From: pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey)
Subject: Re: Biblical Errors
Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'.
	<Bx9D4n.E98@inews.Intel.COM> <1992Nov6.064056.22078@engage.pko.dec.com>
Date: 8 Nov 1992 01:09:06 UTC

In article <1992Nov6.064056.22078@engage.pko.dec.com> 
pub@riscee.pko.dec.com (Publius) writes:
>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. 

Scratch that from the record. I know this will come as a shock, but I'm
gonna disagree with myself on this one. Instead I'm gonna say this: Now,
Christianity was "based" on the Septuagint. How do we know this? The
writings of the NT reference the Septuagint, errors and all. In fact,
the Hellenistic Greek Septuagint and the Hellenistic Greek NT scriptures
*were* the Christian Bible, until Jerome and the Vulgate that is. Jerome
is the first to go back to the original Hebrew (Masoretic Text) in his
translation of the Christian Bible into Latin. If you think about it,
that is a big step. The founding fathers of Christianity used the
Septuagint, so an argument could be made for sticking with that text.
But, Jerome pushes for a return to the Hebrew from which the Septuagint
was translated, despite the legend of 72 Jews translating separately and
yet producing identical texts. So from Jerome onward, most European
translations claim the Hebrew MT as the "base" for the Christian OT. Now
as for the scholarly quality of the Vulgate, I will say this: It is not
easy to translate across language families, Hebrew being from the
Semetic branch of African languages and most European languages being
Indo-European. The result is that the Vulgate is inbetween the
Septuagint and the King James; better than the Septuagint, but not as
good as the KJ. So, since most people are aware of the scholarly quality
of the KJ and Septuagint versus the Hebrew MT, that should give you a
fix on the Vulgate. All three are valuable translations because
translation is not easy, but they also have their faults. Now, I said
before that the faults were due to more emphasis on the Septuagint than
the text should merit, but another reason for translation faults is just
that translating Hebrew into I-E is just not easy. So, while many claim
to be "based" on the Hebrew MT, due to these two reasons and possibly
some others, they fall somewhat short of the mark. Regarding modern
translations that are based on KJ I note the following from JPS:Tanakh:

"With the rise of Protestantism in Europe, scholars within this movement
set themselves the task of making the Bible available in the various
vernaculars of the time. By 1526 the first parts of two notable
translations began to appear: Martin Luther's in German and William
Tyndale's in English. The latter, by way of several subsequent
revisions, became the KJV of 1611. The more modern English versions -
such as The Holy Scriptures by the American rabbi Isaac Leeser (1855),
the (British) Revised Version (1881-1885), the American Standard Version
(1901), the JPS's The Holy Scriptures (1917), and the (American) Revised
Standard Version (1952) - made extensive use of the King James."

>>LXX also relied on the oral tradition.
>Again please cite your source.

JPS:Tanakh:
"Alongside the close, literal method of Bible translation, the earliest
Jewish translators were also influenced by the widely held view that,
along with the Written Law (torah she-biktav), God had given Moses on
Mount Sinai an Oral Law (torah she-be'al peh) as well; so that to
comprehend God's Torah fully and correctly, it was essential to make use
of both."

And note also that the Septuagint make note that there are sections of the
text that had no written Hebrew, only oral Aramaic. From my World Pub
KJV, Languages of the Bible, Rev. C.H.H Wright,D.D.,Phd.:
"Several portions of the books of the OT are written in a peculiar
Aramaic dialect, often miscalled Chaldee, a mistake which arose from the
misconception of Dan. 1:4 with Dan. 2:4. Jerome, the translator of the
Latin Vulgate, perpetuated and popularised this mistake. Although
Aramaic seems to have been extensively used as the language of trade and
commerce, and occasionally employed in official proclamations, it was
not the language of the court of Babylonia. The Biblical Aramaic has
certain marked peculiarities, but is closely akin to the Aramaic of the
Targums and to Syriac. The following portions of the OT are in this
language: Ezra 4:8 to 6:18, 7:12-26, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4 to
7:28."

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

Ah, good point. Of course the Masora is not a fixed text, it is subject
to revision when sufficient older Hebrew texts are found. If I'm not
mistaken, some of Q texts have already been incorporated and in general
verify that the Masora was well maintained. But, a lot of text was found
in that cave and work still continues to figure out exactly what it all
is.