This Gospel Is Very Little Known

a Whole New Approach to Primitive Christianity...

Hebrew Gospel of Matthew

A BOAT WITH SAILORS: ancient Roman mosaic from Tunisia

articles by Yuri Kuchinsky posted and discussed in various academic biblical lists

Recently I've been researching two very unusual Christian gospels that seem to be very early, and even to go back to the first centuries of Christianity. This is truly exciting stuff, as it appears to me, but unfortunately very few professional biblical scholars know so much about this as yet...

The first document is the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, and the second is the Magdalene Gospel (also known as the Pepys Gospel, or "Pepysian Gospel Harmony").

So here's some further information about the first of these two new discoveries, the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew.

Here's a basic introduction to the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew.

And here's a defence of its authenticity (this URL was included in the previous article),

http://www.egroups.com/message/loisy/4

Here is some newer research about the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. These files have been added here in August 2006.

Find out how HMt is likely to change the whole game of Synoptic scholarship. The Hebrew Matthew and Luke: An Important Key to the Synoptic Problem

And here is the second part of this article. It now turns out that there was a significant mistake in the previous analysis by Prof. George Howard. After this matter is clarified, the significance of HMt for the Synoptic studies becomes even more apparent.

In the following compilation of historical sources, we can read the testimonies of many early Church Fathers about the Hebrew Matthew,

Church Fathers' Witnesses on the original language of the Gospel according to Matthew.

So there are the testimonies of Papias, Eusebius, Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome, Gregory Of Nazianzus, and Ishodad of Syria. Obviously they were well aware of the early existence of this document -- something that some of our modern scholars still try to avoid...

And there's even an additional witness from an Islamic source there!

WL Petersen was known as a rather determined critic of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, and of George Howard. (Dr. Petersen passed away recently; this was a great loss to biblilcal scholarship. In spite of some of our disagreements, I still recognise him as a great scholar who contributed a great deal.) Petersen claimed to know what this mysterious text is all about. Well, in such a case, here are a few pertinent questions for him. (Unfortunately, while he can't answer them any longer, I still invite others to try.)

Below, there are some more articles defending the authenticity of the Hebrew Matthew.

The following is an article posted to the Textual Criticism mailing list, where I ask if the Textual Scholars are really the right people to be conducting an initial evaluation of this new text.

-- context of HMt (7 Jan 2000),
http://www.egroups.com/message/loisy/5

A brief review of J.V. Niclos, O.P., _"L'Evangile en hebreu de Shem Tob Ibn Shaprut: Une traduction d'origine judo-catalane due a un converti, replacee dans son *Sitz im Leben*_, in Revue Biblique 106, 1999,

http://www.egroups.com/message/loisy/6

Another reply to critics, (including re: theological tendencies as found in HMt),

http://www.egroups.com/message/loisy/7

In the following long article, I try to find common ground between various critics of HMt, and consider some interesting evidence contained in HMt.

-- Mt 27:52-3, the Tomb Burial, and primitive Mt (Jan 26, 2000),
http://www.egroups.com/message/loisy/20

(A slightly different version was posted to TC-List on February 18, 2000. In the following partial repost re: "the highly unusual pericope divisions or introductory formulas found in HMt version of the Sermon on the Mount", you will find some new evidence casting new light on the Q hypothesis (actually, this evidence seems to undermine the Q hypothesis!),
http://www.egroups.com/message/loisy/67

Another general overview.

-- Assumptions about Shem-Tob's Hebrew Mt (Feb 17, 2000),
http://www.egroups.com/message/loisy/63

The following long article dispels a lot of doubts that existed about HMt. It demonstrates conclusively that HMt could not have been based on the Liege Harmony, as Petersen seemed to suggest.

-- Comparing 4 sayings traditions (Feb 28, 2000),
http://www.egroups.com/message/loisy/75

And here are a couple of newer short articles that offer a whole new interpretation of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, that has never been offered before. They were posted to TC-List, as well as to Loisy-L, and they focus of how to interpret the textual connections between HMt and the Dutch Diatessaron (the Liege Gospel).

-- the Hebrew Mt at an impasse (Dec 17, 2001),
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/loisy/message/4515

A follow-up article is found here,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/loisy/message/4571

I feel that there's a lot more that further study of HMt will reveal. This document looks like it is full of important early features. This is only the beginning...

In my new book, "THE MAGDALENE GOSPEL: a Journey Behind the New Testament" (that comes out in January 2002), I analyse further the role of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew in early Christian history, and in the Christian canon formation.

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