Late Textual Tradition? Or Early Manuscripts?

[Paidion]

SueAnn, I am sorry I misunderstood you. When you said that you took it that the Babylonian text is the older of the two, for some reason I thought "the two" referred the Babylonian and Egyptian texts. I must read more carefully.

Paidion, what part of what I am saying is correct? What part is incorrect?

You're doing well! Keep it up!

If it is true that the Septuagint was NOT an outgrowth of the Babylonian text, but rather the Septuagint was an outgrowth of the Egyptian text, then why was the KJV translated from the Babylonian text?

It heavily drew upon the Latin Vulgate which was translated from the Babylonian text.

If this is so, one thing that baffles me is the idea that virtually every Bible translation we have is based on a version of the OT that the NT writers did NOT use.

That's textual tradition.

It "blows my mind" (pardon my slang) to think that the NT writers used the Egyptian version/Septuagint, but then the KJV, etc. used the Masoretic/Babylonian text! (For what purpose? Was in intentional misleading? A cruel joke? An honest mistake?)

It may have been an honest mistake for the King James translators But I think that for Jerome, it was a dishonest mistake. Jerome claimed that his Hebrew manuscript (the Babylonian type) was much superior to the Septuagint. Christians had been puzzled that Jesus words "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water." [John 7:38] could not be found in the Septuagint, but Jerome claimed that he had found the words in the Hebrew manuscript which he used. However, his translation of the Hebrew manuscript he used, the Vulgate, does not contain the words. Did Jerome lie in order to promote his claim that his Hebrew manuscript was superior to the Septuagint? It appears so.

Jerome also made the astonishing claim that Jesus and his disciples never quoted from the Septuagint!

[selah]

SueAnn, I am sorry I misunderstood you. When you said that you took it that the Babylonian text is the older of the two, for some reason I thought "the two" referred the Babylonian and Egyptian texts. I must read more carefully.

That's okay; even I had to think about it a few minutes before I could offer a rationale for my comment.

I read your post earlier and took some time to read about Jerome. Wikipedia looks like a site I'll be going back to. I have not taken the time to go to the site you suggested in a most recent post. sorry...so many things to read and so little time. I spent some time reviewing a 200+ page manuscript that my SDA bio bro recently wrote, to see what his SDA perspective was on Jerome (no index in his pre-published manuscript) yet, there was no reference (that I could see as I reviewed the book) to Jerome. However, he had plenty to say about other noteworthy translators...(more on his translation perspectives in future posts)

Jerome claimed that his Hebrew manuscript (the Babylonian type) was much superior to the Septuagint. Christians had been puzzled that Jesus words "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water." [John 7:38] could not be found in the Septuagint, but Jerome claimed that he had found the words in the Hebrew manuscript which he used. However, his translation of the Hebrew manuscript he used, the Vulgate, does not contain the words. Did Jerome lie in order to promote his claim that his Hebrew manuscript was superior to the Septuagint? It appears so.

Jerome also made the astonishing claim that Jesus and his disciples never quoted from the Septuagint!

Wikipedia has this to say about Jerome: "He began in 382 by correcting the existing Latin language version of the New Testament, commonly referred to as the Vetus Latina. By 390 he turned to the Hebrew Bible, having previously translated portions from the Septuagint. (italics added by SueAnn)

Paidion, would you agree with this Wikipedia statement that Jerome had translated portions from the Septuagint? If he really did that, then he had detailed, intimate knowledge of the Septuagint.

I can't figure him out. It saddens me to think that texts have been mis-translated and tampered with. I consider it sufficient that God knew we would be confused (I am anyway). Actually, this coincides with a previously held opinion of mine, that I have about God's mysteries and their relationship to His desire that all men live in unity as one. My opinion or musing has been that, perhaps God knew we humans would be deluged with a myriad of wrong translations, perspectives, doctrines and dogmas. Perhaps He is watching our ability (only through His Spirit) to love one another in spite of our differences! What if we are supposed to "pass the test" of living in unity, by love, with honestly dismayed believers of wrong doctrine? What if God's main goal is that we love one another, not get the correct theology? (Having said that, I never would discourage efforts to ascertain the correct translation and subsequently ascribe to its perfect doctrine, principles and tenants!)

On Wikipedia, under "Bible Translations" I found the following quote: "The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. The very first translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek was the Septuagint (LXX), which later became the accepted text of the Old Testament in the church and the basis of its canon. The Latin Vulgate by Jerome was based upon the Hebrew for those books of the Bible preserved in the Jewish canon (as reflected in the masoretic text), and on the Greek text for the deuterocanonical books."

Wikipedia continues, "Other ancient Jewish translations, such as the Aramaic Targums, conform closely to masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, and all medieval and modern Jewish translations are based upon the same. Christian translations also tend to be based upon the Hebrew, though some denominations prefer the Septuagint (or may cite variant readings from both)." (Italics added by SueAnn)

Questions: To confirm my correct understanding, "the Septuagint" referred to in italics above, is the Egyptian text, right? If so, what, as the Wikipedia quote asserts, "denominations prefer the Septuagint"? In other words, what denominations prefer the Egyptian text?

Change of subject: I went back to your initial post of this thread to re-read it and see if I could offer some kind of an intelligent reply. Nope. Not yet, but I'm working on it! I can say this. Now, I finally have a hint of understanding what you meant by the post title. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think "late textual tradition" would be translations from the Babylonian text, having come from the Masoretic text. "Early manuscripts" would be translations from the Septuagint, having come from the Egyptian text.

[kaufmannphillips]

Hello, Paidion,

Please pardon my question here - is your reason for considering the "Egyptian" tradition to be more reliable essentially that it agrees more often with New Testament citations of the Old Testament? Or do you have other criteria for evaluating the reliability of the textual traditions?

[kaufmannphillips]

Also, posting a link to an earlier discussion on the board that might be relevant here:

http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... &sk=t&sd=a

[selah]

Hello, Paidion,

Please pardon my question here - is your reason for considering the "Egyptian" tradition to be more reliable essentially that it agrees more often with New Testament citations of the Old Testament? Or do you have other criteria for evaluating the reliability of the textual traditions?

Kaufmannphillips,

Thank you for posting here. I appreciate your question and await Paidion's answer, but may I ask you a question? In layman's terms, can you explain to me why you agree or disagree with Paidion that the Egyptian text is more reliable than the Babylonian?

I did read through the "...Septuagint" thread that you referred the reader to.

As Priestly1 mentioned, I plan to find an "Orthodox Study Bible" by Thomas Nelson (NKJV), the Greek LXX OT Canon and Text & Bzantine Text NT, for the simple reason that the NT is said to agree with the OT.

I'm "listening" if you want to influence the reader in a similar or different direction...

Thank you,
SueAnn*

[kaufmannphillips]

Hello, SueAnn*

Thank you for your response.

Sue Ann wrote:
In layman's terms, can you explain to me why you agree or disagree with Paidion that the Egyptian text is more reliable than the Babylonian?

To begin with, because I am not a Christian, the agreement between the New Testament and one text-type or another is irrelevant for me. But it when it comes to evaluating these text-types, it should not matter if one is a Christian. Being a Christian should not prejudice one in the treatment of the evidence.

The proper way to engage the textual evidence is to work case-by-case, handling each verse (or part of a verse) without prejudicial regard for which text-type one prefers. One should not imagine that any one text-type is flawless (for what it is worth, the New Testament itself does not always agree with the Septuagint; sometimes it agrees with the Masoretic text instead, and sometimes it agrees with neither). Therefore, all possibilities should be taken into account.

When weighing the textual evidence, one may take into account certain factors: how many manuscripts support each variant reading; how old those manuscripts are; how messy or careful those manuscripts appear to be; where those manuscripts were found (the ruins of a synagogue, or of a church, or in a trash heap); etc. These factors may be of some importance in trying to assess the character of a manuscript and/or the social role it played.

In addition, one should examine the variants and see if there might be one or more reasonable way to explain how the different variants came into being. In some cases, the apparent explanation may have to do with scribal fallibility: a scribe may have had a dyslexic moment; a scribe may have mistaken one letter for another; a scribe may have misheard oral dictation; a scribe may have skipped a line or a word or part of a word; a scribe may have re-written a line or a word or part of a word; etc. In some cases, the apparent explanation may have to do with intentional scribal editing: a scribe may have glossed over a statement that was considered embarrassing; a scribe may have replaced a confusing statement with an interpretation of its meaning; a scribe may have attempted to repair what they thought was a mistake; etc. If one can produce a reasonable explanation for how one variant reading might have led to the other variants, this may help one weigh out the evidence. In some cases, it may even be necessary to "fill in the blanks" and hypothesize a textual reading that is not found in any existing manuscripts, but which would explain the existence of the readings that we do have; of course, this kind of speculative work requires skill, and the results should be regarded with appropriate caution.

In the end, one should take the whole of a particular case into account, and then try to make a fair assessment. But one should not simply choose a text-type - "Egyptian" or "Babylonian" - and follow it blindly. Some people may wish for such an easy answer, but it is not responsible.

[Paidion]

Please pardon my question here - is your reason for considering the "Egyptian" tradition to be more reliable essentially that it agrees more often with New Testament citations of the Old Testament? Or do you have other criteria for evaluating the reliability of the textual traditions?

Okay, I must admit that I am prejudiced as a Christian.

Notwithstanding, I would point out an interesting fact. All of the Q-caves (about 250 B.C.) except one, contain Old Testament scriptures copied from Babylonian text types. However, the contents of one cave were suppressed, and were never published until 1991. Why not? Interestingly, that one cave (Q4) contained more OT than any of the others, and they were of the Egyptian text types. Did this fact throw a monkey wrench into someone's theology, and thus the suppression?

The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, translated and with commentary by Marin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint, & Eugene Ulrich, and published in 1999, includes translation from Q4. It becomes obvious in studying this "Bible" that the translations from Q4 correspond more closely to the Septuagint than to the Masoretic text.

I regret that I have no independent source which indicates that the Egyptian text is closer to the original than the Babylonian text. Nevertheless, even without such evidence, I believe that to be the case.

[Paidion]

... one should examine the variants and see if there might be one or more reasonable way to explain how the different variants came into being. In some cases, the apparent explanation may have to do with scribal fallibility: a scribe may have had a dyslexic moment; a scribe may have mistaken one letter for another; a scribe may have misheard oral dictation; a scribe may have skipped a line or a word or part of a word; a scribe may have re-written a line or a word or part of a word; etc. In some cases, the apparent explanation may have to do with intentional scribal editing: a scribe may have glossed over a statement that was considered embarrassing; a scribe may have replaced a confusing statement with an interpretation of its meaning; a scribe may have attempted to repair what they thought was a mistake; etc. If one can produce a reasonable explanation for how one variant reading might have led to the other variants, this may help one weigh out the evidence.

Do you think that the possible scribal errors you mention in the preceding paragraph could account for the fact that the Septuagint as well as 4QJer-b and 4QJer-d are about 13% shorter than the Babylonian text (and consequently the Masoretic text)?

Here is an interesting commentary on the Quamran Jeremiah manuscripts found in Q4 (from The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible ,Martin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint, & Eugene Ulrich) pp.382, //ph 3"

"Two important scrolls are 4QJer-b and 4QJer-d, which reflect a Hebrew text that is very different than the Masoretic form of Jeremiah from which modern Bibles have been translated. It is also interesting to note that the biblical text in these two manuscripts is very similar to the Hebrew text from which the Septuagint (LXX) was translated. This is true not only in small details but also in major aspects where the Septuagint differs from the Masoretic Text. Most notably, 4QJer-b and 4QJer-d (before they were damaged) and the Septuagint present a version of Jeremiah that is about 13 percent shorter than the longer version found in modern Bibles! One example of this shorter text is in Jeremiah 10:3-11, which is a satire on idols. While the Masoretic Text has all nine verses, the Greek Bible and 4QJer-b lack verses 6-8 and 10 which extol the greatness of God."

[kaufmannphillips]

Hello, Paidion,

Thank you for your response.

Paidion wrote:
All of the Q-caves (about 250 B.C.) except one, contain Old Testament scriptures copied from Babylonian text types. However, the contents of one cave were suppressed, and were never published until 1991. Why not? Interestingly, that one cave (Q4) contained more OT than any of the others, and they were of the Egyptian text types. Did this fact throw a monkey wrench into someone's theology, and thus the suppression?

The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, translated and with commentary by Marin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint, & Eugene Ulrich, and published in 1999, includes translation from Q4. It becomes obvious in studying this "Bible" that the translations from Q4 correspond more closely to the Septuagint than to the Masoretic text.

(a) For many years, the Scrolls were monopolized by a small cadre of scholars. The tale of how this monopoly was broken is rather interesting, and you may be acquainted with it. But it may simply be the case that with such a limited number of hands working on the project, materials from Cave 4 were not adequately prepared for publication. From a cynical angle, this may have been a matter of scholastic hoarding (not wanting to share the work - and, thus, the glory). From a charitable angle, there may have been concern to withhold publication until more of the Scroll materials had been duly prepared (restored, sorted, edited) and had become available for consideration, to provide context and allow for comparison; it would be understandable if a careful scholar should prefer to wait until all available evidence has been processed, and avoid publishing premature analyses. Flipping back to a cynical angle, this was one of the greatest opportunities ever for glory on the scholastic stage, and if one were to publish an analysis that was made ridiculous by a document published two years later - well, one might prefer to avoid the high-profile error. But naturally, I am not privy to the motives involved.

(b) I have a copy of The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, and though it is intriguing, I really want for there to be a decent and affordable publication with original language materials, as has been done with the non-canonical materials. An English-only version like The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible is of limited use, as you may appreciate.

(c) I will add here a selection that I posted in an earlier discussion on this board (link four posts up):

"In addition to extra-biblical texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, collected and copied from 200 B.C. to 68 A.D., include fragments from 202 biblical scrolls. These texts have been categorized by Emmanuel Tov, Editor-in-Chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project, as follows: [from Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, pp.114-116)

1. Texts written in the special Qumran practice (that is, ones with the types of spelling, grammatical formation, and writing characteristics of the Qumran texts and no other group). These texts may in some cases have been copied from texts that resemble the MT. The manuscripts in this category constitute 20% of the Qumran biblical copies.

2. Proto-Masoretic texts, which resemble very closely the consonants of the later MT (Today’s MT includes numerous aides such as pronunciation guides, footnotes, endnotes, etc.). The manuscripts in this category constitute 35% of theQumran biblical copies.

3. Pre-Samaritan texts, which are similar to the later Samaritan Pentateuch. The manuscripts in this category constitute 5% of the Qumran biblical copies.

4. Texts close to the presumed Hebrew source for the Septuagint - about 5% of the biblical copies.

5. Nonaligned texts, which exhibit no consistent pattern of agreement or disagreement with other witnesses – the remaining 35%."

[Source: http://www.datingtheoldtestament.com/Texts.htm]

If this is accurate, then one should not overstate the Dead Sea Scroll evidence in support of the Septuagintal text-type.

[kaufmannphillips]

Paidion wrote:
Do you think that the possible scribal errors you mention in the preceding paragraph could account for the fact that the Septuagint as well as 4QJer-b and 4QJer-d are about 13% shorter than the Babylonian text (and consequently the Masoretic text)?

Here is an interesting commentary on the Quamran Jeremiah manuscripts found in Q4 (from The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible ,Martin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint, & Eugene Ulrich) pp.382, //ph 3"

"Two important scrolls are 4QJer-b and 4QJer-d, which reflect a Hebrew text that is very different than the Masoretic form of Jeremiah from which modern Bibles have been translated. It is also interesting to note that the biblical text in these two manuscripts is very similar to the Hebrew text from which the Septuagint (LXX) was translated. This is true not only in small details but also in major aspects where the Septuagint differs from the Masoretic Text. Most notably, 4QJer-b and 4QJer-d (before they were damaged) and the Septuagint present a version of Jeremiah that is about 13 percent shorter than the longer version found in modern Bibles! One example of this shorter text is in Jeremiah 10:3-11, which is a satire on idols. While the Masoretic Text has all nine verses, the Greek Bible and 4QJer-b lack verses 6-8 and 10 which extol the greatness of God."

I am not closely familiar with the variations between text-types for Jeremiah. My off-the-cuff inclination in this case is to imagine editing as the more significant factor. If my memory serves, some of the oracles concerning the nations are in a different order in Septuagintal Jeremiah than in the Masoretic version; this seems like a matter of editorial arrangement. Regarding the variant described in your last sentence from The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, this sounds like a case of an editor augmenting the passage with pious material. But each variant would need to be considered on its own merits, as well as with an eye to the broader situation over the course of the whole book.

As to the character of such editing, that would be a matter for conjecture. At what stage in the evolution of Jeremiah did these developments take place? Did the initial author make more than one draft of his work, or of parts of his work? Or are these adjustments made by later hands, for whatever reasons? The particular evidence in various cases may suggest one hypothesis or another, or not.