Saturday, July 20, 2024

The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) from George Howard, the Gospel of Matthew According to a Primitive Hebrew Text (1987)

Back in 1994, when reviewing New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology, ed. Brent Lee Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), John Gee, commenting on the Sermon on the Mount and Sermon at the Temple, wrote:

 

. . . at Matthew 5:27 the Hebrew has lqdmynym, paralleling the disparaged tois archaiois whose parallel "by them of old time" appears in 3 Nephi 12:27. At Matthw 5:44, the Hebrew has 'bhw 'wybykm w'św Twbh lśwn'km wmk'yskm whtpllw bsbyl rwdpykm wlwḥṣykm ("love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you and provoke you and pray on behalf of those who persecute you and oppress you"). Though this is not identical to 3 Nephi, it nevertheless has those phrases that Larson is so positive are not in the original text. At Matthew 5:30, the Hebrew concludes with mšy'bd kl gwpk bghynm ("than that thy whole body perish in hell"). Even if this text does not directly support the Book of Mormon, it destroys Larson's requisite unanimity. (John Gee, "La Trahison des Clercs: On the Language and Translation of the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6, no. 1 [1994]: 68)

 

Gee was referencing the work of George Howard, The Gospel of Matthew According to a Primitive Hebrew Text (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1987). I recently read this work, and the following is a scan of pp. 16-31 which reproduces Matt 5-7 (The Sermon on the Mount), especially as this work is long out of print (a used copy costs a lot of money . . . )