Which did not require somebody to copy out by hand what was stated in a prior written document. We wouldn't have invented photocopying if copying by hand was equally as reliable. Perhaps modern man found a more reliable way to preserve testimony than God himself? Or did I forget that God's refusal to invent the printing press back when it would have been most beneficial falls under that "his mysterious ways" mantra that constantly sings in your head?Establishing the Reliability of the Old Testament - A Timely Test of Transmission
In Cold Case Christianity, I discussed the careful transmission of Biblical texts. A number of my cold case investigations began with a careful examination of the original police reports and records. I got these documents from the police Records Division, where they were carefully collected and maintained for many years. Careful protocols were established to guarantee the preservation of these documents.
In one particular case, I had the chance to test this preservation process. After retrieving a report from Records, I called the original detective to ask a series of questions. This particular detective was conscientious enough to keep copies of his reports from his unsolved cases. He brought his copy with him for our interview. My copy from records was exactly the same as the detective’s. The Records Division had done its job, maintaining an accurate and reliable copy of the original documents for over 30 years.
That doesn't exactly sound like the Biblia Hebraica Stuttengartsia
Correct, and that's why you cannot decide which form of Jeremiah, Lxx or MT, is closer to the original.As it turns out, we can examine the competency of the ancient Jewish “Records Division” and test the ability of ancient scribes to accurately copy (and maintain) the Old Testament with a similar comparison.
Here's an inerrantist Christian scholar on Jeremiah's text:
No other book of the Old Testament contains as many textual variants between the Hebrew (MT) and Greek texts (LXX) as does the Book of Jeremiah. In 1862 F. Giesebracht determined that the LXX is about twenty-seven hundred words or one-eighth shorter than the MT.47 A more precise count by Y.-J. Min in 1977 found the LXX to be 3,097 words or one-seventh shorter than the MT.48 The differences include the omission of entire passages in the LXX, the longest being about 180 words. The most significant omissions are 29:16–20; 33:14–26; 39:4–13; 51:41b–49a; 52:27b–30. Other omissions may be a phrase, a sentence, or only a single word or two. The LXX has about one hundred words not found in the MT. Furthermore, some words in the LXX are different from the corresponding words in the MT (variants). Another type variant that occurs is a different arrangement of texts. The most significant one occurs in the messages against foreign nations (chaps. 46–51 in the MT). In the LXX this section appears immediately after 25:13a (LXX = 25:14–31:44) and is also arranged internally in a different sequence from the MT.Huey, F. (2001, c1993). Vol. 16: Jeremiah, Lamentations (electronic ed.).
Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 30).
Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
Wallace continues:
No, it was Jeremiah himself who accused the scribes of employing the "lying pen":It’s clear the Jews guarded Scripture with extreme care and precision.
8 "How can you say, 'We are wise, And the law of the LORD is with us'? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes Has made it into a lie. (Jer. 8:8 NAU)The theory that the Jews guarded Scripture with extreme care and precision cannot be reconciled with the biblical story of Josiah's reform, wherein the Jews were perplexed upon finding a book of Moses hidden in the wall of a temple being remodeled, and they had to get a female spiritist to give her opinion on it before they could say with confidence that it was truly the law of the Lord. That would hardly be the case if the Jews "guarded Scripture with extreme care and precision". nobody seems to care that by the time of Josiah's reign, the Jews had all but forgotten the Law. From 2nd Kings 22:
8 Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, "I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD." And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan who read it.Wallace continues:
9 Shaphan the scribe came to the king and brought back word to the king and said, "Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the LORD."
10 Moreover, Shaphan the scribe told the king saying, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book." And Shaphan read it in the presence of the king.
11 When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes.
12 Then the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam the son of Shaphan, Achbor the son of Micaiah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the king's servant saying,
13 "Go, inquire of the LORD for me and the people and all Judah concerning the words of this book that has been found, for great is the wrath of the LORD that burns against us, because our fathers have not listened to the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us."
14 So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter); and they spoke to her.
15 She said to them, "Thus says the LORD God of Israel, 'Tell the man who sent you to me,
16 thus says the LORD, "Behold, I bring evil on this place and on its inhabitants, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read.
17 "Because they have forsaken Me and have burned incense to other gods that they might provoke Me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore My wrath burns against this place, and it shall not be quenched."'
18 "But to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of the LORD thus shall you say to him, 'Thus says the LORD God of Israel, "Regarding the words which you have heard,
19 because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I truly have heard you," declares the LORD.
20 "Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes will not see all the evil which I will bring on this place."'" So they brought back word to the king.
NAU 2 Kings 23:1 Then the king sent, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
2 The king went up to the house of the LORD and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great; and he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD.
3 The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant. (2 Ki. 22:8-23:3 NAU)
Some church fathers insisted the text of the OT became intolerably corrupt and had gone missing before the temple was rebuilt, and therefore, Ezra restored them with his magic wand. Clement of Alexandria (2nd century) is representative:The Old Testament Scriptures were revered and protected, largely because early believers considered them to be the holy Word of God.
So much
for the details respecting dates, as stated variously by many, and as set down
by us.
It is
said that the Scriptures both of the law and of the prophets were translated
from the dialect of the Hebrews into the Greek language in the reign of Ptolemy
the son of Lagos, or, according to others, of Ptolemy surnamed Philadelphus;
Demetrius Phalereus bringing to this task thegreatest earnestness, and
employing painstaking accuracy on the materials for the translation. For the
Macedonians being still in possession of Asia, and the king being ambitious of
adorning the library he had at Alexandria with all writings, desired the people
of Jerusalem to translate the prophecies they possessed into the Greek dialect.
And they being the subjects of the Macedonians, selected from those of highest
character among them seventy elders, versed in the Scriptures, and skilled in
the Greek dialect, and sent them to him with the divine books. And each having
severally translated each prophetic book, and all the translations being
compared together, they agreed both in meaning and expression. For it was the
counsel of God carried out for the benefit of Grecian ears. It was not alien to
the inspiration of God, who gave the prophecy, also to produce the translation,
and make it as it were Greek prophecy. Since the Scriptures having perished
in the captivity of Nabuchodonosor, Esdra the Levite, the priest, in the time
of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, having become inspired in the exercise of
prophecy restored again the whole of the ancient Scriptures. And
Aristobulus, in his first book addressed to Philometor, writes in these words:
“And Plato followed the laws given to us, and had manifestly studied all that
is said in them.” And before Demetrius there had been translated by another,
previous to the dominion of Alexander and of the Persians, the account of the
departure of our countrymen the Hebrews from Egypt, and the fame of all that
happened to them, and their taking possession of the land, and the account of
the whole code of laws; so that it is perfectly clear that the above-mentioned
philosopher derived a great deal from this source, for he was very learned, as
also Pythagoras, who transferred many things from our books to his own system
of doctrines. And Numenius, the Pythagorean philosopher, expressly writes: “For
what is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic Greek? ”This Moses was a theologian
and prophet, and as some say, an interpreter of sacred laws. His family, his
deeds, and life, are related by the Scriptures themselves, which are worthy of
all credit; but have nevertheless to be stated by us also as well as we can.
Clement of Alexandria,
Stromata, ch. XXII
Roberts, A., Donaldson, J., & Coxe, A. C. (1997).
The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. II
Wallace continues:
Yes, they did, but even conservative Christian scholars say the text is in poor condition with little to zero ability to know what the original likely said:The Masoretic tradition gives us a glimpse into the obsessive care Jewish scribes historically took with their sacred texts. Scribes known as the Masoretes (a group of Jewish copyists living and working primarily in Tiberias and Jerusalem) took over the precise job of copying the ancient Scripture and transmitting it for later generations.
from A Student's Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bible: Its History, Methods...By Paul D. Wegner:
“Most scholars today have abandoned any attempt to develop and eclectic Hebrew text (combining the best readings from each of the Hebrew manuscripts, similar to the United Bible Societies text of the New Testament). In the case of the Old Testaement text, scholars have argued for that literary history is very complicated and thatt little of it is known. Some scholars have suggested that the different versions of part or all of t some books may have coexisted or that there many have been different stages in the literary development of a book (e.g., Jeremiah and Ezekiel both have shorter and longer forms). Tov states: Large-scale differences between the textual witnesses show that a few books and parts of books were once circulated in different formulations representing different literary stages, as a rule one after the other, but possibly also parallel to each other. The situation is complicated even further by the fact that we do not know when the development, modification and compilation of the books ceased. In addition, for the vast majority of Old Testament books the oldest extant text was copied at least several hundred years after it was first written.”
Wallace continues:
The late and beloved Farrell Till shot this shit down almost 30 years ago:The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran confirms their amazing ability. In 1947, a Bedouin herdsman found some unusual clay jars in caves near the valley of the Dead Sea. The jars contained a number of scrolls revealing the religious beliefs of monastic farmers who lived in the valley from 150 BC to AD 70. When this group saw the Romans invade the region, they apparently put their cherished scrolls in the jars and hid them in the caves. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain fragments of almost every book in the Old Testament, and most importantly, a complete copy of the book of Isaiah. This scroll was dated to approximately 100 BC; it was incredibly important to historians and textual experts because it was approximately one thousand years older than any Masoretic copy of Isaiah. The Dead Sea Scroll version of Isaiah allowed scholars to compare the text over this period of time to see if copyists had been conscientious. Scholars were amazed by what they discovered.According to Gleason Archer (author of A Survey of Old Testament Introduction), a comparison of the Qumran manuscripts of Isaiah “proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text.” Some of the 5 percent differences were simply a matter of spelling (like you might experience when using the word favor instead of favour). Some were grammatical differences (like the presence of the word and to connect two ideas or objects within a sentence). Finally, some were the addition of a word for the sake of clarity (like the addition of the Hebrew word for “light” to the end of verse 53:11, following “they shall see”). None of these grammatical variations changed the meaning of the text in any way.
With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, believers in the inerrancy doctrine thought they had found cause to rejoice. In Cave One at Qumran was found a manuscript of the book of Isaiah containing all 66 chapters except for only a few words that were missing where edges of the scroll had crumbled. Although many spelling variations were found in the text, the content of the Qumran scroll was found to be remarkably parallel to the Masoretic text of 895 A. D. Translators of the Revised Standard Version in 1952 found only 13 textual differences in the manuscript that they considered important enough to affect their translation of Isaiah. When scholars dated the manuscript at circa 100 B.C., Bible fundamentalists believed they had found in the Qumran text of Isaiah indisputable proof that through the long, silent centuries Jewish scribes had been scrupulously faithful in transmitting their sacred books. After all, if a thousand years had brought no significant changes to the text of Isaiah, couldn't we believe that the same was true of the other Old Testament books?This would make an impressive argument were it not for subsequent discoveries that were made at Qumran, which Bible inerrantists have been very reluctant to talk about...Farrell Till, “The Jeremiah Dilemma”,Skeptical Review (1990, July-August)
And under Christian reasoning, Wallace is reluctant to talk about the Qumran evidence for bible books other than Isaiah, so the only way Farrell Till could have known that fundamentalists were very reluctant to talk about those matters, is if he was inspired by God. How else could he have foreseen such things?
(for the skeptical reader, I saved most of Farrell Till's "Skeptical Review" articles, I can sent you the executable file that will give you most of issues or so if interested. This site has most issues between 1990 and 1995; wayback has preserved many of Till's online posts between 2004 and 2006, from a now-defunct website. See here for wayback's preservation of articles from more skeptical authors at the now-defunct website).
Wallace continues:
What compels Christians to play with live rattlesnakes at church?What compelled the ancient scribes to treat these documents with such precision and meticulous care?
Then the Jews of Jeremiah 8:8 were a sorry exception.It was clearly their belief the documents themselves were sacred and given to them by God.
And if God was really moving through them, he could have simply waved his magic wand and had the Jews invent the printing press.The ancient Jewish scribes didn’t have access to photocopiers, microfiche, or digital imaging like modern police-department Records Divisions do,
but they understood the importance of Divine record keeping, and they used the first-century equivalent in technology (the meticulous tradition of their Masoretes) to carefully guarantee the accuracy of the texts.
You are clearly an "apologist" with a fundamentalist axe to grind. No responsible Christian scholar would rave about such ideological fantasies as this.
That's right, he isn't a scholar. If he was, he would have known that the people most knowledgeable about the state of the OT text, do not find it to be the shiny perfect idol that Wallace apparently does.J. Warner Wallace is a Cold-Case Detective,
hector avalos and many biblical scholars believe that jeremiah is aware of textual corruption
ReplyDeleteavalos :
You provide no evidence that Jeremiah 8:8 is only speaking about reinterpretation. The reference to "scribes," the professionals who specialize in copying, MAKING the Torah into a lie can include BOTH reinterpretation AND changing the text.
matthew ferguson:
Here is what William Holladay (Jeremiah 1, pg. 261) says about Jer. 7:22:
“The phraseology of ‘I did not … command them’ suggests that Jrm is trying to correct a false understanding that people might have gained from a legal tradition such as the Covenant Code (see Exod 20:24; 23:18) … But the bald statement that these sacrifices were not a part of the instruction to Israel at the time of the exodus raises great difficulties. It is paralleled by the implication of the rhetorical question in Amos 5:25 and of the linking of sacrifice with kingship in Hos. 3:4; these passages stand in stark contrast the presentation of the total Pentateuch as it now stands. Some of the polemic against sacrifice in the prophets can be explained as a way of saying, ‘I would rather have righteousness than sacrifice’: this would be plausible for Isa 1:11-14; Hos 6:6; 8:13; Amos 5:21-24; and Mic 6:6-8. This relativizing of the attitude toward sacrifice is taken by a number of authorities and has been maintained for the present texts.
But the present verse, and the analogous texts in Amos and Hosea already cited, do not lend themselves to this interpretation without violence. The words certainly press the hearer to the conclusion that Jrm believed that the Sinaitic covenant had nothing at all to do with ‘burnt offering and sacrifice’; and given the assumption that Jrm must have known the Covenant Code, the evidence that he knew (at least part of) Deuteronomy and (at least some parts of) the P tradition (on the latter compare 4:23 and 20:3-6), the problem becomes severe.”
Holladay discusses a possibility, raised by Jacob Milgrom, that this verse may be only referring to individual sacrifices, and not to the activities of the Temple court. However, I think that this is speculative.
As I see it, this verse provides prima facie evidence of a contradiction between Jeremiah and how the exodus is actually depicted in the Pentateuch. It is strange, as Holladay notes, that Jeremiah had access to (at least part of) Deuteronomy and yet still makes this seemingly inaccurate statement.
But I think that it is fully plausible that Jeremiah is writing against the priestly writers, as you suggest. Jeremiah’s knowledge of Deuteronomy can be explained by this interpretation, since the contradiction would not be some accident, but a deliberate choice to downplay the role of sacrifice during the exodus. After all, during the Babylonian exile, Jeremiah does not want the Jews to fall into idolatry by committing sacrifices. One of the best ways to do this is to reinterpret what God commanded during the exodus, regardless of what the earlier priestly writers had claimed. It’s not like two different texts can’t give different instructions and relate two different versions of events.
but then an apologist replied :
ReplyDeletebut then you have apologists who write :
- Judeans possess God’s law, just as they possess the temple. But their scribes (the professional copiers and teachers of the Scriptures) have altered God’s word to fit their own desires. Thus, they have made it into a lie. All God’s prophets agree on this (as recorded in the OT).
These so-called ‘wise men’ (8:9) will be put to shame (2:26; 6:15) because of their changing of God’s word. Rejecting God’s word proves they are really unwise. When prophet and priest deal falsely with God’s word, the nation becomes greedy for unjust gain, and enemies take their wives and fields (8:10).
The false prophets were dubbed “salvation prophets” because they were preaching that all would be ok when the people needed to hear the truth - they were sinning against God. God spoke to Jeremiah saying “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace. - Jeremiah 8:11 (cf. 6:12–15). The wicked prophets and priests are like incompetent doctors who tell a patient he or she is healthy when in fact the patient is desperately sick (17:9; cf. 57:18–21)
Furthermore, I propose that the presence of an inclusio in the book implies that every word in the book must be taken as Jeremiah’s, whether the text says so, or not (Jer. 1:1; 51:64). Critically, in asking what it means to “hear the words, plural, of Jeremiah with the word, singular, of God?”, Shead declares that “Jeremiah unmistakeably draws our attention to the theology of the word of God at the very outset.” He also argues that every word contained in the book makes up the message of God and concludes, convincingly, that the aforementioned inclusio “limits the words of Jeremiah, embracing the entire book except for its final chapter, a version of 2 Kings 25.” (2012, pp. 42-43).