Old Testament Manuscript Transmission

Well good evening everyone Feels a little odd because everybody's over there feels like I should move the podium to the middle of the classroom But we got a few folks out tonight.

I know there's Something going on next week with with the guys that set free so maybe they're just being Maybe they're just preparing But I know we have some people online So I definitely want to keep us on time and we have at least an hour and a half of material to get through tonight So I want to keep us on task First things first, I know we had a little comment or a little little conversation about this prior to class But if you have not taken the class pop quiz Then I need to get with you after class and get your email address to make sure you're registered I Know like you guys are new.

I don't know if you've registered.

Did you register with the online class? Had some trouble with it Okay It might be on my end because once if you try to register it if it doesn't let you go all the way sometimes I have to go in and approve you so I'll go in and make sure that's done and that way you'll get the link to the To the pop quiz.

This is now going to be our method for our final it is going to be You're probably going to get at least one more pop quiz before the end of the semester We're going to have we did this one for classes one and two We'll probably do another one for classes four and five and then the final will be the final exam and the great thing about it is You get your score immediately Because the computer grades it for you, but I did want to make a mention because it was asked of me prior to class Well, what happens if somebody spells a word wrong the computer will give you grace if there's a spelling error up to a certain point Like we talked about the word Sproul if you if you spelled Sproul instead of S P R O U L like it Dr.

Sproul's name if you spelled it S P R O L L the computer would probably allow that because it has a grace point on that but also If you if I look I look at everybody's exam that comes in I've looked at all There's there's a whole list of them that have come in so far I look at them and if I go in and see that you missed something I can change the grade right there if it's just a spelling error or something now if it's a you can't say you know like you spelled like M A C A R T H U R and it was supposed to be Sproul because that was that spelled MacArthur that Well, I meant to spell it.

Yeah, that's not how that works You got to be at least Honest, and I and that is another thing by doing it this way.

There is going to have to be some It solves some problems But it but it adds others the solving the problem that it solves is that it allows you to get graded quickly You get your information back right away You know how you did but the problem is is there is the possibility of taking the exam again on this program? I'm not sure how I can eliminate that but Ultimately I can see it so if you take the test more than once I saw that you take the test more than once and if you've got a a 40 the first time and got a 90 The second time then you know it's because you or you should have got a hundred second time because the first time you go through it gives you the answers, so Good evening good evening So very quickly.

Let's just go over the pop quiz I have it in my hand and they and it does allow me to have a hard version So at the end of class if you are in class if you want your final on paper I will print it for you that that's something I could do But I still want you to go in and put your answers in the computer because it makes the grading for me easier but if you just want something to look at something to put in your fingers and have I don't mind printing a copy the Finals probably going to be between 50 and 75 questions So it'd be a couple pages like this so very quickly the four steps of the revelatory process include all except for the following inspiration translation Customization and canonization which one does not belong? Customization, it's not that we've talked about the four steps, and that is not one of them number two inspiration refers specifically to the writer or the writings The writings very good inspiration applies to the manuscript copies or the autographs Autographs does not apply In a biblical sense does not apply to the copies The Bible was written over a period of 250 years 5,000 years 1,500 years or 2,000 years, what was the answer? 1,500 years, that's right The majority of the Bible was written in Aramaic Greek Latin or Hebrew Hebrew yes We know for certain who wrote every book of the Bible true or false False that's right.

We don't know who wrote every single book of the Bible Hebrews is a good example But there are some other Old Testament books that we we take good guesses But we are not for certain who wrote them in regard to the Canon Who said? We have an uninspired list of inspired books R.c.

Sproul R.c.

Sproul now Miss Jackie pointed out this next question actually it's two questions later Had a different answer in the book So I want to mention So what most of what is on this pop quiz is what I said in class so if there's ever a question between what I say and what's in the book if you know I said it in class then probably that's going to be the answer because I'm the one writing the test.

However Much of the final will come directly out of the book.

So just keep that in mind then like I said if she had a very good reason for her answer, I would go in and change her grade because Her reason for her answer made sense All right.

So number eight, what do we call the Canon which is established at the or excuse me? What do we call the Canon which is established at the time and inspired? Writing is completed This was the one that most people got wrong What do we call the Canon which is established at the time and inspired writing is completed the functional Canon the exclusive Canon the closed Canon or the ontological Canon it was ontological a lot of people put the Exclusive Canon because of the way I wrote that question and I'm going to take I'm going to take some of the Burden on that one because it does sound like what I'm saying is when it was completed.

That's not what I meant I meant when a book is written it could becomes part of the Ontological Canon it was it was just poorly worded on my part and this again.

I'm learning to I'm learning how to make this Make sense and I'm not ever going to penalize you for my my lack of Communication number nine the Canon is determined by God and is what by his people Discovered and it gets the two D's determined by God discovered by his people However in the book it says it was accepted by his people and now that I know that's in the book I can go back and change that as an optional answer.

I can make that So it could be one or the other it's not just a matter of spelling I can I can put in optional answers It's a really cool testing software, so I'm learning a lot Spent a lot of time this week playing with it making up tests make up fake tests Sorry, it's just So what do you do for fun? I make up fake tests.

That's what I did last but not least the Canon is not an object of revelation it is a Artifact of revelation now that one was a giveaway Because I used the the I actually put it is an blank of revelation And there's only one that had there's only one that started with a vowel And because the an is begins a word that has a vowel so that one was sort of that That was I looked at it afterwards, and I was like well.

I'm not going to change it We'll see who we'll see we'll see who actually gets it, but but that one was sort of a giveaway All right, so I do have a question by show of hands How many of you took the how many of you took the test on your phone? How many of you took it on a computer about half and half? I'm only curious because That is one neat thing is like I can pull it up, and I can see everybody scores on my phone I can like do it on the go and I can make changes or do whatever so it's really a neat software Don't not trying to waste our time.

I'm just this is new to me This is as the class grows.

I'm we got a new website.

We got a new testing thing all these things are are really Really helpful, and I'm excited, and I'm excited that it's going to help get more people involved All right, so we move on tonight to class three and we are going to begin Tonight to talk about the subject of transmission and as I said Transmission is going to take three classes.

We've looked first at the subject of inspiration That was class one.

We've looked second at the subject of canonization First God gives the scriptures that's inspiration second man church recognizes the scripture.

That's canonization so that's the process of how we got the Bible in the in the most basic sense God gave it church recognize it that's That's the most basic answer to the question of how we got the Bible But now we come to the question that more I would say when people say how did we get the Bible? this is more what they mean okay if we believe God gave the Bible to Moses for instance and Moses wrote it and the people recognize that God had given it through Moses because God people recognize Moses as a prophet, okay? Well, how does it get from Moses to me? right and therefore this third Subject becomes really the vast majority of our study the transmission from How it went from the hands of the original writer? to the hands of Us today, and so we have three classes.

We're going to look at Old Testament transmission tonight We are going to look at New Testament transmission next week and then on week 3 which is actually week 5 of the class we are going to look at textual variation so textual variation Because as we will see tonight and next week even though we have a very vast body of manuscripts in our in our history no two manuscripts is exactly alike and The differences between the manuscripts are called Variations this morning a good example happened in church as I was preaching in Colossians I was in Colossians chapter 3 and verse 6 or 7 I forget which one it was where it says that because of these the wrath of God is Coming on or the wrath of God is coming and the ESV stops there because of these the wrath of God is coming period Well the King James says because of these the wrath of God is coming on the children or the sons of disobedience there's an entire section that is not in the ESV that is in the King James Version and So the question is why is there a sentence of more than five words? You know on the sons of disobedience six or seven words.

We have an entire section That's not in one, but it is in the other and that's known as a textual variation And in class seven Which through two classes from now? we're going to discuss what that is how those have entered into the textual tradition and What can we do about them? Transmission which is our subject starting tonight is essentially about the practice of copying and passing down the scripture Copying and passing down the scripture.

So when you talk about transmission, you're talking primarily about Copying I've said this in previous classes, but I want to be very clear that we understand this we no longer possess any of the Autographs meaning we cannot go and put our hands on what Moses wrote in the sense of the Whatever medium he wrote on and we don't even know the answer to that We don't know exactly what he wrote on but we can't go and say here's the thing that Moses wrote on the medium Neither can we do that for any of the letters of Paul? Neither can we do that for any of the Gospels? there Simply does not exist any Autographs that we are able to go and hold in our hands they have been lost to time and That makes people sometimes very uncomfortable because what that means is we are dependent upon copies I Mean it would be great if there was a storehouse somewhere in Israel where you could just go and unroll what Moses wrote and If you could do that, there would be no textual variation because you'd be able to fix whatever variants are in the manuscripts because you'd be able to go to the original and say here's this and There it is But we no longer possess the autographs at all So tonight our outline is this we're going to look at the Hebrew Old Testament manuscript tradition We are going to discuss the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and how that plays into the history of the Hebrew text and Then we are going to discuss the ancient versions which also bear witness to the historicity of the Hebrew text and so In your in your outline in your syllabus, it actually goes Hebrew manuscript tradition ancient versions than the Dead Sea Scrolls but we're gonna put the Dead Sea Scrolls in the middle because of the way I've Developed tonight's lesson.

I think it will make more sense Now I want to talk a little bit about the subject of copying when we think of the word copy We almost always in our mind think of a photocopy If I say I want to make 40 copies of today's bulletin I can walk into the church office.

I can go to the Xerox machine I can put the the paper down on the Xerox machine hit 40 and I get 40 copies that are exactly like the original because they are a photocopy and by just simple little trivia question When was the photocopier invented not not 65? I'll tell you this if this is helpful to anyone other than me.

It was also the same year Superman came out nope, 1938 1938 Jerry Siegel and Joel Schuster wrote the first Superman comic book So that was 1938 also what happened in 1938 was Chester Carlson Invented the revolutionary device in printing and it was called the photocopier.

So 1938 we haven't even had this device in Our world for a century.

We haven't even made it to a century of photocopies so when we talk about copying and Transmission, we're not talking about photocopying.

You might say well, I knew that but yeah, but Sometimes I think people get really upset about textual variation and and they forget we're dealing with hand Written Manuscripts we are not dealing with photocopies now, let's go back into history a little bit further if 1938 was the first time the printing or the the copier was invented When was the printing press? Invented it was actually the earlier in the 1400s 1436 by Gutenberg.

So 1436 takes us back a little ways But still only about 500 years right so what we have with Gutenberg's printing press is we have the revolution in technology of mobile type not mobile I'm sorry movable type where they're able to take and produce a movable type document use that to Imprint on to a medium paper for instance they are able to imprint on that and then they can take that paper off put another paper down and print again and have essentially the same right, even though there may be a smudge in the ink or there may be a Letter that's left off because it didn't press hard enough or something that Essentially you get an exact copy So Photocopies only been around for less than a hundred years, but printed copies in the Western world Has been around for about 500 years the vast majority of The manuscripts that we discuss in this class will all precede this point Because what really matters to us is not the printed texts that came after Gutenberg But the handwritten texts that were the basis for those printed texts Right because the printed texts were printed having been either copied from or translated from Handwritten texts which go much further back into history.

Here's a quote I don't want you to have to write this down But I do want you to put this in your mind for the vast majority of human history The only way for a man to have a copy of a written text Was to copy it by hand or to pay a scribe to copy it by hand The vast because we're talking about before Gutenberg now I do admit and I think I said this in a previous class the Chinese have had a Man a mechanical printing prior to the Western world all the way back to the 9th century but for this particular Usage we're talking primarily of the Western world the translation and copying of the Bible It really doesn't apply to us until the 1400s But you can go all the way back into the 9th century With China for that type of mechanical type in there and that's something That like I said doesn't really apply to us in a meaningful way because it wasn't here wasn't wasn't being used by Western world, but it did exist.

Okay, somebody says well it existed.

Yes, it existed But it it did it wasn't being used to print Bibles.

Let's just put it that way and Just to add a thought to that.

What was the first thing that Gutenberg printed a Bible, right? I've told this story before I remember Mike Mike Mike Mike Last time I told this story you you sent me a picture because you went home and watched the movie but the movie is called the day after tomorrow, it's about a Tremendous weather storm that comes and freezes a bunch of people a lot of people die It's like a disaster movie when the movie there's an atheist and he's holding a Bible and the guy says you're holding that Bible pretty tight for an atheist or whatever and he says I'm holding it because this Bible represents a revolution in History he was holding a Gutenberg Bible He was holding one of the first Bibles ever ever produced by a mechanical moving type And he said this this Bible to him.

It wasn't about religion.

It was about a revolution And I mean think about the Renaissance what was one of the things that brought about the ability for the Renaissance to happen? It was the it was the concept of of mass produced typed material Which didn't exist in the Western world prior to that So all of these things are they matter in regard to how we are able to to to consider what happened in history So looking back again prior to Gutenberg, we're looking at handwritten manuscripts and For the vast majority of history all the way back to the time of Moses It's been handwritten text.

So in your textbook The textbook chooses To for some reason to go through the new test.

Yes, sir, and for one page Oh Sure, I got you Wow You want to everybody want to pull our money That's amazing, yeah, so that guy holding it he holding quite a bit of money, too So in your book Dr.

Lightfoot does something interesting.

He starts with New Testament transmission So if you are right if you are reading the book front to back like I did if you're going through it you're going to find that it it's it seems out of order for the class and It does because I'm taking this in order of how in order of the books Starting with the Old Testament then the New Testament.

He starts with the New Testament and there's the reason for it.

I believe is That the transmission of the New Testament is actually vastly different than the transmission of the Old Testament we're going to learn about this next week the transmission of the New Testament is Was copied by various people of all kinds of backgrounds and it was distributed widely over a very short amount of time the exact opposite is true for the Old Testament the Old Testament is Transmitted copied with very specific standards by a very limited amount of people and kept within that community of people over a long period of time So it's like two different situations New Testament is copied by a lot of people over wide wide area and spread out over a large space the Old Testament is is opposite absolutely opposite in every way and so Why that matters I think for dr.

Lightfoot in the book is he wants to show you how textual variation works and that Happens a lot more in the New Testament because the New Testament has so many different hands so many different people touching it feeling it sending it copying it and The the early Christians were not professional scribes So we see scribal errors and New Testament writings That does not exist in Old Testament writings because quite frankly Old Testament writings was done at a very specific standard that the New Testament did not have and So I think he wants to introduce the concept of textual variation everything in the New Testament So I get I get I think I get his reasoning But for us it's different for us I'm taking this like I said inspiration canonization transmission and the first thing that we got to think about transmission is the transmission of the Old Testament, so We have a Much different Transmissional history between the Old Testament the New Testament.

I'll give you here's the thought Old Testament New Testament New Testament Probably written the first book of the New Testament I'm gonna go later than I normally do I'm gonna say 49 is maybe the first book I usually go around 45, but 49 is the latest and I'll push it out to as far as 90 And that's about as late as you're gonna get even though I think it's more like 45 to 70 but a lot of people disagree So I'm being I'm giving a little bit of a more of a generous birth here.

All right, so that is a period of 41 years Yeah, so so 41 years of Time the very first extant copy Meaning the very first manuscript copy that we possess that we can actually go in touch is not a full manuscript but it is a Fraction of a manuscript and we're going to talk about this more next week and it dates into the second century which puts it somewhere between 100 and 200 Probably closer to the 100.

All right.

It is a section of the Gospel of John.

We'll talk about It's in our it's in your books and I'll show pictures of it next week so so what we have here is a small writing time and We have a relatively short time between the last Book that's written and the first copy that we possess All right, so if you say this if it's one let's just say then let's just put a number Let's put 110 because some some do date it all the way as early as 110 that means it is it is within 20 years of the the death of the Last Apostle the writing of if Revelation is written that far out, which I don't think it is But let's just say it is that puts it within 20 years of the writing of the last book This is hugely important we start thinking of things like how much time is overlapped how much you know How much corruption and things can be included in and all these questions that people, you know Atheists always ask about corruption and time and what things are added subtracted and all those things.

So this this is the New Testament Old Testament is quite different Because the last book of the Old Testament is written around 400 BC The first book of the Old Testament probably around 1450 ish All right ish because that's the Moses wrote during the time of the Exodus.

So this is a 1,000 year period Right a 1,000 year period versus 40 years.

We've got a 1,000 year period and We're talking about 400 BC So 400 BC Means before Christ, right? So we'll put Christ here and We live way over here.

We live at 2023 AD which is means in the year of our Lord, right? Where at on that scale? Do you think we have the oldest Hebrew manuscript? Oh, let me let me back up I'll ask it a different way prior to 1948 What was our oldest Hebrew manuscript? As 1948 as we will see in a little while change the entire game But prior to 1948, when do you think the earliest Hebrew manuscript that we had? Yeah, the earliest copies that we had the earliest copies.

Yeah It is a Masoretic text.

But when is the Masoretic text dated to approximately? 9th 9th Century 9th not this way that way So the earliest Hebrew manuscript that we possessed prior to 1948 was in the 900s Which means from the time it was the last book was written 400 to the time that we had the earliest manuscript was a period of 1,300 years we're no longer dealing with decades anymore.

We're now dealing with millennia, right? We're dealing with over a thousand years from the last writings to the earliest Right.

That's that's a that's a big difference, right? And a lot of people would say wow, there's no way it could have stayed Perfectly intact over that period of time boy.

It's got to have all kinds of it Just be a bag of cats just all kinds of crazy because there's no way it stayed perfectly intact for 1,300 years and that's what you usually hear the argument and that this is why oftentimes you'll hear people say Oh, the Bible is the best attested work of the ancient world that Actually only applies to the New Testament.

The Old Testament does not have the same Historical attestation that you can go back almost to the same century as the as the old I'm not I don't want you to doubt the Old Testament.

Why don't you know the facts you gotta know the facts We'll learn why this is okay in a minute But I want you to know what the facts are and the facts are is up until 1948 The earliest manuscripts we had Dated to the 9th century and later and it's what is referred to as the Masoretic text when you are reading your Chapters this week in the book the chapters that are assigned in your syllabus.

You will see where it talks about the Masoretic text.

I'm going to in fact, I'm going to read to you during the period of 500 to a thousand AD Various Jewish scholars arose dedicated to the preservation of the Old Testament text This group became known as the Masoretes Because of their acknowledged dependence on the authoritative tradition of the text the authoritative tradition is called the Mazora Therefore they became known as the Masoretes the those who are committed to the traditional maintaining of the text Centered in Tiberias this school began around AD 500 and continued on for five centuries Their contributions are many in addition to adding vowel points to the Hebrew text all Hebrew letters or consonants They also sought ways and methods to eliminate copying mistakes so the Masoretes are a group that existed between 500 and 1,000 and Their stated purpose was the preservation of the Hebrew text They did and you'll notice in the quote that I that's a quote directly from your book By the way, you'll read that this when you read from your book They actually added vowel points to the Hebrew letters Because Hebrew is a consonant only language like for instance, you've heard the name Yahweh and You've also heard it pronounced Jehovah Right as it ever made you wonder why there's two different ways of saying what is it technically the same word? Well, that word is actually what we call the Tetra grommet on the Tetra grommet on Tetra means four so it's Tetra grommet four letter.

It is a four letter word yad-heh-vad-heh and Those four letters we think would most properly be pronounced Yahweh or Yah-veh Right yad-heh-vad-heh However There have been debates as to how the How the vowels are to be pronounced and whether it should have the yah-hoh Rather than yah-hey Right or yah-veh and so you get yah-hoh-vah or different words like that and in Jehovah itself is actually derived From the the combining of Adonai with Yahweh because Adonai is another name for God and so the the idea was the combining of the two so that no one misused the Tetra grommet on because the Tetra grommet on is the name of God so that so we don't misuse the name of God will superimpose the the the Oh sound so Adonai and Yahweh become jahovah or yah-hoh-vah and Obviously the J sound is a Germanic influence because Hebrew and Greek don't have a J sound Jesus was not Jesus.

Please don't be offended.

He was Jesus or Yeshua Because they that's just they don't have a jet that jah-jah sound is a Germanic influence Which came later, which is introduced into English and there's no reason why you can't call Jesus Jesus There's no reason why you can't use the word Jehovah just because of the J.

All right.

There's nothing wrong with it It's just understanding a little bit of the the history there so went a little further on that than I meant to but the importance is When we talk about what the Masoretes did they included vowel points to try to help with the Pronunciation of the words so that the pronunciations would be accurate and that was one of the things that they added so if we say that the Masoretic period is only from 500 to a thousand the earliest manuscripts we possessed until until 1948 Were from that period later in that period the 900s or better Why then should we trust what we have Why should we trust what we have? Well, here's a few thoughts I'm going to give you two specific thoughts as to why we should trust what we have in the manuscript tradition number one the Jewish scribes Conscientiously Sought perfection in the transmission of the text according to the Talmud Which is the traditions of the Jewish people that went from 400 BC to 500 AD So prior to the Masoretic time there was the Talmudic era and according to the Talmud Rigid regulations were laid down for making copies of the Old Testament texts Remember how I said the New Testament text was copied by anyone and everyone is why the birth this could be given That was not the case in regard to the Old Testament Here's just a few and these are in your book So you're welcome to when you're reading make it maybe highlight this part because I think it's pretty interesting But here are a few of the things That the Masoretic are assuming out the Masoretic but the but Jewish scribes through history have done in the the ensuring of the accuracy of the Old Testament text number one a copyist or a scribe Was required to sit in full Jewish dress after having completely bathed Now you may say well that doesn't have anything to do with the copying of the text No, but it had to do with the serious nature of what was happening They didn't do this in a in the corner somewhere they did this as a as a Serious business the copying of the text was serious business to the point where they they took a bath and they put on their Jewish full dress and They were prepared like a man going to war they were prepared with their uniform Prepared to as it were do battle and I do want to say this.

I'm think just a quick second I do think being a scribe was much like being a man of war Because even though a man of war puts his physical body to the test every time he goes a man who sits down to copy Something with this level of precision is putting his mind to a strain that is amazing and so These men were in their uniform ready to go number two They were only allowed to use a certain type of ink which again doesn't seem like it should matter much but again Nothing was left to chance Everything was specific Number three there were rules governing the spacing of words and as we'll see in a moment that mattered because The one of the ways that they tested whether or not a manuscript copy was right is they would actually measure What where which letters landed in which spots? Because if you missed the letter it would get everything out and wrong So that level of precision was there for a purpose Number four no word or letter could be written from memory it had to be copied one Letter at a time and not like you know if you're writing something You will write a word and then you'll look back and you'll say oh I'm I messed that word up or I skipped that word in fact one of the things we're going to see in class six when we talk about textual variation is one of the common textual variants in the New Testament text is Something called homeboy.

Oh tell you Tom That's a big word and it simply means similar endings because what would happen is you'll come to a you'll hold a manuscript And you'll see where a word will be have an ending And then there will be a whole sentence left out And then there will be another word with the same ending and what happened was the person was copying They see the ending of this word they write the ending they go back and their eye goes to the ending But it's not the right word so they leave out a whole sentence and go on to the next thing home We'll home oil home oil.

Tell you time.

It's hard to say home.

We are homeboy means similar And it's just mean similar endings and similar endings if you've ever copied anything by hand can mess you up You can lose a whole line if you got two lines that end with the same word you leave out a whole line and not realize it and so that kind of thing was protected in this level of scrutiny Because they were counting the letters they were measuring the spaces they were being very specific and Obviously paid off Lines and letters were methodic number five is lines and letters were methodically counted that that goes with what I was just saying so they counted lines they counted letters number six If a manuscript was found to have one error it was destroyed Now can you imagine being the guy who spent your year copying that manuscript? Only to find that it had that error and had to be destroyed I'm going to read a quote directly from your book this strict set of regulations Which govern the early Jewish scribes is a chief factor which guarantees the accurate transmission of the Old Testament text So it's one of the reasons why we have confidence that what we have is accurate to the original The second thing as I said, that was the first the conscientious work of the scribes the second thing is the Work of the Masorette's or the Masorette's themselves and the Masorette's is spelled m a s s o r e t e s m a s s o r e t e s The Masorette's themselves took meticulous precautions to avoid copying mistakes and just and detect scribal errors And I'll read again from your book Hey, you may not even need to read the book There's read the whole thing to you, but it says this the Masorette's were textual critics of the first rank They examined and appraised carefully all the textual materials available to them and on the basis of their abundant Evidence set down in writing the form of the text which had been received at least several centuries before their time Indeed their labors were so productive and their contribution so large That our Hebrew today our Hebrew text today is often referred to as the Masoretic text That's why you asked earlier the Masoretic.

That's that's the text Based upon their rigid critical scholarship.

I say rigid maybe is the wrong word their meticulous critical scholarship is what Up until 1948 was what we had to rely on So What manuscripts survive? Since we talked about the 900s what manuscripts survive and again all of this is up until 1948 in a moment We're going to see that 1948 changes the game.

We'll talk about that in just a moment surviving manuscripts The Cairo Codex includes the former and latter prophets and it was written around 895 the Leningrad Codex of the prophets dates to around 916 the British Library Codex of the Pentateuch around the 10th century so around the around 1100 Or 900 to a thousand.

I'm sorry and the Leningrad Codex which dates to around a thousand is The oldest known manuscript of the whole Old Testament So the oldest manuscript of the whole Old Testament that we possess up till 1948 Well, I guess it's still still even to this day because what we're going to see of the Dead Sea Scrolls is there It doesn't contain a whole manuscript.

So the the oldest manuscript that we possess the entire Old Testament as we know it dates to the year 1008 1008 yes Yes, it's the Leningrad Codex These are also in your book by the way you everything I mean, I appreciate you taking notes and I think it's good But there are some of these things if you're not getting it all you will read it when you're when you're doing your study this week Here's an interesting fact prior to 1947 Old Testament versions of the Bible were based on three partial and one complete manuscript all of which dated to around the year 1000 so I Just find that incredibly interesting There's one other codex.

I forgot to mention the Aleppo Codex around 950 was originally a complete Old Testament But it was damaged imagine that It's not like you damaged your current Bible and you go buy another one The one of the only existing Old Testament manuscripts of all time that it still exists and it gets damaged Okay All right, so that's a lot to take in Now all night.

I've been whispering Hints that there's something important that happens in 1948 in 1948 we have the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and It is a game changer read you a quick quote here The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1948 are extremely important and that they include Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament written around 200 to 100 BC So, you know what that means That means where the oldest we had not before 1948 was here now because of God's Providence we have manuscripts that push all the way back to 200 to 100 BC That is a thousand year difference Praise God that we have the The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls because it pushes the it pushes the game back It changes as I said game changer the Dead Sea Scrolls include one complete book the book of Isaiah and It is on display in Israel to this day.

There is actually The containers that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in I've seen pictures obviously I've never seen them before but the containers Were shaped similar to this That's a terrible drawing but they were they were they were these very large Pots and the scrolls were inside of them.

Well, there's a place Over in the Middle East.

I think it's in Israel But I don't want to be quoted on that where they built a building that shaped similar to the pot It's not exact but it's it's sort of the building is shaped like this and it has a glass Circle that goes all the way around it and it's got the top like this but the glass circle is the unrolled Isaiah scroll and you can literally start at the beginning and walk all the way around it and See the entire old the entire Isaiah scroll as it's as it is Existing if you look that up just look up Isaiah scroll Israel, you'll see pictures of it.

It's very cool and Gives us again a bit of interesting historical note Along with the Isaiah scroll thousands of fragments Which together represent every Old Testament book were discovered except the book of Esther It is the only Old Testament book where there was not even a fragment found and I might put that in your notes as it with an asterisk because that may end up on a quiz one day Or maybe even the final But the only book of the Old Testament, which is not discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls was the book of Esther Dr.

Geisler writes this he says with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls scholars have Hebrew manuscripts 1,000 years earlier than the great Masoretic text manuscripts enabling them to check on the fidelity of the Hebrew text the result of comparative studies reveals that there is a word-for-word identity and more than 95% of the cases and the 5% variation consists mostly of slips of the pen and spelling differences So we're talking about an almost perfectly preserved Old Testament text even though the earliest that we possessed prior to 1948 was a thousand years after Christ as amazing historical reality and When we talk about Textual variation in a couple weeks.

We'll talk about some of what makes up those 5% Because there are textual variations many more in the New Testament than the old but we do find More we do find textual variation in the old as well Here's an interesting fact too, and you'll read this in your book When the Jewish scribe produced a new manuscript the old manuscripts Were buried so that they could not be misused and the material they were written on could not be used for anything else so one of the reasons why we don't have as many Old Testament manuscripts is Because there was a belief among the Jewish people that the copies were so perfect.

You no longer needed the previous generation You would have the new copy and it was just as good as the previous generation so there would be a discarding of the previous generation and a maintaining of the new now us we're going why don't do that put it in a put it in a put it in a Glad plastic bag and keep it for us, you know, because we won't see it but for them It was so they were so confident in the copying process that they felt that the new was actually better than the old Because the new was not given to the time of things like the paper beginning to deteriorate letters beginning to Fade or anything like that.

So that's one of the interesting realities of history FF Bruce said this He said the new evidence speaking of the Dead Sea Scrolls Confirms what we had already good reason to believe that the Jewish scribes of the early Christian centuries Copied and recopied the text of the Hebrew Bible with the utmost fidelity So we have confidence that what we have in our Old Testament is Faithfully preserved by Jewish scribes by a very specific system of copying now Before we take our break, I have to at least say this and we are going to take a break when we come back We're going to talk about other witnesses to the Old Testament.

We're going to talk about other versions There are there are actually other versions meaning Translations of the Old Testament that also bear witness that predate the predate the Masoretic text.

We're going to talk about them as well but here's one thing that many people don't like to talk about and I'm even cautious even to mention this because I My goal is not ever to introduce doubt into your mind but I do want you to know facts because facts are important the Isaiah scroll is a beautiful example of textual transmission and faithful rendering of the the old to the new to the new but not all of the texts are as Perfectly preserved and there are some questions The book of Jeremiah being one of them where there are textual variation which causes a question about the freedom of which the text of Jeremiah has gone through and its transmission and When you read your book this week, you will read about that So it'll talk about the books that we have that seem to be the best preserved and the ones that seem to have had the least Best at least best.

That's that's the worst way of saying that there's I'm saying They're still even with as good as it was done even with the level of precision which was used there still are textual variants that still have to be dealt with even in the Old Testament and Jeremiah is one of the ones that Has some of those question marks.

So again not trying to introduce doubt just time to give you as Joe Friday always said Just the facts man.

Just the facts man Alright take your break and we'll come back and we'll talk about some very some other variations Okay Yes, we went with the first part of the outline David asked what part of the outline when Hebrew Old Testament manuscript tradition That was our first part and that's why I kept saying, you know, wait till 1948 wait to 90 when I when I mentioned 1948 was when we switched to talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls and now I'm going to finish something about the Dead Sea Scrolls and Then we're going to move to the last part, which is our ancient versions.

So very quickly about the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I Have here a book.

I got this from second and Charlie's which is a secondhand bookstore And it's really more of a magazine, but this is an entire History of the Dead Sea Scrolls and some really good information I wish I could tell you how to get your own copy.

Like I said, I didn't buy it from Amazon I bought it out of it out of a secondhand bookstore, but it's got a really neat part right here Which remember how I mentioned there are some textual variations one of the most interesting textual variation is in the Ten Commandments Because in Exodus the Ten Commandments talks about the Sabbath and it says six days shall you labor do all your work? But on the seventh day Keep it holy and it talks about for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, right? Well in Deuteronomy you get a regiving of the Ten Commandments and it doesn't mention the six days anymore On the in Deuteronomy it talks about Hold on.

Let me it's hard to read like this Talks about being a slave in the land of Egypt It says remember you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God Brought you out from there with a mighty hand with an outstretched arm Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

So there's two different Explanations for the Sabbath one is an exodus ones in Deuteronomy Well in one of the scrolls found in the Dead Sea Scrolls there is Both of those together put into one thing So it's what we would call a harmonizing and we do that in our New Testament study when we're studying, huh? It it doesn't say here it just says The Dead Sea Scrolls were composed since an enterprising scribe tried to straighten out the confusion in the manuscripts known Oh, it's the Deuteronomy it what it does is adds it into the Deuteronomy portion So in the Deuteronomy found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, it's got the part from Exodus harmonized into this and that's one of the things we do see in textual variation a lot is we see what's called an Expansion of the text and that's where there's something that the text says in one place But it doesn't say in another place and so it gets expanded in the other place This happens a lot in the Gospels because Jesus will say for instance the Lord's Prayer If you look at the Lord's Prayer in Matthew and the Lord's Prayer in Luke They're the same in the King James But they're not the same in modern versions and people say well the modern versions took stuff out No it's just through manuscript study we find that Luke didn't have the all of the things from the Lord's Prayer and Those things were likely Expansions over time through scribal amendation and we see that happen So this is just an example of I mean It happened in It happened in the the writings of the the Dead Sea Scrolls another interesting thing Yeah, because nobody debates whether or not that should be there We know it shouldn't but it was put there because there was an attempt to harmonize by a scribe Now who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? This is something I again I do a whole class on just the Dead Sea Scrolls Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? Yeah, we we don't know for certain but we believe it was a group called the Essenes who lived in Qumran Which is a area where around where these scrolls were found The scrolls were found in a cave near the Dead Sea and it was around an area called Qumran and in Qumran there was a group of Jewish ascetics During the time prior to Christ and during the time of Christ There was a group called the Essenes and the Essenes had a scriptorium There's actually you can you can see the ruins of it and you can actually they've had archaeological Drawings of what it probably looked like There was a pool for them to go and bathe in the baptismal pool Which they would go through before they would write it wasn't called a baptismal pool But it's basically they would basically be baptized prior to going and writing there was all these things that you still see today But they're they're flattened out because it's it's been destroyed.

It's just the it's what what's left is something called a tell a Tell is an archaeological spot Where the ground is built up and you can see what what was there, but it's not there anymore I always joke.

I always say there's a tell Over off of 295 if you're driving around 295 heading towards Orange Park and you look off to the right I think it's over by Pritchard Road.

You'll see a giant hill and It's a landfill But the reason why it's so high is because they put the trash down and then they bury it with dirt then they put more Trash down then they bury it with dirt.

And so if you were to take a drill and Drill into that and go down, you know 40 or 50 feet and Start pulling things out You would know what year you were in because you would start pulling things out with dates on them and things that with you know Things that existed you probably find a track tape somewhere in there.

You go back a little further Maybe you'll find a record player or something you know I'm saying right so so the same thing exists in the archaeological world and the and and they they will have places that have gotten One civilization built something and then another civilization built on top of that Then another civilization built on top of that and they can dig down and they say okay Here's here's when this civilization existed.

And this is what it looked like.

And here's what was before that.

Here's what it looked like and You can look up Qumran That is spelled Q you It's it's q u m r a n Q Qumran And and you can find pictures of what I'm talking about There with the with the what's left what's left behind of the of the scriptorium that existed there In this book if you want to look at it before you leave or take a picture or whatever with your phone Here's a picture of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This right here is the is the Isaiah scroll The one I was talking about that is what it looks like That's a Torah scroll, I'm sorry, that's a different that's not the Dead Sea.

I'm sorry.

So that's an inkwell there is the That's the entrance to cave 4 that was one of the caves that they were found in This all has to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

You're welcome.

If you got this book again, it's good Cuz it you know, if you're if you're like me you like pictures There's the there's you can tell how bad my drawing was because there's the pot And if you think the pot is like a pot, it's not it's a pot.

It's a man's pot It's the sigh it's they're big because these scrolls are not little these scrolls are massive All right Okay, so let's finish out today by talking about the ancient versions I'm going to give you just a few some of these are mentioned in your book and by ancient versions.

What I mean is These are not Hebrew These are essentially translations of the Hebrew But they still date to earlier than our earliest Hebrew copy and they therefore bear witness to What the Hebrew said? The first one is the Samaritan Pentateuch now the Pentateuch means the first five books of the Bible the Samaritan Pentateuch Dates to around 400 BC It is a manuscript of the Hebrew text that covers the first five books of Moses It's not an it's not in Hebrew.

It's a Samaritan Pentateuch Samaritan like Samaria.

Yeah dates to around 400 BC the Aramaic Targums and your book talks about what Targum is the Aramaic Targums Essentially the word Targum just means translation Came into existence after the exile and they still we still possess some of those I don't have a list of dates or anything on that But just know that those were written after the time of the exile prior to the time of Christ.

So again, these are these are Versions of the Old Testament that predate Christ and again therefore have value because of that the Syriac Peshitta Which was began begun in the middle of the first century AD the Peshitta is in close agreement with the Masoretic text so it's a Syriac version that Dates to the time of Christ middle of the first century and it again bears witness to the reality Reliability of the Masoretic text because they're in very close agreement and now for the granddaddy The granddaddy is the Septuagint The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Old Testament Which existed at least 200 years prior to the time of Christ the Septuagint? stands as a Important witness, but it also provides its own set of problems Because there are times where the suit Septuagint does not always agree with the Masoretic text so it introduces Textual variation but it also is A blessing because it in most places it agrees and demonstrates the the fidelity of the text One of the things that we can show By virtue of simply showing the the use of language in the New Testament is that the New Testament writers often quote from the Old Testament and quote from the Septuagint in Doing so at least bearing witness to its use Among the people of God.

I call it the granddaddy because honestly it before the Dead Sea Scrolls It was the witness that went back that far.

I mean it was it bore witness to a thousand year prior to the time of the Masoretic text and Here's the other thing that it does and here's the here's here's an interesting little tidbit every Christmas I Show the value of the Septuagint Because every Christmas Somebody will mention Disbelieving in the virgin birth whether you're watching the Discovery Channel or whether you're watching something someone will say the virgin birth is not true and in the Old Testament The passage which predicts the virgin birth is Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14 Which says behold the virgin will conceive and bear a son and they will call his name Emmanuel well Isaiah chooses in that text To use the word in Hebrew Alma now the word Alma Can be translated virgin, but it can also be translated maiden Maiden Now or even young woman young woman The more specific word in Hebrew for virgin is the word Bethulah Isaiah chooses the word Alma and Not the word Bethulah which is the very is the word for virgin and As a result some have concluded that Isaiah never intended For anyone to believe that a virgin was going to conceive and bear a son.

I Don't believe that but I just want that to sink in for a moment People say because Isaiah used the word Alma He didn't use the word Bethulah that that means Isaiah never intended for us to believe a virgin would conceive I've said that I've told this story before we had in the 1980s.

This church was much different back then We used to be part of a very liberal denomination.

God has moved us out of that But in the 1980s when I was a wee lad This church had a pastor who didn't believe in the virgin birth He denied the virgin birth of Christ probably denied many other things, but that's the thing we found out come Christmastime again When he didn't want to teach on the virgin birth because he didn't believe in it and if you go back To the RSV.

I believe it's the RSV which is a early 20th century Version of the Bible and you read Isaiah 14 You will see that it doesn't say behold the virgin will conceive it translates it as maiden Translates it as actually I think it may translate as young woman.

You can look that up look up Isaiah 714 You'll go down virgin virgin.

You look at the different versions like on Bible Hub.

You can see all the different versions It's a virgin virgin virgin virgin young woman virgin virgin, whichever the one says young woman.

I think it's RSV That's the one that caused such an uproar and and rightfully so because people said for four years This is said virgin.

Why is it now being translated as maiden or young woman? This is the reason why? Now does that mean they're right? No, and I'm about to knock it completely out of the park, but this is their reasoning Their reasoning is that Isaiah's intention was to say a young woman will conceive and bear a child Here's the fun part and you can Anytime if anybody ever brings this up feel free Use this and knock it out of the park because this to me is just the answer and it's so it's so simple We have a translation of the Bible that predates the time of Christ because what they'll say is they'll say the reason why Christians Wanted to be virgin is because we want it to agree with the New Testament Because the New Testament says a virgin conceived and bore son, but the Septuagint Dating 200 years approximately prior to Christ translates this word and It translates this word as Parthenos and Parthenos is the Greek word for virgin So the writers of the Septuagint could not have been influenced by Christian thinking Because Christian thinking did not yet exist during the writing of the Septuagint Therefore the Septuagint if it does nothing else it bears witness to the fact that prior to Christ It was believed that Isaiah had prophesied that a virgin would conceive and bear a son so There is value in these other versions.

But again, the Hebrew is King Because Hebrew is the original language just like we're going to see next week We're going to see that there are other versions of the New Testament We're going to see like the Coptic and the Ethiopic and other translations which came out very quickly after the New Testament was written, but the and and the Latin Vulgate Which comes out in the fourth century becomes the the book of the Western The Bible of the Western Church for a thousand years, but yet the Greek is stands Above the rest because it's the original language just like in the Old Testament Hebrew stands above the rest because it is the original language But we we still have value in these other versions and So when you're reading this week you'll read about some of these versions and what they teach us what they show us and Why they matter? All right, so I know that tonight was Was a lot of information over a very short amount of time, but we have a few minutes left.

I'd like to ask What questions do you have? Yes Sure Mm-hmm That's a very good question and I'm going to repeat your question only because someone asked me who watches it online Hey, can you repeat the question of the person? I just want to make sure everybody at home Here's what you just asked because that's a very thoughtful and very quite difficult question actually because the question he's asking is if the New Testament writers quote the Septuagint and the Septuagint is by that being given at least a tacit level of authority by quoting it and The and the Septuagint includes the Deuterocanonical books.

Why do we not accept the Deuterocanonical? Deuterocanonical books my answer is going to be hopefully not too simplistic but my my answer is is is simply this the use of the of the Septuagint by the New Testament writers is I think Utilitarian in nature meaning they are using it because of the necessity of getting the gospel to the Greek speaking world it's being used not because it's the Not because of its inherent value, but because of its inherent utilitarian usefulness and I don't think that they are giving it the weight of Scripture in the same way that the that the the the Hebrew text is given But they're using it because it's available to get the gospel to who they're sending the gospel to in Much the same way that if I were and this is the best example I can come up with again Just a thought if I were going to be bringing the gospel to the the people of China and I was going to Use a Bible I would have to use whatever Chinese Bible was available to me Even if it's not the best one or even if it had things in it that I didn't necessarily agree with or if there were portions of it So I would have that Chinese Bible I would use that Chinese Bible to get the message across But that doesn't mean necessarily that I don't have issues with what's in that Chinese Bible So that would be the first my first simplest answer and to add to that too We know that the Jewish people as a whole did not accept the deuterocanonicals as part of the Palestinian canon we talked about that last week and The New Testament writers never quote from or cite the deuterocanonical books in the Septuagint either So those would be my reasons for saying that even though they made use of it I don't think they're giving I still don't think it's given the same weight as the the Hebrew text That Sure, sure.

No, it's just that was hard.

So you can give me a harder one No, please I love you What he just asked is a very difficult question, I'm gonna quote I'll repeat it he says when the when the New Testament writers quote from the Septuagint if there is a textual variant with the Masoretic text does their use of that variant? Demonstrate that that is the accurate reading No I want to answer.

I just I I just want you to know That's that's top tier question.

That's a good question because I have an answer but nobody's gonna like it Huh No, it did happen.

That's the point is it did happen and dr.

James White makes a Very important point about the fact that it did happen because in debates with King James only us and things like that.

He'll bring this one specific issue up and He will show that even in textual variation God's Word is preserved and that's a very difficult thing to hunt and to understand that God's Word is not internally corrupted even if there's a variation and That's tough to hear and it's tough to even understand what's being said with that because sounds like a contradiction but the point is The New Testament writers quoting from the Septuagint are in a good example of this I don't have the text in my mind.

Somebody's gonna Hear this online and freak out that I'm not going to get this right, but there is a place in the New Testament Where a quote is made I talked about this in my Genesis study when I talked through Genesis Because there's a quote about the the the descendants of Joseph If you look at the descendants of Joseph, which I think is Genesis 49 The Septuagint does not agree with the Masoretic text and the New Testament agrees with Septuagint.

What do you do with that? And the answer some would say well, we just go with what the New Testament writers because that's obviously what was inspired, right? Dr.

White's takes a little different approach He says it shows that the the heart of the truth is still there even though the numbers change and it's it's hard to understand what he's saying, but ultimately that that that type of textual variation doesn't eliminate the the the the sort I'm looking for the preservation of the text that the text is preserved even in the variants and that's very difficult to get but What you like I said, you just asked a top-tier question It's very difficult because we still we do have to deal with that and it's it's tough.

I think there are There are a few simple answers.

One of the ones would just say if the New Testament uses it That must be the right answer.

That must be it but then that brings you to the next question what about when I go back to Genesis because Genesis says different than this and now I'm stuck should Genesis be changed and I I'm not saying that I'm saying is that's where we have to deal with the question, right? Should we go back and change the text in Genesis? Yeah No, and I wouldn't say that.

I definitely don't say we wholeheartedly go with the Septuagint.

I say obviously the Hebrew is king But that doesn't mean That we don't run into some issues and the New Testament use of the old and this again how do we know they're using the Septuagint things like this is how we know because they're quoting from a Textual variation that exists in the Septuagint.

That's how we know that that's what they're using Now everybody's upset, thanks no No, that's a great question Yeah, it is the Septuagint is a Blessing but it also introduces issues that the issues of textual variation that we have to deal with All right, and we have to ask the question What is its value and I think the value as I said is a utilitarian value It was used by the the the Apostles to get the gospel to the Greek speaking world They didn't they didn't reinvent the wheel.

They didn't retranslate the Hebrew into Greek.

It had already been done They used what was done to get the gospel into the world but again, there are times when they cite it having cited a textual variation which Creates some questions very good ones actually Anybody else got a question I'm I Don't think anybody's gonna beat that one, but anybody else got it.

You got a good question All right, anybody online got a question or do they Okay, good.

All right.

Well, hopefully that was helpful We will next week.

We're gonna have fun because we get to the New Testament.

It's totally different So we'll have we'll have another set of learning.

Let's pray father.

I thank you for your word I thank you for your truth, and I do thank you Lord that we can trust what the word says We can trust your method of preserving it Even though we don't always we can't always nail down every single bit of how it was done We know that Lord you have ensured that your people have your word and we trust what it says in Jesus name.