Biblical Hebrew Forum

["John B. Senterfitt" <millenia05 AT earthlink.net>]

I found this article of interest from the "Libronix Digital Library System" 
and it in tern was taken from
"The Complete Guide to Bible Versions".

 
Until the middle of the twentieth century, the Masoretic manuscripts were the 
oldest ones in existence. Then in 1947 and 1948, the year Israel regained its 
national independence, there was a phenomenal discovery. A bedouin shepherd 
boy found scrolls in a cave west of the Dead Sea. These scrolls, known as the 
Dead Sea Scrolls, are dated between 100 B.C. and A.D. 100. They are nearly a 
thousand years earlier than any of the Masoretic manuscripts. The Dead Sea 
Scrolls contain significant portions of the Old Testament. Every book except 
Esther is represented. The largest portions come from the Pentateuch 
(especially Deuteronomy—twenty-five manuscripts), the major Prophets 
(especially Isaiah—eighteen manuscripts), and Psalms (twenty-seven 
manuscripts). The Dead Sea Scrolls also have portions of the ((Septuagint,)) 
the Targums (an Aramaic translation of the Old Testament), some apocryphal 
fragments, and a commentary on Habakkuk. The scribes who made these scrolls 
were members of a community of ascetic Jews who lived in Qumran from the 
third century B.C. to the first century A.D.
Even though the Dead Sea Scrolls are nearly a thousand years older than the 
Masoretic manuscripts, there are not as many significant differences between 
the two groups of manuscripts as one would expect. Normally, a thousand years 
of copying would have generated thousands of differences in wording. But this 
is not the case when one compares most of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the 
Masoretic manuscripts. This shows that Jewish scribes for over a millennium 
copied one form of the text with extreme fidelity. 
To this day, almost all Bible scholars still use the Masoretic Text of the 
Hebrew Bible as the authoritative, standard text. At the same time, they make 
use of the findings of the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as two other important 
sources: the ((Septuagint))and the Samaritan Pentateuch (i.e., the Pentateuch 
as transcribed and edited by the Samaritans).6 The Masoretic Text with 
up-to-date textual notes is published in an edition called Biblia Hebraica 
Stuttgartensia.
6 Some of the manuscripts discovered in Qumran, especially two manuscripts of 
1 Samuel, show greater affinity with the ((Septuagint)) than with Masoretic 
Text; and other manuscripts from Qumran, especially one manuscript of Exodus, 
resemble the Samaritan Pentateuch. Thus, there must have been some different 
forms of the text other than the one appearing in most of the Dead Sea 
Scrolls and then later in the Masoretic manuscripts. However, scholars still 
rely, for the most part, on the Masoretic Text and use the other sources as 
supplements.
Comfort, Philip Wesley: The Complete Guide to Bible Versions. Wheaton, Ill. : 
Living Books, 1991
John B. Senterfitt
>From awakesd AT earthlink.net  Tue Oct 17 13:26:57 2006
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Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 10:27:01 -0700
From: Mark Spitsbergen <awakesd AT earthlink.net>
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Thread-Topic: LXX, MT and the NT
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Subject: [b-hebrew] LXX, MT and the NT
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There are examples of quotations in the New Testament that depart from both
the Septuagint and the MT.  One such example is found in Acts 2:16-21
wherein the Septuagint is an excellent translation of the Hebrew, except for
perhaps the prepositional use of 'APO' to translate the partitive use of the
Hebrew 'MIN', but the New Testament takes on a uniqueness all of its own.
Without going into all of the details please allow me to say that the
variations do not amount to much. In all, when we look at these data
presented by all variants in the LXX the MT and the NT the population is
clearly less than 10%, which I am certain would be rejected as significant
by any statistical model. If we were then to define a qualitative threshold
of significance as being a word or phrase that changes God's message to man
then we would be quibbling about some fraction of a percent. I really am
scratching my head at this point as to what this lengthy "smoothing
argument" is really all about. Is this argument really in the interest of
discovering truth?

Shalom

Mark Spitsbergen