The Septuagint is more accurate and closer than the Masoretic text to the originals

" My mistake, the article "Chappel Louis" is found in the 1948 edition of Encylopedia Britannica."Nope, not there either.(Note - I did eventually find the article - the problem is that Pro both misspelled the name, and reversed the order of the names.) But even if it were there, if you have to go to an article in a 1948 edition of E.B. on a no name theologian from the 16th cent., to find support for such a claim...(I haven't looked into it, but Wikipedia states" Eighteenth-century theologian John Gill in his writing, A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points and Accents, disputed the idea that the vowel points were invented by the Masoretes, and claimed that Hebrew authorities removed the vowel points because of their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah.")As I've pointed out twice, there hasn't even been an attempt to provide a single example to back up this extraordinary claim that 'the system of punctuation "give every word to which they are affixed a peculiar kind of meaning,"'. and still, for some reason pro fails to attempt a single example. On the basis of this alone, we should disregard this argument"Just because the Masoretes took measures to prevent errors in the transmission of the text doesn't imply that they didn't draw from earlier manuscripts which gave references to Jesus being the Messiah. "Of course it does. If "the Masoretes took measures to prevent errors in the transmission of the text", and this transmitted text does not contain 'references to Jesus being the Messiah', that certainly does 'impliy' that the texts from which they were copied, also did not contain such references.(Obviously it doesn't prove it 100%, but then again nothing is proven 100%.)"This is evidenced by the comparison of Scriptures quoted above."I don't follow the 'logic' here.How is LXX being different and perhaps even based on other Hebrew versions, evidence that the M.T. 'drew from earlier manuscripts which gave references to Jesus being the Messiah'? Not only is there no evidence that M.T. was copied from LXX (or it's supposed base texts), I know of no one who even makes such a claim.Pro attempts to bolster the credibility of a site which he quoted (Bible Archaeology.com) - by quoting what that site says about itself - now there's a good reliable unbiased review. Furthermore, even if it were a reliable/authoritative source, no argument was provided, but rather simply an appeal to authority.Furthermore, Pro fails to respond to my main points regarding that quote which were;a) 'The source of the quote isn’t even purported to be a scholarly article at all, but rather something like a book promotion, and it certainly doesn’t ‘point to Bible [sic] Archaeology’.' b) More importantly – as far as this debate is concerned, is that what is written there still does not support the resolution, as it does not compare the M.T. to LXX, and does not claim or even indicate that LXX is superior in any way. "Con hasn't provided any evidence for how the LXX has Christian influences in it as well nor does he Gordon provides no evidence that the LXX is produced by Christians."There are actually two pieces of evidence mentioned in this debate, that indicate post-christ tampering with LXX.1) The mistranslating of Isiah 7:14. (I've made several arguments showing that LXX indeed mistranslated the text.)2) The fact that in Deut. 32:43, the LXX text differs from the text found in all 33 of the DSS which contain Deut. - except one, and that one just so happens to be a Post-Christ manuscript. So we have all pre-christ texts saying one thing, only one manuscript which is post christ that saying another, and the LXX just so happens to concur with the single post-christ text (which supposedly (according to pro) includes a Christological reference). This strongly indicates post-christ tampering with the text.I'm not sure what pro means by "as well nor does he Gordon provides no evidence that the LXX is produced by Christians." ("My point in bringing up the concept of a "virgin" in Isa. 7:14 is to show the LXX's consistency with the M.T."If you want to make them consistent, why not say the other way around - that the Greek word 'Parthenos ' does not mean virgin, but rather simply a young girl. Indeed there is evidence for this (for example, the same word Parthenos is used with reference to Dina after being raped by Shechem), and such an argument could be possibly be made. But alas, it wasn't. (If it were made, I did have a rebuttal. However, even with my rebuttal, the proof of LXX corruption from Isiah 7:14 would still be somewhat weakened.)Pro brings Adam Clarke to support the virgin translation. This is yet another pure appeal to authority, without any sort of attempt at providing a reasoned argument. Neither Clarke nor Pro even attempted to provide any sort argument or reasoning for this baseless assertion.Additionally, there was not even an attempt to counter/address the 2 arguments that I made in the previous round, proving that the word in question does not mean virgin.(Anyway, according to Clarke, I have another example of LXX corruption.On Isaiah 19:18 Clarke writes "for the Greek version has here been either translated from a corrupted text, or wilfully mistranslated or corrupted, to serve the same cause.")Pro quotes Herbert Wolf - who is just basically repeating Gordon's argument - which I responded to at length in the previous round (to which there has been no(/little) attempted rebuttal). Over here, there is a bit more (but still not much) detail about (the basis/ background details of) the argument. However, I researched the arguments for the previous round and my response(s) were based on and addressed these (basis background details of) the argument. However, it occurred to me that those unfamiliar with these points may not have understood some of my arguments due to unfamiliarity with the background/ basis of the argument (- which I should add, was & is pro's responsibility, since he's the one that is supposed to be making the argument. I shouldn't have to go research the argument and then write out what it is.) Therefore, I'll repeat some (the first 4) of the arguments here (with a bit more detail): (1) His argument is based on the claim that the Ugaritic word "glmt" and the Hebrew word "Almah" are cognates, based on the English transliterations, this does not appear to necessarily be true. ;P) Added: (This is half in jest, the basis for comparison, is that the 'g' in gmlt and 'A' in Almah are not pronounced as we usually pronounce 'g' and 'a', but rather they both come from deep in the back of the throat, and thus they are not so different. However, combined with my next argument, this point is significant, since the Aramaic words are is still much closer to the Hebrew word than this Ugaritic word is, & thus a better indicator of the Hebrew word.) 2) "The Aramaic terms עלמהא and עולימא May be used of women who are not virgins; e.g. Targum of Jud. 19:5 an unfaithful concubine is so described and in a Palmyrene tariff document written about 137 CE prostitutes are termed this. The Ugaritic equivalent for עלמה is glmt and was generally thought to be an virgin. However, more recently questions have been raised concerning the Ugaritic text CTA 24:7 which reads hl glmt tld b[n ] and is translated similarly to Isa. 7:14...”(3) Added: (There are 2 points here contained within this quotes;1) The Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew word does not mean virgin. As I pointed out is much more similar in sound (as compared to the Ugaritic) to the Hebrew word and thus superior in terms of determining the Hebrew words meaning) 2) It is not clear / obvious / accepted that glmt (the Ugeratic word which is similar to Almah) even means virgin, in which case there is no argument. (I should have mentioned last round, that I find the whole reasoning behind Gordon's 'parallelism proof' to be rather shaky. Just because it referred to a person as a btlt/virgin, and latter referred to her as glmt (which was Gordons basis for translating glmt as virgin), does not prove that glmt means virgin. 3) Combining all these strings, we have an extremely powerful counter argument. Here we have 2 words, one (the Aramaic) which is more similar to the Hebrew and is clearly not defined as virgin, while the other (Ugaritic) is not only, not as close to the Hebrew word, but even the claim that it means virgin (in the 1st place) is dubious and in doubt. Obviously we should go with the more similar word whose definition is know rather than the less similar word whose definition isn't even really known.) 3) Aside from being written in different languages, the Ugaritic text and the book of Isiah were also written many centuries apart. 4) The three second-century Greek translations, Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, read neanis "young woman, girl...TheTargum of Jonathan on Isaiah reads "wlymt' "young woman, girl"..."(4) "Refer back to the previous round for more including two proofs that that the Hebrew word Almah does not mean virgin.In summary/conclusion, The resolution is not only unsupported, but thoroughly negated.Pro has failed to fulfil his BOP that "The Septuagint is more accurate and closer than the Masoretic text to the originals", as I have thoroughly refuted each of his claims & arguments. In addition, I have made a number of arguments negating the resolution, and supporting the superiority of M.T. over LXX, most of which, Pro failed to even attempt to respond to. Pro relied largely & heavily (IMHO way too much) on appeals to Athority, while I provided a mix of; well reasoned arguments, quotes from authorities and experts in relevant fields, and arguments based on what these scholars have written. Thus/Hence, the resolution is not only unsupported, but thoroughly negated.Therefor, I urge a vote Con!Thanks for reading,Vote Con!Anyone - including pro, who would like to debate this or a similar topic, just send me a challenge, if there are any questions, feel free to P.M. me.