***MB: I trust literate people who pride themselves in history and literacy amongst at least the priestly class in creating and maintaining reasonably accurate historical knowledge.
UC: Aren’t Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul literate enough for you or is it just something that they said????***
When they are not definitive, we must turn to other sources. In this case, the meticulate archives of the Jewish people themselves serve most masterfully. They know, and have kept the records, of what language they spoke, and when, and where. Their priestly class was, unlike 95 percent or better of the world, literate and prided itself on that literacy and the maintaining of the records of history.
Well then are you telling us that when the writers of the New Testament used the word "Hebrew" that they really meant "Syriac" which is well known to be "Aramaic" ------ not "Hebrew"????
Are you saying that the people of that day couldn't tell the difference between "Hebrew" and "Syriac/Aramaic"????
Then you also must be saying that all the ecclesiastical writers of the ante nicene period were also likewise confused --- including your own writers of the Catholic Encyclopedia. Here -- read it and weep:
"Let us now recall the testimony of the other ecclesiastical writers on the Gospel of St. Matthew. St. Irenæus (Adv. Haer., III, i, 2) affirms that Matthew published among the Hebrews a Gospel which he wrote in their own language. Eusebius (Hist. eccl., V, x, 3) says that, in India, Pantænus found the Gospel according to St. Matthew written in the Hebrew language, the Apostle Bartholomew having left it there. Again, in his "Hist. eccl." (VI xxv, 3, 4), Eusebius tells us that Origen, in his first book on the Gospel of St. Matthew, states that he has learned from tradition that the First Gospel was written by Matthew, who, having composed it in Hebrew, published it for the converts from Judaism. According to Eusebius (Hist. eccl., III, xxiv, 6), Matthew preached first to the Hebrews and, when obliged to go to other countries, gave them his Gospel written in his native tongue. St. Jerome has repeatedly declared that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew ("Ad Damasum", xx; "Ad Hedib.", iv), but says that it is not known with certainty who translated it into Greek. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Epiphanius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, etc., and all the commentators of the Middle Ages repeat that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. Erasmus was the first to express doubts on this subject: "It does not seem probable to me that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, since no one testifies that he has seen any trace of such a volume." This is not accurate, as St. Jerome uses Matthew's Hebrew text several times to solve difficulties of interpretation, which proves that he had it at hand. Pantænus also had it, as, according to St. Jerome ("De Viris Ill.", xxxvi), he brought it back to Alexandria. However, the testimony of Pantænus is only second-hand, and that of Jerome remains rather ambiguous, since in neither case is it positively known that the writer did not mistake the Gospel according to the Hebrews (written of course in Hebrew) for the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew. However all ecclesiastical writers assert that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, and, by quoting the Greek Gospel and ascribing it to Matthew, thereby affirm it to be a translation of the Hebrew Gospel." [Catholic Encyclopedia; Gospel of Matthew]
HEBREW --- HEBREW --- HEBREW --- No one can seem to spell the word "Syriac/Aramaic" correctly, including Jerome who translated his Latin OT directly from the "HEBREW" -- not from the "Syriac/Aramaic".
Is that what you are saying ---- that none of you, including your church fathers and present day magisterium, know how to spell words correctly???????