Читать книгу Evidence for the Bible - Elgin L Hushbeck Jr. - Страница 10

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the oldest complete Hebrew text of the Old Testament was the Codex Babylonicus Petropalitanus, located in the city of Leningrad. This copy was made in the year A.D. 1008, over 1400 years after the last book of the Old Testament had been written. Skeptics pointed to this large time span as proof that the text could not be relied upon. They claimed that because of the vast amount of copying that must have taken place during the 1400 year gap, errors were sure to have been made.

After about A.D. 500, the copying of the Old Testament was the job of the Masoretes, and it is from them that we get the name for this type of manuscript: the Masoretic texts. The Masoretic texts are generally considered to be the most reliable texts of the Old Testament, and have formed the basis for most of our translations. The Masoretes took the task of copying the Old Testament very seriously. Because they believed they were copying the Word of God, the Masoretes made a tremendous effort to insure that the copies they made were completely free from errors.

In order to accomplish this task, the Masoretes used very strict rituals to insure that errors would not creep in. Every detail of the copying process was prescribed, from the writing materials (the skin of a clean animal), to the number of columns that were to appear on each “page,” to the length of each column (greater than 48 but less than 60), to the width of a column (30 letters). Even the color of the ink (black) was specified. Nothing was to be written from memory. Copies could only be made from an authentic copy that was still in good condition.

In addition to these precautions, the Masoretes used a technique similar to one used by computers to insure that data is transmitted correctly. In computers, this technique is referred to as a checksum. Put simply, what the Masoretes did was count everything that could be counted. Each verse, word, and letter in every book had a number. The middle word and the middle letter of each book was known. Even the number of times each letter of the alphabet occurred in a book was counted. In this way, each new copy could be accurately checked to see if any errors had been made. If the numbers did not come out right, something was wrong and the error would be found and corrected.⁴

This attention to detail helps explain why we do not have many early manuscripts. Since such care had been taken to insure no errors were made, there was no reason to consider the older texts to be any better than the newer ones. In fact, the opposite was true, since the animal skins and the type of ink used meant that the older texts were prone to damage. If a manuscript was found to be defective the rituals prescribed that it must be destroyed.

Even with all of these elaborate precautions, there is still the possibility that some of them were not always followed. Errors still could have crept in. Fortunately, there are ways in which the accuracy of the text can be checked. One way is to compare the grammar used in a book to the grammar used during the period in which the book was written. Language is not static. It changes with time. This is one of the main reasons people have problems when they try to read the King James Version of the Bible. It is not so much that the Bible is a difficult book, but that most people are just not used to reading seventeenth century English.

Since the books of the Old Testament were written over a period of about 1000 years (1400 B.C. to 400 B.C.), they should reflect the types of Hebrew used during the various periods in which they were written. Any later alterations would be marked by a reduction in these distinctions and a blending together of styles. Throughout the Old Testament we find that the distinctions in grammar and dialect have been preserved among the different books.⁵ Even the ancient forms of spelling have been preserved. If anything had been changed, you would think that at least the spelling would have been updated to agree with the later forms, yet it was not, giving support to the contention that the text is accurate.

Another way in which we can check the accuracy with which the Old Testament has been preserved is to compare the Masoretic text to the Septuagint (an early Greek translation of the Old Testament). The Septuagint gets its name from the Latin word for 70 (Septuaginta) because of an account which claims that the translation was done by 72 scholars, six from each of the twelve tribes. Translated in the third and second centuries before Christ, the Septuagint provides a second witness to the accuracy of the Masoretic text.

By comparing the Septuagint to the Masoretic text, it is possible to judge the accuracy of both. This is especially true since, after the first century A.D., the Septuagint was preserved only by Christians and thus can be considered a separate witness. Studies of the differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic texts again show that the text of the Old Testament has been remarkably preserved.

There is a third witness to the accuracy of the Masoretic text, discovered by a Bedouin shepherd boy in 1947. While looking for a lost goat near the Dead Sea, he tossed a rock into a hole hoping to flush out the goat. Instead of a goat, he heard the sound of shattering pottery. When he went down into the hole to look around, he found several jars containing ancient leather scrolls. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is truly one of the most important finds in modern history.

Among the scrolls discovered in the caves were fragments and portions of every book in the Old Testament, with the exception of the book of Esther. Also found in the caves was a complete copy of the book of Isaiah that had been made around 150 B.C. This copy of Isaiah was over 1100 years older than any previously known Hebrew manuscript. Even with the vast amount of time between when these two copies were made, when the copy of Isaiah found among the Dead Sea Scrolls was compared to the Masoretic text we have today, the differences between the two copies were minimal.

The majority of the differences that existed were minor spelling and grammatical differences which do not in any way affect the meaning. One example of a difference that was not simply a spelling or grammar variation can be found in Isaiah 53:11. In the copy of Isaiah found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, Isaiah 53:11 has the additional three letter Hebrew word for light while this word does not appear in the Masoretic text. This was the only such difference in the whole chapter. This additional word results in only a small difference in the meaning. The King James Version (KJV), which was based on the Masoretic text, reads as follows:

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

The New International Version (NIV), which is the version quoted in this book, follows the Dead Sea scrolls at this point and reads:

After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many and he will bear their iniquities.

As you can see, while the NIV is a little clearer, there is no major difference in these two verses.^a

Thus by comparing the Masoretic text, the Septuagint, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars can be very certain that the Hebrew text that is used in translating Bibles today is so close to the originals as to be, for all practical purposes, the same as that written down by the prophets. To date, no ancient manuscript find has ever caused any of the doctrines of the church to be questioned. In fact, the opposite is true. The more manuscripts we find, the more they have confirmed the accuracy of the present text.