Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Dear "Debtor",

Let me make a few comments below marked with "PK"

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Debtor on Isa. 7:14 and the Hebrew Texts
Author:  <shella AT cswnet.com> at Internet
Date:    27/10/1999 12:12


Dear Brothers and Sisters and both newer and older friends, thank you for 
all your help in the Textual issues I have been discussing. Let me try to 
sum up some points so far:

1.  The ancient Hebrew Text finalized by the members of the Great Assembly 
under Ezra, did in fact become translated into the Greek text known as the 
LXX. ...

PK: Do you have any evidence for this, or is this simply a part of your 
faith?

.. This translation began with the Pentateuch and later continued with the 
other different Hebrew books as they became validated by the Hebrews in and 
around Jerusalem and then sent to Alexandria.  The complete LXX does seem 
to have existed by about the year 135 B C.

2.  The ancient Hebrew Text of the Great Assembly is the basis for this LXX 
and then later also the Text of the Sopherim.

3. However, when the M T began its development in the second cebtury A D, 
the Historic older Hebrew Canon no longer existed, and the Masoretes used 
some Hebrew Texts from the ancient Hebrew, and the LXX and also the Text of 
the Sopherim.  The M T is therefore an eclectic Text rather than a copy of 
the ancient Hebrew finalized by the Great Assembly under Ezra.

PK: This is inconsistent with your identification below of the DSS Isaiah 
with the Text of the Sopherim. For that shows that the MT of Isaiah at least 
is not so much eclectic as a faithful copy of the Text of the Sopherim. If 
what you say is correct, you would expect to find LXX readings in MT of 
Isaiah which are not found in DSS Isaiah. I have never heard this one 
suggested. Can you give any examples? Or any other evidence for your 
assertion here?

4. The Jewish Encyclopedia does in fact show that the Masoretes did correct 
the Hebrew text, in their opinion, which simply shows that they altered the 
Text for their accommodations.  While the Masoretes did deny doing this, the 
Jewish Encyclopedia offers evidence to show that the Masoretes claim is 
false and misleading.  They did alter and change the Hebrew Texts in certain 
places.

PK: Can you, or anyone else on the list, further explain this claim? 
Is the claim of consonantal changes, or simply of vowel changes, Qere 
readings etc?

5. The DSS produce one of the oldest known texts of Isaiah. The DSS Isaiah 
is almost the same as the MT Isaiah.  This is used to support against my 
contention that the M T translators did alter the original Hebrew.  However, 
does it? Please not that the DSS Isaiah must first be proven to be a 
faithful copy from The Text adopted by the Members of the Great Assembly 
under Ezra.  Has this been done? ...

PK: I don't think this can be proved. But it cannot be proved for the LXX 
either, and there are good reasons for arguing that the MT and the DSS 
Isaiah are more ancient and reliable than the LXX. Anyway, the claim I am 
making is not so much that there are no alterations in the MT but rather 
that any alterations must have been made before the Christian era.

..I suggest it is possible that the DSS Isaiah is simply one of the several 
copies which fall under the classification of the Text of the Sopherim, and 
not from the original Hebrew.

PK: I have no quarrel with this. I would not claim that the DSS Isaiah 
is a direct copy of the "original", but that does not mean that I 
accept significant differences. Anyway, in no.2 above you say that the 
Text of the Sopherim is based on the Text of the Great Assembly. Now 
are you saying that DSS Isaiah (and the Text of the Sopherim) is close 
to the Text of the Great Assembly, or are you saying that it has been 
deliberately altered in reaction to Christian teaching?

6. During the growth of Mishnaic Hebrew, following the canonization of the 
Text of the Great Assembly, the Scribes were involved in making many, many 
different copies of the several Old Testament books.  There are bits and 
fragments of the different copies known today. I have no problem with the 
dating of the DSS Isaiah, being during the first century.  However, was it 
during the early, mid or later part of that century.  I really don't know? 
In addition was it a Scribe's copy concealed to be preserved from the Romans 
and their destruction of the Jewish state in and around AD 70?

PK: I think it is assumed that the Isaiah scroll was hidden before AD 
70, and it is also believed to be rather older than that, on 
epigraphical grounds. Does anyone know the details?

7. The DSS Isaiah could simply be one of the many Scribes' copy of the 
Mishnaic or Sopherim Text of Isaiah.  If it were made during the first 
century, following the rise of the New Religion and the controversies over 
the personal Messiah, Jesus Christ, then it would follow that the DSS Isaiah 
would follow the newer interpretations beginning as a reaction to the New 
Religion.

PK: Even if we allow that the Isaiah scroll could have been written 
just before AD 70, it seems highly unlikely that Jewish scholars would 
have already altered and widely disseminated their traditional text in 
reaction to the teaching of a new and small sect whose own teachings 
(in the New Testament) had not yet been finalised in written form. It 
is also unlikely that, if they had made major changes between AD 30 
and 70 in response to nascent Christianity, they then made almost no 
further changes during the next 900 years in response to developing 
Christianity.

8. The reaction to the New Religion and the need for a New Hebrew Text later 
known as the M T and the changes which have been made are well documented by 
both the Jewish Encyclopedia and in addition the early Christian writers 
during their debates with the Jewish writers over the claims of Jesus Christ 
being the Messiah.  One of the many points the Christian writers constantly 
made during the first two centuries was that the Jews were rewriting and 
rewording the Old Testament in order to give the Hebrew people another Old 
Testament.

PK: Do these points made by Christian writers relate to the Hebrew 
text, or to Greek and Latin versions? Which writers do you have in 
mind? References would be helpful.

9. In order to disprove my concept or theory,  the Jewish Encyclopedia will 
have to be proven wrong.  In addition, the early Christian writers will have 
to be proven wrong.  These are the writers who lived then and disputed with 
the Masoretes and others involved in building the M T.

PK: Which Christian writers were engaged in debate on the Hebrew text? 
Jerome, perhaps. Anyone else?

10. What I seem to see developing is there is no known Hebrew text of Isaiah 
which does support the virgin birth of the Messiah founded upon Isaiah
7:14.   The M T Isaiah 7:14 supports the YOUNG WOMAN concept, but not the 
Virgin only concept as the LXX and later the Greek New Testament does.

PK: Are you suggesting that the VIRGIN concept is in a lost original 
Hebrew text? I suppose this is possible, but do you have any evidence 
which is not in the category of personal faith conviction?

11. Matthew, the New Testament witness, does not quote from the old LXX nor 
from the Hebrew which we now have followed by the MT, but seems to quote an 
unknown Hebrew Text.  Yet he does agree with the older LXX in that he uses 
the term for Virgin, not young woman.

12. I do not deny that the DSS Isaiah and the M T Isaiah are nearly one in 
general and on this point in Isaiah 7:14 they would agree.  Yet what I ask 
is this, has it been proven that the DSS Isaiah is anything more than a 
Scribe's Copy of the Sopherim Text of Isaiah?  It must also be established, 
I would think, that the Sopherim Isaiah, which may be one with the DSS 
Isaiah, is a faithful copy of the Great Assembly Isaiah.  Has this been 
done?

PK: I would accept your suggestion that the DSS Isaiah is basically 
the same as the Sopherim text. But this must mean that this Sopherim 
text was already established at least by the mid first century, before 
significant influence from debates about Christianity.

In next next day or two I hope to continue with my posts on the Jewish 
Corruptions of the LXX during the post Christ era.  Then I hope to follow 
with the development of the MT and the changes in the Text from the older 
Hebrew Texts.  In addition I hope to show that the M T is only an eclectic 
text and show the different Texts which the Masoretes did use to develop it 
in their theological wars against the Christians and others under the 
Hellenistic influence of the Old Testament.

Thank you, all of you, for your many kind and valuable inputs, both pro and 
con.

Debtor.


---
You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: Peter_Kirk AT sil.org 
To unsubscribe, forward this message to 
$subst('Email.Unsub')
To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu.