Misconceptions about the Big Bang

Baffled by the expansion of the universe? You're not alone. Even astronomers frequently get it wrong.

The expansion of the universe may be the most important fact we have ever discovered about our origins. You would not be reading this article if the universe had not expanded. Human beings would not exist. Cold molecular things such as life-forms and terrestrial planets could not have come into existence unless the universe, starting from a hot big bang, had expanded and cooled. The formation of all the structures in the universe, from galaxies and stars to planets and Scientific American articles, has depended on the expansion.

Forty years ago this July, scientists announced the discovery of definitive evidence for the expansion of the universe from a hotter, denser, primordial state. They had found the cool afterglow of the big bang: the cosmic microwave background radiation. Since this discovery, the expansion and cooling of the universe has been the unifying theme of cosmology, much as Darwinian evolution is the unifying theme of biology. Like Darwinian evolution, cosmic expansion provides the context within which simple structures form and develop over time into complex structures. Without evolution and expansion, modern biology and cosmology make little sense.

INFLATING BALLOON is a good analogy for understanding the expansion of the universe. The galaxies on the surface of the balloon are effectively at rest, and yet as the universe expands, the distance between any two galaxies increases. The galaxies themselves do not increase in size.

The expansion of the universe is like Darwinian evolution in another curious way: most scientists think they understand it, but few agree on what it really means. A century and a half after On the Origin of Species, biologists still debate the mechanisms and implications (though not the reality) of Darwinism, while much of the public still flounders in pre-Darwinian cluelessness. Similarly, 75 years after its initial discovery, the expansion of the universe is still widely misunderstood. A prominent cosmologist involved in the interpretation of the cosmic microwave background, James Peebles of Princeton University, wrote in 1993: "The full extent and richness of this picture [the hot big bang model] is not as well understood as I think it ought to be ... even among those making some of the most stimulating contributions to the flow of ideas."

Renowned physicists, authors of astronomy textbooks and prominent popularizers of science have made incorrect, misleading or easily misinterpreted statements about the expansion of the universe. Because expansion is the basis of the big bang model, these misunderstandings are fundamental. Expansion is a beguilingly simple idea, but what exactly does it mean to say the universe is expanding? What does it expand into? Is Earth expanding, too? To add to the befuddlement, the expansion of the universe now seems to be accelerating, a process with truly mind-stretching consequences.

When some familiar object expands, such as a sprained ankle or the Roman Empire or a bomb, it gets bigger by expanding into the space around it. Ankles, empires and bombs have centers and edges. Outside the edges, there is room to expand into. The universe does not seem to have an edge or a center or an outside, so how can it expand?

A good analogy is to imagine that you are an ant living on the surface of an inflating balloon. Your world is two-dimensional; the only directions you know are left, right, forward and backward. You have no idea what "up" and "down" mean. One day you realize that your walk to milk your aphids is taking longer than it used to: five minutes one day, six minutes the next day, seven minutes the next. The time it takes to walk to other familiar places is also increasing. You are sure that you are not walking more slowly and that the aphids are milling around randomly in groups, not systematically crawling away from you.

This is the important point: the distances to the aphids are increasing even though the aphids are not walking away. They are just standing there, at rest with respect to the rubber of the balloon, yet the distances to them and between them are increasing. Noticing these facts, you conclude that the ground beneath your feet is expanding. That is very strange because you have walked around your world and found no edge or "outside" for it to expand into.

The expansion of our universe is much like the inflation of a balloon. The distances to remote galaxies are increasing. Astronomers casually say that distant galaxies are "receding" or "moving away" from us, but the galaxies are not traveling through space away from us. They are not fragments of a big bang bomb. Instead the space between the galaxies and us is expanding. Individual galaxies move around at random within clusters, but the clusters of galaxies are essentially at rest. The term "at rest" can be defined rigorously. The microwave background radiation fills the universe and defines a universal reference frame, analogous to the rubber of the balloon, with respect to which motion can be measured.

This balloon analogy should not be stretched too far. From our point of view outside the balloon, the expansion of the curved two-dimensional rubber is possible only because it is embedded in three-dimensional space. Within the third dimension, the balloon has a center, and its surface expands into the surrounding air as it inflates. One might conclude that the expansion of our three-dimensional space requires the presence of a fourth dimension. But in Einstein's general theory of relativity, the foundation of modern cosmology, space is dynamic. It can expand, shrink and curve without being embedded in a higher-dimensional space.

n this sense, the universe is self-contained. It needs neither a center to expand away from nor empty space on the outside (wherever that is) to expand into. When it expands, it does not claim previously unoccupied space from its surroundings. Some newer theories such as string theory do postulate extra dimensions, but as our three-dimensional universe expands, it does not need these extra dimensions to spread into.

In our universe, as on the surface of the balloon, everything recedes from everything else. Thus, the big bang was not an explosion in space; it was more like an explosion of space. It did not go off at a particular location and spread out from there into some imagined preexisting void. It occurred everywhere at once.

If one imagines running the clock backward in time, any given region of the universe shrinks and all galaxies in it get closer and closer until they smash together in a cosmic traffic jam--the big bang. This traffic-jam analogy might imply local congestion that you could avoid if you listened to the traffic report on the radio. But the big bang was an unavoidable traffic jam. It was like having the surface of Earth and all its highways shrink while cars remained the same size. Eventually the cars will be bumper to bumper on every road. No radio broadcast is going to help you around that kind of traffic jam. The congestion is everywhere.

Similarly, the big bang happened everywhere--in the room in which you are reading this article, in a spot just to the left of Alpha Centauri, everywhere. It was not a bomb going off at a particular spot that we can identify as the center of the explosion. Likewise, in the balloon analogy, there is no special place on the surface of the balloon that is the center of the expansion.

This ubiquity of the big bang holds no matter how big the universe is or even whether it is finite or infinite in size. Cosmologists sometimes state that the universe used to be the size of a grapefruit, but what they mean is that the part of the universe we can now see--our observable universe--used to be the size of a grapefruit.

Observers living in the Andromeda galaxy and beyond have their own observable universes that are different from but overlap with ours. Andromedans can see galaxies we cannot, simply by virtue of being slightly closer to them, and vice versa. Their observable universe also used to be the size of a grapefruit. Thus, we can conceive of the early universe as a pile of overlapping grapefruits that stretches infinitely in all directions. Correspondingly, the idea that the big bang was "small" is misleading. The totality of space could be infinite. Shrink an infinite space by an arbitrary amount, and it is still infinite.

Another set of misconceptions involves the quantitative description of expansion. The rate at which the distance between galaxies increases follows a distinctive pattern discovered by American astronomer Edwin Hubble in 1929: the recession velocity of a galaxy away from us (v) is directly proportional to its distance from us (d), or v = Hd. The proportionality constant, H, is known as the Hubble constant and quantifies how fast space is stretching--not just around us but around any observer in the universe.

Some people get confused by the fact that some galaxies do not obey Hubble's law. Andromeda, our nearest large galactic neighbor, is actually moving toward us, not away. Such exceptions arise because Hubble's law describes only the average behavior of galaxies. Galaxies can also have modest local motions as they mill around and gravitationally pull on one another--as the Milky Way and Andromeda are doing. Distant galaxies also have small local velocities, but from our perspective (at large values of d) these random velocities are swamped by large recession velocities (v). Thus, for those galaxies, Hubble's law holds with good precision.

Notice that, according to Hubble's law, the universe does not expand at a single speed. Some galaxies recede from us at 1,000 kilometers per second, others (those twice as distant) at 2,000 km/s, and so on. In fact, Hubble's law predicts that galaxies beyond a certain distance, known as the Hubble distance, recede faster than the speed of light. For the measured value of the Hubble constant, this distance is about 14 billion light-years.

Does this prediction of faster-than-light galaxies mean that Hubble's law is wrong? Doesn't Einstein's special theory of relativity say that nothing can have a velocity exceeding that of light? This question has confused generations of students. The solution is that special relativity applies only to "normal" velocities--motion through space. The velocity in Hubble's law is a recession velocity caused by the expansion of space, not a motion through space. It is a general relativistic effect and is not bound by the special relativistic limit. Having a recession velocity greater than the speed of light does not violate special relativity. It is still true that nothing ever overtakes a light beam.

The primary observation that the universe is expanding emerged between 1910 and 1930. Atoms emit and absorb light of specific wavelengths, as measured in laboratory experiments. The same patterns show up in the light from distant galaxies, except that the patterns have been shifted to longer wavelengths. Astronomers say that the galactic light has been redshifted. The explanation is straightforward: As space expands, light waves get stretched. If the universe doubles in size during the waves' journey, their wavelengths double and their energy is halved.

This process can be described in terms of temperature. The photons emitted by a body collectively have a temperature--a certain distribution of energy that reflects how hot the body is. As the photons travel through expanding space, they lose energy and their temperature decreases. In this way, the universe cools as it expands, much as compressed air in a scuba tank cools when it is released and allowed to expand. For example, the microwave background radiation currently has a temperature of about three kelvins, whereas the process that released the radiation occurred at a temperature of about 3,000 kelvins. Since the time of the emission of this radiation, the universe has increased in size by a factor of 1,000, so the temperature of the photons has decreased by the same factor. By observing the gas in distant galaxies, astronomers have directly measured the temperature of the radiation in the distant past. These measurements confirm that the universe has been cooling with time.

Misunderstandings about the relation between redshift and velocity abound. The redshift caused by the expansion is often confused with the more familiar redshift generated by the Doppler effect. The normal Doppler effect causes sound waves to get longer if the source of the sound is moving away--for example, a receding ambulance siren. The same principle also applies to light waves, which get longer if the source of the light is moving through space away from us.

This is similar, but not identical, to what happens to the light from distant galaxies. The cosmological redshift is not a normal Doppler shift. Astronomers frequently refer to it as such, and in doing so they have done their students a serious disservice. The Doppler redshift and the cosmological redshift are governed by two distinct formulas. The first comes from special relativity, which does not take into account the expansion of space, and the second comes from general relativity, which does. The two formulas are nearly the same for nearby galaxies but diverge for distant galaxies.

According to the usual Doppler formula, objects whose velocity through space approaches light speed have redshifts that approach infinity. Their wavelengths become too long to observe. If that were true for galaxies, the most distant visible objects in the sky would be receding at velocities just shy of the speed of light. But the cosmological redshift formula leads to a different conclusion. In the current standard model of cosmology, galaxies with a redshift of about 1.5--that is, whose light has a wavelength 150 percent longer than the laboratory reference value--are receding at the speed of light. Astronomers have observed about 1,000 galaxies with redshifts larger than 1.5. That is, they have observed about 1,000 objects receding from us faster than the speed of light. Equivalently, we are receding from those galaxies faster than the speed of light. The radiation of the cosmic microwave background has traveled even farther and has a redshift of about 1,000. When the hot plasma of the early universe emitted the radiation we now see, it was receding from our location at about 50 times the speed of light.

The idea of seeing faster-than-light galaxies may sound mystical, but it is made possible by changes in the expansion rate. Imagine a light beam that is farther than the Hubble distance of 14 billion light-years and trying to travel in our direction. It is moving toward us at the speed of light with respect to its local space, but its local space is receding from us faster than the speed of light. Although the light beam is traveling toward us at the maximum speed possible, it cannot keep up with the stretching of space. It is a bit like a child trying to run the wrong way on a moving sidewalk. Photons at the Hubble distance are like the Red Queen and Alice, running as fast as they can just to stay in the same place.

One might conclude that the light beyond the Hubble distance would never reach us and that its source would be forever undetectable. But the Hubble distance is not fixed, because the Hubble constant, on which it depends, changes with time. In particular, the constant is proportional to the rate of increase in the distance between two galaxies, divided by that distance. (Any two galaxies can be used for this calculation.) In models of the universe that fit the observational data, the denominator increases faster than the numerator, so the Hubble constant decreases. In this way, the Hubble distance gets larger. As it does, light that was initially just outside the Hubble distance and receding from us can come within the Hubble distance. The photons then find themselves in a region of space that is receding slower than the speed of light. Thereafter they can approach us.

The galaxy they came from, though, may continue to recede superluminally. Thus, we can observe light from galaxies that have always been and will always be receding faster than the speed of light. Another way to put it is that the Hubble distance is not fixed and does not mark the edge of the observable universe.

What does mark the edge of observable space? Here again there has been confusion. If space were not expanding, the most distant object we could see would now be about 14 billion light-years away from us, the distance light could have traveled in the 14 billion years since the big bang. But because the universe is expanding, the space traversed by a photon expands behind it during the voyage. Consequently, the current distance to the most distant object we can see is about three times farther, or 46 billion light-years.

The recent discovery that the rate of cosmic expansion is accelerating makes things even more interesting. Previously, cosmologists thought that we lived in a decelerating universe and that ever more galaxies would come into view. In an accelerating universe, however, we are surrounded by a boundary beyond which occur events we will never see--a cosmic event horizon. If light from galaxies receding faster than light is to reach us, the Hubble distance has to increase, but in an accelerating universe, it stops increasing. Distant events may send out light beams aimed in our direction, but this light is trapped beyond the Hubble distance by the acceleration of the expansion.

An accelerating universe, then, resembles a black hole in that it has an event horizon, an edge beyond which we cannot see. The current distance to our cosmic event horizon is 16 billion light-years, well within our observable range. Light emitted from galaxies that are now beyond the event horizon will never be able to reach us; the distance that currently corresponds to 16 billion light-years will expand too quickly. We will still be able to see events that took place in those galaxies before they crossed the horizon, but subsequent events will be forever beyond our view.

In Annie Hall, the movie character played by the young Woody Allen explains to his doctor and mother why he can't do his homework. "The universe is expanding.… The universe is everything, and if it's expanding, someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything!" But his mother knows better: "You're here in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not expanding!"

His mother is right. Brooklyn is not expanding. People often assume that as space expands, everything in it expands as well. But this is not true. Expansion by itself--that is, a coasting expansion neither accelerating nor decelerating--produces no force. Photon wavelengths expand with the universe because, unlike atoms and cities, photons are not coherent objects whose size has been set by a compromise among forces. A changing rate of expansion does add a new force to the mix, but even this new force does not make objects expand or contract.

For example, if gravity got stronger, your spinal cord would compress until the electrons in your vertebrae reached a new equilibrium slightly closer together. You would be a shorter person, but you would not continue to shrink. In the same way, if we lived in a universe dominated by the attractive force of gravity, as most cosmologists thought until a few years ago, the expansion would decelerate, putting a gentle squeeze on bodies in the universe, making them reach a smaller equilibrium size. Having done so, they would not keep shrinking.

In fact, in our universe the expansion is accelerating, and that exerts a gentle outward force on bodies. Consequently, bound objects are slightly larger than they would be in a nonaccelerating universe, because the equilibrium among forces is reached at a slightly larger size. At Earth's surface, the outward acceleration away from the planet's center equals a tiny fraction (10^–30) of the normal inward gravitational acceleration. If this acceleration is constant, it does not make Earth expand; rather the planet simply settles into a static equilibrium size slightly larger than the size it would have attained.

This reasoning changes if acceleration is not constant, as some cosmologists have speculated. If the acceleration itself increased, it could eventually grow strong enough to tear apart all structures, leading to a "big rip." But this rip would occur not because of expansion or acceleration per se but because of an accelerating acceleration.

The big bang model is based on observations of expansion, the cosmic microwave background, the chemical composition of the universe and the clumping of matter. Like all scientific ideas, the model may one day be superseded. But it fits the current data better than any other model we have. As new precise measurements enable cosmologists to understand expansion and acceleration better, they can ask even more fundamental questions about the earliest times and largest scales of the universe. What caused the expansion? Many cosmologists attribute it to a process known as inflation, a type of accelerating expansion. But that can only be a partial answer, because it seems that to start inflating, the universe already had to be expanding. And what about the largest scales, beyond what we can see? Do different parts of the universe expand by different amounts, such that our universe is a single inflationary bubble of a much larger multiverse? Nobody knows. Although many questions remain, increasingly precise observations suggest that the universe will expand forever. We hope, though, the confusion about the expansion will shrink.

"It really doesn't confirm anything, except Jesus used whatever he could that the people were familiar with, could understand and would serve to teach. There are errors in the Septuagint and that is all there is to it. Perhaps there were no errors in the specific parts he quoted." ~ Shubi

For years it had been thought that the Bible which Christ used was the Greek Septuagint (also known as the LXX). The common thought was that the Jews at the time of Christ had all but lost their use of Hebrew.

Since the international language of that day was Greek, the hypothesis was that Christ did not use the Hebrew scriptures, but read from the Greek LXX.

However, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls it has been established that the Jews did not lose there use of Hebrew. In fact, most of their writings (both sacred and otherwise) were written in Hebrew.

Alan Millard has written the following about the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) and their relation to ancient languages. "Aramaic, Greek, Latin... was Hebrew spoken too? For years scholars believed not, or that it was restricted to religious circles, synagogue readings and prayers, and the Temple. Counting in favor of a wider knowledge is the presence of Hebrew inscriptions on the other side of Hasmonean coins. That might mean no more than Latin legends on coins of recent times--a grand style which the educated could understand.

However, recent discoveries have thrown new light on the question. Books in a style of Hebrew imitating the Old Testament yet distinct from it, and some in Hebrew more like that of the Mishnah make up a larger section of the Dead Sea Scrolls" (Discoveries From the Time of Jesus, Lion Pub., Oxford; p. 35. Professor Millard has served with the British Museum in the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities and is Rankin Reader in Hebrew and Ancient Semitic languages at the University of Liverpool).

WHICH OLD TESTAMENT DID JESUS READ...THE JEWISH ONE OR THE ONE WE HAVE TODAY AS CHRISTIANS WHICH CAME FROM THE GREEK?

This discovery confirms what we find in the Gospels concerning the Hebrew Old Testament used by Jesus. In Matthew, Jesus proclaims; "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Matt. 5:18).

It is interesting that he used the words "jot" and "tittle." In the Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Dr. Homer Kent of Grace Theological Seminary writes, "Jot. Smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet (yodh). Tittle. Tiny projection on certain Hebrew letters." (p.937).

The smallest part of the letters Jesus used to describe the fact that the law would not pass until all was fulfilled, were Hebrew. This would be odd if Jesus were reading from a Greek Old Testament.

Further, Jesus says in Luke 11:51; "From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.".

This statement attests that Jesus used the Hebrew canon of scripture and not the Greek translation which was available in his day. The order of books found in our Old Testament run from Genesis to Malachi.

The Greek LXX has the same order but adds additional books (the Apocrypha).

The Hebrew canon, while containing the same books as our Old Testament, places the order of the books differently.

The Hebrew Bible runs from Genesis to 2 Chronicles with the minor prophets in the middle and not the end as in our Old Testament.

We know that Abel was killed by his brother according to Genesis 4:8. Zacharias was killed in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22. Thus showing the first and last to die according to the Jewish Bible. Dr. Merrill Tenney agrees by simply stating, "Able was the first martyr of the OT history. Zacharias was the last, according to the order of books in the Hebrew Bible, which, unlike the English Bible, ends with Chronicles." (Ibid. p.1049).

With these things in mind, we can safely say the Bible of Jesus was a Hebrew Bible.

THE MASORETIC TEXT:

The Masoretic Text is the traditional Hebrew Old Testament text of both Judaism and Protestantism (The Catholic Church, historically, used the Latin translation of Jerome based on the Greek LXX).

Masoretic comes from the word "Masora" which usually refers to the notes printed beside the Hebrew text by Jewish scribes and scholars.

Until recently, the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament dated from the ninth century and onward.

These Hebrew manuscripts of the middle ages are in general agreement. The Biblia Hebraica by Kittel is the basic Hebrew Old Testament used by scholars and translators and is based on the Masoretic Text from this time period.

However, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts which date from around 168 BC to about 68 AD. Thus providing us with Hebrew manuscripts which outdate the previous manuscripts by about 1,000 years.

What is interesting to the student of textual criticism and the believer in Biblical preservation, is the fact that a large number of the DSS agree with the Masoretic Text and against the Septuagint reading!.

Although there are some manuscripts within the findings of the DSS which agree with the LXX and also reflect a differing Hebrew Text with a number of variants, the fact remains that we now have manuscripts dating from the time of Jesus or before which agree with the Masoretic Text.

This give additional credence to the preciseness and integrity of the Hebrew scribes in their accuracy of reproducing the manuscripts throughout the ages. And, most importantly, it shows the preservation of the Old Testament Text in Hebrew by God.

Dr. Emanuel Tov of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and one of the editors of the DSS writes: "Of similar importance are the new data about the context of the biblical scrolls, since different texts are recognizable [this is explained when one understands the evolution of the Essene sect and their evolving religious beliefs from fundamental Judaism in 170 B.C. E. to Pythagorean-Buddhist apocalypticism in pre 70 A.D.].

Some texts reflect precisely the consonantal framework of the medieval MT (Masoretic Text). Others reflect the basic framework of the MT, although their spelling is different. Still others differ in many details from the MT, while agreeing with the Septuagint or Samaritan Pentateuch.

Some texts do not agree with any previously known text at all, and should be considered independent textual traditions.

Thus, the textual picture presented by the Qumran scrolls represents a textual variety that was probably typical for the period." (The Oxford Companion to the Bible edited by Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan, 1993; p.160)

Norman Geisler and William Nix attest to most of the DSS reflecting the Masoretic Text. In their book, A General Introduction to the Bible, they write, "The (Dead Sea) scrolls give an overwhelming confirmation of the fidelity of the Masoretic text." (p. 261).

They go on to cite Millar Burrows' work, "The Dead Sea Scrolls," "It is a matter of wonder, " states Burrows, "that through something like a thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. As I said in my first article on the scroll, 'Herein lies its chief importance, supporting the fidelity of the Masoretic tradition.'" (Ibid.).

Ernst Wurthwein cites R. de Vaux as saying, "The script is more developed, the Biblical text is definitely that of the Masora, and it must be concluded from this that the documents from Qumran (i.e. DSS) are older, earlier than the second century [B.C.E.]" (Wurthwein, p. 31).

Concerning the scrolls of Isaiah found in Cave 1 at Qumran, Wurthwein writes, "The scrolls (1QIsa. a.) has a popular type text which supports (the Masoretic Text) essentially, but which also offers a great number of variants. . .A second Isaiah manuscripts (1QIsa. b.) is fragmentary, but stands much closer to the Masoretic text." (Ibid. p. 32).

Additional manuscripts have also been found which support the Masoretic Text.

Again Wurthwein informs us of the following: "Also important are the remains of fourteen scrolls with Biblical texts from the period before AD 73, discovered while excavating the rock fortress of Masada in the Judean desert in 1963-1965. These agree extensively with the traditional Biblical texts--only in the text of Ezekiel are there a few insignificant variants." (Ibid. p. 31).

To these we can also add the Geniza Fragments which date from the fifth century AD. These manuscripts were discovered in 1890 at Cairo, Egypt. They were located in a type of storage room for worn or faulty manuscripts, which was called the Geniza.

The fragments number around 200,000 and reflect Biblical texts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. The Biblical texts discovered support the Masoretic Text.

In one sense, the Masoretic Text may be thought of as the Textus Receptus of the Old Testament.

In fact, some scholars have referred to it as such.

Like the Textus Receptus of the New Testament, the Masoretic Text is based on the majority of manuscripts and reflects the traditional text used.

Although there are differences found in some Masoretic Texts, these differences are minor and usually deal with, orthography, vowel points, accents, and divisions of the text.

In 1524/25, Daniel Bomberg published an edition of the Masoretic Text based on the tradition of Jacob ben Chayyim. Jacob ben Chayyim was a Jewish refugee who later became a Christian. It was his text which was used by the translators of the King James Bible for their work in the Old Testament, and it was the basis of Kittel's first two editions of his Hebrew text. Wurthwein notes that the text of ben Chayyim, "enjoyed an almost canonical authority up to our own time." (Ibid. p. 37).

For about six generations the Masoretic Text was reproduced by the ben Asher family. Moses ben Asher produced a text in 895 AD known as Codex Cairensis containing the writing of the Prophets.

Codex Leningradensis dates to 1008 AD and was based on the work of Aaron ben Moses ben Asher, the son of Moses ben Asher. This Codex is the oldest manuscript containing the complete Bible.

Some of the differences found within this family of manuscripts are the basis of Kittel's third edition of his Biblia Hebraica and has been used by scholars in producing modern translations of the Bible, such as the New International Version (1978), the New King James Version (1982), and the New Revised Standard Version (1989).

For the most part, scholarship agrees that the Masoretic Text became the standard authorized Hebrew text around 100 AD in connection with the completion of the New Testament.

Thus we see that the Masoretic Text existed prior to the writings of the New Testament, was used as the official Hebrew Old Testament at the time of the establishing of the Biblical canon, and has been used since as the official representation of the Hebrew originals.

THE GREEK SEPTUAGINT: [snip]
http://www.geocities.com/faithofyeshua/masoretic_text_or_lxx_what_is_of_god.htm

"...This is my larger point that the authority of the writing is intact.I think you must go back to the original Hebrew to receive the original meanings, however it's the correct spirit of the text that matters. My whole point about "The Literal Meaning" was that there is much more in scripture than first meets the eye."

I agree. And my whole point from my post is this bottom line:

...WHICH OLD TESTAMENT DID JESUS READ...THE JEWISH ONE OR THE ONE WE HAVE TODAY AS CHRISTIANS WHICH CAME FROM THE GREEK?

This discovery confirms what we find in the Gospels concerning the Hebrew Old Testament used by Jesus. In Matthew, Jesus proclaims; "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Matt. 5:18).

It is interesting that he used the words "jot" and "tittle." In the Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Dr. Homer Kent of Grace Theological Seminary writes, "Jot. Smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet (yodh). Tittle. Tiny projection on certain Hebrew letters." (p.937).

The smallest part of the letters Jesus used to describe the fact that the law would not pass until all was fulfilled, were Hebrew. This would be odd if Jesus were reading from a Greek Old Testament.

Further, Jesus says in Luke 11:51; "From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.".

This statement attests that Jesus used the Hebrew canon of scripture and not the Greek translation which was available in his day. The order of books found in our Old Testament run from Genesis to Malachi.

The Greek LXX has the same order but adds additional books (the Apocrypha).

The Hebrew canon, while containing the same books as our Old Testament, places the order of the books differently.

The Hebrew Bible runs from Genesis to 2 Chronicles with the minor prophets in the middle and not the end as in our Old Testament.

We know that Abel was killed by his brother according to Genesis 4:8. Zacharias was killed in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22. Thus showing the first and last to die according to the Jewish Bible. Dr. Merrill Tenney agrees by simply stating, "Able was the first martyr of the OT history. Zacharias was the last, according to the order of books in the Hebrew Bible, which, unlike the English Bible, ends with Chronicles." (Ibid. p.1049).

With these things in mind, we can safely say the Bible of Jesus was a Hebrew Bible.

THE MASORETIC TEXT:

The Masoretic Text is the traditional Hebrew Old Testament text of both Judaism and Protestantism (The Catholic Church, historically, used the Latin translation of Jerome based on the Greek LXX).

Masoretic comes from the word "Masora" which usually refers to the notes printed beside the Hebrew text by Jewish scribes and scholars.

Until recently, the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament dated from the ninth century and onward.

These Hebrew manuscripts of the middle ages are in general agreement. The Biblia Hebraica by Kittel is the basic Hebrew Old Testament used by scholars and translators and is based on the Masoretic Text from this time period.

However, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts which date from around 168 BC to about 68 AD.

Thus providing us with Hebrew manuscripts which outdate the previous manuscripts by about 1,000 years.

What is interesting to the student of textual criticism and the believer in Biblical preservation, is the fact that a large number of the DSS agree with the Masoretic Text and against the Septuagint reading!. .......

HERE

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