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  • From: Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: The OT?
  • Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 11:26:04 -0400


At 12:24 PM 8/24/02 -0400, you wrote:
Ms. Fried says: "The first thing I do with my students is to teach
them the difference between the OT and the HB.
I tell them the OT is the LXX!
(Not one of them has ever argued with me about it!) :)"
The way you define the Old Testament is close to true (but not quite) for
Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians, but is definitely not
true for Protestant Christians. The LXX includes the Apocrypha, which
Protestants reject from being part of their Old Testament. Moreover,
virtually all modern translations of the Old Testament by Christians of
whatever stripe are based first and foremost on the Masoretic Text of the
Hebrew Bible, not the LXX. Though the latter is regularly utilized for
text-critical purposes, the Hebrew Bible is the main text.


I am not sure that Liz meant that seriously. (I sort of doubt it.) However the issue of what terms to use in discussion is important. It is like the BCE/BC discussion. I think her point was that in a University setting, where 'scholarship' is supposed to be going on using OT, when refering to the Hebrew text,is not accurate. Words like Tenach/OT have more of a religious context, and are non-neutral. On the other hand when in a Jewish context to refer to the 'OT' is not just insulting, but in a sense meaningless.

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