Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Mon, 25 Jan 1993 11:37:00 MST
From:         Usenet/Netnews Moderator <FOCMCB@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Jumping in

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
>From: billc@housing.msstate.edu (Bill Chapman)
>Subject: Re: Jumping in
>Organization: Housing Department, Mississippi State University
>Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 19:19:49 GMT

In article <01GTVUB59Z2Y96W0HV@asu.edu> Kerry Stephenson <KSTE@PURCCVM.BITNET>
 writes:
>
>        1.  Does anyone have an opinion on the Septuagint?  Just
>            anything.  Any conception you might have would be
>            welcome.
The history of the transmission and translation of the bible is a very
complex and interesting topic.  Any simplification of this history runs
the risk of reducing major problems to insignificance, or of otherwise
misleading the readers.  Just remember the context of the History of the
world and the history of the chosen people of God.  In this context, the
language problem looks like this:
The writings of God's people were originally in Hebrew (with some Aramaic).
God's people had been scattered throughout the known world in the by the
Assyrian and Bablyonian conquests.  (Remember, part of the goal of the
conquests was genocide, elimination and assimilation of the culture that was
captured.  Thus they would deport half the people and import people from
another captivity, trying to eliminate both as distinct cultural groups...
You will remember the stories of Samaritans in this context.)
That God's chosen people Israel remember their heritage is important, and
was accomplished by having written scripture handed down in a long tradition
related to the Temple in Jerusalem, which also was destroyed.  Part of the
miraculous preservation of God's people, even in their captivity, was that
preservation of His word, and in the case you mention, the translation of
the sacred writings into Greek, i.e., the Septuagint.  That there are some
differences between the Septuagint and the Hebrew scriptures is no more of
a problem than the differences in various manuscripts of the New Testament.
(The goal of scholars in textual criticism is to determine from the available
evidence, what the original writings said in those relatively few places
where differences occur.)  [And I didn't do justice to Alexander the Great,
and how his earlier conquest of the "world" set the stage for Greek being
the commercial language of the people at this time, and how that began to
overcome the curse of the Tower of Babel, which marked the division of
the world's people, even as the common Greek language set the stage for
God's re-uniting the world through the Gospel (written in Greek, of course).]
Lots of rambling, but suits the topic: "Jumping in."

>          5.  I have heard recently of something called the
>              "Tanach" (or "Temach" or "Tenach" or something),
>              which is some kind of ancient form of the Old
>              Testament.  Does anyone know what I'm talking about
>              or know where I can get one?

The Hebrew bible is composed of three parts, the Law, the Prophets, and the
Writings.  Those three words in Hebrew begin with the letters T, N, K, and
the acronym TeNaK (or various anglicizations), stands for the Old Testament.
I am sure you already have one.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU