Most talk about the text of the Bible focuses on the New Testament. The Old Testament is much larger and yet there is less variation in extant copies of the Old Testament than the New. As well, more Christian scholars know the Greek than the Hebrew, and when they know the Hebrew, they also know the Greek better.
Scripture teaches the preservation of all of scripture in the original languages, the languages in which scripture was written. Even if the conversation mainly centers on the New Testament, God preserved the Old Testament perfectly too. In recent days, some are talking more about the Old Testament again. Our book, Thou Shalt Keep Them, addressed the preservation of the Old Testament and the variation of a Hebrew critical text.
No Translation Above Preserved Hebrew Text
I think you would be right to detect hypocrisy in many of those who wish to alter the preserved Hebrew text of the Old Testament with a Greek, Latin, or Syriac translation. Not necessarily in this order, but, first, it flies in the face of “manuscript evidence.” It’s not because there isn’t evidence — around three hundred extant ancient handwritten copies of the Hebrew Masoretic text exist. Second, critical text advocates savagely attack those who identify preservation in a translation. I don’t believe God preserved His words in a translation, but they actually do in their underlying Old Testament text for the modern versions.
In a related issue, the same critical text supporters most often say that Jesus quoted from a Greek translation of the Old Testament, “the Septuagint.” As someone reads the references or mentions of the Old Testament by Jesus in the Gospels, he will notice that there are not exact quotations of the Hebrew Masoretic text. Even when you compare the English translation of the Hebrew in the Old Testament passage and compare it with the English translation of the Greek in the New Testament, they won’t match exactly most of the time. What was happening in these passages? Is this evidence that we don’t have an identical text to them?
View of the Septuagint
It is a popular and false notion that Christians in the first century used a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, called the Septuagint, as their scriptures, so they quoted from it. All the New Testament “quotations” of the Old Testament have at least minor variants from the various editions of the Septuagint in all but one place: a quote in Matthew 21:16 is identical to a part of Psalm 8:3 in Ralf’s edition of the Septuagint.
When you read the New Testament and find the 320 or so usages or allusions to the Old Testament in it, you will see that they are not identical. Some might explain that as a translation of a translation, that is, the Old Testament, Hebrew to English, and the New Testament, Hebrew to Greek to English, differences will occur by a sheer dissipation of a third language. Online and in other locations you can compare an English translation of the New Testament quotations of the Old Testament with an English translation of one edition of the Septuagint and one of the Hebrew Masoretic to compare the latter two with the first.
I see value in the Septuagint, whichever edition, since there are several. Those various editions give larger sample sizes of Greek usage for meaning and syntax for understanding the Greek biblical language of the New Testament. They can help with the study of both the Old and New Testaments. As an example, Jewish translators translated the Old Testament Hebrew word almah in Isaiah 7:14 parthenos, which is the specific Greek word for “virgin,” not “young woman.” All of this answers the question, “How would people have understood the word, phrase, or sentence who heard it in that day?”
What Did New Testament Authors Do?
The mentions of the Old Testament in the New are most often not verbatim quotations of the Hebrew. That’s not what the New Testament authors were doing. They were serious about the preservation of the Old Testament as seen in the regular use of the words, “it is written.” This is a perfect passive verb that says passage continues written. The writing of the passage was complete with the results of that writing ongoing. This communicates the preservation of scripture.
The New Testament authors knew the Old Testament well, so they didn’t need a Greek translation of it. The New Testament writers could do their own translation of a Hebrew text. They most often, however, did a “targum,” some quoting and some paraphrasing from memory and also deliberately using the words of the text to make their theological or practical point from the Bible. Preachers continue to do this today, sometimes quoting directly from a translation and other times making an allusion or reference to the passage.
Reliance on the Septuagint?
What I’m explaining about “targumming” is the explanation of John Owen and others through history as to the variation between the Old Testament Hebrew and the Greek or English translation. Some references to the Old Testament are closer to an edition of the Septuagint than the Hebrew Masoretic text, sometimes almost identical. Were the scriptural authors relying on a Septuagint, which predated the New Testament?
If New Testament authors relied on what we know of the Greek Septuagint today, then they depended on a corrupt edition or version of scripture. Some give this as an argument for the validation of a corrupt text. They say that God doesn’t care about the very words of the Bible, just its message. Instead, God kept the message very intact, but not the exact words. In addition, they often say that the Septuagint is evidence for the acceptance of something short of a perfect text. These approaches to the Septuagint are mere theories founded on faulty presuppositions.
John Owen also referred to this similarity between the usages of the New Testament authors with a translation of the Greek Old Testament, such as the Septuagint. He said that the likely explanation was that Christians adapted the text of the Septuagint to the New Testament quotations out of respect of Jesus and the New Testament authors. Others have echoed that down through history. Owen wasn’t alone. It is a possibility.
John Owen
In Owen’s first volume in his three thousand page Hebrews commentary, he spends a few pages speaking on the Septuagint and the concept of quotations from it. Owen writes (pp. 67-68):
Concerning these, and some other places, many confidently affirm, that the apostle waved the original, and reported the words from the translation of the LXX. . . . [T]his boldness in correcting the text, and fancying without proof, testimony, or probability, of other ancient copies of the Scripture of the Old Testament, differing in many things from them which alone remain, and which indeed were ever in the world, may quickly prove pernicious to the church of God. . . .
[I]t is highly probable, that the apostle, according to his wonted manner, which appears in almost all the citations used by him in this epistle, reporting the sense and import of the places, in words of his own, the Christian transcribers of the Greek Bible inserted his expressions into the text, either as judging them a more proper version of the original, (whereof they were ignorant) than that of the LXX., or out of a preposterous zeal to take away the appearance of a diversity between the text and the apostle’s citation of it.
And thus in those testimonies where there is a real variation from the Hebrew original, the apostle took not his words from the translation of the LXX. but his words were afterwards inserted into that translation.
Theories of Men Versus the Promises of God
Theories of men should not upend or variate the promises of God. God’s promises stand. He promised to preserve the original language text. We should believe it. No one should believe that Jesus or one of the apostles quoted from a corrupted Greek translation. That contradicts the biblical doctrine of the preservation of scripture. Other answers exist.
Whatever position someone takes on the Septuagint, it should not contradict what God already said He would do. There is no authority to historical theories based on no or tenuous evidence at best. The best explanation is one that continues a high view of scripture. One should not rely on one of the editions of the Greek Septuagint for deciding what scripture is. It should not correct the received Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Instead, everyone should believe what God said He would do and acknowledge its fulfillment in history.
Kent wrote:
“He promised to preserve the original language text.”
He did? If he did, it sure seems ironic that both languages are dead to the world. God is using neither the Greek or Hebrew to save anyone.
Please explain.
Tom
Tom,
You don’t need it explained, because you already know. We’ve gone around and around on this. God promises to preserve what was written. He did. You don’t believe that.
“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.” (Matthew 5:18) There are no jots nor tittles in the English language. Also, when something is preserved (“not pass”) that means it was there at the time and continues as it is. The English language did not exist at the time these promises (Matthew 24:35) were made. God preserved (and is preserving) what was in existence at the time–the original text, the Greek and Hebrew.
God is definitely using Greek and Hebrew to save people, because that is what any good translation in any language is translated from. Without it, we have no Word of God. If you believe the English was inspired as a separate act, that is mentioned nowhere in the Bible, and is a denial of the doctrine of inspiration (II Timothy 3:16).
Amen!
God is definitely using Greek and Hebrew to save people, because that is what any good translation in any language is translated from.
God used all kinds of inspired texts to put together the pure words of God in its final form, the King James Bible.
So, these old texts are just like anything else that is old. They are set aside, for the Holy Ghost has moved on to that faithful book that he has used to save millions in the past 400 years.
Without it, we have no Word of God. If you believe the English was inspired as a separate act, that is mentioned nowhere in the Bible, and is a denial of the doctrine of inspiration (II Timothy 3:16).
The King James Bible is inspired like all the inspired texts before it. That is what the Bible teaches concerning the scriptures.
Tom,
I can’t help but notice that you don’t use any scripture to support your doctrine of inspiration that the King James Bible is “the pure words of God in its final form”, or where the scripture would support any idea like “all the inspired texts before it”. I think I know why you don’t give any scripture to support it, but it would be interesting to see you try.
FWIW, if you believe that copies that are preserved are inspired in a derivative sense (that which is preserved is still what it was–inspired), then I would agree with that, but it’s pretty obvious that you don’t believe that. If you believe that the King James Bible is inspired in the sense that it is a faithful translation of the perfectly preserved Greek and Hebrew, I would agree with that also, but, again, I don’t think that is what you are saying.
If you believe the King James Bible was a direct act of inspiration (through whom, the Anglican translators?; because they believed themselves to be translators, not apostles), then again, it would be fascinating to see what scriptures you would use to support that–that is if you believe in the sufficiency of scripture.
Mat,
Wherever the scriptures, words, word of God are spoken as inspired, pure, every word, etc. it does not say in “the originals”. You need to prove to me it was the originals, or original languages. That is nothing else but private interpretation.
“If you believe the King James Bible was a direct act of inspiration (through whom, the Anglican translators?”
No, through the body of Christ who believed it, read it, taught it and preached it throughout the world, seeing millions saved, growing in grace because of the Holy King James Bible knowing that “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. (1Th 2:13)
What did you receive, been taught, read to the saving of your soul? A Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Latin or English Bible?
Tom
Mat,
PS: If the words of God are not inspired, then they are of the devil (Read Genesis 3).
Tom
Tom,
You are not taking the right point from non-inspired words. The King James Version is inspired because it is a translation of perfectly preserved Words. What’s ironic is that you don’t believe they are preserved. Your view of inspiration is completely warped.
Kent,
“ The King James Version is inspired because it is a translation of perfectly preserved Words. What’s ironic is that you don’t believe they are preserved.”
I have never said that God came down from heaven and put the King James Bible ( you call it a version- while I call it the Bible) on the lap of the translators.
But, I do not sit around on my hobby horse of the past to prove that the God of the living really cares about anyone spending time to show what God has already proven to be true that the King James Bible is the inspired and living word of God.
“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” (2 Timothy 4:2)
That is not telling us to go and preach biblically dead languages to a world of nations that teach in their schools English rather than Greek or Hebrew!
God knows it so why does most of the church refuse to take heed? Read about the church of the Laodiceans.
Tom
And be not likened to the Greeks by bringing in strange words (words of the past) as some new thing, but rather believe that which is written.
For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. (Act 17:20)
(For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) (Act 17:21)
Tom
So you call the original Greek words, inspired by God through the New Testament authors, to “strange words” is garbage. We’re not closed off from the meaning of those words today, and the translation fulfills those words only insofar that they have the same meaning. You don’t like someone using the word “heresy” for this, but it is a break from right division of the words of truth. In other words, you’re the one causing disunity.
When I preach from the living words in my accurate translation (version, same thing), the translation gets its authority from the original words given by God, not something different. Relating those original words, breathed out by God and then preserved by Him, to the Laodicean church is a rhetorical flourish that works with people singing from your songbook, but it is horrific doctrinally and practically. It is an offense to God.
Kent,
I guess you missed it. Maybe this will help.
Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me. (1 Corinthians 14:11)
If you did not like strange words, then how about speaking barbaric words to your listeners?
Tom
Tom,
1 Cor 14 is not about the preservation of scripture. You want to hear what in a known tongue? The very words of God. It is a translation though of the very words of God, which we have.
Tom,
I can’t help but notice that your view is quite myopic, and limited to the English world.
“A world of nations that teach in the their schools English rather than Greek or Hebrew.”
The majority of mankind does not use English as their first language. Out of 8 billions persons, only about 360 millions speak it as a first language, and 1,5 billions speak English as first AND second language.
Those non-English speakers need the Word of God. Therefore they need a good translation from the original source. Therefore the importance of the preservation of the Greek and Hebrew original. What God promised to preserve was what Moses, Paul, and Peter wrote. They wrote in Hebrew and Greek, not English.
I am translating the Bible right now, and I am translating it from the Greek and Hebrew. I hope you are not part of those who insist that I translate it from the KJV instead of the original languages, because unfortunately I’ve met with such a bizarre position before.
I agree Tenrin.
Tenrin,
“I am translating the Bible right now, and I am translating it from the Greek and Hebrew.”
If I gave you a Greek New Testament, could you read it, teach it, and preach it to a native Greek believer?
Tom
Tom,
What I personally can do with the Greek and Hebrew Bible is irrelevant to the question of where the authority of the translations of the Bible into various languages should rest.
But as to your question, i can read the Greek New Testament, most passages by sight. In some passages I would consult dictionaries. I do teach Greek exegesis to people in my church. I’ve never attempted to teach the Bible to any Greek native since they are not in my region at all.
Hey Kent, are you familiar with the disagreement between the Masoretic and Septuagint in Genesis 11 with the genealogies? There’s a theory that the Masoretic text was intentionally corrupted to try to throw off the timeline of things and discredit Christianity. Do you have any info or thoughts on this?
Dear Andy,
Here is an article on that:
https://kentbrandenburg.com/2018/09/28/the-septuagint-lxx-chronology-in/
thank you.
Hi Andy,
I don’t believe the Hebrew text was sabotaged. That theory is unsubstantiated and casts doubt on the perfect preservation of scripture, essentially denying it. There is an attack on scripture, it’s inspiration and preservation, but it didn’t succeed.
Thank you Thomas, I will check that. And thank you Kent for your response. God bless.
Thank you for writing. It is puzzling how some Christians will not hesitate to believe in God without any qualifications when it comes to the salvation of their souls or the belief that God created the world in six days. Yet, when it comes to the preservation of His words as they were originally transmitted to man, they suddenly require theories and extra-biblical evidence, or they will not accept what Scripture says on the matter. A similar phenomenon occurs with true Church history. Why the former—arguably more fantastic claims—are accepted at face value, while the latter, still miraculous but less so, requires perfect evidence is a mystery to me.
Constructing theories that effectively invalidate the simple sense of God’s promises in Scripture about Scripture does not seem to stem from a place of faith, and without faith, it’s impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). I know this is your point, and I fully agree with it. For a Christian, any theory or examination of extra-biblical evidence must first presuppose that everything God said in His inspired and preserved record to man is infallibly true. Therefore, any theory that does not begin here lays a flawed foundation and is not likely to edify believers or lead people to the truth.