What to make of the Gospel of the Hebrews?

[rgprice]

The existing notes on the Gospel of the Hebrews call it similar to Matthew, but also identify significant differences between it at Matthew. When you say Matthew has primacy do you mean that gHebrews was derived from gMatthew? Is so, that's what I'm saying as well.

[ebion]

A link to a another GoH fragment

[ebion]

I consider the Gospel of the Hebrews to also be the same as the Gospel of the Ebionites:

• https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ ... nites.html
• https://essene.com/Gospels/goeb.htm
• https://christianpublishinghouse.co/201 ... ebionites/

However:

“Indeed, when in 160 Bishop Melito of Sardis went to Judea to discover what had become of the legendary Jerusalem Church, to his dismay he found not the descendants of the apostles, but instead a small group of [...] Christians, who called themselves the Ebionites or 'Poor Men', [who] had their own Gospel of the Ebionites and also a Gospel of the Hebrews, a Gospel of the Twelve Apostles and a Gospel of the Nazarenes. All of these gospels differed significantly from the gospels of the New Testament” (The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (1999)) [10]

[Charles Wilson]

https://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Messiah- ... C85&sr=8-1

Atwill's Caesar's Messiah has a Section on the Ebionites.

CW

[ebion]

Ben Smith's excavated all of the early writers on the Gospel of the Hebrews, quoting the Greek/Latin as well as the translation. There are certainly major differences with the current Matthew, either in Greek or Aramaic. So my assumption above is wrong.

He includes:

• Clement of Alexandria.
• Origen.
• Cyprian.
• Eusebius.
• Cyril of Jerusalem.
• Epiphanius.
• Jerome.
• Philip of Side.
• Sedulius Scotus.
• The Historical Investigation of Luke.
• Nicephorus.
• Codex Vaticanus Reginae Latinus 49.

He also does a summary page on the The Jewish-Christian gospels:
The gospels of the Nazoraeans, of the Ebionites, and according to the Hebrews.There he points to text(s) available On site (present page also in Greek or Latin, English):

• Gospel according to the Hebrews (Greek or Latin, English).
• Gospel of the Nazoraeans (Greek or Latin, English).
• Gospel of the Ebionites (Greek or Latin, English).
• Judaic gospel (Greek and English).
• Hebrew gospel of Matthew (Greek or Latin, English).
• Skeptik (Greek only, Ebionite gospel only).

He wrote a lot on this forum:

1. Gospel of the Hebrews
2. The gospel of the Ebionites.
3. Gospel of the Nazoraeans
4. Of Nazirites & Naṣoraeans
5. Gospel trajectories

See also:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... james.html

[ebion]

stanford Rives has a page on the Gospel of Matthew including its variants. He raises an intersting question:
Is Matthias In Acts 1 Matthew?

In the next quote, the Gospel of the Hebrews supposedly exposes that Matthew is not Levi as Luke is construed to imply. Rather, Matthias who replaced Judas is supposedly the same as Levi. Thus, Matthew is Matthew, and Matthias who replaces Judas in Acts 1 as one of the twelve is also known as Levi:

GHeb-30 Didymus There are many people with two names. Scripture callsMatthew“Levi” in the Gospel of Luke, but they are not the same person. Rather Matthias who replaced Judas, and Levi are the same man with a double name. This is obvious in theGospel of the Hebrews. (Didymus, Commentary on Psalm)

I do not agree this is the case. I am simply mentioning one topic for which the Gospel of the Hebrews supposedly mentions which addresses this issue.

Looking back on it, it does seem unusual that Matthew was not one of the 12 originally.

[ebion]

I consider the Gospel of the Hebrews to also be the same as the Gospel of the Ebionites:

And then again maybe not. In another thread:

From the Gospel of the Ebionites quoted by Epiphanius:

‘I have come to abolish the sacrifices: if you do not cease from sacrificing, the wrath of God will not cease from weighing upon you’.

(adv. Haer. 30.22 and 30.16)

which led me to: conjecture for the sake of argument that the "Gospel of the Hebrews" to be different from the "Gospel of the Ebionites" : the former being the proto-Matthew in HAramaic, and the latter being later, probably in Aramaic. The latter might have post-James Ebionaen ideas that went beyond proto-Matthew.

Are the Early Christian writers specific enough to distinguish between these two cases?

[ebion]

Over in another thread:

I don't think there was a "gospel of the Hebrews" apart from the Hebrew Matthew and its translations. In other words, there was a gospel that was written for Jewish Christians in Hebrew which they called Matthew and which orthodox Christians thus described as being "the gospel according to the Hebrews" and from which they believed the NT Matthew was translated.

But I think orthodox Christians were not entirely correct about the NT Matthew being a translation of the Hebrew Matthew, since I think it only incorporated parts of one or more translations of it (in addition to Mark). And I suspect its incorporation of parts of the Hebrew Matthew is what led to the NT Matthew being called Matthew. Even though it also incorporated Mark, it couldn't be called Mark because Mark was already known and called Mark (as per Papias). So it became known as Matthew because of its connection to the Hebrew Matthew.

And I think this is why citations of "the gospel of the Hebrews" differ from the NT Matthew, because the latter only consists of parts of the former.

Because Papias said that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew and translated multiple times, orthodox Christians believed that the NT Matthew was translated entirely from the Hebrew Matthew, and they explained away the differences between the latter and the former as being due to Jewish Christian mutilation and forgery, which I think is true for the Ebionite Matthew, at least, but not for the Hebrew Matthew that was used by Nazarenes. In other words, I think the Ebionite Matthew and the NT Matthew had "mutilated and forged" the original Hebrew Matthew.

We agree that the NT Matthew was not entirely translated from the HAramaic Matthew, and are interested in delineating the known differences in this thread . But we know of nothing that would support, and John2 provides nothing to support, the contention that it is known what of the Hebrew Matthew was used by Nazorenes, as we have difficulties with the early writers as they don't distinguish clearly enough between them and the Ebionites.

However John2 goes on to link the Early Christian version of Matthew with the middle-aged rabbis version, and recommends books on the latter by George Howard' and Nehemia Gordon, neither of which we recommend.

[John2]

We agree that the NT Matthew was not entirely translated from the HAramaic Matthew, and are interested in delineating the known differences in this thread . But we know of nothing that would support, and John2 provides nothing to support, the contention that it is known what of the Hebrew Matthew was used by Nazorenes, as we have difficulties with the early writers as they don't distinguish clearly enough between them and the Ebionites.

However John2 goes on to link the Early Christian version of Matthew with the middle-aged rabbis version, and recommends books on the latter by George Howard' and Nehemia Gordon, neither of which we recommend.

Howard and Gordon think parts of the Medieval Hebrew Matthews could have ancient roots and I do recommend their books, but for me it's enough that these versions of Matthew show that some parts of the NT Matthew make better sense if Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, such as numerous puns that work in Hebrew but not in Greek, and apparent scribal translation errors, like confusing lamed for dalet and yod for vav, which affect the meaning of certain verses, e.g., Jesus telling Christians to do what "they" (the Pharisees) say instead of what "he" (Moses) says in Mt. 23:3.

Also, Epiphanius says that Nazarenes used a Hebrew Matthew in Pan. 29.9.4 ("They have the gospel according to Matthew in its entirety in Hebrew. For it is clear that they still preserve this as it was originally written, in the Hebrew alphabet"). And he distinguishes Nazarenes and the Hebrew Matthew from the Ebionites and their version of Matthew (which was in Greek).

The only thing he wasn't sure about was the genealogy in the Hebrew Matthew ("But I do not know whether they have also excised the genealogies from Abraham to Christ"). It would not have contained any of Mark either (in my view), and it is said to have been shorter than the NT Matthew.

And Epiphanius says that early Christians were called Nazarenes, but at some point after 70 CE the Ebionites broke off and did their own thing (which included rejecting large parts of the Torah/OT and making their own version of Matthew, presumably from one of the translations that were made of the original Hebrew Matthew).

[ebion]

We agree that the NT Matthew was not entirely translated from the HAramaic Matthew, and are interested in delineating the known differences in this thread . But we know of nothing that would support, and John2 provides nothing to support, the contention that it is known what of the Hebrew Matthew was used by Nazorenes, as we have difficulties with the early writers as they don't distinguish clearly enough between them and the Ebionites.

However John2 goes on to link the Early Christian version of Matthew with the middle-aged rabbis version, and recommends books on the latter by George Howard' and Nehemia Gordon, neither of which we recommend.

Howard and Gordon think parts of the Medieval Hebrew Matthews could have ancient roots and I do recommend their books, but for me it's enough that these versions of Matthew show that some parts of the NT Matthew make better sense if Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, such as numerous puns that work in Hebrew but not in Greek, and apparent scribal translation errors, like confusing lamed for dalet and yod for vav, which affect the meaning of certain verses, e.g., Jesus telling Christians to do what "they" (the Pharisees) say instead of what "he" (Moses) says in Mt. 23:3.

Howard and Gordon both know that Hebrew and Aramaic are sister languages and yet only look at "such as numerous puns that work in Hebrew but not in Greek" and don't look at the numerous puns and wordplays that work in Aramaic but not in Hebrew: we have. And they fail to get at any of the KJV Howlers which are very visible when you compare the TR Greek to the curated PeshittA in Aramaic, and are much more important than puns, wordplays, or scribal translation errors put together.

Howard's work can be used as a starting point for a full exploration of the Original Gospel of Mathew as was carried out by "Stanford Rives". He wrote a 3 volume work exploring all the early citations of Matthew, and reconstructed the citations into his version of Original Gospel of Matthew‎. It's useful because you can use it to ignore the middle-aged rabbi versions and just focus on the early christian writers. (The rabbis versions don't even agree amongst themselves, and are anti-christian, which makes sense as they were living under the inquisition.) So we recommend his work, and not Howard's or Gordon's.

There's no curation to the rabbis versions, unlike the Peshitta, and the "critical" differences amongst the Greek are tiny, and pale in comparison with the Howling differences the Aramaic has to the Greek Matthew, which demonstrate the Greek to be a translation from the Aramaic. Still in the Was the New Testament Originally Written in Aramaic? thread , our work is turning up some new ones.

Also, Epiphanius says that Nazarenes used a Hebrew Matthew in Pan. 29.9.4 ("They have the gospel according to Matthew in its entirety in Hebrew. For it is clear that they still preserve this as it was originally written, in the Hebrew alphabet"). And he distinguishes Nazarenes and the Hebrew Matthew from the Ebionites and their version of Matthew (which was in Greek).

The only thing he wasn't sure about was the genealogy in the Hebrew Matthew ("But I do not know whether they have also excised the genealogies from Abraham to Christ"). It would not have contained any of Mark either (in my view), and it is said to have been shorter than the NT Matthew.

"But I do not know whether they have also excised the genealogies from Abraham to Christ" is what makes me think that his quotes can't be relied on to distinguish Ebionites from Nazoraens in his writings, especially as he says "in the Hebrew alphabet", which Jerome say explicitly means Aramaic in Hebrew letters. It also says "said to have been shorter than the NT Matthew" which to us may mean the lack of the first 2 chapters, and hence lack the virgin birth and geneology, which is a key feature in our definition of Ebionaen.

And Epiphanius says that early Christians were called Nazarenes, but at some point after 70 CE the Ebionites broke off and did their own thing (which included rejecting large parts of the Torah/OT and making their own version of Matthew, presumably from one of the translations that were made of the original Hebrew Matthew).

I don't think it's helpful to talk of Ebionites or Nazoreans before 63 AD - the murder of James by the Sadducees. That's the Jamesean church, which we take to be the sole definition of the Christan congregation at the time, and using those terms before then just muddies the waters. After 70 AD, we define Ebionaen by construction, who weren't doing their own thing, but rather saving the lives of the Christian community by preciently fleeing to Pella. (Seperately, Thomas and Bartholomew were away starting the Church of th East.)

As for anyone "making their own version of Matthew", we side with Jerome in saying the curated copy of Matthew was in a libray in Caesarea in Hebrew and/or Aramaic. In the face of that curation, I doubt anyone would make significant versions of their own; do you have references for that? Or that "their version of Matthew was in Greek" originally, rather than a Greek translated from the Aramaic like the TR? Jerome clearly says it was Aramaic: "which indeed is written in Chaldean and Syrian speech, but with Hebraic letters" (Against the Pelagians 3.2). Ben Smith has covered this in depth.

After ~63-70 AD, we define the term Ebionean based largely on 1) their differences regarding Paul, 2) the virgin birth, and hatred of the Pharisees+?Sadducees. But we've seen nothing anywhere to say the Ebionites were "rejecting large parts of the Torah/OT".(Remember, they rejected the Apostate Paul, as we reject the Paul not in Acts (as history), i.e. the Faulines).

Can you point me to references that distinguish the Ebionites based on the 3 features above to say they were "rejecting large parts of the Torah/OT" - I've never heard of that? Is it in Ben's work on this forum?