Posted on 01/06/2007 7:13:58 AM PST by Titanites
SO, WHAT IS THE GREEK TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT?
The questions, probabilities, possibilities, problems and use related to the imaginary Septuagint proposed by individuals such as Karen Jobes, Ph.D., Moises Silva, Ph.D., Henry Barclay Swete, D.D., Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton, and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE) have been answered by men in the Dean Burgon Society as well as Dean Burgon himself. In addition, what is so appallingly apparent in the liberal’s dialogue is the paucity of discussion of the Received or Traditional Greek and the Masoretic Text by name. They skirt the issue by glancing comments about recensions, but never, ever discuss the possible implications of thousands of texts from many authors and countries in many languages attesting to the preservation of the Received Text.
Dr. Kirk D. DiVietro and Dr. Floyd Jones have written two poignant astute documents, which are available from Bible For Today concerning the so-called Septuagint. They resoundingly trounce the wild assumptions of the modernistic Septuagint scholars by simple clear concise statements.
Dr. Jones makes a clear statement at the beginning of his treatise on the Septuagint about what is known concerning the Septuagint. He states:
"The Septuagint (LXX) is a very old translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament) into Hellenistic Greek. This statement alone is almost the only hard fact concerning this translation that is verifiable."
The other known fact about the misnomer, Septuagint, is that it is a non-entity. The name is adapted from a fraudulent document, Letter of Aristeas. The only extant Letter is an eleventh century document. Today, the manuscript that is generally called the Septuagint is the Old Testament Greek translation constructed by Origin Adamantius, called Codex B (c.245 A.D.). This is the real recension as opposed to the theoretical recensions of the Received Greek and Hebrew Texts. Codex B is the 5th (fifth) column of Origin’s Hexapla, a six column parallel Bible. Origen labeled the 5th (fifth) column the LXX (See the picture on page 5 of this work). This may be observed in the fragment of the Hexapla by Origen found at Milan, Italy in 1896 and published in An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek by Henry Barclay Swete D.D. in 1902.
Dr. DiVietro says:
"Scholars lie. In the case of the Septuagint, the lie is not as overt as usual…The Septuagint, as it is published today, is basically the text of the Old Testament as it appears in Codex B."
Codex B, the LXX, is a revision of the Greek texts extant during Origin’s time. He used the versions of the Ebonite’s’ Aquilla (c. 128), Symmachus (c. 180-192 A.D.), and Theodotin (c. 161-181) for the Hexapla reconstruction, along with three other anonymous translations that have become known as the Quinta, the Sexta, and Septima. From this point on in this paper the OT Greek text, usually misnamed LXX or Septuagint, will be called the Greek Text of Origen, GTO. A Greek text of the minor prophets found in the Judean desert caves dates to around the time of "the second Jewish revolt in the years 132-135" A.D. by the personal letters of Bar Kokhba. They cannot be claimed with any certainty as part of a B.C. Septuagint. As a matter of fact, they contain translational features found in other A.D. texts such as those of Aquila and of the Quinta.
There have been many revisions of GTO. For example, Hesychius of Alexandria (martyred c. 311 A. D.) and Lucian of Antioch, an Arian, (martyred 311) made revisions. There have been dozens of revisions through the centuries. A few of the more recent revisions are "the 1587 Sixtus, Holmes-Parson, von Tischendorf (Swete, p. 187), Swete, the Brooke-McLean great Cambridge edition, and Rahlfs 1935 edition,"
Jerome (340-420 A.D.), a contemporary of Augustine of Hippo, ridicules the GTO often in his letters. However, the texts he used for his translations for Rome were of "the Alexandrian text type." Before reading the following quotes from Jerome’s works, recall he is removed from Origin (182-251 A.D.) by over 150 years. A comparison is to imagine a student in 2005 trying to reconstruct a particular history in 1850 in America without the aid of computers, phones, extensive libraries, airplane travel, and other modern conveniences. In addition, we must remember Jerome was opposed to the independence of local churches from Rome represented by the Waldensians. Lastly, he was obviously duped by the fraudulent Letter of Aristeas, which was allegedly commented on by the Alexandrian Aristobulus, the Neo-plantonist Philo, and the Roman historian, Josephus the Jew. They all add embellishments to the story of the Letter.
Dr. Phil Stringer, President, Landmark Baptist College, states:
Jerome understood that the Septuagint of his day was developed by Origen. He believed that Origen used several different Greek manuscripts and that all of them had been corrupted! He disputed Augustine’s assertion that the apostles usually quoted from the Septuagint! He pointed out that their quotations often don’t match any version of the Septuagint or any other Greek New Testament.
From Jerome’s writings, one can quickly ascertain that Jerome is confused by the term, Septuagint, and denigrated it by the following quotes. Jerome says:
"How can the Septuagint leave out the word ‘Nazarene’ if it is unlawful to substitute one word for another? It is sacriledge either to conceal or to set at naught a mystery."
Let my critics tell me why the Septuagint introduces here the words ‘look thou upon me.’" "For its rendering is as follows, ‘My God, my God, look thou upon me, why hast thou forsaken me.’"
It would be tedious now to enumerate, what great additions and omissions the Septuagint has made, and all the passages which in church-copies are marked with daggers and asterisks.
Yet the Septuagint has rightly kept its place in the churches, either because it is the first of all the versions in time, made before the coming of Christ, or else because it has been used by the apostles (only however in places where it does not disagree with the Hebrews).
The preceding quote reveals that Jerome was duped, also. We know the Apostles did not quote from the "imaginary" (there is no solid evidence it existed before Christ) Septuagint.
Doubtless you already possess the version from the Septuagint which many years ago I diligently revised for the use of students. The new testament I have restored to the authoritative form of the Greek original. For as the true text of the old testament can only be tested by a reference to the Hebrew, so the true text of the new requires for its decision an appeal to the Greek. [my emphasis]
From the previous quote, we should now understand that "the LXX" is just one of the many revisions of the GTO.
Origen, whilst in his other books he has surpassed all others, has in the Song of Songs surpassed himself. He wrote ten volumes upon it, which amount to almost twenty thousand lines, and in these he discussed, first the version of the Seventy Translators, then those of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, and lastly, a fifth version which he states that he found on the coast of Atrium, with such magnificence and fullness, that he appears to me to have realized what is said in the poem:
However, no Greek "version of the Seventy Translators" has ever been found, and specifically, no Greek B.C. Song of Songs text. In addition, Jerome goes on to say:
Add to this that Josephus, who gives the story of the Seventy Translators, reports them as translating only the five books of Moses; and we also acknowledge that these are more in harmony with the Hebrew than the rest. [my emphasis]
Surely, the previous quote makes clear the confusion surrounding the Greek text reported by the Letter even during Jerome’s days. Obviously, he was not sure how many, if any, of the Old Testament books had been translated. The following quote establishes that "deceitful" translators also perplexed Jerome
But if, since the version of the Seventy was published, and even now, when the Gospel of Christ is beaming forth, the Jewish Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, judaising heretics, have been welcomed amongst the Greeks—heretics, who, by their deceitful translation, have concealed many mysteries of salvation, and yet, in the Hexapla are found in the Churches and are expounded by churchmen; [then] ought not I, a Christian, born of Christian parents, and who carry the standard of the cross on my brow, and am zealous to recover what is lost, to correct what is corrupt, and to disclose in pure and faithful language the mysteries of the Church, ought not I, let me, ask, much more to escape the reprobation of fastidious or malicious readers? [my emphasis and addition for clarity]
Remember, Origen used the "judaising heretics" versions to make his revision, which is Codex B, the favorite corrupted text of the modernists. The next quote makes it obvious that Origen’s Old Testament Greek text, composed 150 years earlier than Jerome’s existence, was already being called "the Seventy."
I have toiled to translate [and revise—see above and below, HDW] both the Greek versions of the Seventy, and the Hebrew which is the basis of my own, into Latin. [In other words, Jerome made his own revision. HDW.]
As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church. If any one is better pleased with the edition of the Seventy, there it is, long since corrected by me. For it is not our aim in producing the new to destroy the old. And yet if our friend reads carefully, he will find that our version is the more intelligible, for it has not turned sour by being poured three times over into different vessels, but has been drawn straight from the press, and stored in a clean jar, and has thus preserved its own flavor. [my emphasis] [Even Jerome rejected the apocrypha included in the GTO]
In the following quote, Jerome is not clear what he means by "descent of three steps." However, his additional comments above and below lead me to believe that he thought the three steps had corrupted "the Seventy." The comments in the middle of Jerome’s quote to follow are made so that there is no ambiguity. It is interesting in the quote to follow that Jerome confirms Dean Burgon’s comments concerning the "variety" of texts on p. 16
I am not discussing the Old Testament, which was turned into Greek by the Seventy elders, and has reached us by a descent of three steps. I do not ask what Aquila and Symmachus think, or why Theodotion takes a middle course between the ancients and the moderns. I am willing to let that be the true translation which had apostolic approval. [In other words, even though it is "corrupted" Jerome will no longer fight his adversaries, HDW]
I am now speaking of the New Testament. This was undoubtedly composed in Greek, with the exception of the work of Matthew the Apostle, who was the first to commit to writing the Gospel of Christ, and who published his work in Judaea in Hebrew characters. [This is denied. There is no evidence Matthew wrote in Hebrew. HDW] We must confess that as we have it in our language it is marked by discrepancies, and now that the stream is distributed into different channels we must go back to the fountainhead. I pass over those manuscripts which are associated with the names of Lucian and Hesychius,, and the authority of which is perversely maintained by a handful of disputatious persons. It is obvious that these writers could not amend anything in the Old Testament after the labors of the Seventy; and it was useless to correct the New, for versions of Scripture which already exist in the languages of many nations show that their additions are false. I therefore promise in this short Preface the four Gospels only, which are to be taken in the following order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as they have been revised by a comparison of the Greek manuscripts. Only early ones have been used. But to avoid any great divergences from the Latin which we are accustomed to read, I have used my pen with some restraint, and while I have corrected only such passages as seemed to convey a different meaning, I have allowed the rest to remain as they are.
THE AGENDA CONCLUDED
So why are "scholars" spending millions of hours and millions of dollars to "reconstruct" a text from corrupted, fraudulent manuscripts, which are often written or "corrected" by unbelievers? There have been many reasons listed by various authors. The underlying spiritual reason for extolling the possible virtues of the GTO has not been clearly stated or has been missed. It is the old old problem recorded for us in the book of Genesis as the etiology for the fall of man. The problem is the refusal to come under authority. The authority of the words of God frightens men. The Apostle John record these words for us, "Never man spake like this man," [Jn. 7:46] because the Lord Jesus Christ spoke with authority. The ultimate agenda of those promoting the LXX is to destroy the authority of God’s words because "Never man spake like this man." His true words frighten men, because if they are preserved, infallible, plenary, and inerrant, they will have to come under their precise and/or specific authority and judgment. Satan and man have fought this authority "from the beginning."
If the truth about the Received Texts (Masoretic and Greek Traditional Text) can be discredited by assumptions and theories, then men can claim we have no absolute authority. Scholars are free to make up their own texts to promote their philosophies. They are free to ignore the precision (jot and tittle) and they are free from following precisely "the ark of the covenant" (see the Introduction to this work)
Dr. Phil Stringer in a recent newsletter gave an opinion why "so many ‘scholars’ [are] so devoted to the Septuagint." He states:
Roman Catholics use the idea that Christ quoted the Septuagint to justly include the apocrypha in their Bibles. Their reasoning goes like this: ‘Christ used and honored the Septuagint, the Septuagint includes the apocrypha, so Christ honored and authorized the apocarypha.’ Since no Hebrew Old Testament ever included the books of the Apocrypha, the Septuagint is the only source the Catholics have for justifying their canon.
The author of this paper is certain that Dr. Stringer’s reason is correct. However, the underlying spiritual problem exhibited by the Catholic religion is the refusal to come under God’s authority. They would rather place their (man’s) tradition on equal footing (as they stated at the Council of Trent), and reject the authority of His preserved words. For anyone to claim the GTO (Origen’s Greek Text) is "the word of God" in light of the confusion surrounding the text as well as the text exhibiting a very "loose," "corrupted translation" is very suspect. Dr. Stringer is correct when he states:
"After all, if Christ did not care about the specific words of Scripture, why should we?...If Christ used the Septuagint then you can put the Bible in your own words in either a paraphrase or your own translation." [specific is another word for precise, HDW]
Dr. Floyd Jones in his book asks: "Why then do conservatives uphold the LXX?" Dr. Jones’ answer to his own question is (to summarize) that conservatives fear that the Received Text cannot be supported by scholarship, history, and internal proof without THE GTO.
Dr. Phil Stringer in his article asks: "But why are so many evangelicals devoted to an idea for which they can not offer any proof?" Dr. Stringer’s answer to his own question is:
"Many proud evangelicals value the idea of being accepted as "scholarly" and "educated" by the world (the Catholics and the modernists).
One cannot escape the reason for the fall of man even in these situations. If man cannot receive "[a]n inerrant (without error), verbal (each word), plenary (every word), inspired (God breathed, infallible (will not fail), Word of God," as his sole authority with all its life giving promises, he will be insecure and rely on man’s words or "self.".
Finally, if we even use the misnomer, Septuagint or LXX, we are in a way affirming the existence of a document needed by the liberals to promote their theories of recensions, to allow them to "construct" a text more in line with their philosophies, and to assist them in rejecting the authority of a legal document, the words of God. Let us stop using the misnomer and give the text of Origen, principally Codex B another name, the Greek Text of Origen, the GTO.
The Scripture establishes some harsh warnings about the sanctity of the LORD’s words in many ways and in many verses. For example, the LORD says near the beginning of the Scripture:
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. [Deut. 4:2]
And near the middle of the 66 books of the Bible, he says:
"Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." [Proverbs 30:5-6]
And he repeats the following well known admonition at the end of the Bible:
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. [Rev. 22:18-19]
Your intention apparently is to reject outright everything I have to say. I rest my case.
Oh, and re: "insult masquerading as an observatiobn" - no, if I wanted to insult you (which I don't) it would have been very clearly stated as an insult. I don't play games like that. Wonder why you would think that way?
What your link means to say is that Greek fragments of the Hebrew scriptures were found at Qumran, but these date to 132-135 AD.
The only books that had probably been translated into Greek with any seriousness were the 5 books of the Law. Those 5 are what Josephus refers to as the "Septuagint".
Do the fragments of the Greek Old Testament that came from the Dead Sea Scrolls match Origen's 5th Column of his Hexapla which he labels the LXX [Septuagint]. If not, then which is going to be called the LXX.
So you have Josephus's Septuagint, then Origen's Septuagint, then Vaticanus B's Septuagint, Alexandrinus A's Septuagint, .... every Greek fragment from the Hebrew OT is a called a Septuagint.
The Septuagint was supposed to be a specific authoritatively accurate translation that matched the Hebrew Text, but even Jerome could not find a Greek match for the Hebrew text in his day and he had access to Origen's library.
"That was one Protestant argument which was shot to hell when the Dead Sea scrolls unearthed HEBREW versions of all but one book of the Deuterocanonicals."
I wasn't really making a Protestant argument, or trying to argue.
There were indeed Dead Sea Scrolls, from the Essenes, which were Hebrew versions of the Deuterocanonicals. In the case of the books of the Maccabees, those were probably a case of retrotranslation of the Greek into Hebrew.
And this doesn't matter. The originals of several of the Deuterocanonicals were inspired by God to Greek speakers. There is nothing "holy" about Hebrew, or Greek or English for that matter. A Jewish scripture isn't "holier" because it was written in Greek as opposed to Hebrew. Nobody spoke Hebrew by the time of the Maccabbees for God to be there inspiring them in Hebrew. What gives a writing authority or not is whether or not it was inspired by God, not the language it was inspired in. God has inspired Church Councils and saints over the years, and he has done so in many, many languages. Hebrew isn't holy. It's old.
The Jews of the Hellenistic and Roman period didn't see it that way. They saw their culture itself as being holy and "Chosen". This was the problem of the Pharisees - not simply that some of them were hypocrites; they WEREN'T all hypocrites.
Consider Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisee, before his conversion. He hated Christians and pursued them up and down the Levant, but there is no indication that he was a hypocrite. He really BELIEVED Christians were b;lasphemers worshipping a false god, and therefore believed that Christians deserved to die the death prescribed by the Bible for blasphemers. He was WRONG, but he was no hypocrite. Other Pharisees' (and Sadduccees', and Essenes') problem wasn't just that they hated the Christian "blasphemy". It was that they worshipped Jewish CULTURE ITSELF as being holy, chosen and divine. Thus, anything that wasn't JEWISH, specifically, anything tainted with the Goy, was bad, wrong, infected with evil. Thus the Essenes desire to translate even later works, from ages when nobody actually spoke Hebrew, into Hebrew: Hebrew, according to them, was the language of holiness and racial purity.
There certainly ARE Hebrew texts of the Deuterocanonica, but they are probably translations of original Greek texts. To a Christian, that the texts were in Greek originally, as opposed to Hebrew, matters not a jot. Hebrew is not holy. But to the JEWS, their CULTURE ITSELF, including its ancient (and dead) language WAS holy. That was THEIR pretention. They lived according to that prejudice and translated texts INTO Hebrew, because foreign was BAD, while Hebrew was good.
Naturally, the whole attitude of the ancient Jews concerning the holiness of Hebrew is simply bigoted stupidity, and we need not argue against it or for it.
The Protestant issue was a bit different. THEIR pretention was what was seen above in the posts immediately preceding yours: that Catholic traditions are, by the fact that they are traditions, evil. After all, didn't Jesus condemn traditions as the works of men?
No, Jesus did not condemn traditions. He condemned the JEWISH tradition of elevating JEWISH tradition over HIS OWN authority, as Son of God. And he condemned his Jewish adversaries for asserting their traditions AS the law of God when they were not.
The key example of that was the law of divorce, which the Torah allows, but which Jesus said was a Jewish tradition contrary to the law of God. Note that by saying this, Jesus says that portions of the Bible itself are not inspired by God, but are Jewish traditions!
This is not a condemnation of traditions in general. It's explicitly directed at something that the Jewish authorities and scribes were doing at his time.
Protestants extend this accusation to apply to Catholic tradition in all aspects where Catholic tradition differs from Protestant tradition. Protestants, of course, would deny that their method of interpreting the Bible IS tradition, but of course it is.
Really, what this is about is people wanting to fight with each other, and it's not very edifying.
The language of the original texts is not very relavent considering we read it all in English. I am generally willing, in discussing Christianity with Evangelical Protestants, to use the King James Version of 1611, because the language of the translation is alright. The Protestant fathers of that age did not purposely mistranslate anything.
If using anything other than the KJV presents a stumbling block to Protestant-Catholic dialogue, the original KJV is fine (note that the original KJV contains the Deuterocanonica.
And for that matter, because the Deuterocanonica don't contain much (the matter in 2 Maccabbees excepted) that is really contested between Catholics and Protestants, there isn't a whole lot of reason to contend over these books.
If we just drill straight into Biblical substance that Protestants recognize, Catholicism still emerges as the religion of God, that is unless one takes the crucial step of Protestant religion and asserts that PAUL is the final authority in any conflict between biblical texts.
You misunderstand Catholic tradition, which includes the Bible you cite.
It is not tough to pin-point the "Actual position of the Catholic Church". If you would like to know what it is, ask directly and I will answer directly.
Bump for later reading
Have a look
*If that was my intent I would not have taken the time to respond and provide reasons for my response.
I rest my case
* requiescat in pace
You misunderstand the Bible. No man can serve two masters, for he will hate the one and love the other. No man can serve Scripture and Catholic Tradition.
Amen
If by service you mean what I think Jesus meant when he said that, I, as a Catholic convert, don't want to serve either.
Sorry, just the facts being stated here, regardless of how inconvenient they might be for some, so save the baseless accusations.
The New Testament quotations of the Septuagint clearly prove that it was in use with the Jewish community prior to the Council of Jamnia. That's where the changes were made, reducing their accuracy as was already stated.
Be careful - both of you - to not pick at the scab. Stay with the issues, do not make it personal.
Not even if they agree? That makes no sense at all.
By the way, what did all those Christians follow prior to the Gutenberg Bible?
Impossible. The Qumran site was destroyed in 68 A.D., so they had to date to a time before that event.
The only books that had probably been translated into Greek with any seriousness were the 5 books of the Law.
That is only speculation on your part.
Do the fragments of the Greek Old Testament that came from the Dead Sea Scrolls match Origen's 5th Column of his Hexapla which he labels the LXX [Septuagint].
Yes.
So you have Josephus's Septuagint, then Origen's Septuagint, then Vaticanus B's Septuagint, Alexandrinus A's Septuagint, .... every Greek fragment from the Hebrew OT is a called a Septuagint.
The Septuagint was a translation of the Hebrew texts into Greek so that non-Hebrew speaking Jews would have scriptures they could read. The texts you mention above aren't each a separate translation called a Septuagint. They are copies of the Septuagint.
The Septuagint was supposed to be a specific authoritatively accurate translation that matched the Hebrew Text, but even Jerome could not find a Greek match for the Hebrew text in his day and he had access to Origen's library.
The reason the Greek didn't match the Hebrew "in his day" is that the Hebrew was a much later copy. The Greek of the Septuagint was a much earlier version than the Hebrew texts available.
You would be surprised, but it DOES contain the deuterocanonical books in the FULL KJV edition.
You can get KJV "Apocrypha" here I have a copy, translated straight from Septuagint.
I'll print it out first and give it to my parrot :-)
See 14.
In absolute terms, yes. Within the context of Christian theology, the distinction remains. I'm not a theologian, but it seems that distincinction would be important in a debate over "The Character of God's Words", in terms of determining what can properly be considered "God's Words".
Everybody knows they had it in their Treos or Ipods.
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