Dr. Thomas McCall, the Senior Theologian of our ministry, has written many articles for the Levitt Letter. He holds a Th.M. in Old Testament studies and a Th.D. in Semitic languages and Old Testament. He has served as Zola’s co-author, mentor, pastor, and friend for nearly 30 years.
This leaves the Gospel of Matthew. Of the four Gospel writers, Matthew is the only one who was both an eyewitness to almost all of the events in Galilee and Jerusalem, and also wrote his Gospel near the beginning of the Christian movement. Matthew is an interesting personality who is often overlooked. Dr. Carsten Peter Thiede, in his recent book Eyewitness to Jesus: Amazing New Manuscript Evidence about the Origin of the Gospels, observes that Matthew, as a tax collector (probably a supervisor of the Capernaum office), undoubtedly had important writing skills. It has been discovered that the ancients who were skilled in writing had developed a form of shorthand so that they could take dictation. It is not outside the realm of possibility that Matthew could have written down entire messages, such as the Sermon on the Mount and the Olivet Discourse, just as Jesus delivered them, verbatim, in shorthand.
Later, the faithful tax collector could have assembled his notes and written his narrative with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. As stated above, Jesus probably delivered most of His messages in Aramaic, and therefore Matthew would have necessarily taken his shorthand dictation in Aramaic. Would he, then, have written his Gospel in Aramaic? We truly do not know. All we know for certain is that, perhaps as early as 66 A.D. (as Thiede suggests), the Gospel of Matthew was distributed in the Greek language as far as Egypt. If Matthew was still in Israel when he wrote his Gospel, it would seem appropriate that he would have used Israel’s common language: Aramaic. In that case, his Gospel would have been translated into Greek quite early, before 66 A.D. It should be noted that Matthew’s Gospel has more “Hebraisms” than any of the others. This suggests an earlier Aramaic version, although, as indicated above, no early Aramaic version of Matthew has been found.
“If Matthew was still in Israel when he wrote his Gospel, it would seem appropriate that he would have used Israel’s common language: Aramaic. In that case, his Gospel would have been translated into Greek quite early, before 66 A.D. It should be noted that Matthew’s Gospel has more “Hebraisms” than any of the others. This suggests an earlier Aramaic version, although, as indicated above, no early Aramaic version of Matthew has been found. “
Dear verga, when you find many large samples of the original or early generation “aramaic manuscripts”, you may have evidence for your theory. Until then, we have many, many, many fragments of Greek Matthew manuscripts.
The can of worms in the argument about original aramaic is that since it doesn’t exist, you are left with an uninspired Matthew in Greek. Not a single Greek word is inspired in that scenario. You are left to hope they are the correct words. Instead, we can compare so very many Greek manuscripts to verify what we do have - matthew in Greek.
More likely, in my estimation, is that the longing for an aramaic manuscript as an original is the longing for the Greek words to not be the true ones. Not you, but many, who want to believe things that aren’t there, but would support the opinion of Rome in this matter.
Best