Original Gospel of Matthew: The Final Reconstruction of the Earliest Matthew was produced by Standford Rives in 2012. The description on Amazon states:
Standford Rives seeks to provide the best approximation of the original Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew. There is no disputing Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew. In about 400 AD, Jerome translated it from a copy at the Library of Caesarea. It was quoted dozens of times by the earliest church commentators. Jerome explained that our Greek version of Matthew came from this Hebrew version. Jerome noted a score of variants that were interesting. Rives takes the 49 quotes in the early church and combines them with the best sources that reflect the early Hebrew Matthew, such as the Shem-Tob version of Matthew. In addition, Rives uses the Agrapha -- early quotes of the Lord Jesus by the early church commentators but which do not match any surviving gospel. Scholars regard the Agrapha as likely sayings from the original Hebrew Matthew. They are thus restored in this volume. Also, Jesus' sayings contained in the Didache -- the oldest manuscript of sayings of Jesus which are similar to Matthew --- has numerous interesting variants. It too is believed to contain much from the original Hebrew Matthew.
The most important thing I wanted to learn from S. Rives' book was abut the Great Commission. Some say that it was added to the gospel of Matthew later. This is partially true. Something was added to 28:19. It is 19b--baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
ReplyDeleteMost people do not realize that the KJV translators were Trinitarians and were ordered by the King to preserve church doctrine so as not to offend the ecclesia and also to put a stop to Puritan objections to the wording used in the translations. The added line did three things. It set the standard for ritual in water baptism, the error of water baptism for salvation, and Trinitarian proof text for the false three in one doctrine. That one added line has held the heads of believers of Jesus Christ on the chopping block far too long. Thank your Standford Rives for your forensic work and now I will go to the front of the book. So far I like it.