"Glaring errors" in the Douay-Rheims?

[Manfred]

I wish I could remember where I read this, but it is said that the Greek word is packed with so much meaning that St Jerome had to render it in two different ways, “supersubstantial” in Matthew, “daily” in Luke, to bring out some of the meaning.

D-R in error? Them’s fightin’ words!

Deo gratias for Google; I found the article to which I was referring above.

adoremus.org/0707SupersubstantialBread.html

Given that it’s published in the Adoremus Bulletin, I have high regard for its accuracy and integrity.

Now here’s the particular passage from that article:

The Greek word here is epiousion, which is a hapax — a word that is only used here and nowhere else in the Greek language — and so presumed to be the Greek equivalent of whatever word Our Lord may have used in Aramaic or Hebrew. Most translate the word as “daily”, and this goes back to the Latin of Saint Jerome, who renders “arton epiousion” as “panis quotidianum”, daily bread, in the Gospel of Luke. However, in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Jerome translates the same words as “panis supersubstantialem”. In other words, Jerome, who realized that this Greek hapax could not be expressed in Latin with both meanings at once, chose to give it one meaning in Matthew — “daily”; and another in Luke — “supersubstantial”, so as to preserve both senses of the word for Latin speaking Christians, albeit in two distinct biblical locations.

We have mostly lost this second original meaning — supersubstantial — and so are usually unaware of this lost Eucharistic connotation in our recitation of the Our Father.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Ηi Manfred,

Yes, Father Benjamin Reese does a fair job in treating the subject, although there a few things he overlooks in the article.

We don’t know why Jerome chose to translate the word as Daily in Matthew, and from my knowledge of Greek there is nothing in the word επιουσιον itself which is related to ‘day’ σημερον. Taking the article at face value, a hapax would have no other examples to verify the meaning from, so presumably Jerome took the meaning of daily from Luke, and transmitted it to Matthew. It is Luke who specifically links the relationship of ‘each’ day with the bread (according to day) – thus recalling the manna, which did cease one day a week, but which granted a double portion the previous day so that there was bread for every day.

Fr. Reese also alludes to the flesh in the desert, which comes in the form of birds – and which is a sign of condemnation to the Israelites, for they ate the birds in lust – and so they died.
Again, as St. Paul notes – one who eats the Eucharist unworthily becomes guilty of murder. I am not fully aware of the reasons why, but improper use of birds in sacrificial settings is always associated with sin, death, and carnage. eg: birds eat the corpses, the bread off the head of the baker in Egypt, and in sacrifice must be of the doves/pigeons and handled in a certain way to be acceptable. Both Abraham and the Levitical priests show this special handling of birds before and after the Law.

Also, Fr. Reese focuses heavily on the spiritual meaning of the Eucharist – thinking from the standpoint of it being necessary to prevent our spiritual starvation, I agree. However, in each sacrifice something is given up/immolated/destroyed in order to obtain the communion. The precise reason is lost in antiquity, but the Eucharist is no exception. God takes the gift, and replaces the Substance with himself – effectively joining the sign to his body. So long as the sign remains, the presence remains.
In the re-presentation of the sacrifice, however, the eating of the sign serves two purposes – the communion and destruction of the sign – at which point, communion is complete and the effects take place: eg – the spirit is nourished by communion, and the sign becomes physical again to nourish the body. Thus both body and soul are fed by the Eucharist which is incarnational food fit for beings with a body.

I really enjoyed the article. Thanks.

Peace.

 

[Cranch]

Remember, the Vulgate was translated from the Septuagint, not from the Masoretic text, that have been purged of many christian references.

Although Jerome apparently translated all or parts of the Septuagint into Latin, the result is not part of the Vulgate except for the Psalms and the Greek additions to Esther. Jerome translated the Jewish bible from the original Hebrew for the Vulgate. His Hebrew source was of course centuries older than the Masoretic text.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Hi Cranch,

That may be true, but it doesn’t affect the new testament – as the entire new testament, as we have it, was already in Greek. The Greek is the same language as the Septuagint, which makes examining quotes from the Septuagint worthwhile for comparison purposes.

The Septuagint is much older than the Hebrew copies of the text available in the early centuries. Remember, Roman occupation and destruction of the temple removed the most official texts in 70AD when the temple and store-rooms were burned. Synagog copies certainly remained, but were also often destroyed.

The Septuagint originates at least 300 B.C. – I have never heard that Jerome used Hebrew texts which were as old as the Septuagint available to him. Jerome did have access to Hebrew scholars whom he consulted, which he considered as more original : whatever that means. ( Their theology was certainly anti-christian, so he was consulting hostile parties. )

However, Jerome chose to follow many of the conventions of the Greek septuagint – take for example the Alleluia – that is a Latin transliteration of the Hebrew phrase – Halel YHWH – praised be YHWH. Yet Jerome chose to translate according to tradition, which is to use the Greek homophone – `alleluia – because ALL liturgies used it in his time. He did not translate it literally – praised be God.

Where the Hebrew was overly obscure, I am sure even Jerome had to consult the Greek to decide which meaning to apply.

 

[Cranch]

Hi Cranch,

That may be true, but it doesn’t affect the new testament – as the entire new testament, as we have it, was already in Greek. The Greek is the same language as the Septuagint, which makes examining quotes from the Septuagint worthwhile for comparison purposes.

The Septuagint originates at least 300 B.C.

The New Testament was not at issue in my post correcting inthecloud. Nor, in simply pointing out Jerome’s sources, was I making a judgement regarding the worth of the Septuagint. And although I am a fan of the Septuagint, I think it more accurate to characterize it as dating from at most 300 B.C. rather than at least 300 B.C.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Cranch,

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I am curious why you hold that it is certainly less than 300BC? I am just going off memory, and some notes which associate Alexander’s influence ~ 320BC (traditional date also) with the Septuagint’s origin.
Leaving a few years to complete it, and I figure 300BC is pretty safe.

Are you basing it off Egyptian dating using Ptolemy II? or do you have something more definite?

I see your acknowledgement of the influence of the Septuagint in the Vulgate, which was inthecloud’s point – compared to the Masoretic text. In the cloud was incomplete, but not wrong.

No one can prove to what extent the Septuagint was referenced with Hebrew texts which no longer exist, and which were perhaps incomplete (consonantal) anyway. Also, the NT clearly does show references to the presently available Septuagint in places as compared to the Masoretic Text, so inthecloud’s point is quite valid even with respect to the New Testament.

I am just adding information too.

 

[Cranch]

Cranch,

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I am curious why you hold that it is certainly less than 300BC? I am just going off memory, and some notes which associate Alexander’s influence ~ 320BC (traditional date also) with the Septuagint’s origin.
Leaving a few years to complete it, and I figure 300BC is pretty safe.

Are you basing it off Egyptian dating using Ptolemy II? or do you have something more definite?

Ptolemy II’s sponsorship of the Septuagint and the story of the 72 translators is considered legendary, however the Catholic Encyclopedia at New Advent says:It is likely—as appears from the peculiar character of the language, as well as from what we know of the origin and history of the version—that the Pentateuch was translated at Alexandria. It seems true also that it dates from the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and therefore from the middle of the third century B.C.
It goes on to say:As to the other Hebrew books—the prophetical and historical—…It is not possible to determine accurately the precise time or the occasions on which these different translations were made; but it is certain that the Law, the Prophets, and at least part of the other books, that is, the hagiographies, existed in Greek before the year 130 B.C.
In his book Whose Bible Is it?, page 58, Jaroslav Pelikan writes about the Septuagint:It is even more certain that the translation was not produced all at once but over a period of a century or two or even more, beginning with only the Torah, the Five Books of Moses.
Here is a link to the page in R. Timothy McLay’s The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research which supports a post-300 B.C. date for the beginning of the work.

This is why I disagree with “at least 300 B.C.”

I see your acknowledgement of the influence of the Septuagint in the Vulgate, which was inthecloud’s point – compared to the Masoretic text. In the cloud was incomplete, but not wrong.

Beyond pointing out that the Psalms and Greek Esther in the Vulgate came from the Septuagint, I made no statement regarding a supposed Septuagint influence on the Vulgate (merely noting that Jerome also translated the Septuagint into Latin is not such a statement). inthecloud may have been making a point about the relative merits of the Septuagint in relation to the Masoretic Text, but that is not my concern. inthecloud did clearly state the Vulgate was translated from the Septuagint. That is incorrect. As it is universally understood that, for the purposes of the Vulgate, Jerome translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew, correcting that erroneous statement was the sole purpose of my original post.

Joel T.— apologies for going way off topic.

 

[Oliviad]

Hi Manfred,

Here’s the Greek again, we’ll start with Luke which is clearer.
??? is the word in question.

Luke already has an expression for daily – eg:according to day.
“Give us, according-to day, the bread of us * the ??? bread.”

The structure indicates there is more than one kind of “our bread/bread of us” which can be given daily, and a specific one qualified by ??? is intended.

“Give to-us today, the bread of-us * the ??? bread”

If the word were truly a derivative of subsist, there ought to be some clear examples outside the bible – or perhaps I can look up a derivation and check the steps – so far nothing promising. It is true that επι could be formed by contractions from other words – as that is the problem with that particular prefix.

But, the very fact that the word is nearly unique, suggests that it is not a kind of bread people would normally have. Also, Since Luke and Matthew use the same phrase – epi-ousi-on ( επι-ουσι-ον) – there is a very good chance the word was coined for a reason specific to Jesus since Luke’s is writing for a different Greek audience than Matthew (the more Hebrew of the two). There is no poetic sound to explain the reason for redundancy in Luke’s version – Giving bread daily, gets the message across – rather than Matthew’s ‘today’ – so Luke had no reason to repeat it, except to mark the bread as special in some way.

There are examples of εκ-ουσι-ον, and περι-ουσι-ον, which means that if the word isn’t substance/wealth/material ουσι-α (because of a different gender), but is a distinct word ουσι-ον, or one formed by contraction – then it must have the same meaning as the other examples ending in ουσι-ον.

It looks very likely that the word could mean founded/upon/above(επι) - wealth/material/substance( ουσι-ον ).
A bread upon [another?] substance.

Also note the pun, “our bread” or “bread of us” – can mean we are the bread (the body of christ) which fits scripturally too.**

However that is, the original words were in a Semitic tongue, and from two seemingly diverging Greek translations, one can clearly arrive at a single Hebrew or Aramic original, making it plain why a translation might vary, never able to be exactly the same sentence, thought reflecting a ray of its substance in Spirit and in Truth, and able to be better ascertained through comparison of varied renderings. Likewise we see this phenomenon explained in the Greek translation of Ecclesiasticus, by the original writer’s grand son, as he rendered the Hebrew into Greek.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Thanks Cranch, that explains it.

My original statement referred to the starting of the translation of the Law (Torah) into Greek for the purposes of Hellenization begun with Alexander, and carried out by governments in place at the time of his death. It is because of him that Alexandria-Egypt both gets its name, and its Greek.

Maccabees is certainly younger than that – circa 130BC - 60BC.
So I don’t dispute that if one takes the youngest book, and says the Septuagint wasn’t finished until it was added – so it is at least 60BC.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Oliviad,



Since I doubt Luke heard the Aramaic original, and is a polished Greek writer – I would be curious as to what you think the Original Aramaic was. I am not an Hebrew/Aramaic expert, but I think Matthew is more semitic in general – and your (name removed by moderator)ut might shed light on what is or is not an error in the Douay Rheims.

 

[lak611]

Oliviad,



Since I doubt Luke heard the Aramaic original, and is a polished Greek writer – I would be curious as to what you think the Original Aramaic was. I am not an Hebrew/Aramaic expert, but I think Matthew is more semitic in general – and your (name removed by moderator)ut might shed light on what is or is not an error in the Douay Rheims.

Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Aramaic, but the other Gospels were originally written in Greek. The original Aramaic text of Matthew’s Gospel has been lost.

 

[Oliviad]

Oliviad,



Since I doubt Luke heard the Aramaic original, and is a polished Greek writer – I would be curious as to what you think the Original Aramaic was. I am not an Hebrew/Aramaic expert, but I think Matthew is more semitic in general – and your (name removed by moderator)ut might shed light on what is or is not an error in the Douay Rheims.

Luke’s skill with Greek is a completely different matter from his knowledge of one or more Semtic tongues. The only reason anyone presumes Luke wasn’t Jewish is because Scripture seems possibly to list him after some Jews it made a point of listing as such without mentioning him that way in paticular. All the Church Fathers agreed he was Semitic. Either he was a Jew living in Syria, or an Aramaic man. No one ever suggested he was actually Greek.

In Syria, all knew Aramaic as well as Greek. Anyone whose Vocation is Evangelization will make a priority of mastering the necessary language(s). Also, we don’t know whether Luke directly penned his Writings, or had an amenuensis. He certainly isn’t absolutely free of percieved Semiticisms in his polished Greek style. The person whose Greek his seems closest to is Hermas, whom many have suspected to have possibly been Jewish or part Jewish - whether or not that is mistaken thinking. Whole scolarly monographs have been written on the Apostolic Fathers mainly seeming to write with some Jewish influence upon their writing, unlike the heathen Greek writers of their day.

Many Jews were born in Syria and breathed their last mortal breath there too. Also, perhaps Luke himself possessed the Gift of the SPIRIT to write in the Greek tongue. He certainly believed in that Gift.

The people he must have interviewed likely thought in Hebrew or Aramaic. The LORD’s Words must not have come to him in Greek. But even if they did, my original point still applies: if he learned the Sayings in Greek, they would only carry a form representative of a selected aspect of the Semitic original. There wasn’t just one way to translate those Sayings. Had he had no choice in the Greek rendering he used, it is still necessarily so that someone chose one aspect to capture from the original, while others chose overlapping, but partially differing (though not contradicting) aspects to capture. Even if, as I believe unlikely, he were linguistically ignorant of it, what he heard and transmitted, then, could still be retranslated into the same Semitic lines as the other varying renditions in Greek could.

In English, we can have two people translate directly from the same Hebrew word, one rendering it “sunrise” and another “east”. The same word fully has both meanings, but what single word in English will tell us that?

Furthermore, there is evidence in the way of varying textual transmissions of The Acts of the Apostles by Luke, to the effect that admits he may have even prepared in some cases one edition in Greek and another in Aramaic, which itself may have been translated into Greek. I am not making a final judgement on that consideration here and now, but only showing that it is far from settled that Luke was a gentile, never mind non-proficient in Hebrew or Aramaic.

I’m open to continue discussing this, as this is no final word of mine, but merely introduction for more ideas to consider.

 

[Oliviad]

Another thought has come to mind. Jerome seems originally to have had higher regard for the so-called “apocrypha”, as per the protestant use of the term. He was known to have done an inferior job on those books. He did a great job on every other Book, but seemed set into despair when he found he could not locate the original Hebrew he had hoped there might be for all of those books we now call “the dutero-canon”. Because he could not directly see their originals, he became complacent about them, and I think it was chiefly this, and nothing else, that caused him to partially set them aside.

If you had learned Hebrew, but could only find Aramaic or Greek translations, and saw that some texts had variants, I am sure you too would feel very disappointed, and never satisfied that your endeavor with them could be as successful as with the other Books.

Anyways, having said that, it has been stated that while he spent years on the Books originating in Hebrew or Greek, he spent but a night to record each of those of the deatero-canon.

It has been noted by many that he didn’t consider his Aramaic anywhere near as good as his Hebrew. When he translated Hebrew, he often gave literal translations of proper names, rather than transliterate them in as close a form to the original. I am not sure what this says for his translation of the Chaldean language portions of Daniel.

Anyways, since his days, both Hebrew and Aramaic portions for many of those Books, as well as for others once considered Scripture, have turned up, often proving very near to the Septuagint and other Greek renderings.

As for the Vulgate version of the Books of Judith and Tobit, they are considerably abridged, it seems to many, in comparision to Greek versions with other material in them since found also in Semitic fragemnets of the same works. Some postulate that Jerome gave something more like an epitome of those works, and also mispelled certain things, etc. However, it could also be possible that more than one edition of a work was made by a single writer, or a distinct account of roughly the same story by a son of the original writer. Many things happen that make for perfect reckonings of many puzzles.

(To clarify, let’s say that Tobit wrote a book, and then his son also wrote of the same legacy, but in a different narration person, and telling of more things from his own point of view, and stretching on longer past the end of the first account. While not saying such here, various things in my comparison have given me such an impression. I need to further investigate the claims about Jerome’s treatment of Tobit, Judith, Esdras, etc., and see if he hasn’t been unfairly misjudged by scholars in that area of his work. However, his work with all the Books universally held as canonical are completely above all reasonable suspicion. I’m sure even Dan Brown isn’t suspicious at all, but merely knowingly a lying controversialist in his trying to cast doubts on all things holy.)

 

[Oliviad]

While I have seen very little in the way of errors in the D.R. edition of the Bible, which was rather heavily influenced by the Vulgate, I must point this out:

In Psalm 67:13 in the D.R. says:
“The KING OF POWERS is of the BELOVED, of the BELOVED; and the beauty of the house shall divide spoils.”

It makes the note below:

‘The Hebrew (as it now stands pointed) is thus rendered,
“The kings of armies have fled, they have fled, and she that dwells at home [or ‘the beauty of the house’] shall divide the spoils.”’

At this page, we see:

mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2668.htm

68:13 Kings of armies flee, they flee; and she that tarrieth at home divideth the spoil.

(their translation of):

מַלְכֵי צְבָאוֹת, יִדֹּדוּן יִדֹּדוּן; וּנְוַת-בַּיִת, תְּחַלֵּק שָׁלָל.

[Mal:khei ts:va`owth yiddodhuwn yiddodhuwn; uwn:wath-bayith t:challeq shalal.]

The Vulgate, as represented here:

sacredbible.org/studybible/OT-21_Psalms.htm#67

in an edition not identical to the original Vulgate, renders it thus:
{67:13} Rex virtutum dilecti dilecti: et speciei domus dividere spolia.
with the following English translation appended to this online edition:
{67:13} The King of virtue is beloved among the beloved. And the beauty of the house will divide spoils.

~ Or, ‘the beloved of the beloved.’

The Latin given here:

newadvent.org/bible/psa067.htm

renders it:

Reges exercituum foederabuntur foederabuntur et pulchritudo domus dividet spolia

I’ll have to see the exact sources of these two Latin versions.

Psalm 68:12 Greek OT: Septuagint with Diacritics
ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν δυνάμεων τοῦ ἀγαπητοῦ καὶ ὡραιότητι τοῦ οἴκου διελέσθαι σκῦλα

I brought up these differences to show that one of the only few possible errors I have come across in the D.R. thus far is controversial, and neither easily called an error, nor the perfect rendering without an excellent case made either way. The Septuagint seems to back up the Challoner version, but what many regard as the Septuagint may not in every case be the preserved, actual LXX rendering. For instance, even where the Greek text Jerome had before him seemed to be shown faulty by a Hebrew reading he knew in the 4th c. AD (already ancient by his day), corresponding to the Masoretic Hebrew Text today, that in no way illegitimizes the Septuagint as first made, as by his day, it was about 700 years old, and many lesser Greek translations began to alter the copying of the LXX, being later mistaken for LXX readings.

(In this regard, we can sometimes determine what the LXX originally said, by the hints in the Masoretic Text.)

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

would not any bible as old as douay or king james have “errors” that modern translations addressed?

 

[Khalid]

Daniel, the DR has never used “young woman” instead of virgin.

Isaiah 7:14 (1752 Douay-Rheims Challoner Revision)
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.

And virgin is not an error. Only the corrupt, 10th century Masoretic Text uses “young woman”.

Amen!

If the Orthodox got one thing right, it’s Septuagint superiority. Whether it’s a translation or not, it more accurately reflects the original text: remember, the apostles used the LXX, and so did every Jew in the world for 300 or so years. That is, until they tired of those damned Christians demonstrating Christ to be the Lord and Messiah from their own holy book, whence, within a few generations, an undertaking was begun to “purify” and “preserve” the books (from Messianic passages and interpretations, respectively, if a bit of snark is to be permitted). And, indeed, to purge many books - some, like 4 Esdras, explicitly Messianic - from the long-used Alexandrian canon, giving rise to to modern Hebrew/Protestant canon of 24/39 books (the same ones with different divisions).

The LXX is an exemplar of a more ancient textual tradition (as evidenced by the LXX and the most ancient Dead Sea Scrolls and the Vulgate [which was largely based on ancient, long-lost Hebrew texts, as well as Greek texts which seem to largely remain intact to the present day] often agreeing with each other over and beyond the MT), and also, the traditional ancient Jewish understanding of those books (as the LXX was translated by Jews and for Jews) from a time before the post-Christ-event Jewish scribes began compiling the modern (often falsely called “original”) Hebrew text - which, as correctly stated, was an undertaking began around AD 400 and finished in the late AD 900s - with a superfluity of “emendations” and “redactions” to remove Messianic prophecy present in the true original which is mostly lost to history (as some of the DSS come from after the time of Christ, as I believe, 1QIsa does).

If one reads a relatively honest and accurate Jewish translation (such as the JPS Tanakh) that hews to the Masoretic text and the MT alone, one will find a great abundance of alternate readings and emendations, many set of by “???” or an equivalent when seemingly nonsensical passages come up - passages that are perfectly clear in LXX translation. However, the long-standing (since at least the time of the Targumim) Jewish translation tradition has been not to translate the text literally, but to liberally incorporate midrash, traditional Rabbinic interpretations and lore, and to freely emend the text in any place the translator feels it needs to be smoothed out or altered to remove a contradiction; thus, in the ArtScroll translation, “Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” becomes “It is unlawful to consume dairy and meat together”, and so on. The translation is a combination of scripture, exegesis, traditional interpretations, and running commentary, more than a “translation” as we think of it.

As it ended up, I’m surprised it (the MT) doesn’t specifically mention the messiah by name - the name of Bar Kochba, that is.

 

[patrick457]

Amen!

If the Orthodox got one thing right, it’s Septuagint superiority. Whether it’s a translation or not, it more accurately reflects the original text: remember, the apostles used the LXX, and so did every Jew in the world for 300 or so years. That is, until they tired of those damned Christians demonstrating Christ to be the Lord and Messiah from their own holy book, whence, within a few generations, an undertaking was begun to “purify” and “preserve” the books (from Messianic passages and interpretations, respectively, if a bit of snark is to be permitted). And, indeed, to purge many books - some, like 4 Esdras, explicitly Messianic - from the long-used Alexandrian canon, giving rise to to modern Hebrew/Protestant canon of 24/39 books (the same ones with different divisions).

The LXX is an exemplar of a more ancient textual tradition (as evidenced by the LXX and the most ancient Dead Sea Scrolls and the Vulgate [which was largely based on ancient, long-lost Hebrew texts, as well as Greek texts which seem to largely remain intact to the present day] often agreeing with each other over and beyond the MT), and also, the traditional ancient Jewish understanding of those books (as the LXX was translated by Jews and for Jews) from a time before the post-Christ-event Jewish scribes began compiling the modern (often falsely called “original”) Hebrew text - which, as correctly stated, was an undertaking began around AD 400 and finished in the late AD 900s - with a superfluity of “emendations” and “redactions” to remove Messianic prophecy present in the true original which is mostly lost to history (as some of the DSS come from after the time of Christ, as I believe, 1QIsa does).

If one reads a relatively honest and accurate Jewish translation (such as the JPS Tanakh) that hews to the Masoretic text and the MT alone, one will find a great abundance of alternate readings and emendations, many set of by “???” or an equivalent when seemingly nonsensical passages come up - passages that are perfectly clear in LXX translation. However, the long-standing (since at least the time of the Targumim) Jewish translation tradition has been not to translate the text literally, but to liberally incorporate midrash, traditional Rabbinic interpretations and lore, and to freely emend the text in any place the translator feels it needs to be smoothed out or altered to remove a contradiction; thus, in the ArtScroll translation, “Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” becomes “It is unlawful to consume dairy and meat together”, and so on. The translation is a combination of scripture, exegesis, traditional interpretations, and running commentary, more than a “translation” as we think of it.

As it ended up, I’m surprised it (the MT) doesn’t specifically mention the messiah by name - the name of Bar Kochba, that is.

If there was a facepalm smilie I would have used it right now.

The Masoretic Text had origins long before the Judeo-Christian scuffles of the earlier half of the first millenium, and before the Masoretes standardized the text between the 7th and 11th centuries, as is testified by the Dead Sea Scrolls. In addition, in some readings, the oldest Biblical fragments we have among the Dead Sea Scrolls support the Septuagint over the Masoretic, proving that many of the variants in Greek were also present in early Semitic manuscripts. The scrolls also show numerous small variations in orthography, both as against the later Masoretic text, and between each other. It is also evident from the notings of corrections and of variant alternatives that scribes felt free to choose according to their personal taste and discretion between different readings. All this shows that in this period, there was not always the scrupulous uniformity of text that was so stressed among Jews in later centuries.

Yes, much has been made of that fact that Hebrew texts agreeing with the Septuagint have been found, but a good deal of the fragments actually represent the ancestor of our Masoretic text. The exact figures and classification methods are still under debate, but one estimate has it that 60% of the Biblical scrolls and fragments found can be classified as being of proto-Masoretic type, and a further 20% ‘Qumran style’ (a term for texts with distinctive long orthography and morphology, frequent errors and corrections, and a rather free approach to the text) with bases in proto-Masoretic texts, compared to 15% which reflect the textual form found in the Samaritan Pentateuch, 5% which share distinctive affinities with the Greek Septuagint, and 10% non-aligned (those that show no consistent alignment with any of the other four text-types). These ‘independent’ texts fall into two categories: those inconsistent in agreeing with other known types (i.e. they agree with one textual type in one portion and with another type in the other), and those that diverge significantly from all other known readings.

 

[patrick457]

Oh yeah, and about 1QIsa, aka the Great Isaiah Scroll: it’s actually dated from the 1st century BC. Pieces of the scroll has been carbon-dated on four separate occasions, which produced calibrated date ranges between 335-324 BC and 202-107 BC. Numerous paleographic and scribal dating studies conducted on the scroll place it at a date range of approximately 150-100 BC.

And just so we’re clear: the latest possible date for the DSS is now usually given as AD 70. Generally, the scrolls are assigned a 200 BC-AD 70 range, with a small portion stretching back to the 3rd century BC, and the bulk of the extant material dating from the 1st century BC.

 

[patrick457]

And I know that it hasn’t been explicitly referred to yet, but I’ll address that old idea about the ‘Council of Jamnia’ in advance lest someone bring that up.

The idea of a ‘council’ in Yavneh aka Jamnia was first formulated by the Jewish scholar Heinrich Graetz in the 19th century based on what he saw as evidence in rabbinic literature. For much of the 20th century his hypothesis was accepted by a majority of scholars but a reassessment of Graetz’s sources starting from the 1960s led to the idea being increasingly challenged.

All we know is that before Jerusalem fell in AD 70, Rabbi Johanan ben-Zakkai established an academy at Yavneh which proceeded to function like a Sanhedrin between the period between the Jewish revolts of AD 70-132. He was then succeeded by Rabbi Gamaliel II. Somewhere between AD 80 and 117 Gamaliel was temporarily deposed from his position; Eleazar ben-Azariah was installed as head of the academy in the interim. According to the Mishnah, at the day of Eleazar’s installation, the sages ruled that both Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes are both holy books, i.e. “make the hands unclean.” The same passage then goes on to state that “all the Holy Scriptures render the hands unclean”, and so it is clear that the point at issue was whether the two books ranked among the Scriptures. This passage is then followed by a series of enactments introduced by the stock phrase “on that day” (Mishnah Yadaim 3.5-4.4). Later tradition (Talmud, tractate Berakhoth 28a) claims that every ruling prefixed by this phrase were all literally made on that very day.

People assume official action taken at specific meetings held at specific dates when they hear the term ‘council’. They tend to think of something like Nicaea or Trent or Vatican II. But in reality, it would seem that the deliberations at Yavneh were closer to the character of a school, academy, or court. All that the above story about the Songs of Songs and Ecclesiastes tell us was that there was some debate about the exact status of these books. In fact, it would seem that the dispute were not terminated by the decisions at Yavneh: thd famous Rabbi Meir in the late 2nd century (way after the ‘council’ is supposed to have occurred) continued to dispute the idea that Ecclesiastes had special status. There is no evidence that the status of other writings was debated, or that a definitive final decision was reached in Yavneh.

The hypothesis however, admits of a looser definition. Hence, many of those who continue to accept the hypothesis now define the term as a loose and unsatisfactory one, more of a convenient catch-all symbol designating the decisions that the schools that gathered at Yavneh had reached, which could represent the crystallization of long processes that occurred in early Judaism. In any case, it is even doubtful whether the actions of the academy at Yavneh were official decisions; there was probably no body in Judaism that functioned in an ‘official’ capacity post-AD 70.

 

[patrick457]

The picture below shows the transmission of the OT text and the various textual types thereof. Admittedly it’s a very simplified diagram, but it is a pretty good overview.

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/489/800pxtextsot.png

A little bit about the Septuagint.

The Septuagint is a collection of translations of the Old Testament into Greek, translated in stages between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century AD. The oldest translation in the set is the Torah section, which is generally dated to the early- to mid-3rd century BC, with further books being translated over the next two to three centuries. Because these were originally independent translations, the quality and style of the different translators varied from book to book.

As mentioned, differences between the LXX and the Hebrew text in use were noticed from early on (the differences can be most likely ascribed to the fact that the Septuagint translations represent a textual tradition different from the ancestor of the Masoretic Hebrew), and so newer Greek translations were made from the contemporary Hebrew text by people like Aquila of Sinope, Symmachus the Ebionite, and Theodotion starting from the 2nd century. And yes, various factors including but not limited to the rise of Christianity also figured into it. (BTW, the Greek translation of Daniel used and bound with the Septuagint today is actually that of Theodotion.)

In the 3rd century, the early Christian writer Origen undertook a massive project: he made a comparison of the common Hebrew text, the newer Greek versions, and the Septuagint (in reality a mixed text which combined it and the newer translations) in six parallel columns. Origen had also noted the differences between the Hebrew and the Septuagint; he however assumed that the Septuagint had been corrupted. He intended this project, known as the Hexapla, as an exercise to ‘restore’ the Septuagint to its assumed original form. To this end he combined the LXX text with the recent Greek translations and used critical apparatuses to mark places where the LXX differed from the Hebrew.

Origen’s combined text was copied frequently, eventually without the editing marks, and the older uncombined text of the Septuagint was neglected. Thus this combined text became the first major Christian recension of the translation, often called the Hexaplar recension. There are also two other Christian recensions, by St. Lucian of Antioch and by Hesychius of Jerusalem respectively.