From: wvanweer@wsuaix.csc.wsu.edu (Wayne VanWeerthuizen)
Subject: Re: Shem Tov Version Of Matthew
Organization: Washington State University
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 15:07:41 GMT

In article <141511.2B301BC9@paranet.FIDONET.ORG> Bill.Carlson@p0.f18.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Bill Carlson) writes:
>
>    What can I say...
>         The Shem Tov Matthew has been discovered in the last 5 years.
>

Well, I still would like to see some scholarly references to the Shem Tov
found in the last five years.

I have found one interesting article regarding the duTillet, though.

   The Textual Nature of an Old Hebrew Version of Matthew
   Howard, George
   Journal of Biblical Literature, 105/1 (1986) 49-63

Excerpts:

  - "This paper concerns the Hebrew version of Matthew, which in 1553 was
 acquired from the Jews by Jean du Tillet, Bishop of Brieu, while traveling
 in Italy."
     
  -  "This was by no means the first Hebrew edition of Matthew to appear.
 Omitting early patristic references to an original Matthew in Hebrew, we
 know that a Hebrew version of Matthew was used in the fourteenth century 
 by Shem-Tob ben Shaprut (Ibn Shaprut) of Tudela in Castile in his 
 polemical work (Even Bohan, "The Touchstone").  The twelfth section of 
 this fifteen part work in included a Hebrew version of Matthew.  The
 Gospel text is divided into short sections interspersed with various
 polemical comments by Shem-Tob.  Whether Shem-Tpb made the translation
 himself, as most think, or used an earlier one is a matter of debate.
 Schonfield thought it possible that Raymund Martini, a thirtennth-century
 Spanish Dominican, may have made use of this version in his controversial
 work, Pugio Fidei, a century before Shem-Tob."

  - "For a conclusion the following summary may be made: The du Tillet
 text of Matthew in Hebrew is not the legendary original version of Matthew
 mentioned by the early church fathers." ... "It is either a translation
 of a Greek text or a late developement in a series of revisions of an
 earlier Hebrew Matthew designed to bring it into harmony with a Greek text.
 The latter seems more likely to be te case.  This is supported by a 
 comparison of this text with the earlier Hebrew version of Matthew in the
 work of Shem-Tob and the Hebrew quotations of Matthew in the early
 anti-Christian works of Nestor, Jacob ben Reuben and Rabbi Joseph Offical.
 Although du Tillet's text is to be identified with none of these, it makes
 sufficient verbal and textual contact with them to suggest it as a late
 stage in development process designed to bring the Hebrew more in line
 with the Greek Matthew.  The Greek text that lies in the background,
 although often koine in nature, apparently overlapped at times with the
 Latin tradition, at other times with the Syriac tradition, and at still
 other times with noncanonical Gospel material.  A number of interesting
 readings appear in the text which point to a Hebrew origin.  The latter may
 be explained on the basis of corruption in the transmission of the Hebrew or
 by writen or oral Hebrew sources which influenced the Matthean tradition.
 These and other readings show the importance of du Tillet's Hebrew Matthew
 and suggest the possibility that other interesting variants are buried in a
 shadowy Semitic First Gospel which appears to lie in its background."

-- 
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        Wayne VanWeerthuizen    205 Scott Hall     Pullman, WA  99163
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