From: pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey)
Subject: Re: To Murray et al (was re: Jesus did not claim.....) [LONG!]
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc
Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'.
	<1992Sep12.004920.2340@cbnewsm.cb.att.com>
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 23:05:40 GMT

mike.siemon writes:
>Just to make something quite explicit -- the JPS _Tanakh_ is based on the
>Masoretic text.  You will need to go to Christian sources for a translation
>that uses other material (Septuagint, mostly, with some supplementation
>from other versions and where possible recent discoveries), at least if you
>want a one-volume version. 

pharvey writes:
>Well, don't get to hung up on the word Masora, it really doesn't mean a
>whole lot. What it means roughly is that this is the official redacted
>compilation of all the scraps of Biblical material found, in Hebrew, not
>Aramaic or Greek. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of this Hebrew
>"Masora" that was used by the proto-Christians and is referenced in the
>Christian NT in Greek.

Now, I think that is still factual, but I think my use of the word
Masora has confused the issue. I did not say Masoretic text, I said
Masora which is the process of compilation and redaction of the written
word of Hebrew scripture. Masora goes back to as far as there was
written Hebrew scripture. The Masoretic text is the term used for what
is considered to be the most stable point. These issues are more
important in Christianity where some believers still think that the
Bible is the actual written word of God. Most Jews believe the
scriptures to be written by man, thus the process of compilation and
redaction is never ending. For Christianity, the official Bible is
usually KJV, for Judaism, there is no such thing, but the Masoretic text
is usually offered for those who insist on there being one. You see, the
fundamental problem is that there is NO "ORIGINAL" TEXT! Judaism started
as an oral tradition, that was constantly added to and modified and
varied due to the media, ie oral. It was then written down, but not at
once and not in one official originating text, thus the written media is
more frozen then the oral media, but not frozen in the modern sense.
There is NO original Hebrew Bible! Only lots of different fragments and
versions and mistakes and corections and so on. This has never been
much of a problem in Judaism. It has been a problem in Christianity,
which has been obsessed with the concept of an original, direct from
God, Bible. Even most Moslems understand that all written word is of
man, subject to errors and mistakes and misinterpretation. This is a
fundamental difference between much of Christianity and Judaism and
Islam. For the most part, Judaism and Islam study the meaning and
interpretation of the words of the scriptures, the exact words are not
that important. Many Christians study and recant what they believe to be
the EXACT words of God, the meanings and interpretations of these EXACT
words is of secondary importance. There is just ONE HUGE PROBLEM, there
is NO original Bible, in HEBREW or any other language. The exact Aramaic
words as spoken by Jesus were not recorded on tape. If there is NO
ORIGINAL, there is NO EXACT WORD OF GOD! This is a problem for some, but
not for most. Of coures there are those who believe the KJV is the exact
word of God and Jesus spoke KJ English.

>No.  You are quite simply wrong.  And I am not at all hung up on the word
>Masora.  The text that is the basis of ALL Jewish texts in Hebrew or in
>translation is conventionally called the "Masoretic text" and is the
>product of an endeavor of copyists called Masoretes in the formative
>centuries of what Neusner calls "normative Judaism" -- the same time as
>the Talmud is accreting in Babylon and in Israel, a period starting about
>1500 years ago and continuing over several centuries.
>One presumes, of course, that the Masoretes were copying something earlier.
>(To assume otherwise would have them inventing the texts.)

Yes, thank you. It helps to keep in mind that Judaism has been continually
practiced, ie kept alive, from the very begining right up to today in
Hebrew, both oral and written. Thus, language translation problems do
not exist in Judaism, but Hebrew has changed some over the years.

>In other words, I am explicitly *commending* the Masoretes  for the job
>they did in passing on the text tradition they recieved.  That, however,
>is not by itself sufficient to take us to the original texts.

But, you are not proposing that the Septuagint, a Greek translation, is,
are you? Are you saying that a Greek translation is more accurate or
more original than the Masoretic text in Hebrew? BTW: JPS does use the
Septuagint where it provides some insite. So there is value in the Greek
Septuagint, but how much is the question, seems to me?

>Your "proto-Christians" used the Septuagint, if Greek speaking.  There is
>some trace in Matthew of possible phrasing and imagery from Aramaic targums
>(= free translations) that may be behind some of Matthew's "scriptural"
>citations that differ from BOTH the Spetuagint and the Masoretic text.

The proto-Christians were Aramaic speaking and Greek reading, if they
could read. The Septuagint was commissioned because there were few who
could still read Hebrew, in Alexandria and Hellenistic Jewry. The center
of Judaism was in Babylon at this time, it was there that Hebrew was
kept alive. There was also an Aramaic translation made, that's the Targum, 
which was originally transmitted orally and later put into writting.

>The point is that the Septuagint preserves, besides material it SHARES
>with the Masoretic text, some OTHER text tradition that one assumes had
>a Hebrew exemplar (else, the Greeks were just making it up on the fly,
>in translation :-))  Christian usage of some of the peculiarites of the
>Septuagint in fact led it to be disparaged by the synagogues, in favor
>of other (or no) translations.  This is all understandable, but as a matter
>of history, the Masoretic text emerges AFTER this rejection of the Septua-
>gint.

Now, I'm not going to say that the Greeks made anything up, but let's be
realistic. They translated as Greeks, from the Greek perspective. This
is where the Lord of the Underworld gets introduced, that's a
Greco/Roman concept. This is the problem with most translations. The new
culture translates from it's cultural concepts. So the idea that the
Greek Septuagint preserves some of the Hebrew culture is a bit
questionable, it does, but through a heavy Greco/Roman filter. For
example the whole YHWH, JHWH, Yahweh, Jahweh, Jehovah is due to a rather
basic mistake, a misunderstanding of BASIC Judaism. And you are implying
that the books of Judaism did not exist until they rejected the Greek
Septuagint translation and came up with their own version, the Masoretic
books. I don't think you intended this, but to me, this is what your
words say. The ONE FACT to keep in mind is that Judaism has been
practiced, kept alive, from the very begining right up to the present,
against ALL odds I might add, and in the original Hebrew. No matter
where Jews went, they kept Hebrew alive as the language of religion,
they seldom translated their books into the local languages, unlike the
Christians who first translated into Greek, then Latin, then English and
German and so on.

>From a scholar's point of view, the Septuagint has value BECAUSE it gives
>evidence of a different transmission of the original text, and thus may
>be able to help us solve (by a "back-translation" process) puzzles in the
>Masoretic text (of which there are not a few.)

Yes, that's correct. And JPS has done this. JPS:Tanakh is based on the
Masoretic text, but makes use of other sources to resolve problems. Note
that the Masoretic text is not an attempt to come up with any kind of
exact words, it is only the best compilation of all Hebrew sources. JPS
has full notes of where there are differences between the Masoretic and
Septuagint and it makes use of the Septuagint, Targums and other sources
to resolve ambiguities or Hebrew words no longer understood in the
Masoretic text. JPS:Tanakh is an English translation after all, if the
scholars who translated the Masoretic could not translate a word, they
or course rely on other translations to translate. If you want the
original Hebrew, you can read the Masoretic compilation in Hebrew for
yourself, or any of the multitude of other Hebrew source material.

>> So it is possible to think of the Septuagint as the original,

>That is bizarre, though to do you credit I think you are trying to point
>up that for Greek-speaking Christians, the Septuagint was "Scripture"
>in roughly the way the KJV tends to be for English speakers. 

Yes, it is bizarre. I felt you were trying to say this, but this does
not appear to be the case. My mistake, but at least we have some ground
of reason in common. I suspect most of this is due to my
misunderstanding you and some of you misunderstanding me, perhaps we are
coming together to a point of better agreement.

>The point is that we don't HAVE the original Hebrew. 

The point is that there is NO SUCH THING! Unless the engraved tablets of
Moses are found, possible but highly unlikely.

>It is debatable whether Jesus knew any Greek.  His most likely Scripture
>would be in Hebrew, with (as in the Matthean indications) some Aramaic
>paraphrases in targums.

Aramaic, quite likely. Greek, quite likely, it was the language of
business and government at the time, and the language of the Septuagint.
Hebrew, highly unlikely, all evidence is that the Hellenistic Jews were
out of touch with the traditions of Judaism, ie they did not go to
Hebrew school and no longer understood the Hebrew scriptures which had
mostly gone out of use.

>You completely miss my point, and demonstrate a total insensitivity to
>what would move a historian or philologist -- the TEXT that JPS used as
>its basis for translation is LATE, almost 1000 years later than the
>text of the Septuagint.  Because that is Greek it cannot be any kind of
>*basis* for translation, merely giving supplemenatary readings.  But no
>Jewish translation will "correct" the Masoretic text from the earlier
>data -- at most they will address the issues in commentaries.

JPS:Tanakh does. Keep in mind that it is not all that Jewish. Jews read
the Masoretic and other Hebrew text directly in Hebrew, they have no
need for translations. The translations are for other audiences, the
non-Hebrew readers. And the Masoretic text is not late, it is a
compilation of all the Hebrew scriptures available at that time. The
actual written copies of the Masoretic text you are discusing are
recent, but the material is of ancient origin. Written and oral.

>"Masoretic text" does NOT mean "the original Hebrew of the authors of
>the books" -- it means THAT text which came into use, and has been
>maintained as a continuing text tradition, by Jews from about 800 C.E.
>or so.  YES, that has precursors, and there is SOME "original" text
>or texts that feeds into this tradition -- the problem of scholarship
>is to take the texts and see what can be said ABOUT the earlier stages
>of the traditions(s) WHICH WE DO NOT HAVE.  When I recommend secular
>or Christian scholarship, it is because these have less problem with
>such an agenda than (orthodox) Judaism -- and the Conservative Jews of
>JTS make a (largely unappreciated) effort to be as orthodox as their
>ideas of intellectual honesty will allow.

Well, JPS is not some conservative, orthodox, Jewish-conspiracy think
tank. And you are free to your own opinions, but may I suggest that it
is the Christians who have an agenda, who seek to bend and twist ideas
of intellectual honesty. Orthodox Jews could care less about any English
translations. Orthodox Jews believe in the HEBREW word and they believe
in the chosen people, they have no interest at all in what the
non-Orthodox Jews think or don't think. There is no campaign to convert
anyone to Orthodox Judaism. There really is only one, or two, things to
keep in mind; Judaism is NOT a conversion religion and Judaism has been
practiced, kept alive, from the very begining up until today, in the
same language, Hebrew.

Liner notes from JPS:Tanakh:

"In executing their monumental task, the translators made use of the
entire range of biblical interpretation, ancient and modern, Jewish and
non-Jewish. They drew upon the latest findings of linguistics and
archaeology as well as the gamut of early rabbinic and medieval
commentators, grammarians, and philologians. The resulting text is a
triump of literary style and biblical scholarship, unsurpassed for
accuracy and clarity."

JPS:Tanakh:On the making of the New Translation:

"Harry M. Orlinsky, Professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College-Jewish
Institute of Religion (New York), was asked to serve as editor-in chief
for the new translation, along with H.L. Ginsberg, Professor of Bible at
the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Ephraim A. Speiser, Professor of
Semitic and Oriental Languages at the University of Pennsylvania, as
fellow editors. Associated with them were three rabbis: Max Arzt, Benard
J. Bamberger, and Harry Freedman, representing the Conservative, Reform
and Orthodox branches of organized Jewish religious live. Solomon
Grayzel, editor of the Jewish Publication Society, served as secretary
of the committee."

"In preparing the translation of The Prophets, the translators faced a
recurring problem that deserves special mention. The prophetic books
contain many passages whose meaning is uncertain. Thus in order to
provide an intelligible rendering, modern scholars have resorted to
emending the Hebrew text. Some of these emendations derive from the
ancient translators, especially of the Septuagint and the Targums, who
had before them a Hebrew text that sometimes differed from today's
traditional text."

"The present English rendering ... is based on the traditional Hebrew
text - its consonants, vowels, and syntactical divisions - although the
traditional accentuation occasionally has been replaced by an
alternative construction. Following the approach of the original
committee, the entire gamut of biblical interpretation, ancient and
modern, Jewish and non-Jewish, has been consulted, and, whenever
possible, the results of modern study of the languages and cultures of
the ancient Near East have been brought to bear on the biblical text. In
choosing between alternatives, however, just as antiquity was not in
itself a disqualification, so modernity was not in itself a
recommendation. Divergences of the present translation from recent
renderings reflect the committee's judgement that certain inovations,
though interesting, are too speculative for adoption in the present
state of knowledge. The as yet imperfect understanding of the language
of the Bible, or what appears to be some disorder in the Hebrew text,
makes sure translation of many passages immpossible."

JPS:Tanakh: From the Glossary:

Masorah: The text of the Bible as transmitted, with vowel signs and
accents.

Mishnah: The code of Jewish law prepared by Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi about
200 C.E. The word is usually followed by the name of the relevant
treatise.

Peshitta: A translation of the Bible into Syriac, parts of which are
said to have been made in the first century C.E.

Qumran: The site of the caves where Bible manuscripts were found in
1949/50. The manuscripts are identified by such symbols as 4QSam(a) (for
manuscript a of Samual, found in the fourth cave of Qumran) ...

Saadia: A gaon, ie, a head of a Babylonian talmudic academy, in the
early part of the tenth century. His works include the famous
translation of the Bible into Arabic.

Septuagint: The oldest Jewish translation of the Bible, into Greek. The
Torah translation dates from the third century BCE; other books of the
Bible were translated somewhat later.

Targum: A Jewish translation of the Bible into Aramaic, a language once
widely spoken in Western Asia, of which Syriac was a later development.

Ugaritic: A language of inscriptions found at Ras Shamra, on the Syrian
coast, in the second millennium BCE. Both the language and its
literature have shed much light on the Hebrew Bible.

Vulgate: The Latin translation of the Bible made by the Church father
Jerome about the year 400 CE. It became the official Bible of the Roman
Catholic Church