From: pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey)
Subject: Re: How to choose a Bible Translation
Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'.
	<1992Dec21.171116.19582@engage.pko.dec.com>
Date: 22 Dec 1992 00:45:13 UTC

In article <1992Dec21.171116.19582@engage.pko.dec.com> 
pub@riscee.pko.dec.com (Publius) writes:
>In article <BzJD0s.9r9@world.std.com> 
rjk@world.std.com (robert j kolker) writes:
>>Take prospective translation and turn to Isaiah 7:14. If you find the word
>>"virgin" therein, consign the translation to the flames. It is NOT a
>>correct translation from the Hebrew.
>It is not as simple as you think.  It is true that the word 'almah'
>(young woman) is used in the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament.
>We have to keep it in mind that nobody thinks the Masoretic Text
>is perfect, and the oldest manuscript we have for the Masoretic Text
>is less than one thousand years old.  On the other hand, the
>Septuigent, despite the admitted poor quality of its translation,
>was based on a text tradition dated well back to the priestly Judaism
>in Judea, well before the founding of the rabbinical Judaism, from
>which the Masoretic Text comes down to us.  So it is rather presumptuous
>to say that the Masoretic Text is correct and the Septuigent is wrong
>whenever they disagree.
>According to Prof. Frank M. Cross (a very liberal source, BTW, so you
>can not say this comes from my own evangelical prospective,) the
>Masoretic Text was probabily derived from a rabbinical text base
>fixed at the early part of the first century, and this rabbinical
>text base was NOT the generally accepted text, not even among the
>rabbis, during the most part of the first century.  The "authorized"
>text at that time was still the priestly text tradition, which, BTW,
>is also the text base of the Septuigent.  Despite the poor quality of
>the translation, Septuigent gives us a window, though not a very clear
>one, into that ancient priestly text tradition, which is much older
>than the rabbinical text base, from which the Masoretic Text was
>derived.

Nice theory, but it has one problem. As you know, ancient texts were
found in a cave in Qumran in 1949. Ancient Hebrew copies of Isaiah are among
some of the texts that have been released by the owners who have
not been playing fair, in fact the leader of the group was found to be
an anti-Semite. This is highly unfortunate but it again is illustrative
of problems some Christians seem to have with being honest.
Nonetheless, the ancient Hebrew Isaiah manuscripts were released and it
is rather amazing that the Masoretic text is a close as it is. There are
only a few errors present in the Masoretic copy of Isaiah as compared to
the ancient Qumran versions and JPS has incorporated them into the text since
the goal of JPS was to translate the most accurate version of the Hebrew
available, not just the Masoretic text. For example:

Isaiah8:23(JPS): For (o-)if there were to be(-o) any break of day for
that [land] which is in straits, only the former [king] would have
brought abasement to the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali -
while the later one would have brought honor to the Way of the Sea, the
other side of Jordan, and Galilee of the Nations.(p)
---
o-o: So 1QIs(a); the others have "there is not."
p: Meaning of verse uncertain. The rendering here assumes that "the
former [king]" refers to Pekah (cf. 2Kings15.29) and "the later" to
Hoshea (ibid. 30). For the construction "lu ... ka'eth," see Judg.13-23.

Note that 1QIs(a) stands for manuscript *a* of Isaiah found in the first
cave of Qumran. So, 1QIs(a) has "if there were to be" whereas the Masorah
and Septuagint and Targums have "there is not."

As more manuscripts are finally released from Qumran, we may in fact
find that the Masorah has been corrupted in other books, but based on
what has been released, it appears that the Septuagint was a translation
of the Masorah, and not some other "more-inspired" or
"secret-true-hidden" proto-Christian Hebrew manuscript. Or, said more
correctly, based on the Qumran Isaiah manuscripts, it appears that the
Hebrew translated into the Septuagint was nearly identical to the Masorah,
or more identical to the Masorah than the Qumran scripts.

Given that the former leader of the group that owns the manuscripts was
anti-Semitic, it seems likely that if there was a smoking gun among them
that would discredit the Masoretic tradition, it would have been
released already.

So, while it is still possible that the Septuagint translation was based
on some other Hebrew text different from the Masorah, it seems unlikely
at this point.

It is rather unfortunate that we are missing so many of the early
manuscripts. Many were lost when the library of Alexandria was burned by
Islam after having undergone some censorship by the Christians and many
Hebrew manuscripts were burned by Christians throughout European
history. It's a miracle that any survived this tremendous disrespect for
the written word, in fact it's been speculated that the cache of scripts
at Qumran was intentially hidden from early Christian censorship, so
that we in the present may know some of the truth.