Hebrew New Testament

Two Hebrew New Testament Manuscripts, found in a Jewish Synagogue in India in 1806 by Claudius Buchanan and taken to England are now in the Cambridge University Library. The two contain all books of the New Testament and now referred to as “ Ms. Oo.16 c and Ms. Oo. 1. 32d”. A second copy is in the Manchester University.
Many of the books bare a similarity to the Aramaic (Syriac) Peshita and could have been translated into Hebrew from it with the exception of James, Jude and Revelation. These three are said to show definite evidence of being copied from an earlier Hebrew source. (There is now mounting evidence showing that the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew then shortly after translated to Greek).

These three books have now been translated direct to English and can be viewed at
https://archive.org/details/the-heb...d Jude (small file size) - HebrewGospels.com/

You can also download a free PDF version of it there.

Then there is the “Ethiopian Bible” now claimed to be the Worlds oldest copy of the complete Bible. View at
https://ocl.org/ethiopian-bible-oldest-complete-bible-earth/

I would like to hear what some of our Hebrew Christians and other scholars have to say about them.

This is the first I've heard of this so I have nothing to contribute except to say the discovery of more New Testament manuscripts is a good thing. I'm looking forward to understanding more about them and their importance in the months and years to come.

Well the discoveries aren't exactly new. 1806 is not exactly a new discovery. It's 200 years.

The origin of these manuscripts is going to be highly questionable to begin with. Once Jerusalem fell in 70AD the use of Hebrew began to wane extensively throughout the world.

We hear a LOT about the Septuagint but practically nothing about the Targumim.
But the Targamim was more quoted and well known than the Septuagint in Israel. The Targumim were the Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Old Testament. And they were accepted by the Religious Elite where the Septuagint was not....

The New Testament was mostly written with quotes and allusions of sections of the Septuagint instead of Targumim....however the book of Hebrews and Jude are exceptions...because they were addressing Jews and not Hellenistic Jews.

So when seeing this story I'm somewhat surprised and wondering what idiot thinks this is anything near plausible....because it simply is not. And why would someone go to the high expense of translating and writing out in a language heading for dormancy. The Hebrew teaching schools all were gone.

That is highly unlikely. Given the fact that the lingua franca of the Roman empire was Greek at the time of Christ, and that the churches already had more Gentiles than Jews, God chose to use Greek for the NT, and there is no real evidence that it was translated from Hebrew. The structure of the two languages is quite different, and one does not see evidence in the NT of it being a translation. The Greek NT was translated into Syriac very soon after it was written.

Just for the record....
Fraudulent antiquities comprise the vast majority of the antiquities market.
People pay vast sums for fakes because they simply are not knowledgeable enough to spot fakes....AND those producing the fakes usually know more than those with the means to purchase them.

True, but sometimes it can take a very long time for things like this to hit the mainstream. I'm sure if there's anything to them we'll be hearing a lot more about them in the years ahead.

There isn't. India was a British Colony for years and years. The Brits removed anything of value long ago.

If they left this behind it was because it's forgery was deduced 200 years ago. Not because it was genuine.

Cambridge and Oxford were leading the charge in removing any antiquities of value.

Let me guess, KJO?

Nope....not me! Definitely not me.

I'm a BHS and UBS4 guy.
I've actually studied the real history of the English translation of scriptures quite extensively. I admire the work of Westcott and his apprentice Eadie. They knew the targumim which nobody else actually know.

The targum contain "sermons" which Westcott was familiar with translating and copying. There is two targum that were popular. These sermons comprise the bulk of the book of Hebrews.

Now if they had claimed that they found a copy of Hebrews in Aramaic or Hebrew....that would be a find and more believable than finding John or this complete New Testament.

Also....it was the early 1800's.

The UK had lost the American Colonies income and George was looking to India to pick up the slack. The Universities Oxford and Cambridge were forming yet another new translation and they were searching for more manuscripts. If these were genuine they would have snatched them up immediately.

Well, you're clearly a lot smarter than me, so I'll leave you to debate the other smart people. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Was it left behind or was it sitting in this guy's personal collection in his estate for 200 years? Why is the Cambridge bothering now? Nothing better to do?

I'm not smart....just edumacated....

I looked up this information specifically for clarification years ago.

Because the question came up "Are the scriptures reliable?" What about the issues with the various translation differences over the years? (Jesus was not a carpenter...a material fact that has been perpetuated and incorrect)

So....I looked up this stuff and found the answers. I want my Faith to be on very very solid ground. I don't trust someone else with my eternal life....I can't trust them with my debit card so why then trust with something much more valuable?

Your mileage may vary.

Money and power/prestige are the most common motivators.

The Hebrew Shem-Tov Gospel of Matthew has a different version of the great commission, no baptism mentioned, no Father , Son and Holy Ghost mentioned.

Are there any other differences between the Shem-Tov Hebrew Gospel of Matthew and our greek version? Tried googling but found no such lists.

Because...
If it was in Lybia or anywhere near North Africa instead it might be accepted and plausible....but not India. Wrong direction.

Huh?

The Jews had a huge community in Lybia as well as Egypt. They went as far West as Spain on the south side of the Mediterranean.

India is East not West.
For whatever reason the Jewish communities stopped at Iraq and didn't go much further East.