Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jack Kilmon" <jkilmon AT historian.net>]

I can see what is coming:
First, the translated Hebrew Matthew Ibn Shaprut used in the Evan Bohan was 
not his.  It had been translated into Hebrew from a Middle Dutch Liege 
Harmony  at least 50 years prior in archaeized Hebrew by a Hebrew competent 
Christian.  Where there is deviation syntactically or lexically can only be 
attributed to the archetype/exemplar or the translator and NOT to canonical 
Matthew which was
composed in Greek in the late 1st century.  Stylistically, Shem-Tob's text 
of Matthew is written in Biblical Hebrew with a healthy mixture of MISHNAIC 
HEBREW and LATER rabbinic vocabulary...."

ERGO...this is is a medieval translation of an ancient text in medieval 
style. There is no other conclusion that can remain within the boundaries of 
good text critical scholarship and common sense.

If you read Howard closely, he is a bit cagey on this since his book was his 
15 minutes of fame but he does not say what you are about to claim.  I 
suspect you want to extend Professor Howard's case for this document beyond 
that which he himself would claim.  The Shem Tob Matthew is NOT an 
"original" Matthew and is NOT proof of a Hebrew New Testament. There may 
well have been some text types available in Medieval Europe....even to the 
Vetus Latina and Dutch Liege traditions....that are no longer extant and 
these text type(s) may well have preserved some more "primitive" readings in 
much
the case as Codex Bezae that make provocative Hebraisms in the text of Shem 
Tob HMt a result of retroversion rather than a Hebrew mss "preserved" since 
very early times.  Codes Bezae is 5th
century and there are parallels to the Evan Bohan text which is medieval and 
NOT ancient.

Jack Kilmon


--------------------------------------------------
From: "fred burlingame" <tensorpath AT gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 9:44 AM
To: "George Athas" <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>
Cc: "B-Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Greek Translation of Isaiah (was hellenization)

> Hello George:
>
> Sounds good to me, putting this thread, to bed.
>
> Just for future reference, (merely as a procedural question; and not for
> substantive discussion now), does the shem tov manuscript fit within the
> boundaries of posting at this forum?
>
>
> http://www.torahresource.com/Dutillet.html
>
>
> Or does the masoretic text form the general course and scope of discussion
> here?
>
> Regards,
>
> fred burlingame
>
> On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 11:50 PM, George Athas 
> <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>wrote:
>
> > Fred, you are entitled to your opinion, though I suspect that many will
> > disagree with you about language being unable to capture cultural
> > conceptuality. Yes, there is always some loss, but this is not complete
> > loss. It seems you are implying wholesale change of meaning when 
> > translation
> > occurs, perhaps because you are equating culture with language directly.
> > This may be the way Islam views translation of the Qur’an, but it does so 
> > on
> > the basis of a belief in the divine origin and unalterability of the 
> > words,
> > syllables, and sounds as delivered directly to Muhammad. While Second 
> > Temple
> > Judaism viewed the biblical texts as divine in origin, they evidently had 
> > no
> > insuperable objection to translating them (perhaps because their concept 
> > of
> > divine inspiration was not identical to the way Islam later viewed
> > inspiration of the Qur’an).
> >
> > I’m not sure this thread is going to deal with Biblical Hebrew in any
> > significant way. Let’s give it to the end of Monday and then leave it 
> > there.
> >
> >
> > GEORGE ATHAS
> > Co-Moderator, B-Hebrew
> > (Sydney, Australia)
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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