Dajstill,
Unfortunately we don’t have the original writings of MattithYah (Matthew). The earliest surviving papyri fragment is this one at Swalchy’s web site I believe. And it is a translation of the original.
Papyrus 37: Dated to 250 CE Containing MattithYah 26:19-52
26Consuming but as they, having accepted the Yahus[hua bread, and having b]lessed, He calledb, and having granted to the disciples s[aid, “Ac- cept, ea]t. This exists as the body My.” 27And having accepted t[he cup, and having giv]en thanks, He granted it to them, saying, “Drink from [it, every- one. 28Thi]s for exists the blood my of the covenant, th[e one concerning many bei]ng poured outc on behalf of forgiveness of Torah violations. 29I s[ay but to you neve]r may I drink starting here from this d offspring of the v[ine until th]e day that when it I may have drank toget[her with you afresh] in the kingdom of the FatherMy.” 30 And having s[ung, they left t]o go to the mountain of theolives.
bThe initial reading of εκαλεσεν possibly came about when the scribe accidently overlooked the λ, and continued to write out a word he knew. However, the meaning of the word εκαλεσεν is “He called,” which makes absolutely no sense in this context. Thankfully the scribe corrected the work back to εκλασεν, giving the translation “He broke it.”
The sad fact of not having early copies of MattithYah is discussed below at:
http://www.jesuswordsonl...cripts-that-survive.htmlThis then allows us to make a conclusion that other than these papyri fragments all Greek texts earlier than 340-380 AD have been lost. And one of the reasons is evident by looking at Matthew 28:19. All scholars and the RCC admit there was a forgery to add the trinity formula for baptism into the text. But because no post 340-380 AD Greek text omits it -- while it is omitted in the ancient Syriac and old African Latin and the Hebrew Shem-Tob Matthew which rely upon sources predating 340 AD, there must have been an effort to eradicate the earlier Greek texts of Matthew that conflicted with orthodoxy that was willing to alter Matthew 28:19 to sustain late doctrines. This is alluded to by Conybear:
"In the case just examined (Matthew 28:19), it is to be noticed that not a single manuscript or ancient version [in Greek] has preserved to us the true reading. But that is not surprising for as Dr. C. R. Gregory, one of the greatest of our textual critics, reminds us, 'the Greek MSS of the text of the New Testament were often altered by scribes, who put into them the readings which were familiar to them,' and which they held to be the right readings." (Conybear, Canon and Text of the New Testament (1907) at 424.
In other words, Conybear is saying that since scribes were freely altering texts to insert doctrines that were developing, the fact no conflicting text survived in Greek regarding Matthew 28:19 bespeaks that scribes did not want those texts to survive to challenge their work. The problem for those scribes is (a) we now have recovered fragments of earlier versions of passages other than Matthew 28:19 that show their corrupting efforts; and (b) the early church 'fathers' such as Origen, Justin, Tertullian etc., recorded in the 100s and 200s the early versions of Matthew and thus we can see that way the corrupting hand of scribes operated. Hence, this makes it necessary for Christians to exhort scholars to reconstruct faithfullly the original form of Matthew and the other gospels, to remove the hand of scribes who thought to 'help' in this improper manner.
Shalom