Was the Gospel of Matthew Written in Hebrew or Greek?

Matthews gospel is one of the earliest writings in the New Testament dated to between 50-60AD. Throughout church history it has been regarded as the first of the four gospels written, though today scholars tend to hold that Mark was written first.

Often I'll hear people argue that Matthew was written in Hebrew and that we only have a translation.

So in this video, I want to ask the question, was the gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew? Or was it written in Greek?

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[bobfisher]

I love this video! While you were discussing tell tale signs of translation, this question occurred to me: do any books of the GNT exhibit signs that they were translated? I would love more videos about textual criticism like this!

[jdevr]

Charles Cutler Torrey (American) argued for an Aramaic original long before 1941 when he did sum up his work in 'Documents of the Primitive Church'. I stumbled across it in 1970 as a university freshman & was convinced even that far back. Thank you for bringing to light the important earliest witnesses.

[algreen]

I have read two compelling works on this subject. The first is David Allen Blacks book called " why four gospels". In this book Black argues that the gospel of Matthew was the first one written and it was written early as a statement of the of the early Jerusalem Church about the life of Jesus. It was a work that all the apostles could get behind and promote as the gospel.

The second is a work by nehemia Gordon, describing how a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew surfaced in the Middle Ages as an appendix to a book by Rabbi named Shem Tove. This Hebrew Gospel of Matthew appears to be originally written in Hebrew because it has certain poetic elements that only makes sense in Hebrew. If it is an original Hebrew work about the life of Jesus circulating among rabbis in the middle ages, one wonders how they got it where it came from and so forth.

[KeyofDavid-kzjn]

Eusebius said in Book 3, chapter 24 "Matthew also having first proclaimed the gospel in Hebrew, when on the point of going also to other nations, committed it to writing in his native tongue, and thus supplied the want of his presence to them, by his writings.

[vishyswa]

Maybe Matthew, knowing the importance of the undertaking, actually wrote it out in all three languages.

[acarpentersson]

I text questions below while listening. At the end you basically validated my views. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone else say these things. Thank you

[kamalkhalil]

Awesome vid Daryll! Loving this kind of content. God bless you, brother!

[christophertopolovich]

Exceptional. I too arrived at Darryl's conclusions here, through my own study.

[kenchilton]

I agree. Considering the extant mss, it is interesting to see places where the choice of words in Hebrew would be unlikely selections from the Greek versions, and also where Greek words would be unlikely selections from their Hebrew versions. While it is possible that the translators used words more fitting to their understanding or thoughts of extra-biblical references, it appears likely that both texts were produced by the same source.

Given the historical references, I tend also to believe that Matthew did write in Hebrew first a text that may either have been this gospel or something closer to a sayings collection than the full gospel. To appeal to the Gentile community, Luke wrote knowing of the Hebrew work of Matthew, but was compelled to write because Matthew’s work was in Hebrew and not in Greek. Matthew, later recognizing the growth of the church among non-Jews, or possibly part of his plan all along, prepared the Greek version of the gospel which we have today. If Matthew’s first writing in Hebrew was not the full gospel, but sayings, this text could have been preserved for centuries in the Jewish community until the Hebrew Matthew from the Middle Ages (eg. Shem Tov and Vat. Ebr. 100) was produced to replace it in those communities.

[cynthiagooch]

What you've settled on as an explanation makes perfect sense. Why I'm interested is partly from internal evidence of Hebrew/Aramaic origins based on the use of Hebrew idioms that have been put into Greek and (then later) made somewhat nonsensical in explanations from the Greek of these idioms. I realize you couldn't cover everything, but it would be interesting to learn more about some things in Greek that may originally have been Hebrew/Aramaic idioms.

[vusumzingceke]

What I found to be interesting is that, the Syriac transliterated from Greek and not from Hebrew.

Just two examples:
1). The Greek word for 𝗖𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗻𝘁  is Διαθήκη(𝗗𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗸𝗲), the 𝗣𝗲𝘀𝗵𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗮  transliterated from Greek, ܕܝܬܩܐ(𝑫𝒊𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒒𝒆)(see Matthew 26:28, Luke 22:20).
2). The Greek word for 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗲 is Θρόνος(𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗼𝘀).
The 𝗣𝗲𝘀𝗵𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗮 transliterated from Greek, ܬܪܢܘܣ(𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙬𝙨)(see Mathew 19:28).

The Syriac Peshitta is from the 3rd century(NT) - I see this to be another good argument for Greek originality. But I do understand your arguments as well and they do make a lot of sense. It is not an easy one to solve.

[christiaankruger]

I just read the work of Dr Nehemiah Gordon and then listened to his video on YouTube concerning the same topic and he argue quite convincing towards a Hebrew /Aramaic original text, and argues that a copy of an original text is in the London museum. It is just as thought provoking as your video. Thank you very much for sharing your research with us.

[RichardLeigh-vqxb]

I have "Hebrew Gospel of Matthew" by George Howard, Mercer University Press, 1995. It is Shem-Tobb's Hebrew Matthew. It's interesting.

[revvacp]

Well done!!! I agree with your comments on why the Greek text does not appear to be a translation. Have you read James Edwards' case for Matthew originally writing in Hebrew? I have not because I'm just not that interested. As you said, the Greek text is what God chose to preserve. Thank you for a good discussion.

[Dougeb]

Thank you for the video! The view that Matthew was first written in Hebrew and then translated into Greek may influence how one views the inspiration and canonical status of the Greek text as we have it. It is possible, as you suggest, that Matthew simply made two original versions, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea that an inspired Hebrew version has been lost. Because we lack hard evidence either way, I prefer to think that Matthew was originally inspired and written in Greek for Hellenistic Jews, and Matthew or another Jewish Christian made a very early Hebrew/Aramaic translation, which has not survived. The fathers knew of the Heb/Aram version and some of them mistakenly assumed that it was written first. This interpretation not only makes sense of the facts but maintains the Greek version as the canonical inspired text.

[carlknaack]

I agree that the translation would be very aged, however I tend to think, based on some of the untranslated hebraisms in the text, that Mathew himself did not write it from scratch. Rather another early Church leader, such as Clement, made the translation using Mark and the interpretations of Mathew such as the Didache to assist and guide his translation. This is just how I make sense of the data, since the Church Fathers never mention a Greek text actually written by Matthew, rather there being other interpretations and translations off of it.
Great video.

[jamiep.]

Great video, Darryl! I have been doing a lot of studying on this very thing recently. It seems to make sense that Matthew wrote an account in Aramaic for the Jews AND a Greek account. He was an educated man. The language of trade was Greek. Anyway, thanks for making this!

[johnquirk]

Papias said that Matthew wrote the "logia" or sayings in Hebrew (probably Aramaic). For a long time I've thought that Matthew wrote down sayings, and someone else later wrote a gospel around it, using the Gospel of Mark. In support of this I would point out that there are five large sayings sections in Matthew, that might have been the original Aramaic Gospel. Just a thought.

[bobgriffin]

He makes the interesting point at 3:45 (Irenaeus - Against Heresies 3.1 (c.182 - 188 AD) that Matthew's Gospel was written when Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome. This would give us an approximate date when the gospel was written. Paul is supposed to have died in July 64 AD. Peter died about the same time or maybe up to 4 years later. So the gospel must have been written before July 64 AD.

[TshoksOlam]

This is a feasible explanation, sufficient and satisfactory enough. I would like to ask you to do a video on the two lost letters of Paul to the Corinthians. Are they truly lost, if so, if they were to be recovered today would we regard them as inspired?