Posted on 08/12/2011 9:04:39 AM PDT by flowerplough
A dull-looking chart projected on the wall of a university office in Jerusalem displayed a revelation that would startle many readers of the Old Testament: The sacred text that people revered in the past was not the same one we study today.
An ancient version of one book has an extra phrase. Another appears to have been revised to retroactively insert a prophecy after the events happened.
Scholars in this out-of-the-way corner of the Hebrew University campus have been quietly at work for 53 years on one of the most ambitious projects attempted in biblical studies — publishing the authoritative edition of the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, and tracking every single evolution of the text over centuries and millennia.
And it has evolved, despite deeply held beliefs to the contrary.
For many Jews and Christians, religion dictates that the words of the Bible in the original Hebrew are divine, unaltered and unalterable.
For Orthodox Jews, the accuracy is considered so inviolable that if a synagogue's Torah scroll is found to have a minute error in a single letter, the entire scroll is unusable.
But the ongoing work of the academic detectives of the Bible Project, as their undertaking is known, shows that this text at the root of Judaism, Christianity and Islam was somewhat fluid for long periods of its history, and that its transmission through the ages was messier and more human than most of us imagine.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I don’t think you read the article correctly.
“so what are they “correcting”?”
Scrivner’s errors, omissions, and other alterations from the original documents.
Where is River when she is really needed?
“The Masoretic text describes the Messiah as being born from an unmarried woman.”
Actually, it just says “young woman,” and says nothing about marriage. It could, theoretically, mean virgin, too, so that is not the conflict.
The real objection is the verse (in context) is interpreted by Jewish scholars to refer to a child who will be (was) born in the time of King Ahaz (as a sign that he would be victorious in a war); this incident has nothing at all to do with the Moshiach, and occurred more than 500 years before Jesus was born.
::Sigh:: And they wonder why the world doesn’t believe the Land and the Temple Mount belong to the Jews!
The "Massoretic text" refers to the fully pointed text with vowels, cantation, punctuation, etc. The actual original text of the Torah has never been changed since the day it was written down by Moses. It consists of consonants only and may be found in the ark of every Orthodox synagogue in the world, each copy having been made from a copy that existed before it.
This need to declare the Hebrew Bible a fraud is something atheists, moslems, and many chr*stians seem to share in common. Unsurprising, since their worldviews depend on it being a fake.
The "Massoretic text" is a pointed text. Do you even know what that means? The only things the Tiberian Massoretes did was create symbols for vowels, punctuation, and cantation (and previous systems of these had existed, else how would one know how to read an unpointed text?). The actual Divinely-dictated text consists of consonants only (no vowels, no punctuation, no trope) and is the same in every kosher Torah Scroll in the world with the exception of the Yemenite tradition, which has a few extra vocalic letters.
I find it quite offensive that Catholic FReepers so often like to invoke their "suffering" in Protestant America as making them allies of the Jews when your post is a perfect example of the Catholic origin of Protestantism. Centuries before Protestantism existed Catholic/Orthodox chr*stians were attacking the "chr*stless works religion" of Judaism (because they kept the original "works" instead of replacing them with new ones) and of re-writing the Bible to justify themselves. Helloooo? Sound familiar? Every heard of Catholics re-writing the Bible to change "his heel" to "her heel," among other things?
Please have the decency not to proclaim how much closer Catholicism is to Judaism. The whole point is that the closeness means that Catholicism was never necessary to begin with.
So they aren't critiquing the actual kosher unpointed text of the Torah?
You know that no kosher Torah Scroll can be altered in the slightest, no matter what academics may think they have discovered.
Actually, “Alma” at least connotes “marriageable.” It’s use to describe someone who was specifically already married would be highly unusual.
My interest in bringing up the verse at all has nothing to do with whether the Jews object to it. Since I’m not Jewish, their beliefs don’t affect me. But a child born of a young woman, while always miraculous, is hardly a divine sign that confirms a prophecy. And Matthew’s Greek word choice (’parthenon’) specifically rules out its fulfillment in King Ahaz’ time. Such dispute, however, certainly helps explain why Christianity flourished among the Hellenic Jews better than among the Levantine Jews.
Frankly, ZC, I don’t give a crap what you find offensive. And I don’t care to engage your attempt to hijack the thread by bringing up a whole boatload of pseudo-historical whining.
I’ll only note for lurkers how ahistorical the notion of a “divinely dictated text” is when the pre-Christian texts bear no resemblance at all to the “kosher” texts, none of which (whether pointed or not) predate the middle ages, let alone Christ. The fact that a conformity was established a millennium after the bible was published is no more interesting theologically than the fact that all members of a particular Protestant sect use the King James bible.
The fact that ZC will not even write the name of Christ should tell you much.
“You know that no kosher Torah Scroll can be altered in the slightest, no matter what academics may think they have discovered.”
I know that no Torah Scroll should have been altered in the slightest in order to actually be kosher.
But then, like when I eat kosher meat, I rely on a human system that sometimes fails, so careful inspection should be ecouraged.
Actually, “Alma” at least connotes “marriageable.” It’s use to describe someone who was specifically already married would be highly unusual.
No it doesn’t.
And again, that is not the primary objection, in the least.
It’s the cut-and-paste, search-and-find, not-applicable-to-mosiach, nature of the passage.
Since you are a Christian, I hunted a Christian source for you:
“Alma”
A Hebrew signifying a “young woman”, unmarried as well as married, and thus distinct from “bethulah,” “a virgin” (see Hebrew Lexicons). The interest that attaches to this word is due to the famous passage of Isaiah 7:14: “the Alma shall conceive”, etc.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01326c.htm
In the future, I would avoid having disputes about the meanings of words with native speakers of said language.
Wow. You're a nice guy. What do your friends call you . . . "Chuckles?"
I’ll only note for lurkers how ahistorical the notion of a “divinely dictated text” is
It's hilarious when a member of a religion that has to retroject its founding three hundred years into the past starts talking about what is "pseudohistorical." At any rate, HaShem wrote the Torah--not Moses, not "inspired writers," and not "J, E, P, and D." I can see why you're in love with the theory, though.
when the pre-Christian texts bear no resemblance at all to the “kosher” texts, none of which (whether pointed or not) predate the middle ages, let alone Christ.
Duh. How could they? They're written on organic material (skins of kosher animals stitched together with tendons from kosher animals). Decay sets in very quickly. This is why new copies are being written continuously according to the regulations given orally at Sinai--one of which is that each text be copied from a previously existing one. That's how the text has been preserved since Sinai even without a single copy of a scroll actually taken down by Moses.
The fact that a conformity was established a millennium after the bible was published is no more interesting theologically than the fact that all members of a particular Protestant sect use the King James bible.
What do you mean by "a millenium after the Bible was published?" Do you mean a thousand years after Sinai? Or do you mean a thousand years after the settling of the canon by the 'Anshei HaKeneset HaGedolah?
What has the King James bible to do with anything, other than the fact that you Catholics react to it like Protestants do to Mary? It's just a translation. And English-speaking Protestants are hardly the only or the first people to have "magic translations"--your Vulgate is one example.
“You know that no kosher Torah Scroll can be altered in the slightest, no matter what academics may think they have discovered.”
I know that no Torah Scroll should have been altered in the slightest in order to actually be kosher.
But then, like when I eat kosher meat, I rely on a human system that sometimes fails, so careful inspection should be ecouraged.
Yes, a human system for inspecting and humans doing the actual writing. Mistakes are quite common, from what I understand, which is why we have genizot to deposit them in.
Also, as I understand it, there is a world-wide system for inspecting the Scrolls, which is why the texts of the Scrolls for both 'Ashkenazim and Sefaradim are identical. Only the Temanim, who were outside this system for a long time, has deviations (none of which actually change the meaning of any passage).
Stay out of pissing match with Freeper known as Zionist Conspirator.
Sure. But the system as we know it got going several hundred years AFTER copies started to be made.
One character makes the difference after all.
Hence, the interest at looking back at older copies.
All that to say, a comparison of the DSS and current copies of the Torah indicate very very little alteration, which means the system worked pretty darn well.
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