NAB - OT text preference?

[Joel_Tunnah]

The preface to the New American Bible (usccb.org/nab/bible/prefaceold.htm) seems to say that when there was a discrepancy between the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint - the translators went with the Septuagint rendering, or with the Qumran text if available. Is this a fair description of their text preference?

 

[Manfred]

The preface to the New American Bible (usccb.org/nab/bible/prefaceold.htm) seems to say that when there was a discrepancy between the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint - the translators went with the Septuagint rendering, or with the Qumran text if available. Is this a fair description of their text preference?

Joel,

“Their text preference” is not really an issue. Almost all modern translations of the Old Testament, whether Catholic or Protestant, tend to hew as closely to the Masoretic text. The problem is that in many places the MT is downright obscure, if not undecipherable. Thus, recourse is made to Hebrew sources other than the MT, as well as to other ancient versions, notably the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, etc. It is the domain of the biblical scholar to determine from among the myriad of sources available to him what constitutes the “true reading”. But this is only the beginning. Then he has to render this in the “target language”, e.g., English, trying to be faithful to the original language rendering, while at the same time making it understandable in the target language.

Some scholars do this better than others.

 

[Joel_Tunnah]

Thanks Manfred.

 

[Axion]

The Masoretic text, often referred to as the “original Hebrew,” is in fact no such thing. It is the medieval Hebrew text maintained by the Jews of the diaspora, and has many errors and indecipherable passages. the earliest example dates from around 1000 AD

the Septuagint translation into greek is actually much older, with extant copies dating from 500 AD and earlier. It has fewer errors than the Masoretic hebrew. The Qumran fragments are older still, dating from the 1st century.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Many passages in the Septuagint are closer to the Dead Sea Scrolls than the Masoretic text.

Why would anyone trust a text as recent as the Masoretic that had been copied a zillion times by post Jesus Jews?

That’s just plain dumb!