Hebrew Translations of the New Testament in the Early Modern Period

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Leon Underwood
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1 Hebrew Translations of the New Testament in the Early Modern Period Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect. This quotation taken from the writings of the church father, Irenaeus, represents a relatively widespread idea in the first centuries of Christianity. Altogether there is no real evidence for the existence of such a text. However, despite this lack of proof for a Hebrew gospel written by Matthew himself, there are some Hebrew translations of different parts of the New Testament that circulated during the Middle Ages. Nonetheless up to the sixteenth century there were only partial Hebrew translations of the New Testament, mainly of the Gospel of Matthew. In addition, all of these partial translations were prepared by Jews and in some cases by converted Jews but not by Christians from birth. Usually they were used by Jews in order to refute Christianity and for the opposite cause when they were prepared by converts. According to Jean Carmignac, who compiled a list of the different Hebrew translations of the New Testament in 1982, the first complete Hebrew translation is the one found in Elias Hutter s Polyglot Bible (1599). a text to which I will return. In addition, Carmignac mentions that there were earlier versions, however they were lost. One of them, he says, was by Oswaldus Schreckenfuchs. I have found this text that he mentions as lost and it is this translation, which as far as I know is the first complete Hebrew translation of the New Testament, that will be at the heart of my paper. To the best of my knowledge, this text has never been studied. My paper will discuss the translator, the text he produced and the historical circumstances that led to this achievement. In this context, I will also more briefly discuss three other early modern Hebrew translations of the New Testament. Schrekenfuch s translation appears in a manuscript found in Freiburg University and includes a Hebrew translation of the entire text of the New Testament. The manuscript, which lacks its first few pages has 270 pages. The text

2 begins from the middle of the third chapter in the Gospel of Mathew. Other than that it includes all other books of the New Testament. At the end of the manuscript there is a colophon which reads: completed in the year 5323 to the creation of the world on the 25 th of the month of Elul, the year 1563 on the 13 th of August. While it is noteworthy that the translator (or the copyist) provides the Hebrew date, there is a discrepancy in the dates he gives since the 25 th of Elul on 1563 was on September 13 and not in August. A short Latin paragraph by a later hand appears after the colophon. The composer of this paragraph writes that the text in the manuscript is based on the Greek version of the New Testament. He claims that the identity of the translator and/or scribe is unknown, but adds that he assumes that it is Erasmus Schreckenfuchs, a professor at Freiburg University. Who was Erasmus Oswaldus Schreckenfuchs and is it possible that he indeed was the translator not only of the first complete Hebrew translation of the New Testament, but also of the first translation prepared by a Christian from birth? The information about Schreckenfuchs is very limited and since I am still working on this text I hope that further research, especially in the archives of Freiburg University will reveal more information about him. According to a contemporary biographer, he was born in 1511 in Merckenstein, near Bad Vöslau in Lower Austria. Early modern lexicons report that Schreckenfuchs studied in Vienna, Ingolstadt and Basel. However matrikels of German universities from the sixteenth century show that he was a student at Leipzig in the summer semester of He does not appear on lists of students at Basel or Ingolstadt although from his writings we can learn that he spent some time in Basel where he studied with the famous Hebraist Sebastian Münster. From Münster s writings it is clear that he knew him no later than 1530 and that by that time Schreckenfuchs, was already interested in Hebrew. We have further knowledge of Schreckenfuch s intellectual

3 biography. In 1539 he traveled to Venice where he met with Elias Levita the famous grammarian and writer. When he came back from Italy, not later than in 1541, he was appointed a schoolteacher in Memmingen a post he held until In that year he moved to Bietigheim where he also was a schoolteacher and from there he moved to Tübingen where he registered in the local university on March 8 th Four days after his registration he became a Bachelor, and less than a year later on February , a Magister. In 1552, he was offered a position in the university a fast tracking career many of us would certainly envy! Schreckenberg became Professor of Mathematics and Hebrew in Freiburg University, again an unusual combination in our eyes, but less so in the sixteenth century. At Freiburg, his main task was to teach mathematics, something he did every day, whereas Hebrew was only a minor duty and thus was taught only on alternate days. While he was in Freiburg, Schreckenfuchs published several works. Most of his publications were editions and annotations of earlier works in astronomy and mathematics although he did publish one original work in astronomy. In some of his publications, he was able to combine all his areas of צורת ( work interest. Thus he published Avraham bar Hiya s Hebrew astronomical in a Latin translation and added comments that deal with astronomic and (הארץ mathematical calculations. His other original work in the field of Hebrew studies was a Latin translation of the Aramaic version of Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes. We don t know much about Schreckenfuch s Hebrew education. As I mentioned before, he met Elias Levita in Venice and probably studied with him, however it is most likely that his most important teacher was Münster whom as it is clear from his writings he admired and saw as the most accomplished and capable Hebrew scholar of his days. Schreckenfuchs belittles his own knowledge of Hebrew. In a letter to Münster in Hebrew, regarding the original language of the book of Tobias he writes that he believes that the book of Tobias was originally written in Hebrew and not in Latin as Münster had argued. He then states that if he is wrong it is only

4 במושב ( students because he does not sit among Hebrew experts like other Hebrew Despite this self deprecation, it seems that he.(חכמים כמו אחרים תלמידי לשון הקודש was quite knowledgeable of Hebrew. This is evident in his writings, among them an introduction to a Hebrew Grammar that was published in 1554, as well as a lengthy (fifty page) eulogy he wrote for Münster after Münster s death in This long a eulogy is not in itself exceptional, however these fifty pages were all written in Hebrew. As opposed to most of the German Christian Hebraists of his time, including his admired teacher Münster, it seems that Schreckenfuchs did not become Protestant. However, his good relations with Münster and subsequently his eulogy for him where he described his turn to Protestantism in a very neutral way brought him under the attack of the Catholic authorities of the university. Schreckenfuchs writes: And when the clergy way of life in which he was conducting himself up to that point was not superior, he changed his dress and also his way of life and he conducted himself in the way of other good people, and like knowledgeable people he found an occupation that supported him and he got married since it is not good for a man to be by himself (Gen. 2:18). This eulogy continued to chase Schreckenfuchs when later it was placed in the index of prohibited books. In another incident in 1567 the university court received a complaint in which Schreckenfuchs was accused of hitting a priest together with his sons. Unfortunately we don t know what the reason for this incident was, if indeed this accusation was true, or how this case ended. Schreckenfuchs spent many years in reformed cities and had contacts with many Protestants scholars. It could be that he was inclined toward the Protestantism and

5 that the accusations against him had some ground. Once in Freiburg, which was strongly Catholic it is easier to understand why he did not convert, nonetheless I hope that more archival research will enable me to better understand his religious beliefs and will enrich our understanding of the place of confessional debates in the development of Christian Hebraism and the differences between Protestants and Catholics attitudes to the study of Hebrew and Hebrew texts. From all that I have described, it seems that Schreckenfuch s knowledge of Hebrew was good enough to make him the translator of the New Testament text. The attribution of the translation to him is confirmed not only by the comment at the end of the manuscript, but also in some early modern lexicons, that mention that Schreckenfuchs prepared a Hebrew translation of the New Testament. The most important among them and the one that probably was the source for others is Pantaleon s, Prosopographiae heroum which was printed in Basel in Pantaleon was a student and acquaintance of Münster s and therefore maybe even knew Shreckenfuchs personally. He wrote that Schreckenfuchs prepared a complete translation of the New Testament and that the manuscript is exhibited in Freiburg. He also added that it is the hope of many that this work will be published in the near future. Since this translation is still in Freiburg today and since Schreckenfuchs is the only Hebrew Scholar in Freiburg, I think it is safe to conclude that Panthaleon and the anonymous writer of the short paragraph at the end of the manuscript were right in attributing the manuscript to Schreckenfuchs and that he is indeed entitled to be described as the first (known to date) to create a complete Hebrew translation of the New Testament. The text Schrekenfuch s Hebrew translation of the New Testament is a mixture of Biblical, rabbinical and in some cases medieval Hebrew. Altogether the vocabulary of the

6 text tends to rely on Biblical Hebrew while the syntax reclines toward rabbinical Hebrew. This is probably a sign that although well versed in Hebrew, his abilities were somewhat limited. The text includes some grammatical errors and in some cases there are examples of weird usage of Hebrew vocabulary, but overall this is an impressive achievement for his times and I dare suggest for any time. According to the colophon at the end of the text Schreckenfuch s translated from the Greek. Based of the places where there are differences between the Greek and Latin versions of the New Testament, it seems that indeed the text follows the Greek version. Nonetheless, in at least one case I have found a translation that seems to come from a Latin version and therefore it is possible that he had bth versions in front of him. In many cases, verses from the Hebrew Bible that are quoted in the New Testament are not identical with the Hebrew version, although most of the time they are relatively similar. One reason for that could be that the translator used the Hebrew Bible to help him with the translation but that at the same time he tried to follow the Latin or Greek text in front of him, and this text included readings that are not always in agreement with the Hebrew version. A few examples that I have found support this explanation. Another possibility is that he quoted the Hebrew bible from memory, but I am not sure that his familiarity with the Hebrew bible was that thorough. Assuming that Schreckenfuchs is responsible for this translation, since so much of the evidence confirms this, we must then ask what his motive was. Why did he prepare this translation of the New Testament? Who was his intended audience? As I mentioned earlier, the manuscript lacks its first few pages and therefore we don t know if it had an introduction. I also could not find any direct reference to the translation in Schreckenfuch s writings. However, a statement by Schreckenfuchs in his introduction to the Hebrew Grammar published by Anthonius Reuchlin in 1554 might help us to understand one possible motive for

7 preparing the translation. Schreckenfuchs discusses the best way to study Hebrew. He states: And you should also know that Students who learn Hebrew do not need to always be tied to the study of grammar, rather immediately after they learn the basic rules of grammar it is appropriate that they get accustomed to Hebrew writing, because habit is stronger than anything, and they will only find this by translating books from Latin into Hebrew and from Hebrew into Latin or German and if they don t exercise their brain in this practice they will not find enough sufficient wisdom. Based on Schreckenfuch s own words, one can suggest that the translation of the New Testament into Hebrew was also a way of practicing his Hebrew, and that like his teacher Münster he saw the pedagogical advantage in providing a Hebrew translation of a non Hebrew text. Beside this more practical motivation which is related to Schrekenfuchs career as a Hebraist, elsewhere in his writings there is a hint for another motivation, this time theological. When Schreckefuchs relates to Münster s Hebrew version of Matthew that was first published in 1537 in the eulogy mentioned above, he reports that Münster decided to publish this Hebrew version in order to show the difference between Christian and Jewish belief. This is definitely a polemical statement, but I am not sure that it was part of a missionary campaign or that according to Münster this was the best tool to convert the Jews. It could be therefore that in his translation Schreckenfuchs was following Münster s footsteps and that for him the translation was also a way of proving the superiority of Christian religion over Judaism. On the other hand the work does not include any polemical reference, and as far as we know Schreckenfuchs never published an anti-jewish work and therefore I am not sure how strong a motive that could have been.

8 The second complete Hebrew translation of the New Testament and the first one to be printed appeared as part of Elias Hutter s Polyglot Bible which was published between 1599 and Hutter s Bible includes the text of the New Testament in no less than 12 languages: Syriac, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, Czech, Italian, Spanish, French, English, Danish and Polish. Hutter s exceptional endeavor has not received much scholarly attention and we know very little about it. Hutter himself was born in Görlitz in 1553 to a Protestant family. He studied Oriental languages at Jena University and on 1577 became Professor at Leipzig. Two years later he moved to Dresden where he became Herzog August Hebrew instructor. In 1583 he moved to Lübeck and two years later to Hamburg. In 1589 he was Magister at Frankfurt an der Oder University and after another station in Naumburg he arrived in Nürnberg. According to Hutter s writings, he had conceived the idea of a polyglot Bible for many years. It first appears in his writings when he was nineteen, but did not materialize until the end of the sixteenth century when he was in Nürnberg. However, a number of other books he published paved the way for this undertaking. In a letter to the council of Nürnberg, asking for money to support his enterprise, Hutter explained that there are many differences between the versions of the Bible, something that leads to confusion and turmoil. According to Hutter, a polyglot bible could provide translations of the same text to different languages and create a standardized text and eliminate the existing uncertainty. In a way Hutter s idea of a polyglot Bible with various vernacular languages can be seen as the culmination of Protestant efforts to translate the bible into all vernacular languages, an effort that is marked with Luther translation of the Bible in 1522 on the one hand and The King James Bible in 1611 on the other hand. Hutter s Bible was a unique and expensive project that ultimately resulted in Hutter s running away from Nürnberg. From Hutter s letters to the Nürnberg council we learn that he received a few substantial loans to support the preparation

9 of his Bible while some wealthy people were willing to pledge for these loans. The costs for producing the bible were very high but Hutter did not manage to sell most of the copies that were produced and finally after a few requests to postpone the payment of the loans to the city, he ran away because he could not pay the loans he had taken to support his enterprise. Hutter does not mention what the source for the various translations that he published was. It is clear that that some of the translations are not his and were taken from earlier works. I am not familiar with any study that refers to the texts that he used, but it is hard to believe that could translate the Bible to Czech, Polish or Spanish. However based on his knowledge of Hebrew and the fact that there was no other printed translation of the New Testament it is very likely that Hutter prepared the translation himself. Of course it is possible that Hutter knew about Schreckenfuch s translation, but the translation that he published is different from Schreckenfuch s translation and as such the latter could not have been Hutter s source. Hutter was a Hebraist as most of his publications prior to the publication of the polyglot Bible attest. For example he published a multi lingual dictionary which included Hebrew and an edition of the Hebrew Bible in which he used two types of letters in order to differentiate between the root of a word and the prefixes and suffixes, in order to help Christians study Hebrew. The attempt to create vernacular versions of the Bible was of great importance in Protestant circles since it was the only way to desanctify the Catholic text. Thus the preparation of a vernacular polyglot Bible with vernacular texts has theological implications but it seems that they have nothing to do with the Jews and their conversion. Nowhere in Hutter s other publications nor in the polyglot Bible and in his letters to the magistrates of Nürnberg are polemical motivations, not to say missionary ones mentioned. This suggests that his polyglot Bible should be seen mainly in the context of

10 Reformation attitudes toward the Bible and not as part of Jewish-Christian polemic. Two other translations of the New Testament that I can mention only briefly are the one prepared by the convert Domenico Gerosolimitano Yerushalmi in and the other one by the Jesuit Georg Mayr in What is common to both translations is that they were aimed to be a helpful tool for converting the Jews. One major difference between these two authors is that Gerosolimitano was a convert and Mayr was a Christian from birth and a Jesuit who studied Hebrew and other Oriental languages and thus his translation reflects another stage in Christian Hebraism and the use of Hebrew learning for direct Missionary activity. These four translations along with others that followed them are part of the growing interest in Hebrew learning and knowledge in early modern Europe and reflect the change in the status of Hebrew learning. The two later translations that I mentioned, although very briefly, belong to a new stage in Christian Jewish relations and to the increase of missionary activities among the Jews. The translations of Schreckenfuchs and Hutter can be considered first and foremost part of the growing interest in the study of Hebrew and are a testimony to a new level of knowledge of Hebrew among Christians in the second half of the sixteenth century. In his book on Christian Hebraism, Frank Manuel argued that only in the second half of the sixteenth century was Hebrew knowledge among Christians good enough so that they did not need the assistance of Jewish teachers. Schreckenfuchs and Hutter translations are in a way a proof of this claim. Finally, an allusion to this change could be found in Schreckenfuchs Hebrew introduction to a Hebrew Grammar from 1554: Day and night we all should bless and praise the name of God, because in the last days he poured from his kindness and put his grace upon his slaves and therefore there is almost no school whether in

11 Germany, Italy, Spain or France which does not have many, students or teachers, who gave their hearts to the matter of the holy language when twenty years ago only very few here and there could have been found.

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