Translation talk:Matthew

Progress report
I worked a little on this passage (which I thought was a good translation, by the way):

I added verse numbers and subject headings, both which I find very helpful for bible study and, of course, translation.

I did light editing of chapters one to six but tried to respect translation decisions and not change anything major.

I fixed some tense issues for better English. I also tried cut down on so many sentences starting with conjunctions which is generally to be avoided in English. --cAlan 05:14, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't "GENEALOGY OF JESUS" read "GENEALOGY OF JOSEPH"? - the Gospel doesn't claim that Joesph was Jesus's father.Lo2u 22:20, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * OK ignore that comment. I didn't read the chapters properly.Lo2u15:30, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I added again the accidentally deleted Chapter 9, and part of Chapter 8, and am going through and standardizing the verse numbers according to the new system. I'm also putting the headings in lowercase. I also changed Genealogy of Jesus to Genealogy of Joseph--hopefully that's ok with everybody. There was one edit in Chapter Nine: "9.20And look, a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years approached from behind and touched the fringe of his prayer shawl, 9.21for she said to herself, "If only I may touch his prayer shawl, I will be saved."" that I did not transfer. If people think it should be changed they can do so--I haven't checked the Greek.--Jdavid2008 06:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Matthew 5:3-12
I am wondering if perhaps "fortunate" is a better word then happy for this. Those people aren't necessarily happy I think. Does anybody have any ideas? Or how about "lucky"? or well off? --Jdavid2008 07:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Ditto. The root Greek word translated here as "happy" is makarion (in a different alphabet though, of course). It is generally translated "blessed" and speaks not of emotional feeling but of a gift from God. The Latin vulgate translation reads "felix" which means happy or lucky, but lucky has negative religious connotations for some people. If I were translating, I'd stick with the more traditional rendering "blessed" which is less likely to cause confusion. --Fontwords 17:44, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, if anybody would have had a strong objection to us changing it they had plenty of time, and if they have good reasons they can still debate it. I'm going to go ahead and change it to blessed. Please join this conversation if you disagree.--Jdavid2008 17:20, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Matthew 9:38
Changed push to send for ἐκβάλῃ 03:29, 19 December 2007 --Jonathan Gallagher

Matthew 20-28
Added these chapters, but in a very raw form, since I I'll be travelling for a while and won't be able to get to this for some time. Thought it would be best to post this and leave the editing and formatting to others! Jonathan Gallagher 14:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Matthew 13-19
Added these chapters--need formatting. Jonathan Gallagher 22:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Matthew 15:18
The word translated here as "mind" is "kardias," literally "heart". Could we just translate it as "heart"? Fontwords 14:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess I'll be bold now and amend mind to heart, seeing as I haven't heard any objections. Heart has the advantage of being more literal, and it still makes good sense in the culture of modern English. Fontwords 16:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * This raises a wider question than just this instance. In general the Biblical writers had their anatomy off somewhat. For them, your heart was where you did your thinking, your bowels where you did your feeling. However for us, it's the heart where you do your feeling, and your head/brain/mind where you do your thinking. This leads to some erroneous conclusions if we read heart as meaning emotions, when the Biblical writers were meaning thought. Here's the making of a good debate! Jonathan Gallagher 01:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh...maybe I should have thought through that one a bit more. Well, if you'd like to revert, feel free. Fontwords 16:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Matthew 5:5
This verse seems to have a mistake... "5 Blessed are the modest, Because they will inherit the earth." I think the standard translation is meek. That is a bit old English though, perhaps a better word would be submissive, yielding or something like that? --Jdavid2008 18:39, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Humble is the word you're looking for.RonMaimon (talk) 12:37, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Time to move to completed book status
Maybe it's time to move this to the completed book status, since all the chapters are done... Jonathan Gallagher 02:02, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Matthew 6:27
"add one foot to his height"? Really? I sincerely doubt it. The accepted meaning appears to be "add one moment to his lifespan", or similar. However, maybe the original did not have words for these terms, and so used length measurements instead, with the lifespan as the implied meaning. In this case, if we want to be more literal than actually saying "lifespan", we could use "add one measure to his length", to facilitate both readings. But "height" just seems wrong. --193.11.177.69 10:19, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Matthew 5:28
I just made an unorthodox change to the translation of Matthew 5:28. I was bold, I know. However, I'm not looking for an edit war, so if someone has issues with my changes please discuss them here. Thanks. --SadanYagci (talk) 14:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Come on!
The first part of this book has a lineage of Jesus through Joseph, which is clearly referring (at least in Greek) to Mary's husband. But an unsupported (in my mind, idiotic) theory of textual corruption has it that this is a mistranslation of an Aramaic word which was supposed to mean "father" rather than husband.

Why this theory is beyond stupid:
 * 1) The geneology of women as well as men appears in Semitic texts in similar ways, tracing up through the father-line with the exact same word for fathered appearing for both men and women.
 * 2) The only reason you would adopt such a tortured conspiracy theory is for theological reasons--- because Jesus is not the son of Joseph, but the son of God. You should keep your religious beliefs out of this project, otherwise how can we make progress?
 * 3) This is assuming, with no supporting evidence, and much evidence to the contrary, that there was an actual guy called "Matthew" that wrote this text. There is about as much reason to believe that as there is for believing that a guy called "Moses" wrote the Pentateuch, namely none. Like all of the bible, this is a work of divine inspiration, written originally in Greek.

I hope that the rest of the text is more faithful to the Greek.75.24.127.154 00:04, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Who ever wrote it doesn't matter. The writer could count to 14. He did it twice. So either you believe a name was lost from the list, when no historical document backs that up, or you believe the writer was an idiot that couldn't count. This is not an ordinary genealogy, and does not need to be written in the ordinary manner. If you believe this is of divine inspiration, then why is there error? And why does Luke's genealogy differ? And why does Luke's speak as if it is by adoption, and this one speak by blood, if it is indeed the other way around? At the very least Jesus' genealogy was not originally Greek. That would have been translated into Greek at some point. The Greek is wrong. SadanYagci (talk) 07:10, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Dude, the text says "Husband", as you agree. You are the translator, not the editor, so you say husband. It's as simple as that.

This holds no matter how wrong you think that word is, and no matter if it seems to contradict the latter part of the text. Your pet theory about the guy's intentions are not useful. I read about this for about two seconds yesterday, and there is a claim out there that this geneology (not the gospel) was derived from an Aramaic original with two consecutive very similar names, and that one of them was dropped accidentally. It is not at all clear that the author could count to 14, and it is always a question about whether you include the first guy in the list as part of the 14. But a geneology though Mary is useless for purposes of inheriting a birthright. which is what geneologies were all about.

Things written with divine inspiration are not particularly accurate, they're usually half-deranged. People who sit there recieving messages from God hardly ever get anything right.75.24.127.154 17:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The Greek text says husband. People have all sorts of theories about what was written first, but the fact of the matter is that historical testimony says that Matthew wrote first, in Aramaic. I am saying nothing about textual corruption. This is a translation problem from Aramaic to Greek. You looked this up for a few seconds. I've spent much more time on this subject than that. This is not a pet theory about intentions. When a small, missing section of Kings was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls was that a "pet theory"? No, it was not. This is something written. Why would everyone "translate" the word one way into Aramaic, and one translator render it a different word? And that just happens to be a version of the NT with a history of people saying that it was the original. Everyone else uses one word in that place, obviously translating from Greek to Aramaic. One version uses another word that just happens to back-translate to reveal this issue. This is no pet theory. This is no invented name that never existed. Even the genealogies themselves speak as if the Luke one is from Joseph and that means this one is not from Joseph, meaning it is from Mary. Why does this not make sense to you? SadanYagci (talk) 16:39, 1 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I believe your words are coming from divine inspiration. Bully for you, but I would rather stick to the text:


 * the "testimony" that Matthew was written in Aramaic is next to worthless--- it is designed by church people to make this document look like historical eyewitness testimony rather than a work of literature.
 * many, if not most, scholars believe there is no aramaic original to this or any other gospel, or any new testament text.
 * Maybe there was an Aramaic geneology or two, maybe a "Q document", but personally, I don't think so. This text is about as Semitic in style as the Book of Mormon.
 * Even if there were an aramaic original (which is very unlikely), we don't have it available! The word for "father" and the word for "husband" are not the same in Aramaic, except in some possible tortured locutions invented for the purpose of fixing Matthew's geneology. So we can't possibly check if the original said "father".
 * This theory requires that you translate a straightforward Greek text based upon a hypothetical, nonexistent, Aramaic text which you are claiming to reconstruct. Any translator will tell you that it is impossible task.


 * The point is simple: stop "fixing" the text, the text says "husband", Joseph was the name of Mary's husband, Mary's father is nowhere else mentioned and is irrelevant to property inheritance anyway, and Mary wouldn't work as a geneology for Jesus because she is a woman.


 * The Greek original, the only text we have, explicitly says husband, not father, and you are not allowed to fix the text under any circumstances. Even if you think that this is a mistake, your note deserves a footnote at best.75.24.127.154 12:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

"Christ" or "Messiah"
I understand that Matthew is translated from a Greek source, but should we perhaps consider use of the term, "Messiah" or perhaps "anointed one"? One of the things I've noticed is that people tend to gloss over the expression "Jesus Christ," almost as if Christ were a surname. When Matthew calls Jesus "Christ," especially in Matthew 1:1, he is making a specific claim for the benefit of a Jewish audience. While I recognize that Bibles almost uniformly translate Cristos as Christ, I would like to see either a) phrasing to make it obvious that this is a title (such as "Jesus the Christ" or, imo preferably "Jesus the Messiah") or b) a translation of the expression, e.g., "Jesus the Anointed One" or similar. If we make "slave" in Romans 1:1 into "completely devoted" (not that the idea is wrong, but it seems to me more interpretation than translation), then could we not do this here for the sake of clearly conveying meaning? --Braindrain0000 (talk) 23:39, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

5:29 - Word missing or not?
"...it’s better to lose one of part of your ??? than to have the whole of your body thrown into hell."

Is the word "body" missing by intention or should "your" be "you" or is it my poor English? Jlandin (talk) 22:39, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Syllable parity
How does this English compare with Greek in syllable count?RonMaimon (talk) 12:41, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Footnote 19
The footnote 19 or possibly even the translation can be massively improved for 12:22-28. Beelzebul literally means "chief of pests/flies" and this was known at the time of writing as indicated by Septuagint translations that use the greek word for "fly." The author clearly knows this because the structure is paralleled in 12:24 but instead of "flies" the word "demons" is used. The author is therefore able to conflate pestilence and disease with evil spirits, and the passage as a whole can therefore be read in a very interesting way that seems to make much more sense:

Then a diseased (lit. demon possessed) person was brought to him blind and mute, and he healed him so that the mute man could speak and see. And all the crowds were amazed saying, "is this the son of David?" And having heard this the Pharisees said "This man does not cast out pestilence (lit. demons) unless it is by Beelzebul, lord of pests (lit. demons)." Now having known their thoughts he said to them "every kingdom divided against itself is destroyed, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand." And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out pestilence (lit. demons) by the chief of pests (lit. Beelzebul), by whom do your sons cast out (pestilence/demons)? They will be your judges because of this. But if I cast out pestilence (lit. demons) by the spirit of God, then surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. TiKevin83 (talk) 05:20, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

It's also important to note that this story is part of the triple tradition also being in Mark 3:20-30 and Luke 11:14-23, so Mark's version of the story is critical to this analysis. Mark also says "prince of demons" in reference to Beelzebul, which would indicate to me that this conflation of flies/disease with demons is intrinsic to the original story and not just Matthew's account. Though this could also mean that the strict demon interpretation is a better translation assuming Matthew was not fully aware of the dual meaning in his source material.

Matthew 16:19
Can someone familiar with the original Greek please check the accuracy of the footnote on 16:19? Soren of GaHoole (hoot) 19:56, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Footnote 4 for Matthew 1:23
"4. The verse quoted is Isaiah 7:14. Hpwever, there are 3 major problems with the use of this verse:  1. The verse uses the word עלמה (young woman), not בתולה (virgin).   2. This verse describes an event which was to happen fairly immediately, and certainly during the lifetime of the prophecy's intended audience (King Ahaz), not 7 centuries later.   3. The name of the child in the verse is to be Immanuel, not some form of Joshua."

There are some problems with this footnote. The chief one being thinking that it's quoting the Hebrew it's not. Is quoting the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) which majority of quotes from the Old Testament in the New Testament comes from the Septuagint. Virgin is correct.

Accoun1 (talk) 21:05, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * When you quote a previous source, you should make sure your quote is a reasonable representation of the original. In the case of the Old Testament, this would nearly always be Hebrew (a couple books are partly in Aramaic). Where the New Testament misuses the Old Testament text, I believe this should be noted in the footnotes (not in the body of the text, only in the footnotes) in order to allow the reader to understand this. Soren of GaHoole (hoot) 20:29, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify: if a newer source quotes an older source, the translation itself should represent the quote as given in the newer source. This should be footnoted with the older source; and if the older source is misused, the footnote should clarify this point. Soren of GaHoole (hoot) 18:59, 10 February 2022 (UTC)