masoretic text | SermonIndex

sermonindex May 7, 2012

I went to my friends Orthodox bible study and was quite impressed, very indepth and 2 hours long.They said something about the masoretic text for the old testament which is in hebrew was corrupted in certain parts or something like that or changed to a point. One of the discussions was about mt. Ebal and mt. gerizim or something like that was changed or switched from one to the other. Does anybody know about this possible changes in the masoretic texts at all? I wonder if the orthodox catholic church is presenting the true facts or our they giving false truths like the mormons and jehovah witnesses who seem to say our Bible is corrupt or the protestants Bibles. It is funny how everyone is always saying their were changes with our Bible. We are always under attack from someone. I have heard the king james changed things in the kjv from some people, but i have never seen the evidence for that.

P

PQ May 8, 2012

2 Timothy 2:13 - If we are faithless [do not believe and are untrue to Him], He remains true (faithful to His Word and His righteous character), for He cannot deny Himself.

The only people who corrupted the Bible are those who claim that it is corrupted.
GOD Almighty has preserved His Word.

pq*

R

RobertW May 8, 2012

These type of questions are more on a scholarly level and difficult to discuss in a forum setting in a fruitful way. I would recommend the book, "The Bible in Translation, The Ancient and English Versions," by Bruce Metzger. He is considered one of the greatest Evangelical scholars of the 20th century. There are other books by men like F.F. Bruce (History of the English Bible), but the one I mentioned by Metzger would be a good intro to some of the issues involved and how the translators came to the conclusions they did.

sermonindex May 8, 2012

thanks Robert might take a look at that metzger book.

sermonindex May 8, 2012

Most of the early church also read other books that are not included in the modern evangelical bible; But I believe in God's wisdom we have the cannon of scripture for the protestant bible that is "much" to be obeyed. Many argue over the "bits" of scripture but do not walk in the truth of the 90%+ of it.

I do think its an valid question dear brother I just wanted to share my simplistic non-scholarly view on this.

K

KingJimmy May 9, 2012

The Masoretic text is the primary source that serves as the basis of the Old Testament Hebrew text. Like all texts, it's not without it's "critical" issues, and runs into some of the same problems you find with the Greek New Testament. Interestingly enough, the Masoretic text is dated to about the 10th century AD. It's not very old as far as "texts" go. It is used by Jews and those in the Western church. When compared to the to the texts discovered in the Dead Sea scrolls, the Masoretic text has been found to be in great agreement.

The reason your Orthodox friends are bashing the text has to do with the fact that they believe the Greek Old Testament, Septuagint (LXX), was a divinely inspired translation of the Hebrew. They prefer it to the Hebrew, because it was the authoritative text of the church fathers, and was primarily used when citing the Old Testament by the authors of the New Testament. One might say that the Orthodox are LXX-only, in the same way some people today are KJV-only.