On this day, Easter Monday, we do not hear the first word Jesus spoke after his resurrection, because the translators of the New American Bible "the only English-language Lectionary that may be used at Mass in the dioceses of the United States", chose to omit it from Matthew's Gospel. Instead of quoting Jesus' salutation to the women who had just discovered the empty tomb, they simply say he "greeted them".
But in the original Greek, Matthew tells us Jesus said "???????" to the women. Be joying.
??????? is an all-purpose word, like aloha. Hail. Farewell. Welcome. Godspeed. Greetings. Rejoice. Hi. Hello. Be glad. Be cheerful. It comes from ????? (chairó).
The great King James Bible, 400 years old next month, translates http://www.kingjamesbibletrust.org/the-king-james-bible/digitized-kjv-of-1611/matthew#> Matthew 28:9 as: "Jesus met them, saying, All haile."
Charles McGrath, in yesterday's New York Times, explains "Why the King James Bible Endures". For one thing, "the finished text shows none of the PowerPoint insipidness we associate with committee-speak . . ."
My fifty-year-old Saint Joseph New Catholic Edition of the Holy Bible says, "And behold, Jesus met them, saying, 'Hail!'"
The http://www.blueletterbible.org/search/translationResults.cfm?Criteria=havete&t=VUL> Vulgate says, ". . . et ecce Iesus occurrit illis dicens havete. . ."
The Universalis site uses the Jerusalem Bible. "Filled with awe and great joy the women came quickly away from the tomb and ran to tell the disciples. And there, coming to meet them, was Jesus. ‘Greetings’ he said."
In Hawaiian: "I ko laua hele ana aku o hai i na haumana, aia hoi, halawai mai la o Iesu me laua, i mai la, Aloha olua!"
But maybe the nuns in grade school were right, and Jesus appeared first to his mother. Maybe the first word spoken by the risen Jesus was ???. Eema.
