The English translation is predominantly taken from Willis Barnstone, The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas (New York: Norton, 2009), which, besides translating noncanonical gospels, is a wonderful and innovative translation of the Greek, rendering the names in a more Hebraic form and putting most of Yeshua's speech, the epistles, and the Apocalypse into poetic verse.

The Hebrew translations used were The New Testament in Hebrew and English (Middlesex, Society for Distributing Hebrew Scriptures, n.d.); also Franz Delitzsch, Hebrew New Testament, originally published Leipzig, 1877.

The Aramaic text is taken from the Peshitta NT online, http://www.dukhrana.com/peshitta, which makes use of the Peshitta NT published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1905/1920.

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 45:23

A translation of Yeshayahu 45:23 that I did today. Rabbi Sha’ul quoted it in his epistle to the Romans, 14:11, and it is also alluded to in the epistle to the Philippians, 2:10f, where Sha’ul applies it to Yeshua.

...I am ‘ēl, and (there is) nothing besides [or, nothing still, or, nothing else].
By me, I have sworn; a righteous word goes forth from my lips and it shall not return!
Because, to me, every knee, bow!
(To me,) every tongue, swear!

Genesis 1 - 3, a fresh translation

I engaged in a fresh translation of Genesis, chapters 1 - 3, for my thesis to graduate from Washington State University Honors College. My thesis analyzed the differences and similarities between the account of creation in Genesis and creation stories in the Greek poet Hesiod's poems Works and Days and Theogony.

In my translation, I strove to maintain the consistency of Hebrew vocabulary by using the same English word for a given Hebrew word. As an example, the Hebrew word ʾarets can be translated "earth" or "land," depending on the context. I decided to translate ʾarets as"land" in every context so that the reader may see where the given Hebrew word occurs. Another example is I translate Hebrew ish and ishshah as "man" and "woman," respectively, in every context, instead of "husband" and "wife" in some contexts and "man" and "woman" in others. For those who wish to have the English translation immediately make sense to them, this translation is more of a picture into the Hebrew, allowing the reader, to some extent, to see the ancient Hebraic worldview. 

I also tried to maintain the rhythm of the Hebrew text. For example, following Robert Alter's translation, I rendered tohu wa-bohu as "welter and waste" to capture the assonance of the original. Thus, this translation strives to be transparent to the original text, so that the reader may see, as much as is possible, the Hebrew underlying the English rendering.

Words in italics are words directly from the Hebrew that I have not translated into English but have merely transliterated them using the Latin alphabet. In every case, these untranslated, transliterated words are names. I chose to retain the Hebrew untranslated, so that the reader might know the Hebrew names.

Regarding the name of the Deity, I chose to leave his name untranslated for several reasons. One, the meaning of his name (which is YHWH) is unknown. Some scholars think it derives from the Hebrew word hayah "to be" and hence would mean "He is." But there are other options, and so I chose to leave it untranslated. For those who wish, they can read "He is" or another meaning whenever yhwh occurs in the translation. Second, even though we do not know for certain the correct pronunciation of his name, I believe that there is power in this name. For those who wish to not speak the Name, they should read "Lord" or another euphemism (e.g., "Name," or ha-Shem in Hebrew) whenever they encounter yhwh in the translation. Furthermore, I did not wish to translate the Name as "Lord," as most translations do, because that is not what the Hebrew says. There is another word, adonai, that means "Lord," and so I retain "Lord" for the times when the Hebrew says adonai (which does not occur at all in the first three chapters of Genesis).

On the title of the Deity, the Hebrew word ʾelohim, I left untranslated simply because the literal meaning may have been confusing. ʾelohim is the Hebrew word used for divinity, whether it refers to the one god who created the world or any of the plurality of pagan gods. The word is always ʾelohim, in the plural, even when it refers to the one god. When ʾelohim refers to the one god, however, while remaining plural in form, it takes a singular verb. Thus, "ʾelohim (he) created," really means, "gods (he) created..." In most translations, ʾelohim is translated "God" (or "gods" when it refers to the pagan gods). To be literal, however, we would have to translate ʾelohim as "gods" in every case. But then I would have to include in parenthesis the number of the verb (singular or plural) so that the reader could know whether ʾelohim in that instance refers to God or gods. To compound the matter, technically ʾelohim in Hebrew has a meaning more like "powers" or "strengths," which rendering I thought would produce a very confusing mess indeed. As stated above, readers can read whichever words or phrases they like best over my translation if they so wish.

On more note. The reader will instantly recognize that the first verse looks slightly unfamiliar. Instead of "in the beginning," I have "in a beginning." This is not to be heterodox, this is simply because that is what the Hebrew says. The first word of the Hebrew Bible does not have an article, and so it ought to be translated indefinitely, as I have done. (While some scholars have mentioned this fact, no English translation of which I am aware translates the first word indefinitely.) The implications of that reading are up to the reader to determine. I have merely translated the Hebrew as faithfully as I could.

Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a, 2:4b – 3:24
freshly translated by Joshua Johnson from the original tongue

In a beginning, ʾelohim shaped the skies and the land.^[1]

And the land had been welter and waste.
And darkness [had been] upon the face of the waters.
And the wind of ʾelohim was moving upon the face of the waters.

And ʾelohim said, “Let there be light!” And there was light!

And ʾelohim saw the light, that [it was] good.

And ʾelohim divided between the light and between the darkness.

And ʾelohim called the light, “day,” and the darkness he called, “night.”

And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

And ʾelohim said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the skies, and let it divide between waters and waters.

And ʾelohim made the expanse, and he divided between the waters which [were] beneath the expanse, and between the waters which [were] above the expanse.

And it was so.
And ʾelohim called the expanse, “skies.”

And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

And ʾelohim said, “Let the waters beneath the skies be gathered to one place and let the dry land appear.”

And it was so.

And ʾelohim called the dry land, “land,” and the gathering of the waters he called, “seas.”

And ʾelohim saw that [it was] good.

And ʾelohim said, “Let the land sprout grass, herbage yielding seed, and the tree of fruit making fruit according to its kind, in which is its seed, on the land.”

And it was so.

And the land brought forth grass, herbage yielding seed, according to its kind, and the tree bearing fruit in which is its seed, according to its kind.

And ʾelohim saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

And ʾelohim said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the skies to separate between the day and between the night. And let them be for signs and for times, and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the expanse of the skies to give light upon the land."

And it was so.

And ʾelohim made the two great lights—the great light for rule of the day and the small light for rule of the night—and the stars.

And ʾelohim gave them in the expanse of the skies to give light upon the land, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate between the light and between the darkness.

And ʾelohim saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

And ʾelohim said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of nefesh of life, and fowl flying above the land upon the face of the expanse of the skies.”

And ʾelohim shaped the great sea monsters and every nefesh of the life that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged fowl according to its kind.

And ʾelohim saw that it was good.
And ʾelohim blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply on the land.”

And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

And ʾelohim said, “Let the land bring forth nefesh of life according to her kind—beast and creeping thing and its life of the land, according to her kind.”

And it was so.

And ʾelohim made the life of the land according to her kind and the beast according to her kind, and every creeping thing on the humus^[2] according to their kind.

And ʾelohim saw that it was good.

And ʾelohim said, “Let us make human in our image, according to our likeness. And let them tread over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the skies and over the beast and over all the land and over every creeping thing creeping upon the land.”

And ʾelohim created the human in his image,

         in the image of elohim he created him;

         male and female he created them.

And ʾelohim blessed them.

And ʾelohim said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the land and subjugate it, and tread over the fish of the sea and over the fowls of the skies and over every living thing that creeps on the land.”

And ʾelohim said, “Behold, I have given you all herbage yielding seed that is on the face of all the land, and every tree in which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed. To you it shall be for food. And to every life of the land and to every fowl of the skies and to everything that creeps on the land, in which is the nefesh of life, I have given all the green herbage for food.”

And it was so.

And ʾelohim saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was exceedingly good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

And the skies and the land were completed, and all the host of them.

And ʾelohim completed on the seventh day his work which he did.

And he ceased/vayyishabbat on the seventh day from all his work which he did.

And ‘elohim blessed the seventh day and he sanctified it.

Because on it he ceased/shabat from all his work which ‘elohim shaped to do.

These are the begettings of the skies and of the land in their being shaped/when they were created.

In the day of yhwh ʾelohim’s making land and skies—and every shrub of the field was not yet in the land and every herbage of the field had not yet sprung up—because yhwh, ʾelohim, had not caused rain upon the land, and there was no human to work the humus, and a mist was going up from the land, and was watering all the face of the humus—then yhwh, ʾelohim, formed/fashioned the human, dust from the humus, and he breathed in his nose the breath/neshama of life. And the human became a nefesh of life. And yhwh, ʾelohim, planted a garden in ʿEden, in the east. And there he put the human whom he had formed. And from the humus yhwh, ʾelohim, caused to spring up every tree desirable for sight and good for food. And the tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And a river came forth from ʿEden to water the garden. And from there, it divided and became four rivers. The name of the one is Pishon—it is the one surrounding all the land of the Khawilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land, it is good. Bdellium and stone of carnelian are there. And the name of the second river is Gikhon—it is the one surrounding all the land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Khiddeqel, it is the one walking east of Ashshur. And the fourth river, it is the Pherath.

And yhwh, ʾelohim, took the human and put him in the garden of ʿEden to work her and to keep her.

And yhwh, ʾelohim, commanded the human, saying, “From every tree of the garden, eating you may eat. And from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it. Because in the day of your eating from it, dying you shall die.”

And yhwh, ʾelohim, said, “It is not good for the human to be by himself/alone. I will make/do for him an ezer kenegdo/a strength like opposite to him.”

And yhwh, ʾelohim formed from the humus every life of the field and every fowl of the heavens and he brought to the human to see what he would call it. And all which the human called the nefesh of life, that was its name. And the human called names to every beast and to every fowl of the skies and to every life of the field. And for Human there was not found an ezer kenegdo/a strength like opposite to him.

And yhwh, ʾelohim, caused a lethargy to fall upon the human and he slept. And he took one from his ribs and he closed the flesh beneath it. And yhwh, ‘elohim, built the rib which he took from the human into a woman. And he brought her to the human.

And the human said,

“She, at last, is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh.
                  She shall be called Woman/Ishah, because from Man/Ish was she taken.”

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother. And he shall cleave to his woman, and they shall become one flesh. And the two of them were arumim/naked, the human and his woman. And they were not ashamed.

And the serpent was arum/crafty more than all the life of the field that yhwh, ʾelohim, had made.

And he said to the woman, “Did ʾelohim actually say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

And the woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the tree of the garden we may eat. And from the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, ʾelohim said, ‘You shall not eat from it, neither shall you touch it. Lest you die.’”

And the serpent said to the woman, “Dying you shall not die. Because ʾelohim knows that in the day of your eating from it, your eyes will be opened. And you will be like ʾelohim, knowing good and evil.”

And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for making one wise, she took from its fruit, and she ate. And she gave also to her man [who was] with her, and he ate. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked/erumim. And they stitched together leafage of the fig-tree and they made for themselves girdles/loincloths.

And they heard the sound of yhwh, ʾelohim, walking in the garden during the cool of the day. And they hid themselves, the human and his woman, from the face of yhwh, ʾelohim, in the midst of the tree of the garden. And yhwh, ʾelohim, called to the human.

And he said to him, “Where are you?”

And he said, “I heard the sound of you/your voice in the garden. And I feared, because I myself was naked, and I hid myself.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

And the human said. “The woman whom you gave [to be] with me, she gave to me from the tree, and I ate.”

And yhwh, ʾelohim, said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?”

And the woman said, “The serpent cheated me, and I ate.”

And yhwh, ʾelohim, said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you more than every beast and more than all living things of the field. Upon your belly/gakhon you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will set enmity between you and between the woman, and between your seed and between her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

To the woman he said, “Multiplying, I will multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bear children. And to your man shall be your longing and desire, and he shall rule on you.”

And to Human he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your woman and you ate from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’—cursed is the humus because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. And thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the herbage of the field, in the sweat of your nose you shall eat bread, until you return to the humus, because from it you were taken. Because you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

And the human called the name of his woman Khawwah (Living), because she was the mother of all living. And yhwh, ʾelohim, made for Human and for his woman tunics of skins and he clothed them.

And yhwh, ʾelohim, said, “Behold, the human has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore yhwh, ʾelohim, sent him out from the garden of ʿEden to work the humus from which he was taken. He drove out the human, and at the east of the garden of ʿEden he placed the kerubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

---

[1] Alternate rendering: “when at first ʾelohim began shaping the heavens and the earth, the earth was welter and waste, and darkness upon the face of the waters, and the wind of ʾelohim was moving upon the face of the waters—and God said: “Let there be light!” Notice the parallelism, then, with the opening of the Mesopotamian creation myth enuma elish: “when on high…”

[2] “Humus” here means simply “soil,” its original Latin meaning, in order to capture the assonance of the Hebrew words for “human” and “humus:” ʾadam and ʾadamah.