Accepted - I was composing my reply by the time you posted this.
What I meant to say was that the LXX translation was, based on the evidence we have from the Dead Sea Scrolls based on a Hebrew translation.
I believe that to be an overly broad declaration, considering the paucity of evidence within the DSS. That fragmentary Tobit was present, and Sirach, and Baruch 6, and Ps 115, is not an endorsement of Maccabees, as an instance. And further, one MUST remain suspicious of WHY they were included - not only are they under-represented in comparison to Books we both endorse, but they remain grossly antithetical to Hebrew thought: For instance, Tobit is such an affront to Torah that it cannot possibly be Scripture.
The Masoretic text is consistent with the Dead Sea Scrolls as well.
Forgive me FRiend, but that is such an incredible understatement.
What I should have said, as the article I linked in another thread shows, is that the differences between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text are due to variant translations found in Hebrew, which shows that there were textual differences in Hebrew Translations.
Of course there were, but they are comparatively few, providing that we are consistent in what we call Hebrew. I do not accept the Hellenists as Hebraic scholars.
In summary, both the LXX and Masoretic text are consistent with the Hebrew Translations in the Dead Sea Scrolls. So my point is more that the LXX was in fact a relatively straight forward translation of “Hebrew version of the OT” is supported by the findings at Qumran.
Again, the paucity of LLX within the body of DSS is not worthy of such a statement. I will give you 'indicative', but little more. By and large, DSS supports the Masoretic text.
roamer_1”
The Greek Jews were Jewish Scholars, they just were a different sect of Jews than the ones from which the MT comes from. The DSS supports the notion that the Greek Jewish Scholars, who new Hebrew, had a Hebrew source from which the LXX was translated from. This is likely a difference source tradition from which the MT comes from. And where there are differences in the MT and DSS, it is not due to the Greek, it further shows a divergent number of Hebrew Textual traditions.
Well we disagree on the paucity of evidence of the Deuterocanonicals. The fact that there were indeed Hebrew translations in the DSS, which reflects a different source tradition than the one the LXX comes from, still shows there were Hebrew versions Tobit, Sirach and Baruch. For a long time, the arguments from the 16th century till the findings at Qumran in 1947 from the Protestant side was there were in fact no Hebrew translations of those books. This was made even though Origen and Saint Jerome indicate that Judith and 1 Macabees were found in the Hebrew.
Taken collectively, the empirical evidence we have regarding Tobit, Sirach and Baruch and the works of Origen and Saint Jerome provide support for the fact that 5 of the 7 Deuterocanonicals do in fact have Hebrew versions.
And just to further clarify, since the MS is from the 9th and 10the century, and we have LXX fragments dating to 150AD and versions found in the Codices, we [Catholics and Orthodox] can see a textual tradition working back from say Codex Vaticanus, to say 2nd century Fragments of the LXX [150 AD is the oldest, i.e. Deut 23-28] to the Hebrew versions of say Tobit, Baruch and Sirach provides evidence of an accurate source tradition back to Hebrew [DSS] then to LXX Greek to 2nd century Greek [Fragment of Deut in London] to 4th century Greek found in the great Codices [e.g. Vaticanus, Alexandrius, Sinaiticus, etc]