Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Henry Churchyard" <churchh AT crossmyt.com>]

> From: "Lamont Norman" <lamont.norman AT idea.com>
> Subject: Hebrew New Testament

> Someone has approached me recently with the idea that the New
> Testament was orignally written in Hebrew.  They also argued that
> Constantine had destroyed the original Hebrew manuscripts and killed
> off all supporters of the Hebrew texts.

Some scholars have argued that the fragments of Aramaic embedded in
the Greek gospels indicates that there was a written Aramaic documents
of the sayings of Jesus which was drawn upon by the Gospel authors.
Also, there was a Hebrew version of Matthew which was probably around
in the early middle ages, and was definitely around in the late middle
ages (but which is not the "original" version of the Matthew).  And
the literature of the early Jewish Christian group was presumably
partly in Aramaic and Hebrew.  But all evidence is that the New
Testament as we have it today was not originally written in Aramaic or
Hebrew.

(P.S. Why do the consiracy theorists seize upon Constantine, when he
probably had almost no interest whatsoever in variant doctrines or
theological disputes in and for themselves, but only wanted a unified
Church to help prop up the Empire?)

--
Henry Churchyard   churchh AT crossmyt.com   http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/