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Author | Topic: Isaiah and the Dead Sea Scrolls | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Since Faith claims that her arguments on this point have not been fairly addressed I think we need a topic so that she can calmly make her point in a clear and rational fashion.
The original assertion is here The claim is about the discovery of the Isaiah scroll:
The Isaiah scroll among the Dead Sea scrolls confirms the fact that there haven't been all the changes in the text so often claimed
So which proposed changes does it ACTUALLY rule out ? As was pointed out in the following discussion it isn't even relevant to the allegations of major additions to Isaiah itself. So what are these "charges" that it does refute and who made them ? Edited by AdminJar to fix link. This message has been edited by AdminJar, 04-10-2005 03:12 PM This message has been edited by PaulK, 04-10-2005 05:14 PM
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AdminJar Inactive Member |
I fixed your link (extra space hidden in there) but the spelling is up to you.
Before this is ready for prime time I also think it would be a good idea to lay out exactly what you are claiming. As it is and as it showed in the last thread, you and Faith are just dancing around the topic. Is the question: The Bible texts have been altered over the years? If so, then Isaiah is only one area. But if the question relates to Isaiah itself then the thread can be limited to just Isaiah and not all of the other changes that were made over the centuries. Can you clarify the scope of your PNT for us? New Members should start HERE to get an understanding of what makes great posts.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
The point to this is not to investigate anything I am claiming - it is about Faith's claims. Since she has already complained about discussion of this being off-topic in other threads it appears that I must start a new thread to get her to back up her assertions.
Since I am not aware of ANY serious proposals of changes to Biblical texts that are ruled out by the Isaiah scroll it seems entirely reasonable to ask Faith to provide examples. So far as I can tell Faith's response is that it doesn't actually rule out any supposed changed but it is wrong to actually know that, because she hates the scholars who actually study the Bible and find evidence that contradicts her beliefs. If Faith has a real point - as she still claims - she needs to present it and I am offering her an opportunity to do so.
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AdminJar Inactive Member |
Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I would have thought I made the simplest possible statement, nothing that could possibly have led to the confused exchange that followed. This is ALL I said:
The Isaiah scroll among the Dead Sea scrolls confirms the fact that there haven't been all the changes in the text so often claimed, as it is just about identical to the Isaiah text we have today. quote: Where did you get that I was talking about any "PROPOSED" changes? As I reread our exchange it seems clear to me that from the beginning I was talking ONLY about "common accusations" that the Bible has been changed many times over the years SINCE the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Here is the entire extremely confusing exchange:
My #163 to Nighttrain.
quote: Paul K in #164 then decides to challenge that one simple statement.
quote: My answer #166:
quote:But PaulK goes on in #167 with his challenge, apparently referring to changes considered to have been made PREVIOUS to the Isaiah copy in the DSS which was irrelevant to what I had said: quote: At this point I'm about to tear out my hair. Where on earth is he getting the idea I could possibly have suggested ANYTHING concerning the period BEFORE THE SCROLL WAS WRITTEN? So he goes on with this totally irrelevant information:
quote: The "dates" PaulK is asking for are IRRELEVANT because they PRECEDE the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls. But he doesn't mind haranguing me about this total irrelevancy and there doesn't seem to be anything I can say to get him to recognize the meaning of my original statement. My answer #170 TRIES to set the record straight AGAIN:
quote: quote: quote: quote: His #175 doesn't skip a beat, acknowledges not ONE thing in my attempts at correction and goes on and on with this notion of his own about the pre-DDS period:
quote: His 199
quote: I don't have the patience to try to point out the misunderstandings here. I hope they are obvious. If not, maybe we can comb through them later. Meanwhile, I will TRY to back up what I WAS saying: I have been challenged with this "common accusation" as I put it on other forums, and would have assumed it's also a common challenge to believers at this forum, although I haven't run across it here yet. I guess if I could track down examples of these common accusations it would help since apparently you haven't run across any yourself, but here are some ANSWERS to the charge, that Christians often feel obliged to supply, that may make it clear that the accusation IS pretty common: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/bibleorg.html Page Not Found - U C G S P http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8449/two.html
From the above link: Has the text of the Bible Been Altered Over the Centuries? One last test investigates whether or not the Bible has been corrupted down through the ages in its transmission. If it has been significantly changed, then it would not be relevant to us since inspiration does not extend to any manuscript copy. How can we know whether or not the Bible we have today is the same as what was written? This question is answered by the bibliographical test. This test looks at the number of existing manuscript copies there are, their agreement with each other concerning the text that they are copies of, and the time interval between these copies and the date of the original writing. All scholars agree that this test has conclusively established that the biblical text which we have now is nearly identical to what was originally recorded (for both Old and New Testaments). And concerning the lack of substantive changes between the DSS Isaiah and today's Isaiah: A popular account of the fact that the Isaiah scroll found in the DSS is virtually identical to the one we read today: Error | ChristianityToday.com
Take the Isaiah scroll. Until 1947, the oldest manuscript of Isaiah was a Masoretic text that had been copied in the late 900s. Although any book or scroll produced 1,000 years ago is very old, the Masoretic text is actually very "young" when you consider the prophet Isaiah lived 1,600 years before that (around 700 B.C.). This means it had been recopied many times during that interim, with plenty of opportunity for errors to be introduced. With the Qumran Isaiah text, 1,000 years older than the Masoretic text, how accurate was the later text? How significant was "the telephone game" problem? "Despite the fact that the Isaiah scroll was about a thousand years older than the Masoretic version of Isaiah," says James VanderKam of the University of Notre Dame, "the two were nearly identical except for small details that rarely affected the meaning of the text." In other words, a word like "over" in one text might read "above" in the othernot the kind of difference that rocks your faith in the reliability of the Bible texts. Though the Isaiah text had been "whispered" down the telephone line through generations of scribes, God had carefully protected his Word. A bit of a longer more scholarly account: http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/qum-1.htm
4. The gaps in the text caused by disintegration of the leather on which the text was written are called "lacunae" In each lacuna as in this one on the page above it is possible to reproduce the missing text from the Masoretic text which is absolutely always consistent with the context. Although there are some variation from the Masoretic text, these are very infrequent and most often involve only a word and more often person and number of a verb or number of a noun, but even this is infrequent and can not be considered substantial. 5. There are several places where an extra word or two is added to the text. These are infrequent in relation to the total text and they add no real content that is not already in the text. One such addition of 2 words can be seen on this page in the last word in line 18 and the first word in line 19 These words are especially interesting because of their Aramaic origin and are discussed under Variations below. 6. Rarely, a verse is missing altogether. There is no example of this on the first page here but you can see in the portion of the next page , between the second and third line up from the lacuna there are editor's marks indicating where verse 10 of Isaiah 2 is completely omitted. Whoever the editor was he marked the text circa 100 BCE. before it was "bottled" Thus the original Isaiah text was understood at that time to contain some words which were not written by the original Qumran scribe and the elision was taken (in BCE) to be a scribal error. This is also the case in other places where there is an omission or a redundancy where the scribe has copied the same text twice and an editor has marked the error I HOPE THE POINT HAS BEEN MADE THAT I WAS ONLY REFERRING TO THE TIME FROM THE DSS ISAIAH SCROLL TO NOW, AND NOT BEFORE, AND I DON'T GET HOW YOU GOT THAT IDEA OUT OF MY VERY FIRST STATEMENT AT THE TOP OF THIS POST.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Does the fact that Mark, as just one example, shows significant changes that totally modifies the whole feel and content of the Gospel and that those changes came long after Isaiah have any bearing on this discussion?
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Does the fact that Mark, as just one example, shows significant changes that totally modifies the whole feel and content of the Gospel and that those changes came long after Isaiah have any bearing on this discussion? No. All I want is acknowledgment that I made an extremely simple statement about the Isaiah scroll and have now backed it up and that PaulK misunderstood what I said.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
So you agree that the Bible has been edited and changed almost continuously and continued being edited long long after Isaiah. You are only saying that Isaiah has not be significantly edited since the Isaiah scroll?
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
The Isaiah scroll among the Dead Sea scrolls confirms the fact that there haven't been all the changes in the text so often claimed i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that faith is MOSTLY right. if i recall, the copy of isaiah found in the dead sea scrolls is close to identical to modern masoretic text. it's been a while since my class, so i forget if it had the last few chapters (the 3rd isaiah) or not. it does however confirm the accuracy of the masoretic text, IN THIS INSTANCE, to text at around the time christ. (300 years. wow. imagine us messing up what the consititution says... oh wait) however, this just indicates that the second source was added to the text before it was included in the library. it's a last date for changes, not proof it's been the same all along. any child with a bible can pick up a copy of isaiah and note that sections are exactly the same as kings -- one of these two sources copied from the other, or a third source was used. so in essence, there's proof of change right there. however, i will counter with a similar point. TWO copies of jeremiah were found in the scrolls. and they are very, very different. which one is older?
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
So you agree that the Bible has been edited and changed almost continuously and continued being edited long long after Isaiah. You are only saying that Isaiah has not be significantly edited since the Isaiah scroll? Literally, yes to your last sentence. But I also infer that it has implications for the reliability of the copying and transmission of ALL the texts since then. You might give a glance at the links I supplied. This message has been edited by Faith, 04-10-2005 08:51 PM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
if i recall, the copy of isaiah found in the dead sea scrolls is close to identical to modern masoretic text. That's what the links I gave confirm.
however, i will counter with a similar point. TWO copies of jeremiah were found in the scrolls. and they are very, very different. which one is older? I'm not a DSS scholar but I did look this up -- briefly. Found that there is a Septuagint Jeremiah that is quite a bit shorter than the Masoretic text which is the basis for our copies of Jeremiah, though it wasn't clear that a Masoretic version was actually found in the DSS. Which is older? On what basis? They'd both be copies in any case. And if one is Septuagint and one Masoretic obviously the Hebrew (Masoretic) would be the older.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Found that there is a Septuagint Jeremiah that is quite a bit shorter than the Masoretic text which is the basis for our copies of Jeremiah, though it wasn't clear that a Masoretic version was actually found in the DSS. the two versions are clearly the same text. but one is shorter, and in a completely different order. i forget offhand which is which.
Which is older? On what basis? that was my question. nobody knows.
They'd both be copies in any case. not neccessarily. one could be a rearranging of the other.
And if one is Septuagint and one Masoretic obviously the Hebrew (Masoretic) would be the older vice-versa, actually. the masoretic text was compiled about 300 ad. the septuagint was compiled about 200 bc. what is amazing, as your original claim pointed out, is that the masoretic text is so close to the dss texts. it gives some validity to the faithfulness of the masoretic copies.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
OK, so I gather that the Masoretic is a specific lineage of Hebrew texts as it were. Post-Christian. I looked this up too and found it's such a huge and somewhat controversial topic I'm not up to thinking about it for now.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Do you agree that the Bible has been edited, revised, added to, subtracted from including both the Old and New Testament?
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
So you agree that the Bible has been edited and changed almost continuously and continued being edited long long after Isaiah. Of course not. There is plenty of evidence that the transmission of the entire Bible has been remarkably reliable for the last 2000 years, that the differences between old and recent texts and between different "lineages" of texts as it were, are negligible. There is some evidence offered in the links I already gave in my first post but if you want more proof I won't have time to track it down for a while. As for changes prior to the DSS or prior to Christianity, that's a whole nother set of arguments. If you want to try it, muster your charges and I may get around to trying to answer them.
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