From: pub@riscee.pko.dec.com (Publius)
Subject: Re: Biblical Errors
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard MA
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 06:40:56 GMT

In article <Bx9D4n.E98@inews.Intel.COM> pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey) writes:
>
>The Vulgate (Latin) relied heavily on the Septuagint (Greek,LXX).

Please cite your source.  My source is an article titled "The Text
behind the Text of the Hebrew Bible" written by Prof. Frank M. Cross
(recently retired from Harvard) and collected in the volume
"Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls" (Ed. Hershel Shanks of the
Biblical Archaeology Review).  Prof. Cross is usually far out too liberal
for my evangelical taste in the area of Biblical interpretation (which,
BTW, is not exactly Prof. Cross' specialty).  But I don't think he
would make the mistake on this historic fact.  This is what he said
regarding Vulgate:

	"Jerome, writing in the fourth century, applied the principle
	 of "correcting to the Hebrew" to the Latin Bible, displacing
	 earlier Latin translations (based on the Old Greek Bible)
	 with a new Latin translation that has come to be called
	 Vulgate, a Latin version translated from the standard
	 Rabbinic Recension of the Hebrew Bible in use in Jerome's
	 time."

>LXX also relied on the oral tradition. It is not clear how much, of the Hebrew,
>was written down at the time of the Septuagint translation in Alexandria,
>perhaps very little was at the time.

Again please cite your source.  The translators in Alexandria were given
the priestly version of the Hebrew text by the Temple priests in Judea.
It is true that those Hellenist translators did a very poor job.  But
none the less it gives us a window, though probabily not a very clear
window, into that priestly text tradition.

> ... An illustration would be the Targums,
>the Aramaic translation which was an oral tradition and only latter written
>down.

Targums was different.  It was not really a translation.  It was the
Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew text.  After the return of the
Babylonian Exile, most of the common folks could not understand
Hebrew.  So during the meeting when the Hebrew text was read,
there was the need for someone to give the Aramaic paraphrase to the
audience.  This was the oral tradition of the Aramaic paraphrase of
the *written* Hebrew text.

> ... The "written word" didn't mean then what it does now. Many people
>probably didn't trust it, prefering priests who could recite from memory (oral
>tradition).

This was not exactly the case, especiallafter the religious/moral decline
of the priesthood and the rise of rabbinical Judaism, when the rabbis
began to look at the priests with certain amount of suspicion.  Even in
the earlier period when priests still commanded the respect of the
general populace, the priests themselves had the *written* Hebrew text,
even if many people would preferred the recitation by the priests.

I previously wrote:
>> ... My point is that there were
>>*written* text traditions before that early-1st century rabbinical
>>revision.

and Paul Harvey replied:
>Then where are they? Lost during the sacking of the Library of Alexandria?

Well, they can found in numerous manuscripts found in various
archaeological sites.  According to Prof. Cross' article I mentioned
above, in the archaeological site of Qumran, there were 190 manuscripts
of biblical books reflecting 3 textual families of early texts (250 BC -
68 AD).

Regards,
-- 
For Christ and His Kingdom
-- Publius
Disclaimer: These opinions are mine, all mine, mine alone.
Xref: sparky talk.religion.misc:20559 alt.atheism:20745