Who Baptized Whom? What the Hebrew Manuscripts Reveal About What Really Happened at the Jordan River
The Hebrew Book of Matthew — "The Original Gospel"
St. Jerome's Never-Before-Published Hebrew Preface to Matthew — Now Translated Into English
From The Cochin Manuscript
When a Brooklyn hardware merchant asked Jonathan Felt if he wanted to immerse a pot in rainwater, it sparked a question his translation team couldn't shake: the same Hebrew verb used for koshering dishes — taval — is the verb used for what happened at the Jordan River. So what was John's actual role?
Drawing on five Hebrew manuscripts of Luke, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Mishnah, and Torah purification law, this essay traces a pattern that holds from Genesis to the Gospels: the person needing purification always immerses themselves. Never once, outside a single instance, is it someone else who dunks them.
For over 1,600 years, this text sat untranslated. Now, for the first time, St. Jerome's original Hebrew preface to the Gospel of Matthew is available in English.
Jerome — the 4th-century scholar who translated the entire Bible into Latin — read and wrote fluently in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He worked directly from a Hebrew manuscript of Matthew, one he called "the authentic fountainhead of the Word." His Latin and Greek prefaces are well known. His Hebrew preface is not — and it says things the other versions leave out, including a direct statement that Matthew's Gospel was originally written in the Lashon Ha Kodesh, the Holy Tongue.
- A line-by-line translation of Jerome's Hebrew preface (HGC Vat. Ebr. 100), with the original Hebrew text alongside the English
- Editor's commentary from Dr. Miles R. Jones unpacking the historical context — who Jerome was, the politics of the 4th-century church, and why this preface was left out of circulation
- Insight into the four-evangelist imagery (man, lion, calf, eagle) and how Jerome connected it to Ezekiel's vision
- A close look at what changes when you read Matthew's origin story from the Hebrew source rather than the Greek and Latin copies most people know
This isn't a new translation of the Gospel itself — it's the story behind it, told by the man who held the original manuscript in his hands and chose to translate from Hebrew, even when it cost him.
If you've ever wondered what got left out of the version of Christian history you were handed, this is a place to start.
“Dr. Jones and his team would love to share with you insights from our Hebrew Roots about this topic” – Writing of God (Benai Emunah Institute for Accelerated Learning)
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