Apikorus

I must say, Steven, I found it equally exasperating arguing with you over obvious errors in the Masoretic Text. Here's where our discussion of 1 Sam 13:1, which is clearly corrupt, left off: You never responded in any coherent way to these points. The KJV translation of 1 Sam 13:1-2 tendentiously mistranslates the Hebrew and corrects the corrupt text.

Steven Avery

1 Samuel 13:1
Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel,
<edit> First, you are not even including the link, which shows my active responses to your claims on this verse. Very tacky.

Also in general all the threads on the Masoretic Text showed how much textual conjecturing and hand-waving you do on such verses, (well, it must have said this and that, or maybe that and this) without a smidgen of manuscript or historic support. In a sense, you are just like Noah on this thread, creatively fabricating as you go along. You simply want the Masoretic Text to be "wrong".

eg. When I quoted Ben Gersom (referenced by John Gill) as a Jewish understanding in synche with the King James Bible understanding of the verse.. you simply said said that Ben Gersom's understanding was "convoluted" and "unlikely". Now that is an abysmally weak link to place so much antagomism against the historic Bible. "Unlikely" ! And yet even the Judaica Press has the same translation! and of course you will probably accuse them of not understanding Hebrew as well. Sheesh. Talk about thin reeds blowing hot air.

And when I ended the discussion on 1 Sameul 13:1 with ..
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=145555&page=3
"I notice you give no substantive basis for changing 1 Samuel 13:1 away from the Masoretic Text, which was your big claim."

You simply went to other issues, until you came back on this thread !
Amazing.

And if you want to have a technical Hebrew discussion of why you think it is impossible for one verse 2500+ years ago to be unique or unusual in its phraseology you can take it up with many translations like the Judaica Press, or the semitic researcher John Hinton, or forums with many Hebrew-savvy posters like b-hebrew, or perhaps even directly with Gil Student or Nehemiah Gordon on Orthodox and Karaite forums, if you think you can make a coherent case. Perhaps even Lawrence Schiffman would contribute. And I'll be happy to read any such discussions carefully and comment. Just don't expect me to do your legwork.

In my experience, every time I discuss such perceived anomalies with the experts on b-hebrew, I find that they are quite willing to share that we should be slow to claim full understanding of ancient biblical hebrew grammatical structures (unlike yourself, who simply accuses the text instead of seeking to learn and understand). A good example of this was the ellipsis discussion of Goliath.

And you are again also being slippery in not simply telling the forum here the nature of the anomaly to be considered. The "X" is not there, meaning that you cannot assume the phrase is the same as when the "X" is there.

In fact, the Hebrew scribes were meticulously honest in keeping the text exact in its "difficulty", rather than "smoothing" the text, as is claimed to be the norm by your fav, Ehrman et al. Of course the textcrits are known to have a very antagonistic view of scribal integrity. Their livelihood is largely dependent on convincing people not to trust the historic Bible. Caveat emptor.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Apikorus

No, Steven, that won't wash. I presented overwhelming evidence that the construction used in 1 Sam 13:1 has a very definite meaning. Now you are arguing that in this one instance (among dozens) it means something else. That is "special pleading."

My biblical Hebrew is fine. It is of course true that we don't have a complete grammar for the language. But in a case like this where a construction is used dozens of times, the evidence is overwhelming as I say.

Is that really your argument? That this is just an exception? Poof!

Apikorus

Steven, how does this sentence end? -- the suspense is killing me! Please include your translation of verse 2, and remember not to omit the vav at the beginning of vayivchar.

Well of course it isn't. That's why the text is corrupt.

No, I like the MT very much. I just don't think it is supernatural.

I peruse this list every so often. I didn't recall this being discussed, but I could have missed it. So I asked Mr. Google. Here's a quote from b-hebrew on 5/25/04:The author is a professor at Ben Gurion University (that should tell you something, if you know about universities in Israel). Do you suppose that he "wants the Masoretic text to be 'wrong'"?

Apikorus

Please substitute "Bar Ilan" for "Ben Gurion". The rest is fine.

Apikorus

Still waiting for that translation of 1 Sam 13:1-2, Steven.

Steven Avery

Api, you are welcome to give any translation you want, or make any point you want. I'm not a translating jumping bean, and I never claimed to be one, so it is not appropriate for you to say you are "waiting" for something I never offered to give. Rather tacky, in fact.

In the meantime I have studied, and find more and more neato understanding supporting the Masoretic Text. More in a while.

btw, apparently you think there is this one textual omission in the whole MT, in your view are there many others ? Here, I'm not asking supposed errors, simply dropped texts, missing words, how many do you claim are demonstrable. Also in your view, is there one omission in verse 1, or is there one omission PLUS one partial omission/correction. As a corrector of the Bible, do you redact the second number as well ?

One of the reasons I really like these discussions is that the more I study, the more understanding I get of the Bible text, and the more obvious how much the critics fish for *something* with which to accuse the received Masoretic Text of error.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Perhaps, when it is the full construction, which this is not. Oops.

In fact the construction of 'one year' and 'first year' is used for ben-shanah in the Bible. double-oops, you forgot to mention that. As least you should have been honest in your great hebrew-savvy, better than Ben Gershom et al, and pointed that out, even if you think it is 'unlikely'.

No, you are making the basic fallacy here. The full construction is not there, which is the very point of your mistranslation. It is simply wrong to claim you are translating to a construction when there is a basic element of the supposed construction missing.

Your method of supporting redaction from the air is simply to repeat words like "overwhelming" again and again. A cover story. Doesn't wash.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Yigal is a fine poster, yet has little regard for the authority and authenticity of the Bible text. He is a big fan of the JEPD nonsense, even at this late date.

Apikorus

Steven, your dissembling is quite transparent. Do you or do you not have a coherent translation for 1 Sam 13:1-2? If you find the KJV acceptable, could you explain why it fails to translate the vav at the beginning of vayivchar? We've already established that the KJV deliberately mistranslates 2 Sam 21:19...

Of course there are others, Steven. The MT is uneven. Some texts, like Leviticus, are in very good shape (probably because they are late). Others, like Samuel and Hosea, are in worse shape.

I'd be happy to discuss other examples of corruption in the MT -- there are hundreds of such examples. To be sure, the evidence for each one is of varying degree, but given that you are unable to acknowledge a problem even in what is considered a crystal clear case in 1 Sam 13:1, it would be pointless for me to bring up other cases. It would simply give you an opportunity for more dissembling. Can you please address the case of 1 Sam 13:1 first?

My view on 1 Sam 13:1 is that the text is clearly corrupt, and that there are two lacunae. We have no textual basis on which to make corrections, though, as the DSS and the versions are of no help. So it will likely forever remain unsolved.

It is simply a fact that ancient texts as a rule were imperfectly transmitted. The goal of lower text criticism is to identify corruptions and recover the original by adducing other parts of the text, the manuscript evidence, translations, etc. Also there are many cases where we simply don't understand the meaning of words or the grammar. In that case, it may be helpful to find parallels in other literature of the era, which might mean Akkadian, Ugaritic, Persian, etc. in the case of the Hebrew Bible.

I would agree that oftentimes scholars are too quick to proffer corrections, and sometimes the corrections are contrived. So it is fine to be skeptical. But it is ludicrous to assert that the text of the Hebrew Bible or New Testament is error-free. To believe that, you must believe in magic.

More dissembling. You were the one who praised the measured discussion in the b-hebrew list. And you didn't answer my question, Steven. Do you think Yigal Levin "wants the Masoretic Text to be wrong"?

Using this absurd argument, Steven, I can disprove any alleged error in any text at all. The text of 1 Sam 13:1 is clearly defective. You simply can't bear to admit it. It is quite something to watch you writhe about under the withering evidence.

At any rate, why don't you just translate the text as it stands? Here's the translation for you:

Saul was a year old when he reigned, and he reigned over Israel two years. And Saul chose for himself three thousand men from Israel...