Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Fred,

There are many partial manuscripts of the New Testament that pre-date 
Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Vaticanus (which are the earliest codices of 
the entire New Testament, but not the earliest manuscripts of smaller 
portions of the New Testament). Some manuscripts date to the second and third 
centuries AD. There is, however, absolutely no manuscript evidence for Hebrew 
originals of any New Testament document. Those who propose a Hebrew original 
to Matthew do so on the basis of (1) The mention of a Hebrew original by 
Papias in the second century AD; and (2) the assumption of Matthean priority 
over Mark (which is generally not accepted by modern scholarship).

You seem to be working on the assumption that the New Testament was written 
to the Christians in Judea. However, this ignores the basic addressees of 
many New Testament documents. There is no indication in any New Testament 
document that the document was written for Hebrew-speaking Christians in 
Judea. On the contrary, most of the recipients seems to have been either 
diaspora Jews or Gentiles. And since Greek was the international language of 
the day, Greek was chosen as the language of communication. There is nothing 
sensational, controversial, or illogical about this. The burden for showing 
proof that any New Testament document was written in Hebrew lies with those 
who claim it. All the evidence seems to suggest otherwise.

Also, I agree with Ted that ‘hellenization’ is not the correct term for this 
discussion, as it has distinct cultural overtones with the original question 
does not seem to be implying.


GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au