About the Book
Excerpt from A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments, Vol. 1: Matthew-Corinthians One argument has been adduced on the other side, on which not a little reli ance has been placed; but the determination of the main question does not, in our opinion, depend upon the point which it raises. It has been very confidently affirmed that the Gree language was not sufficiently understood by the Jews of Palestine, when Matthew ublished his Gospel, to make it at all probable that he would write a Gospel, or their benefit in the first instance, in that language. Now, as this merely alleges the improbability Of a Greek original, it is enough to place against it the evidence already adduced, which is positive, in favor of the sole originality of our Greek Matthew. It is indeed a question how far the Greek language was understood in Palestine at the time referred to. But we advise the reader not to be drawn into that question as essential to the settle ment of the other one. It is an element in it, no doubt, but not an essential ele ment. There are extremes on both sides of it. The Old idea, that our Lord hardly ever spoke anything but syro-chaldaic, is now pretty nearly exploded. Many, however, will not go the length, on the other side, of Hug (in his Intro duction, pp. 326, &c.) and Roberts Discussions, ' 25, &c.) For our selves, though we believe that our Lord, in all the more public scenes of His ministry, spoke in Greek, all we think it necessary here to say is, that there is no' ground to believe that Greek was so. Little understood in Palestine as to, make it improbable that Matthew would write his Gospel exclusively in that langua so improbable as to outweigh the evidence that he did so. And when we t ink of the number of Digests or short Narratives of the principal facts of our Lord's history, which we know from Luke (i. 1-4) were floating about for some time before he wrote his Gospel, of which he speaks by no means disrespectfully and nearly all of which would be in the mother tongue, we can have no doubt that the Jewish Christians and the Jews of Palestine generally would have from the first reliable written matter sufficient to supply every necessary requirement, until the publican apostle should leisurely draw up the First of the Four Gospels in a language to them not a strange tongue, while to the rest of the world it was t/ze language in which the entire Quadriform Gospel was to be for all time em shrined. The following among others hold to this view, of the sole originality of the Greek Matthew - Erasnzns, C alvin, Beza, Light/bot, Wetstein, Lardner, Hug, Fritzsclze, C rea'ner, de W ette, Stuart, da Costa, fair�airn, 'ro�erts. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
