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Author | Topic: Isaiah and the Dead Sea Scrolls | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
So where is the evidence that Mormons claim that Isaiah has changed since the DSS were written ? And if the Mormons do not make that "charge" what basis do you have for claiming that liberal Christians or Muslims do ? I quoted a website on this, not myself. I myself have encountered Mormon complaints that the Bible has been altered over the years, and mostly they refer to the New Testament although it's possible they mean in general that since Nephi and company moved to South America the Bible just took a dive in trustworthiness. In any case there's plenty of evidence that no such changes ever occurred and the DSS prove it for the OT books they have, but since that reflects on the abilities of the copyists over the centuries, hundreds of them over 20 hundreds of years, in which they copied BOTH OT AND NT for the Christian churches, the integirty of the NT is also confirmed by the DSS' virtual identity with ours. This message has been edited by Faith, 04-15-2005 10:56 AM
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LinearAq Member (Idle past 4697 days) Posts: 598 From: Pocomoke City, MD Joined: |
I have to agree with your line of thinking.
While Tagless is trying to pin Faith to a wall with his nitpicking of what she said, he is giving the impression that the DSS offers no support for her position. She says that the similarity between the DSS manuscripts and the modern versions of the Bible give a strong indication that the majority of scribes, through the centries, maintained high quality control standards in their copying of these texts. This care in maintaining the text, gives some credence to the supposition that the scribes, or their supervisors, held these documents in high regard...even as sacred. This high level of belief by those in charge of the records speaks highly of the veracity of the content of those documents. Tagless cannot say that the Isaiah scroll is not evidence in that regard. Even if it is not the exact document that was copied, it is still evidence that the document that was copied was the same as it or very similar. If the original document from that time, copied down through the centries was changed, purposefully or not, the chances are small that it would have turned out so similar to the DSS Isaiah, if it was not already very similar in the first place. Questions that might be asked are: Was the quality control more stringently adhered to for Biblical texts than for non-Biblical texts? Does the strictness of adherence to quality control relate in any way to the actual truth of the documents copied or is that strictness a product of the belief that they are true?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
1) Stating something after the fact is not the smae as stating it at the beginning. Moreover you misunderstand my point about the Septuagint. The Septuagint in itself is evidence against many large changes in the Biblical text other than variations between the Septuagint and the Masoretic texts. And the DSS cannot resolve that as they themselves include Septuagint-type texts.
2) I can only repeat that I have no reason to bleieve that the average person specifically limits any claims about changes to Isaiah to the period after the DSS was written. If they claim that the Isauh we have is significantly different form the original then you cannot refute that except by arguing against changes before the DSS were written. 3) Thank you 4) The copying errors in the Isaiah scroll show that copying errors were being made even at that time. Copying errors by their nature are likely to be minor. And the text is not "the same" in the sense of being identical - there are many variations. 5) I very much doubt that the average person believes that the Hebrew text of Isaiah is likely to change translation errors. If you have any evidence to the contrary then please produce it. 6) The point of the question is not whehter there HAVE been changes in the Hebrew text of Idsaiah between the DSS and now. The point of the question is whether anyone CLAIMS that there have been such changes. 7) TO clarify my point. I do not claim to know whether your oriignal claim was meant to include changes prior to the writing of the DSS.Thus I have not apologised (since I am not convinced I was wrong - and I have pointed out evidence which suggests that I was correct) However I have also NOT directly challenged the claim that you meant changes since the DSS were written and I have argued on that basis. Why do you think I keep asking you to produce people claiming that the Book of Isaiah has changed SINCE THE DSS WAS WRITTEN ? How can you not understand that ????
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
So lets get this straight. A website your referred to made an assertion that various other groups claimed that the Bible had been changed in various ways and you interpreted that as meaning that those groups believed that Isaiah had been changed after the DSS was written. Even though the web page does not say any such thing. And you accuse other people of not understanding logic ?
As for your claim that the Isaiah scroll has direct relevance to NT documents the transmission history is entirely different. The Masoretic text is - like the DSS - purely Jewish. The NT documents were transmitted by Christians. The DSS documents are a testimony to the Jewish copiers and the Masoretes - not Christian scribes.
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Monk Member (Idle past 3945 days) Posts: 782 From: Kansas, USA Joined: |
LinearAq writes: Was the quality control more stringently adhered to for Biblical texts than for non-Biblical texts? Does the strictness of adherence to quality control relate in any way to the actual truth of the documents copied or is that strictness a product of the belief that they are true? I don't know that anyone can truely speak for the quality control done so many years ago. But I would say that the Bible was held to be sacred texts by the copyist. There is evidence that it was regarded as a sacred duty accompanyed by strict discipline. I don't know much about the belief system of those performing the task of copying. But since the texts themselves have always been rare, then only the most devout believers would be allowed access to them. So yes, I would say the copyist were strong believers. As such I would assume that since there was more reverence for the Bible texts compared to non-biblical texts, one could reasonably conclude that more care was taken during copying. Holding the texts as sacred or extremely valuable would generally tend to ensure accurate reproduction. That's merely speculation on my part. This of course says nothing about the truth of the material contained in the texts. My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. ---Albert Einstein
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
I think we have to be cautious about generalising. There is a lot of history here and the status of books and the regard they were held in has often changed over time. For instance however you resolve the Synoptic Problem it is likely that two out of the three authors took it upon themselves to revise and add to (or condense if Markan priority is denied) the work of at least one of the others.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I wrote an email to some friends asking for their view of my original statement on this thread. I've received two answers at this point. The information sent by the second respondent which I reproduce below discusses many facets of the DSS' relevance to answering many of the issues raised by Bible critics.
Here's the email I sent, followed by the responses to it:
quote: Got this answer from one friend:
quote: Well we've already been through the listing-the-differences bit, and I could do without a repeat myself. Here's another friend's reply. She sent a very detailed commentary on the DSS showing its relevance for authenticating our current Bible in more ways than one:
quote: Apologetics Press :: Reason & RevelationApril 1995 - 15[4]:25-30 The Dead Sea Scrolls and Biblical Integrityby Garry K. Brantley, M.A., M.Div. Bible believers often are confronted with the charge that the Bible is filled with mistakes. These alleged mistakes can be placed into two major categories: (1) apparent internal inconsistencies among revealeddata; and (2) scribal mistakes in the underlying manuscripts themselves. The former category involves those situations in which there are apparent discrepancies between biblical texts regarding a specific event, person, place, etc. [For a treatment of such difficulties see Archer, 1982; Geisler and Brooks, 1989, pp. 163-178]. The latter category involves a much more fundamental concernthe integrity of the underlying documents of our English translations. Some charge that the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts, having been copied and recopied by hand over many years, contain a plethora of scribal errors that have altered significantly the information presented in the original documents. As such, we cannot be confident that our English translations reflect the information initially penned by biblical writers. However, the materials discovered at Qumran, commonly called the Dead Sea Scrolls, have provided impressive evidence for both the integrity of the Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts of the Old Testament and the authenticity of the books themselves. DATE OF THE MATERIALS When the scrolls first were discovered in 1947, scholars disputed theirdates of composition. Scholars now generally agree that although some materials are earlier, the Qumran materials date primarily to the Hasmonean (152-63 B.C.) and early Roman periods (63 B.C.-A.D. 68). Several strands of evidence corroborate these conclusions. First, archaeological evidence from the ruins of the Qumran community supports these dates. After six major seasons of excavations, archaeologists have identified three specific phases of occupation at the ancient center of Qumran. Coinage discovered in the first stratum dates from the reign of Antiochus VII Sidetes (138-129 B.C.). Such artifacts also indicate that the architecture associated with the second occupational phase dates no later than the time of Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 B.C.). Also reflected in the material remains of the site is the destruction of its buildings in the earthquake reported by the first-century Jewish historian, Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, 15.5.2). Apparently, this natural disaster occurred around 31 B.C. a position that prompted the occupants to abandon the site for an indeterminate time. Upon reoccupation of the areathe third phasethe buildings were repaired and rebuilt precisely on the previous plan of the old communal complex. The community flourished until the Romans, under the military direction of Vespasian, occupied the site by force (see Cross, 1992, pp. 21-22). Such evidence is consistent with the second century B.C. to first-century A.D. dates for the scrolls. The second strand of evidence is that the generally accepted dates forthe scrolls are corroborated by palaeographical considerations. Palaeography is the study of ancient writing and, more specifically, the shape and style of letters. Characteristic of ancient languages, the manner in which Hebrew and Aramaic letters were written changed over a period of time. The trained eye can determine, within certain boundaries, the time frame of a document based upon the shape of its letters. This is the method by which scholars determine the date of a text on palaeographical grounds. According to this technique, the scripts at Qumran belong to three periods of palaeographical development: (1) a small group of biblical texts whose archaic style reflects the period between about 250-150 B.C.; (2) a large cache of manuscripts, both biblical and non-biblical, that is consistent with a writing style common to the Hasmonean period (c. 150-30 B.C.); and (3) a similarly large number of texts that evinces a writing style characteristic of the Herodian period (30 B.C.-A.D. 70). This linguistic information also is consistent with the commonly accepted dates of the Qumran materials. Finally, as an aside, the carbon-14 tests done on both the cloth inwhich certain scrolls were wrapped, and the scrolls themselves, generally correspond to the palaeographic dates. There are, however, some considerable differences. Due to the inexact nature of carbon-14 dating techniques (see Major, 1993), and the possibility of chemical contamination, scholars place greater confidence in the historically corroborated palaeographic dates (see Shanks, 1991, 17[6]:72). At any rate, the archaeological and linguistic data provide scholars with reasonable confidence that the scrolls date from 250 B.C. to A.D. 70. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SCROLLS While the importance of these documents is multifaceted, one of theirprinciple contributions to biblical studies is in the area of textual criticism. This is the field of study in which scholars attempt to recreate the original content of a biblical text as closely as possible. Such work is legitimate and necessary since we possess only copies (apographs), not the original manuscripts (autographs) of Scripture. The Dead Sea Scrolls are of particular value in this regard for at least two reasons: (1) every book of the traditional Hebrew canon, except Esther, is represented (to some degree) among the materials at Qumran (Collins, 1992, 2:89); and (2) they have provided textual critics with ancient manuscripts against which they can compare the accepted text for accuracy of content. THE SCROLLS AND THE MASORETIC TEXT This second point is of particular importance since, prior to thediscovery of the Qumran manuscripts, the earliest extant Old Testament texts were those known as the Masoretic Text (MT), which dated from about A.D. 980. The MT is the result of editorial work performed by Jewish scribes known as the Masoretes. The scribes’ designation was derived from the Hebrew word masora, which refers collectively to the notes entered on the top, bottom, and side margins of the MT manuscripts to safeguard traditional transmission. Hence, the Masoretes, as their name suggests, were the scribal preservers of the masora (Roberts, 1962, 3:295). From the fifth to the ninth century A.D., the Masoretes labored to introduce both these marginal notes and vowel points to the consonantal textprimarily to conserve correct pronunciation and spelling (see Seow, 1987, pp. 8-9). Critical scholars questioned the accuracy of the MT, which formed thebasis of our English versions of the Old Testament, since there was such a large chronological gap between it and the autographs. Because of this uncertainty, scholars often corrected the text with considerable freedom. Qumran, however, has provided remains of an early Masoretic edition predating the Christian era on which the traditional MT is based. A comparison of the MT to this earlier text revealed the remarkable accuracy with which scribes copied the sacred texts. Accordingly, the integrity of the Hebrew Bible was confirmed, which generally has heightened its respect among scholars and drastically reduced textual alteration. Most of the biblical manuscripts found at Qumran belong to the MTtradition or family. This is especially true of the Pentateuch and some of the Prophets. The well-preserved Isaiah scroll from Cave 1 illustrates the tender care with which these sacred texts were copied. Since about 1700 years separated Isaiah in the MT from its original source, textual critics assumed that centuries of copying and recopying this book must have introduced scribal errors into the document that obscured the original message of the author. The Isaiah scrolls found at Qumran closed that gap to within 500 yearsof the original manuscript. Interestingly, when scholars compared the MT of Isaiah to the Isaiah scroll of Qumran, the correspondence was astounding. The texts from Qumran proved to be word-for-word identical to our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted primarily of obvious slips of the pen and spelling alterations (Archer, 1974, p. 25). Further, there were no major doctrinal differences between the accepted and Qumran texts (see Table 1 below). This forcibly demonstrated the accuracy with which scribes copied sacred texts, and bolstered our confidence in the Bible’s textual integrity (see Yamauchi, 1972, p. 130). The Dead Sea Scrolls have increased our confidence that faithful scribal transcription substantially has preserved the original content of Isaiah. TABLE 1. QUMRAN VS. THE MASORETES______________________________________ Of the 166 Hebrew words in Isaiah 53, only seventeen letters in Dead Sea Scroll 1QIsb differ from the Masoretic Text (Geisler and Nix, 1986, p. 382). 10 letters = spelling differences 4 letters = stylistic changes 3 letters = added word for light (vs. 11)______________________________________ 17 letters = no affect on biblical teaching CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP, DANIEL, AND THE SCROLLS The Qumran materials similarly have substantiated the textual integrityand authenticity of Daniel. Critical scholarship, as in the case of most all books of the Old Testament, has attempted to dismantle the authenticity of the book of Daniel. The message of the book claims to have originated during the Babylonian exile, from the first deportation of the Jews into captivity (606 B.C.; Daniel 1:1-2) to the ascension of the Persian Empire to world dominance (c. 536 B.C.; Daniel 10:1). This date, however, has been questioned and generally dismissed by critical scholars who date the final composition of the book to the second century B.C. Specifically, it is argued that the tales in chapters 1-6 as they appear in their present form can be no earlier than the Hellenistic age (c. 332 B.C.). Also, the four-kingdom outline, explicitly stated in chapter 2, allegedly requires a date after the rise of the Grecian Empire. Further, these scholars argue that since there is no explicit reference to Antiochus Epiphanes IV (175-164 B.C.), a Seleucid king clearly under prophetic consideration in chapter 11, a date in the late third or early second century B.C. is most likely (see Collins, 1992a, 2:31; Whitehorne, 1992, 1:270). The apparent reason for this conclusion among critical scholars is thepredictive nature of the book of Daniel. It speaks precisely of events that transpired several hundred years removed from the period in which it claims to have been composed. Since the guiding principles of the historical-critical method preclude a transcendent God’s intervening in human affairs (see Brantley, 1994), the idea of inspired predictive prophecy is dismissed a priori from the realm of possibility. Accordingly, Daniel could not have spoken with such precision about events so remote from his day. Therefore, critical scholars conclude that the book was written actually as a historical record of events during the Maccabean period, but couched in apocalyptic or prophetic language. Such conclusions clearly deny that this book was the authentic composition of a Daniel who lived in the sixth century B.C., that the Bible affirms. The Dead Sea Scrolls have lifted their voice in this controversy. Dueto the amount of Daniel fragments found in various caves near Qumran, it appears that this prophetic book was one of the most treasured by that community. Perhaps the popularity of Daniel was due to the fact that the people of Qumran lived during the anxious period in which many of these prophecies actually were being fulfilled. For whatever reason, Daniel was peculiarly safeguarded to the extent that we have at our disposal parts of all chapters of Daniel, except chapters 9 and 12. However, one manuscript (4QDanc; 4 = Cave 4; Q = Qumran; Danc = one of the Daniel fragments arbitrarily designated c for clarification), published in November 1989, has been dated to the late second century B.C. (see Hasel, 1992, 5[2]:47). Two other major documents (4QDanb, 4QDana) have been published since 1987, and contribute to scholarly analysis of Daniel. These recently released fragments have direct bearing on the integrity and authenticity of the book of Daniel. INTEGRITY OF THE TEXT As in the case of Isaiah, before Qumran there were no extantmanuscripts of Daniel that dated earlier than the late tenth century A.D. Accordingly, scholars cast suspicion on the integrity of Daniel’s text. Also, as with Isaiah, this skepticism about the credibility of Daniel’s contents prompted scholars to take great freedom in adjusting the Hebrew text. One reason for this suspicion is the seemingly arbitrary appearance of Aramaic sections within the book. Some scholars had assumed from this linguistic shift that Daniel was written initially in Aramaic, and then some portions were translated into Hebrew. Further, a comparison of the Septuagint translation (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) with the MT revealed tremendous disparity in length and content between the two texts. Due to these and other considerations, critical scholars assigned little value to the MT rendition of Daniel. Once again, however, the findings at Qumran have confirmed theintegrity of Daniel’s text. Gerhard Hasel listed several strands of evidence from the Daniel fragments found at Qumran that support the integrity of the MT (see 1992, 5[2]:50). First, for the most part, the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts of Daniel are very consistent in content among themselves, containing very few variants. Second, the Qumran fragments conform very closely to the MT overall, with only a few rare variants in the former that side with the Septuagint version. Third, the transitions from Hebrew to Aramaic are preserved in the Qumran fragments. Based on such overwhelming data, it is evident that the MT is a well-preserved rendition of Daniel. In short, Qumran assures us that we can be reasonably confident that the Daniel text on which our English translations are based is one of integrity. Practically speaking, this means that we have at our disposal, through faithful translations of the original, the truth God revealed to Daniel centuries ago. DATE OF THE BOOK The Daniel fragments found at Qumran also speak to the issue ofDaniel’s authenticity. As mentioned earlier, conventional scholarship generally places the final composition of Daniel during the second century B.C. Yet, the book claims to have been written by a Daniel who lived in the sixth century B.C. However, the Dead Sea fragments of Daniel present compelling evidence for the earlier, biblical date of this book. The relatively copious remains of Daniel indicate the importance ofthis book to the Qumran community. Further, there are clear indications that this book was considered canonical for the community, which meant it was recognized as an authoritative book on a par with other biblical books (e.g., Deuteronomy, Kings, Isaiah, Psalms). The canonicity of Daniel at Qumran is indicated, not only by the prolific fragments, but by the manner in which it is referenced in other materials. One fragment employs the quotation, which was written in the book of Daniel the prophet. This phrase, similar to Jesus’ reference to Daniel the prophet (Matthew 24:15), was a formula typically applied to quotations from canonical Scripture at Qumran (see Hasel, 1992, 5[2]:51). The canonical status of Daniel at Qumran is important to the date andauthenticity of the book. If, as critical scholars allege, Daniel reached its final form around 160 B.C., how could it have attained canonical status at Qumran in a mere five or six decades? While we do not know exactly how long it took for a book to reach such authoritative status, it appears that more time is needed for this development (see Bruce, 1988, pp. 27-42). Interestingly, even before the most recent publication of Daniel fragments, R.K. Harrison recognized that the canonical status of Daniel at Qumran militated against its being a composition of the Maccabean era, and served as confirmation of its authenticity (1969, p. 1126-1127). Although Harrison made this observation in 1969, over three decadesbefore the large cache of Cave 4 documents was made available to the general and scholarly public, no new evidence has refuted it. On the contrary, the newly released texts from Qumran have confirmed this conclusion. The canonical acceptance of Daniel at Qumran indicates the antiquity of the book’s compositioncertainly much earlier than the Maccabean period. Hence, the most recent publications of Daniel manuscripts offer confirmation of Daniel’s authenticity; it was written when the Bible says it was written. A final contribution from Qumran to the biblically claimed date forDaniel’s composition comes from linguistic considerations. Though, as we mentioned earlier, critical scholars argue that the Aramaic sections in Daniel indicate a second-century B.C. date of composition, the Qumran materials suggest otherwise. In fact, a comparison of the documents at Qumran with Daniel demonstrates that the Aramaic in Daniel is a much earlier composition than the second-century B.C. Such a comparison further demonstrates that Daniel was written in a region different from that of Judea. For example, the Genesis Apocryphon found in Cave 1 is a second-century B.C. document written in Aramaicthe same period during which critical scholars argue that Daniel was composed. If the critical date for Daniel’s composition were correct, it should reflect the same linguistic characteristics of the Genesis Apocryphon. Yet, the Aramaic of these two books is markedly dissimilar. The Genesis Apocryphon, for example, tends to place the verb toward thebeginning of the clause, whereas Daniel tends to defer the verb to a later position in the clause. Due to such considerations, linguists suggest that Daniel reflects an Eastern type Aramaic, which is more flexible with word order, and exhibits scarcely any Western characteristics at all. In each significant category of linguistic comparison (i.e., morphology, grammar, syntax, vocabulary), the Genesis Apocryphon (admittedly written in the second century B.C.) reflects a much later style than the language of Daniel (Archer, 1980, 136:143; cf. Yamauchi, 1980). Interestingly, the same is true when the Hebrew of Daniel is compared with the Hebrew preserved in the Qumran sectarian documents (i.e., those texts composed by the Qumran community reflecting their peculiar societal laws and religious customs). From such linguistic considerations provided by Qumran, Daniel hardly could have been written by a Jewish patriot in Judea during the early second-century B.C., as the critics charge. CONCLUSION There are, of course, critical scholars who, despite the evidence,continue to argue against the authenticity of Daniel and other biblical books. Yet, the Qumran texts have provided compelling evidence that buttresses our faith in the integrity of the manuscripts on which our translations are based. It is now up to Bible believers to allow these texts to direct our attention to divine concerns and become the people God intends us to be. REFERENCES Archer, Gleason, Jr. (1974), A Survey of Old Testament Introduction(Chicago, IL: Moody). Archer, Gleason, Jr. (1980), Modern Rationalism and the Book ofDaniel, Bibliotheca Sacra, 136:129-147, April-June. Archer, Gleason, Jr. (1982), Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (GrandRapids, MI: Baker). Brantley, Garry K. (1994), Biblical Miracles: Fact or Fiction?,Reason and Revelation, 14:33-38, May. Bruce, F.F. (1988), The Canon of Scriptures (Downers Grove, IL:InterVarsity Press). Collins, John J. (1992a), Daniel, Book of, The Anchor BibleDictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday), 2:29-37. Collins, John J. (1992b), Dead Sea Scrolls, The Anchor BibleDictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday), 2:85-101. Cross, Frank Moore (1992), The Historical Context of the Scrolls,Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Hershel Shanks (New York: Random House). Geisler, Norman and Ronald Brooks (1989), When Skeptics Ask (Wheaton,IL: Victor). Geisler, Norman and William Nix (1986), A General Intorduction to theBible (Chicago, IL: Moody). Harrison, R.K. (1969), Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids,MI: Eerdmans). Hasel, Gerhard (1992), New Light on the Book of Daniel from the DeadSea Scrolls, Archaeology and Biblical Research, 5[2]:45-53, Spring. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, The Life and Works of FlaviusJosephus, (Chicago, IL: John C. Winston; translated by William Whiston). Major, Trevor (1993), Dating in Archaeology: Radiocarbon and Tree-RingDating, Reason and Revelation, 13:73-77, October. Roberts, B.J. (1962), Masora, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of theBible (Nashville, TN: Abingdon), 3:295. Seow, C.L. (1987), A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew (Nashville, TN:Abingdon). Shanks, Hershel (1991), Carbon-14 Tests Substantiate Scroll Dates,Biblical Archaeology Review, 17[6]:72, November/December. Whitehorne, John (1992), Antiochus, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed.David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday), 1:269-272. Yamauchi, Edwin (1972), The Stones and the Scriptures: An EvangelicalPerspective (New York: Lippincott). Yamauchi, Edwin (1980), The Archaeological Background of Daniel,Bibliotheca Sacra, 137:3-16, January-March. This message has been edited by Faith, 04-16-2005 08:50 AM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
quote: Fine, since I'm saying there have been no changes. What is your point? Resolve what? Our Bible is the same as theirs. There are no changes between then and now.
quote: "From the original" Old Testament, of course, but their charges are NOT specific at all, they are general charges against the integrity of the entire Bible, and usually the target is the New Testament, but the DSS answer that too by showing the general high quality work of the copyists over the centuries. The context is the period from the DSS to now, and this is the period "most people" DO have in mind, people who are not Bible scholars or even people who have read the "higher critics," just people who have picked up this piece of Bible debunkery and show up on message boards and the like to "prove" how it's all completely untrustworthy.
quote: You're welcome no doubt but since you don't quote me I'll have to wait to reread my post to find out what you are thanking me for.
quote: According to all the material I have posted, and my recent post of friends' contributions, and Monk's posts, the DSS and our current Old Testament are identical in meaning and message. The copying errors are irrelevant and there are NO "variations" between the DSS and now, if by that you mean passages with different meanings. We've been over this thoroughly. The evidence is well documented on this thread.
quote: The fact that the Hebrew text of Isaiah is identical to all our current Hebrew texts of Isaiah and is translated into English with exactly the same meanings as our English Bibles have -- which is testified to by Monk for one, and both the friends I just quoted, not to mention all the official links so far -- certainly puts to rest accusations of ALL errors down the centuries since the DSS, including translation errors.
quote: Again, my original statement only referred to GENERAL CLAIMS ABOUT THE BIBLE TEXT AS A WHOLE. ALL the scrolls found at Qumran put these claims to rest as they demonstrate the overall astounding accuracy of the copyists throughout the centuries since then.
quote: I couldn't possibly have included changes prior to the writing of the DSS in a statement about their implications for texts 2000 years later, and you certainly don't have any evidence otherwise.
quote: OK, sorry if I have not acknowledged your dropping the pre-DSS complaint, but just as you are not sure about my not including it I have not been sure you dropped it. There are no specific claims about the book of Isaiah involved, the claims I referred to from the beginning were general, about the entire Bible. The finding of the Isaiah scroll was just a great opportunity to put them to rest. And it puts them soundly to rest although you seem so far to be unable to process this fact.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
quote: Those possessed by the churches and copied for the churches and passed down since the days of Christ HAVE been copied by Christian scribes. They copied ALL the books used by Christians and that means both Old and New Testaments -- in translation of course, in Latin for a long time, and then in the various languages, not the Hebrew I must assume. The point is the message of them all has not been altered over all those centuries. They have done as good a job as the Masoretes, to judge by the results.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
I'm sorry but you still don't understand the history.
The OT in most English-language Bibles is translated directly from the Masoretic text. That, therefore, has nothing to do with Christian copyists at all. Christians used to use the Spetugaint translation of the OT, then a Latin translation of that (Jerome's Vulgate). And I agree that we should judge Christian copyists by THEIR results. But the Isaiah of the DSS and the modern Masoretic texts - and even of modern English translations is not the work of Christian copyists. Why, then, should we judge Christian copyists by the achivevments of others ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Let's make it very clear.
You claim that the Isaiah scroll proves that there have not been significant changes to the Hebrew test of Isaiah since the DSS. Fine. You claim that this refutes common "charges" that the Bible has changed. So you need to produce examples that really are refuted. Instead you produce claims that the Bible HAS changed - which would be true IF Biblical texts had changed PRIOR to the DSS. You can't have it both ways.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I'm sorry but you still don't understand the history. The OT in most English-language Bibles is translated directly from the Masoretic text. That, therefore, has nothing to do with Christian copyists at all. Christians used to use the Spetugaint translation of the OT, then a Latin translation of that (Jerome's Vulgate). That's right, I lost track. Since they've had the Hebrew texts they've translated directly from that. But they've also compared their translations, at least the King James translators did, with ALL the previous translations in ALL the languages, including the Latin, the German, the French, the Syrian etc. It was part of the process of translating to make all those comparisons, so you could say the KJV was "based" on all of them in some sense.
And I agree that we should judge Christian copyists by THEIR results. But the Isaiah of the DSS and the modern Masoretic texts - and even of modern English translations is not the work of Christian copyists. Why, then, should we judge Christian copyists by the achivevments of others ? OK, let's leave it at the Old Testament then. I'm happy with that for now. This message has been edited by Faith, 04-15-2005 05:17 PM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
quote: If you concede that has been shown, terrific, thanks. Big step here.
quote: That's the same vague accusations I started out with, that the Bible has changed over the years, but at least now those are refuted for the Old Testament. The New Testament can be shown not to have been significantly changed over the years with the thousands of extant ancient texts as mentioned in earlier posts. Mark 16:9-20 has already been discussed and shown to be legitimate by the vast majority of the manuscripts. The New Testament as a whole can be the next subject.
quote: ????? Can't possibly have said both things. The "charges" are that it has changed; the answer always is that it has not, that it is remarkably accurate over the centuries. But to this point then, we agree that the DSS confirm the accuracy of the translation {EDIT: Correction, should be "transmission"} of the HEBREW TEXT down to us. OK? This message has been edited by Faith, 04-15-2005 05:33 PM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1465 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Just to agree with Monk:
Was the quality control more stringently adhered to for Biblical texts than for non-Biblical texts? All I know is that the Jewish scribes, or Masoretes, had a particularly strict system for keeping the text pure, including methods of counting individual letters.
Does the strictness of adherence to quality control relate in any way to the actual truth of the documents copied or is that strictness a product of the belief that they are true? Of course it doesn't prove the truth of the documents, but it certainly reflects the reverence of the copyists and the Jewish leaders for the divine source of the scripture. This message has been edited by Faith, 04-15-2005 05:40 PM
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Taqless Member (Idle past 5934 days) Posts: 285 From: AZ Joined: |
"throughout history" ONLY SINCE THE DSS. Originally you made the statement in the context of having written "over the centuries" and you were taking exception to the "common accusation that the Bible has supposedly been altered over the centuries" and THEN, without qualifying YOUR statement you said the following "The existence of any scroll from that time that has the same text as our text is proof that such accusations are unfounded.". But since the "accusation" was "over the centuries" your statement in no way refutes the claim you mention (in light that YOU MEANT to say "unfounded post-DSS"). So, for you to state that the "accusations are unfounded" in the original is a bit superfluous. This certainly explains the misundertsanding that PaulK and myself had initially about what you were trying to claim was support for what. In addition, when I asked you about changes prior to the DSS you extrapolated to me as follows in post #49:
Faith writes: You claim all that is meaningless if there were changes made to Isaiah prior to the DSS, but that is another subject. Since your original post was to refute "over the centuries" not it is not.
Faith(cont'd) writes: I repeat, my topic was the RELIABILITY OF THE SCRIBES since the Isaiah scroll, period. HUH? No, it was not! You said nothing about the reliability of the scribes when you brought up the Isaiah scrolls to refute "over the centuries" changes. THEN the extrapolation part:
Faith(cont'd) writes: This DOES have implications for the reliability of the scribes prior to that too, especially since the Jewish scribes were known for their obsessional-to-superstitious methods of accuracy. Faith from this post writes: NO HE WAS IN ERROR AS I *WAS* DISCUSSING ONLY THE POST-DSS PERIOD AND HE KEPT INSISTING ON HIS PRE-DSS IRRELEVANCY. As I've pointed out that certainly was not clear when you you went from an "over the centuries" claim to support from a post-DSS time frame....try to remember that it is not immediately clear what a poster's focus is when one is reading plain text.
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