Switchbacks Viewed from Zion's Great Arch: Homer Jones Collection
Posted on 02/22/2010 9:47:13 PM PST by restornu
Since ancient scribes were so totally accurate in their work, how could any mistakes ever enter into the Bible?
There is a myth among some circles that ancient scribes were so incredibly cautious, making sure that every letter was perfectly copied, that they never produced any mistakes when copying the manuscripts, and thus all ancient manuscripts agree with each other.
This is entirely bogus - a deceptive lie or statement of shear stupidity. The great Hebrew scholar,
Emmanuel Tov, for example, has discussed numerous scribal problems in Hebrew manuscripts.
In a 1994 lecture entitled "The Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls," Dr. Tov explains what we learned about ancient scribes and Hebrew manuscripts with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls:
Let me explain the importance of having discovered these documents from a very early period relating to the Hebrew Bible.
Before these discoveries were made in 1947, the earliest sources for the Hebrew Bible were the texts found in the Cairo Geniza.
The Geniza is a storeroom in which discarded writings considered to be holy or that contained the name of God were placed [when they were worn out].
The earliest of these document are from the eighth century of the Common Era [A.D.].
Until 1947 we had no ancient records in Hebrew of the Hebrew Bible.
You might say we had no really good evidence of what the Hebrew Bible looked like, until the discoveries of Qumran.
It turns out that our knowledge was rather good, but we had no evidence in our hands.
So, the first time that we were able to see what an ancient Hebrew Bible looked like was after these documents were found near the Dead Sea.
We now know what is meant by a copy of the Hebrew Bible from early periods.
We now know that the text was written in a scroll, and when we say scroll, we really mean something which was rolled.
We mean that these were sheets of leather sewn to each other or glued to each other, on each of which you could have a number of columns of writing.
Each column is what we would probably call a page, and so normally you'd have three or four columns on each sheet, with a fixed number of lines.
We now see what the text looked like.
We see that there are scribes who wrote well, and we see that there are scribes who were rather sloppy.
One of the scribes was a terrible scribe, the scribe who wrote the Isaiah scroll.
When I say terrible, I mean terrible.
This is a scribe who made a mistake in every second, third, or fourth -- well, let's say every fifth word.
Already the second word of that scroll has a mistake.
It starts with the vision of Isaiah, and in that word Yisha'yahu the third letter, the 'ayin, he simply forgot, because this is a guttural letter, which he (like I) did not pronounce, so he just wrote yod shin yod hay vav and then afterwards when he realized what he did, he, or a reader, put the 'ayin above the line.
Mistakes in guttural letters in that scroll abound. Words are omitted.
Words are added.
Words are added in the margin.
This is sloppy handwriting.
We simply must remember that this is a human scribe of blood and flesh who wrote this scroll and hence produced a product which, in his case, was not a good product.
(Emmanuel Tov, "The Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls," Seventh Annual F.A.R.M.S. Lecture, Feb. 20, 1994, Document TOV-94, Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1994, pp. 6-7; see also Emmanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd edition, Fortress Press, 2001)
It's not just that some scribes were sloppy.
They were condemned as a class by the Lord for their unrighteousness ("Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" in Matt. 23:39).
Evidence supports the idea that changes were deliberately made due to their religious bias.
Some early Christians reported that Hebrew scriptures had been changed to take out some clear prophecies of Christ, which was an entirely logical but corrupt response from those who kept the manuscripts and hated Christianity.
One thing is clear: there are numerous variants between the different ancient texts, both in Greek and Hebrew.
While the manuscripts agree with each other in many ways, there are thousands of differences due to the vagaries of human activity.
Scribes were imperfect.
They were not infallible.
Their products cannot possibly be considered infallible, perfect and complete.
One can ignore the abundant evidence, but it's time to recognize that only God is the final and perfect authority, and that's why we need continuing revelation from his authorized prophets and apostles.
The Bible is scripture and needs to be studied with faith, but also with a recognition that it is a book printed by humans, translated by humans, copied by humans, and even originally written by inspired humans, none of whom were infallible. Mistakes happen. Errors creep in.
Translations create unintended meanings. This is mortality, and these kind of things happen.
Thank goodness there is a mechanism to overcome these problems when it's critical, and that mechanism is continuing revelation, which was meant to be an integral part of the Church of Jesus Christ from the beginning, and which has been restored in our day.
The scholars who put the KJ together had the decency, in cases in which they did not understand something, to leave the language the way they found it so as to retain the possibility that somebody 300 years later might could figure it out. This is why I have no use for yuppie Bibles and prefer the KJ.
Brilliant
***crickets***
Source lds don’t need n stink’n source. Just need a top hat and a purty stone.
GMTA....
Sorry no need to answer. I should have looked at the link first - how deceptive of you rusty. No wonder this is not an open thread.
Sorry, I wasn’t even commenting on the article, just on that particular post. The LDS’ raison d’etre is not that some words were incorrect — is it? Because the LDS has new books like the Book of Mormon added to the Bible.
Switchbacks Viewed from Zion's Great Arch: Homer Jones Collection
The article says what it says. Your corrections/edits also stand on their own merit as replies.
The article is antagonistic, but more leeway is granted to the article than to the reply posts. For instance, a passage from the Bible which is unkind towards Jewish beliefs may be the basis of an "ecumenical" discussion - but the replies must not be antagonistic.
If you wish to have a "town square" format debate on the issues raised by the article, then find a similar article and post it that way.
If you wish to complain about the RF guidelines, i.e. that an antagonistic article can be posted as "ecumenical" to avoid criticism, then create an "open" RF thread for that purpose.
If you wish to direct those on your side of the debate away from a thread like this, then come up with a non-antagonistic redirect and ping your FRiends, e.g. "I wholly disagree with the article and cannot reply without it being taken as antagonistic, therefore let's reconvene on an open thread and show the other side of the story."
See #73 in reply to your remark on the other thread.
Thank you for the clarification
Uhm, okay?
LOL
I wholly disagree with the article and cannot reply without it being taken as antagonistic, therefore let’s reconvene on an open thread and show the other side of the story.”
the article refers to one source’s opinions regarding the DSS and the records of the Hebrew OT writings. Yet what is is not posted is that the scroll of Isaiah is virtually identical to the previous oldest copy that was 1000 years younger.
The article on the face suggests that scholars are unable to reconcile these older versions with more recent ms. That has since 1999 been found to be untrue, now that broader dissemation and access to the scrolls has been made available.
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