LXX & Masoretic Text

[Augustine3]

Okay, you’ve shown me a textual variant between two manuscript traditions. I don’t see how this constitutes a full-blown deletion or omission of a “major messianic prophecy.”

-ACEGC

My brother,

It’s quoted from the letter to the Hebrews, is it mere coincidence this part had been redacted especially since this letter was written to the Christian Jewish converts?

Part of the scholar’s tools for translations apart from linguistic grammar is that the translation must be in light of the doctrines and traditions held by their religion. The Masoretes obviously did not believe Jesus was the messiah. All in all the MT is very useful, we just have to watch out for things like this.

 

[edward_george]

My brother,

It’s quoted from the letter to the Hebrews, is it mere coincidence this part had been redacted especially since this letter was written to the Christian Jewish converts?

Part of the scholar’s tools for translations apart from linguistic grammar is that the translation must be in light of the doctrines and traditions held by their religion. The Masoretes obviously did not believe Jesus was the messiah. All in all the MT is very useful, we just have to watch out for things like this.

Actually, translating involves knowing the lexical and grammatical issues–producing translations with doctrinal bias can lead one to destroy what’s actually in the text for the sake of an agenda. Of course, there will be no unbiased translations–every translator reads something onto the text. The Masoretes, of course, did not believe Jesus was the Messiah. Neither did the Seventy who translated the LXX because Jesus hadn’t been born yet when they did their work.

I don’t doubt that the LXX was in use in the early Church, and I don’t doubt that that’s what’s quoted in the Greek NT–that’s only natural that Greek-speaking Jews would use a Greek version of the Scriptures. I’m not disputing any of that. I’m just saying that pointing out a slight point of variation between the two does not constitute a major redaction. Furthermore, the variation you point out isn’t what’s commonly considered a “messianic prophecy.” If you’d shown me how the MT lacks, for instance, huge chunks of Isaiah (which it doesn’t) I’d see your point. Jerome obviously didn’t have a problem with Hebrew versions of the Bible, hence he worked from the Hebrew texts available to him when he produced the Vulgata.

Above all, it’s great to say that one version of the Scriptures has its advantages and its disadvantages textually, but we can’t devote too much reverence to a particular version and demonize the other (or the rest). That would be the thing to be careful of.

-ACEGC

 

[Nine_Two]

Actually, translating involves knowing the lexical and grammatical issues–producing translations with doctrinal bias can lead one to destroy what’s actually in the text for the sake of an agenda. Of course, there will be no unbiased translations–every translator reads something onto the text. The Masoretes, of course, did not believe Jesus was the Messiah. Neither did the Seventy who translated the LXX because Jesus hadn’t been born yet when they did their work.

I don’t doubt that the LXX was in use in the early Church, and I don’t doubt that that’s what’s quoted in the Greek NT–that’s only natural that Greek-speaking Jews would use a Greek version of the Scriptures. I’m not disputing any of that. I’m just saying that pointing out a slight point of variation between the two does not constitute a major redaction. Furthermore, the variation you point out isn’t what’s commonly considered a “messianic prophecy.” If you’d shown me how the MT lacks, for instance, huge chunks of Isaiah (which it doesn’t) I’d see your point. Jerome obviously didn’t have a problem with Hebrew versions of the Bible, hence he worked from the Hebrew texts available to him when he produced the Vulgata.

Above all, it’s great to say that one version of the Scriptures has its advantages and its disadvantages textually, but we can’t devote too much reverence to a particular version and demonize the other (or the rest). That would be the thing to be careful of.

-ACEGC

Who claimed that there were huge chunks of any books missing? Individually the differences can be put down to textual variation, but when time and again messianic prophesies are lacking in the MT, it begins to look like a recension.

The point of Jerome is an interesting one, but he also predates the modern MT by a significant amount of time. It would be interesting if there was a comparison between the oldest copy of the Vulgate (sadly, 8th century), and the oldest MT. If these texts maintain a rough consistency regarding major prophecies, then you might have a very good point.

It has been long since I’ve compared the two texts, I don’t have verses, but the texts are widely available.

 

[Harpazo]

There was an excellent podcast that discussed this subject on Ancient Faith Radio recently by biblical scholar, Dr. Jeanie Constantinou. I’m not done listening to it yet, but they have touched on the LXX v. Masoretic debate that I found illuminating.

In Christ,
Andrew

 

[Shamati]

I think the fact that the Septuagint was written before Christ makes me look at the “textual variations” in the MT suspiciously. And there have been church fathers that maintained that the text was even edited / changed to make the prophecies foretelling Christ less apparent / not apparent at all.
Personally I trust the church fathers saying the Septuagint is a divinely inspired translation & am very suspicious about the masoretic text. We know the jews were biased against christianity, this is a fact, espicially among the religious establishment.
Also we know that in fact there was not One single Torah / Tanakh but different variations circulating in the middle east. The modern day orthodox jews teach that not one single word has been changed in the Tanakh and this is false.
I think the church fathers knew more about holiness than we do today, especially the modern textual critics. That the apostles quoted from a Bible that agreed with the septuagint more than the MT to me means that either they read the Septuagint as the Word of God or they read an aramaic/hebrew Bible that agreed more with the Septuagint than the MT.

Also, from what I understand, Jerome was sick and tired of hearing from the jews how the christian scripture was “changed” and that they had the true scripture. This is supposed to have been a major point for him taking into account the jewish (anti-christian) scripture of the day rather than staying with the septuagint.

 

[edward_george]

I think the fact that the Septuagint was written before Christ makes me look at the “textual variations” in the MT suspiciously. And there have been church fathers that maintained that the text was even edited / changed to make the prophecies foretelling Christ less apparent / not apparent at all.
Personally I trust the church fathers saying the Septuagint is a divinely inspired translation & am very suspicious about the masoretic text. We know the jews were biased against christianity, this is a fact, espicially among the religious establishment.
Also we know that in fact there was not One single Torah / Tanakh but different variations circulating in the middle east. The modern day orthodox jews teach that not one single word has been changed in the Tanakh and this is false.
I think the church fathers knew more about holiness than we do today, especially the modern textual critics. That the apostles quoted from a Bible that agreed with the septuagint more than the MT to me means that either they read the Septuagint as the Word of God or they read an aramaic/hebrew Bible that agreed more with the Septuagint than the MT.

Also, from what I understand, Jerome was sick and tired of hearing from the jews how the christian scripture was “changed” and that they had the true scripture. This is supposed to have been a major point for him taking into account the jewish (anti-christian) scripture of the day rather than staying with the septuagint.

There are textual variations in every manuscript tradition. There are different versions of the LXX, and different versions of the Greek NT out there. Just because there are textual variants doesn’t mean that there’s any ill will in how they came about, just scribal errors or different ways of transmission here and there–this is simply a fact of dealing with a broad body of ancient manuscripts, and it’s not a problem that the LXX is immune to and the MT is afflicted with.

I’m telling you, I don’t see where the MT is missing anything or edited, apart from the fact that it did not have the deutero-canonical books found in the LXX (not all of which are found in the Catholic canon of the OT, of course–there are some letters and books which are found in the Orthodox canon, for instance, which Catholics do not hold to be canonical). Again, if people can show me evidence that the MT is edited, I will consider such. But when you point out minor differences in the text–for which no evidence can be given of an anti-Christian agenda, then I fail to see why the MT is so worthy of being thrown under the bus in favor of the supposedly “divinely-inspired” LXX.

-ACEGC

 

[edward_george]

Who claimed that there were huge chunks of any books missing? Individually the differences can be put down to textual variation, but when time and again messianic prophesies are lacking in the MT, it begins to look like a recension.

The point of Jerome is an interesting one, but he also predates the modern MT by a significant amount of time. It would be interesting if there was a comparison between the oldest copy of the Vulgate (sadly, 8th century), and the oldest MT. If these texts maintain a rough consistency regarding major prophecies, then you might have a very good point.

It has been long since I’ve compared the two texts, I don’t have verses, but the texts are widely available.

The claim throughout the thread seems to have been that there are essential edits of the MT from the LXX, seemingly to excise the Messianic material. This doesn’t make theological or historical sense–the Jews still believed in the Messiah, they just didn’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Furthermore, the Masoretes were quite fastidious in their translations, preserving any spelling and grammatical errors from the earlier manuscripts because they so greatly respected the word of God and their own sense of tradition and didn’t want to correct those things in what was handed on to them.

-ACEGC

 

[Shamati]

Here Trypho (an unbelieving Jew) remarked, “We ask you first of all to tell us some of the Scriptures which you allege have been completely cancelled.”

And I said, "I shall do as you please. From the statements, then, which Esdras made in reference to the law of the Passover, they have taken away the following: ‘And Esdras said to the people, This Passover is our Savior and our refuge. And if you have understood, and your heart has taken it in, that we shall humble Him on a standard, and thereafter hope in Him, then this place shall not be forsaken for ever, says the God of hosts. But if you will not believe Him, and will not listen to His declaration, you shall be a laughing-stock to the nations.’

And from the sayings of Jeremiah they have cut out the following: ‘I [was] like a lamb that is brought to the slaughter: they devised a device against me, saying, Come, let us lay on wood on His bread, and let us blot Him out from the land of the living; and His name shall no more be remembered.’ And since this passage from the sayings of Jeremiah is still written in some copies [of the Scriptures] in the synagogues of the Jews (for it is only a short time since they were cut out), and since from these words it is demonstrated that the Jews deliberated about the Christ Himself, to crucify and put Him to death, He Himself is both declared to be led as a sheep to the slaughter, as was predicted by Isaiah, and is here represented as a harmless lamb; but being in a difficulty about them, they give themselves over to blasphemy.

And again, from the sayings of the same Jeremiah these have been cut out: ‘The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the graves; and He descended to preach to them His own salvation.’

"And from the ninety-fifth (ninety-sixth) Psalm they have taken away this short saying of the words of David: ‘From the wood.’ For when the passage said, ‘Tell you among the nations, the Lord has reigned from the wood,’ they have left, ‘Tell you among the nations, the Lord has reigned.’ Now no one of your people has ever been said to have reigned as God and Lord among the nations, with the exception of Him only who was crucified, of whom also the Holy Spirit affirms in the same Psalm that He was raised again, and freed from [the grave], declaring that there is none like Him among the gods of the nations.

Here Trypho remarked, “Whether [or not] the rulers of the people have erased any portion of the Scriptures, as you affirm, God knows; but it seems incredible.”

“Assuredly,” said I, “it does seem incredible. For it is more horrible than the calf which they made, when satisfied with manna on the earth; or than the sacrifice of children to demons; or than the slaying of the prophets. But,” said I, “you appear to me not to have heard the Scriptures which I said they had stolen away. For such as have been quoted are more than enough to prove the points in dispute, besides those which are retained by us, and shall yet be brought forward.” Justin Martyr (A.D. 160) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.1 pg.234,235

And in many other of the sacred books I found sometimes more in our copies (i.e. the LXX) than in the Hebrew, sometimes less. I shall adduce a few examples, since it is impossible to give them all. Of the Book of Esther neither the prayer of Mardochaios nor that of Esther, both fitted to edify the reader, is found in the Hebrew. Neither are the letters; nor the one written to Amman about the rooting up of the Jewish nation, nor that of Mardochaios in the name of Artaxerxes delivering the nation from death. Then in Job, the words from “It is written, that he shall rise again with those whom the Lord raises,” to the end, are not in the Hebrew, and so not in Aquila’s edition; while they are found in the Septuagint and in Theodotion’s version, agreeing with each other at least in sense. And many other places I found in Job where our copies have more than the Hebrew ones, sometimes a little more, and sometimes a great deal more… while I paid particular attention to the interpretation of the Seventy, lest I might be found to accredit any forgery to the Churches which are under heaven, and give an occasion to those who seek such a starting-point for gratifying their desire to slander the common brethren, and to bring some accusation against those who shine forth in our community. And I make it my endeavour not to be ignorant of their various readings, lest in my controversies with the Jews I should quote to them what is not found in their copies, and that I may make some use of what is found there, even although it should not be in our Scriptures. Origen (A.D. 248) Ante-Nicene Fathers vol.4 pg. 386-387

i hold the opinion of these Holy Fathers in greater esteem than any jewish rabbi or textual critic of today. If they say “our scripture” should contain the Septuagint readings I trust that it will be more beneficial for the soul of the Christian than would the readings from the masoretics. The apostles quotes also agreed more with it which for me humbled any “findings” concerning the Old Testament.

 

[Shamati]

I advice all to read this site: doxa.ws/Messiah/Lxx_mt.html

John Allegro in The Dead Sea Scrolls documents that when the LXX and Mt contradict, the LXX most often agrees with the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). (Allegro 59-83). He presents a long chart comparing readings from 1Sam. demonstrating that the text of books other than the first five existed long befroe the MT existed (about 1000 years before). Allegro also documents that most of the time when there is disagreement between LXX and MT the LXX most often agrees with the DSS and DSS with LXX over the MT. A latter article also deomonstrates that this same agreement holds for Jeremaiah. The DSS contain the longer reading for Jeremaiah deomnstrtaing significant support for the LXX.

“Qumran agrees 13 times with the LXX against the MT and four times witht he MT against the LXX…it seems now that to scholars engaged in this work in the future Qumran has offered a new basis for confidence in the LXX…” (Allegro 74 and 81).

Unfortunately there is no swedish translation of the LXX but when reading my English Bible I far prefer the Old Tetament of the Orthodox Study Bible which has a modern translation of the LXX. I dont even care so much about the prophecies not being exact in the MT, but i feel the LXX is more “poetic”

 

[edward_george]

i hold the opinion of these Holy Fathers in greater esteem than any jewish rabbi or textual critic of today. If they say “our scripture” should contain the Septuagint readings I trust that it will be more beneficial for the soul of the Christian than would the readings from the masoretics. The apostles quotes also agreed more with it which for me humbled any “findings” concerning the Old Testament.

While I esteem the Church Fathers highly, you’re basically appealing to authority here with no basis to do so that’s pertinent to the question at hand. You have to remember that for one, the Fathers did not have the full range of manuscripts available to scholars today (the Dead Sea Scrolls among many, many others that have been found in more recent times). For another, the Masoretic Text would not have been available to the Church Fathers–the Patristic age lasted from about AD 100 to about the 600s. Work on the MT was begun about the 700s and more or less completed by the 1000s.

While I admire your reverence for the Church Fathers and indeed share it, one cannot simply ignore everything that has happened since the year 700 just to cut out the Masoretic Text. The arguments that are being put forth on here seem to indicate a lack of knowledge of the history of the MT and its significance, and honestly what it even is and is not. This all seems to come from a certain agenda of which I am unsure of the origin. But I encourage you to actually learn what the MT is and its textual history.

-ACEGC

 

[Isaiah45_9]

St. Justin Martyr had a very interesting discussion with Trypho the Jew regarding Jewish translations vs. the LXX:

newadvent.org/fathers/01286.htm

On this same dialogue, St. Justin also goes to great lengths to explain that Isaiah 7:14 refers to Christ and not Hezekiah and how the LXX reference of “Behold the virgin shall conceive” undoubtedly refers to Christ alone.

St. Justin also expressed his concern of the Jewish translation being tampered with regards to texts that deal with the Divinity of Christ as well.

Another thing to consider is that the MT does not include the Deuterocanon as such it doesn’t include the 1st celebration of Hanukkah (1 Mac 4) referenced in John 10:22-23 where Jesus is present in the temple during this Feast of Dedication.

The MT not including the Deuterocanon also misses the prophecy of Christ in Wis 2:12-20.

[bibledrb]Wisdom 2:12-20[/bibledrb]

This alone is inexcusable. I mean seriously…

 

[Shamati]

While I esteem the Church Fathers highly, you’re basically appealing to authority here with no basis to do so that’s pertinent to the question at hand. You have to remember that for one, the Fathers did not have the full range of manuscripts available to scholars today (the Dead Sea Scrolls among many, many others that have been found in more recent times). For another, the Masoretic Text would not have been available to the Church Fathers–the Patristic age lasted from about AD 100 to about the 600s. Work on the MT was begun about the 700s and more or less completed by the 1000s.

While I admire your reverence for the Church Fathers and indeed share it, one cannot simply ignore everything that has happened since the year 700 just to cut out the Masoretic Text. The arguments that are being put forth on here seem to indicate a lack of knowledge of the history of the MT and its significance, and honestly what it even is and is not. This all seems to come from a certain agenda of which I am unsure of the origin. But I encourage you to actually learn what the MT is and its textual history.

-ACEGC

Because they advised us to stay away from specifically “Jewish” Canon of Old Testament I reason this means we should avoid the Masoretic because the masoretic is developed out of the jewish tradition. There are believed to have been 3 text families where the source text for the masoretic is believed to have been used around babylon and palestine and the egyptian / alexandrian which was used in the hellenic parts of judaism. I see christianity as a continuation of hellenic judaism.

Israel Shamir;

With the coming of Christ, the free Judeo-Hellenic spirit once again found its expression which was hated by the nationalists, who embarked on the long road to regaining full control over the Scripture. For hundreds of years, the scribes worked over the Old Testament,* taking advantage of its ambiguous consonant readings*, until they eventually achieved a text we know today. Its main paradigm was changed: if the old text led to* Christ, the personal/universal Saviour*, the new text implanted the nationalist concept of a messiah of and for the people of Israel . The nations of the world were to be seen as sinful semi-animals who had no access to God. The name ‘Jews’ stuck with this small fanatic band, while the Hellenised Jews became known as ‘Christians’ and were no longer called ‘Jews’. What was previously a battle between two schools of thought within the Judaic framework, became known as the battle between Judaic and Christian spirits.

The exclusivist Jews could not destroy the Septuagint – there were too many copies extant among non-Jews, and the LXX had been spread around and had succeeded in bringing the nations to Christ. That is why, in their attempt to force the genie of free spirit back into its bottle, the Jews made - one after another - three translations of the Old Testament into Greek to counter the LXX. These translations were made from their proto-Masoretic version, and were quite tendentious. “The Virgin” in the prophecy became “a young woman” in their rendering. Since then, the Jews have made and/or influenced dozens of translations into all languages, while ferociously defending their own Hebrew version, the MT, as the only legitimate primary source.

Though the schism between the Eastern and the Western churches is usually connected with the filioque controversy, the true bifurcation point between the Christian East and the Christian West is located in their choice of the primary text (aside from the New Testament). Westerners (Catholics and Protestants) use the Old Testament they translated from the Jewish MT; Easterners use the Greek text as the original. This is an extremely important difference. When St Paul said that the opposites are united in Christ, he mentioned man and woman, Jew and Hellene (Galatians 3:28). Indeed, the ideal Jew and Hellene are as opposed to each other as the ideal man and woman, and the Jewish and Hellenic texts are equally opposed to each other. Moreover, translations from either of these texts carry the imprint of the original spirit with them.* The Hellenic spirit found its expression in the Septuagint, while the Judaic spirit was expressed in the Masoretic Hebrew text, the MT. Christianity as a whole treads a narrow path between its Judaic and Hellenic tendencies, which are locked in an eternal fight like the Yin and the Yang. Their choice of primary text for the Old Testament caused the Eastern churches to favour the Hellenic, and the Western the Judaic tendency.*

I believe these quotes to hold truth in them.
The masoretic text along with todays judaism is very nationalistic.

catholicforum.fisheaters.com/index.php?topic=2707821.10;wap2

 

[Slowride]

Still haven’t found what I used to have. I think my sister received a copy of the link…haven’t forgot about you…need some more time here.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

A question for my Protestant friends.

Studies have shown the Old Testament has been quoted in the New Testament around 350 times and out of that over 300 have been taken from the Septuagint text. If that is the case, why do Protestant continue to use the Masoretic text?

It would be just as easy to ask Catholics why they use the Masoretic text. Excluding the deuterocanonical books, all Catholic Bibles, save the Vulgate and translations of the Vulgate, use MT as their source text for translation.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Since the MT is in hebrew it has been automatically assumed it would be closer to the original source than the Greek translation. However, since the Dead Sea Scrolls have been found we have found out that the Septuagint is more likely to agree with the Dead Sea Scrolls than the Masoretic. The fact that the apostles more often quote from a text more resembling to the LXX or maybe even the LXX itself, than the MT makes it a winner for me. Combined with the fact that the LXX was translated 300 years before Christ and is therefor more likely to be an unbiased representation fo the actual OT.
Among some of the ancient church fathers there were also rumors or what we today would call conspiracy theories that some texts were specifically prefered or even changed to denote the prophecies on the coming of Christ. So for example the Orthodox Christians have kept the LXX as their standard because they balieve firmly that the masoretic standardizers were very biased against christianity (who at this time made alot of converts from judaism)

mysite.verizon.net/rgjones3/Septuagint/spindex.htm

johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/02/septuagint-vs-masoretic-which-is-more.html

As has been already discussed on numerous threads here, actually just the opposite is true. Where textual differences occur, the Dead Sea Scrolls actually favor an MT text type roughly 60% of the time. Septuagint text types appear only about 5% of the time at Qumran–with the remaining texts reflective of still other textual traditions. Of course the actual situation is far more complicated than what these simple percentages show since there are many, many manuscripts of the LXX–none that completely agree with each other.

One fairly easy to follow discussion of this topic can be found in Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls by NYU professor Lawrence Schiffman. See page 172.

I guess even in the face of very strong evidence to the contrary, the “Jews tampered with the Bible” conspiracy theory lives on.

 

[Shamati]

As has been already discussed on numerous threads here, actually just the opposite is true. Where textual differences occur, the Dead Sea Scrolls actually favor an MT text type roughly 60% of the time. Septuagint text types appear only about 5% of the time at Qumran–with the remaining texts reflective of still other textual traditions. Of course the actual situation is far more complicated than what these simple percentages show since there are many, many manuscripts of the LXX–none that completely agree with each other.

One fairly easy to follow discussion of this topic can be found in Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls by NYU professor Lawrence Schiffman. See page 172.

I guess even in the face of very strong evidence to the contrary, the “Jews tampered with the Bible” conspiracy theory lives on.

Well i dont know about the jews having tampered with the bible but many Holy church fathers claim it to be so. There have been differen text families for the OT and the one which has been the basis for the LXX emphasized universality more often when the MT emphasized nationality. I believe they display 2 very different forms of judaism: hellenic (LXX) and masoretic/pharisaic (MT). I just happen to think that the LXX reads better than the MT but i know that western christianity prefers the MT reading. For me, because christianity evolved out of Hellenic Judaism and the endorsement of most churchfathers until Jerome make me believ this reading should be preferred for the best biblical reading.

I advice all to read this site: doxa.ws/Messiah/Lxx_mt.html

Quote:
John Allegro in The Dead Sea Scrolls documents that **when the LXX and Mt contradict, the LXX most often agrees with the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). (Allegro 59-83). **He presents a long chart comparing readings from 1Sam. demonstrating that the text of books other than the first five existed long befroe the MT existed (about 1000 years before). Allegro also documents that most of the time when there is disagreement between LXX and MT the LXX most often agrees with the DSS and DSS with LXX over the MT. A latter article also deomonstrates that this same agreement holds for Jeremaiah. The DSS contain the longer reading for Jeremaiah deomnstrtaing significant support for the LXkX.

"Qumran agrees 13 times with the LXX against the MT and four times witht he MT against the LXX…it seems now that to scholars engaged in this work in the future Qumran has offered a new basis for confidence in the LXX…" (Allegro 74 and 81).

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Well i dont know about the jews having tampered with the bible but many Holy church fathers claim it to be so. There have been differen text families for the OT and the one which has been the basis for the LXX emphasized universality more often when the MT emphasized nationality. I believe they display 2 very different forms of judaism: hellenic (LXX) and masoretic/pharisaic (MT). I just happen to think that the LXX reads better than the MT but i know that western christianity prefers the MT reading. For me, because christianity evolved out of Hellenic Judaism and the endorsement of most churchfathers until Jerome make me believ this reading should be preferred for the best biblical reading.

I advice all to read this site: doxa.ws/Messiah/Lxx_mt.html

Quote:
John Allegro in The Dead Sea Scrolls documents that **when the LXX and Mt contradict, the LXX most often agrees with the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). (Allegro 59-83). **He presents a long chart comparing readings from 1Sam. demonstrating that the text of books other than the first five existed long befroe the MT existed (about 1000 years before). Allegro also documents that most of the time when there is disagreement between LXX and MT the LXX most often agrees with the DSS and DSS with LXX over the MT. A latter article also deomonstrates that this same agreement holds for Jeremaiah. The DSS contain the longer reading for Jeremaiah deomnstrtaing significant support for the LXkX.

"Qumran agrees 13 times with the LXX against the MT and four times witht he MT against the LXX…it seems now that to scholars engaged in this work in the future Qumran has offered a new basis for confidence in the LXX…" (Allegro 74 and 81).

I think your dualism omits what may have been the majority of the Jews at the time in question–Jews who were not Greek speakers and who did not live within the Roman Empire. I would also disagree that Christianity develops purely out of Hellenistic Judaism, although early Christianity was certainly influenced by Neo-Platonism.

I also hope you realize that John Allegro is not considered a credible scholar by anyone–and was someone who denied the historical existence of Jesus–which I suppose is neither here nor there for purposes of this specific discussion.

But you are certainly free to believe and read whatever you like.

 

[Shamati]

I think your dualism omits what may have been the majority of the Jews at the time in question–Jews who were not Greek speakers and who did not live within the Roman Empire. I would also disagree that Christianity develops purely out of Hellenistic Judaism, although early Christianity was certainly influenced by Neo-Platonism.

I also hope you realize that John Allegro is not considered a credible scholar by anyone–and was someone who denied the historical existence of Jesus–which I suppose is neither here nor there for purposes of this specific discussion.

But you are certainly free to believe and read whatever you

Christianity definitely built on the pre existing hellenic strain of judaism. A couple of hundred years after Christ the Hellenic jews mergrd into what was now christianity. Hellenic culture recognized genious regardless of origin and this was adopted by christianity who utilized every pagan philosophy it found beneficial. St Basileos the Great said that concerning the philosophies developed by pagan thinkers the Christian could benefit but should try an “squeeze the honey out of the flower”. St Thomas of Aquinas for example drew heavily on Atistotelean philosophy which was at the time being dissemiated through Europe from the muslims of spain who in turn got from the greeks/romans in Byzantium.
Catholicism and protestantism favour the MT and i believe it show just how far from eachother the east and the west is. The MT clearly emphasizes and supports a reading where God specifically speaks to the Nation of Israel, exclusive the gentiles. If you are familiar with jewish exegesis you know there are many similarities with catholic/protestant and who knows, maybe the choice of the MT as the standard OT has along with atistotelean philosophy influeced western exegesis to be more legalistic. I think there’s definitely something to it.

Never mind any of this, we now know for a fact that there is not “One” Old testament source text but 3 or possibly 4. With this in mind, how is it tht the MT is the preferred choice in catholicism over the LXX who mirror the quotes of the apostles (called the apostles bible) and endorsed by practically all church fathers to be the standard OT for scripture and even said to be a “Divinely inspired” translation? So why the MT? What is it with the MT that is better than the LXX? If there is nothing particularly better it must mean that Jewish pharasaic opinion is deemed more authoritative than the blessed church fathers. If the bible were to be taken as literally true I can identify with it, but as is evident by the commentaries of saintly fathers the allegorical spiritual interpretation is of greater importance. Maybe we are not able to get all the spiritual allegorical fruits from the MT as we would have usling the LXX?

Allegro is secular / atheist which I preferred for this healed question neutrality. If he has no credibility it doesnt really matter to me because Origen, Justin Martyr, Gregory of Nyssa has, regardless of post modern textual criticism and the orthodox jewish Tanakh anno 2013

 

[Nan_S]

Gosh, I used to know this! I don’t think 99.99% of protestants understand what texts are used as sources. I coud go look it up if you like and get back to you. I still have a stack of my old evangelical text books.

Another very good question!

If this isn’t the website you’re looking for, it should be:

Notes on the Septuagint

The Septuagint in the New Testament

Dead Sea Scrolls - Septuagint Alignments

The Septuagint in Early Christian Writings

 

[patrick457]

A quote from David H. Lim’s The Dead Sea Scrolls (part of Oxford University Press’ Very Short Introductions series):

‘Text-type’ is an important concept that refers to the version of a particular document or literary composition. Let us say that you are composing a report or essay on your portable computer; you work on it for a while and save it on your hard disk in order to continue it at a later time. A good practice is to save the document in successive versions in order to minimize loss in the event of a crash or corruption of a particular file. Thus, you first save the file as ‘sampledocument.doc’ and having worked on it further save it as another file called ‘sampledocument2.doc’ and so on. If ‘sampledocument2.doc’ becomes corrupt, then you can return to ‘sampledocument.doc’, having lost only the incremental amount between the two. Moreover, you can revert to original formulations and calculations with this electronic paper trail. Each one of these files will share a common core, but will also be a slightly different version. If one were to ask which was ‘the original’ text, then the answer surely depends upon what we mean by the term. The initial commission of your thoughts to writing would be preserved in ‘sampledocument.doc’. However, if by ‘original’ you mean the copy that you sent off or submitted, then it would be the final or official version of the file.

In ancient times, ‘manuscripts’, as the word suggests, were written and copied out by hand. The production of literary works involved the compositional and copying stages, with the Qumran scrolls attesting to the latter. As we know from our own experience of copying, such a process is susceptible to expansions, contractions and all manner of scribal errors. For instance, our eyes could skip from one line to another or from one phrase to another that is either identical or similar. We could misspell a word or mis-form a letter. All these human errors contribute to the creation of different text-types. Other changes are intentional revisions of a text for ideological and religious reasons or mechanical ones, such as the stereotype or consistent rendering of one word by another in the target language.

Before the discovery of the scrolls, there were three previously known text-types of the Hebrew Bible: the Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint. The second of these refers to the Torah of the Samaritan community who consider themselves descendants of the ancient Northern Kingdom of Israel. The origins of the Samaritan community is a question of much debate; some sources hold that they were foreigners (2 Kgs 17.24-34), the indigenous people of Samaria (Ezra 4.4), or a sect that broke away from Judaism in the Hellenistic period (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 11.340-345). The Samaritans regard the real sanctuary of God to be situated on Mount Gerizim and not in Jerusalem. They still reside today on that holy mountain in Israel and practise their own traditions. Their version of the Torah is characterized by expansionist and ideological readings. Strictly speaking the Samaritan Pentateuch refers only to the first five books, but the text-type is applied to the rest of the Hebrew Bible by analogy.

In the years following the discovery of the scrolls, Frank Cross proposed a local text theory that identified geographical areas with the three text-types. Accordingly, the Masoretic Text was representative of the Babylonian, the Samaritan of the Palestinian and the Septuagint of the Egyptian location. Cross classified all the Qumran biblical scrolls into one of the three text-types. For instance, 4QSam[sup]a[/sup] was considered a non-Masoretic Text much closer to the Vorlage of the Old Greek. Yet this text also has affinities with the Masoretic Text, the so-called proto-Lucianic text (a revision of the Greek translation), Chronicles and Josephus’s text of Samuel.

It became evident that the Qumran biblical texts could not be so pigeon-holed. A rival view was advanced by Emanuel Tov which posited a multiplicity of biblical text-types. Tov preferred to call them textual ‘groups’, but the more common designation is ‘text-types’. There were not just three text-types, but at least five or more groups of texts. Tov provided the following statistical data on the textual characteristics of the Qumran biblical scrolls: 35% were proto-Masoretic Text; 15% were pre-Samaritan; 5% were Septuagintal; 35% were non-aligned: 20% were texts written in the Qumran practice. Note that the total of 110% is due to the double counting of some of the texts in categories 1, 4 and 5, and category 4 is a ‘catch all’ for non-aligned and independent texts. Moreover, category 5 is a controversial group based upon the scribal practice of the Qumran community; not everyone agrees that this is a text-type.

It is now widely recognized that the Qumran biblical scrolls attest to a greater number of text-types than was previously thought. The Masoretic Text is surely an important text-type; it may even be argued that it was the dominant text-type, but there were several others that cannot be discounted. Some scholars, usually of the more conservative position, continue to hold the Masoretic Text as the text of the Hebrew Bible and all other text-types as translational, interpretative or recensional derivatives, even though they do not exhibit any of the relevant textual characteristics. This ‘Masoretic Text fundamentalism’, as it is called, prejudges the new evidence of the Qumran scrolls with unwarranted convictions.