Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Andre Desnitsky <bsruss AT dol.ru>]

Dear Peter, 

If I try to express the view that I find adequate to the Eastern
Orthodox Christian tradition I will have to turn to the divine and
hunan aspects of the Bible. As we believe that Christ is a perfect
God and a perfect human we can give the same answer to the question
whose word the Bible is. That means you can't divide the two natures
of the Bible simply as you can't divide the two natures in Christ.
If you have two contradictory records of the same event, e.g.. in
Samuel-Kings and in Chronicles, which one is inspired and which one
is not? The both are, but the both are completely human as well
bearing clear features of the human nature with its limited
capacities.

I believe the same is true for the different versions of the Bible.
If we take the MT as the textual basis for the translation (as I do
myself) we do it rather for practical reasons but not because that
Isaiah A from the 1st Qumran cave is more or less inspired than
Isaiah B.

I will be absent from my home April 24 to May 4. You can send me a
letter any time but I will receive it only when I am back.

Andre Desnitsky, Ph.D.
Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Bible Society in Russia.