“Into your Hands,” O Scribes: Corrupted Hebrew in the Latin Evangelium Nicodemi?

Abstract

Manuscripts of the Latin Evangelium Nicodemi have many variants of the last words of Jesus, all of them incomprehensible, followed by the statement, “which means: ‘Into your hands I commit my spirit’” (Luke 23:46 citing Psalm 31:5). This article explores a variety of possible explanations, but concludes that the many variants of the Latin manuscripts can be explained as the result of a series of scribal errors in copying the transliteration of the Hebrew for “into your hand, I commit my spirit” (Ps 31:5).