(6) [Matthew] 9:3; 26:65 "He blasphemes." In both instances Delitzsch translates with the piel of gdp, which means blasphemy in the broad sense of speaking arrogantly against the Torah, as Jesus does (according to the view of many rabbis) in both these pericopes of the healing of the lame man and the trial before the Sanhedrin. But since this and other kinds of blasphemy (which today can also mean "railing, swearing") are punishable according to rabbinic law by scourging (Sipra Lev. 24:11ff.) instead of by death, the Roman Catholic version [i.e. Besorat Yeshu'a ha-Mashiah lepi Matityahu [The Gospel of Jesus the Messiah According to Matthew]] adds to the verb in both passages the words ŝm ŝmym "the name of names"; this makes Jesus a "blasphemer against God" in the sense of Num. 15:30, i.e., one who curses the Tetragrammaton in the presence of witnesses—an act which is never reported of Jesus in any of the four Gospels. And since only such a flagrant blasphemer against the holy Name of God could be condemned to hanging or render plausible a unanimous death sentence by the Sanhedrin (Matt. 26:66), Jesus is twice described here—and that by rabbinic authorities—as mgdp ŝm ŝmym "reviling the name of names," in direct contradiction not only to the general usage of the Greek term "blasphēmeín," but to the events of the Gospels themselves.
* Pinchas E. Lapide & Helmut Gollwitzer,
Hebrew in the Church: The Foundations of Jewish-Christian Dialogue,
[
Τα Εβραϊκά στην Εκκλησία: Τα Θεμέλια του Ιουδαιοχριστιανικού Διαλόγου]
Translated by/Μεταφράστηκε από Erroll F. Rhodes,
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1984,
p./σ. 170.
