jakejonesiv

We know now that the early Christians were very good at mistranslating and misconstruing the Jewish scriptures. A good example is Matthew 1:22-23, "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel…" But this is a misuse of Isaiah 7:14, and modern scholars would agree. Trypho called Justin on it.

Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 71.
For you assent to those which I have brought before your attention, except that you contradict the statement, `Behold, the virgin shall conceive,' and say it ought to be read, `Behold, the young woman shall conceive.' And I promised to prove that the prophecy referred, not, as you were taught, to Hezekiah, but to this Christ of mine: …"

Modern scholars (other than apologists) would agree with Trypho against Justin on the "virgin prophecy". But did Christians go further than just misconstrue? Did they commit outright forgery?

Justin Martyr claimed the Jews cut the following prophecy out of Jeremiah.

"And again, from the sayings of the same Jeremiah these have been cut out: `The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the graves; and He descended to preach to them His own salvation.'" Dialogue 72.

Irenaeus (AH 4.22.1) claimed to know the same prophecy as Justin.
"As Jeremiah declares, 'The holy Lord remembered His dead Israel, who slept in the land of sepulture; and He descended to them to make known to them His salvation, that they might be saved.'"
A problem arises. Irenaeus had mentioned the same spurious prophecy before, but attributed it to Isaiah, not Jeremiah.

And that it was not a mere man who died for us, Isaiah says: "And the holy Lord remembered His dead Israel, who had slept in the land of sepulture; and He came down to preach His salvation to them, that He might save them."
Irenaeus (AH 3.20.4)

There is simply no such prophecy in either Jeremiah or Isaiah. It is found in no extant text and in no version of the Jewish Targum.
We have caught the proto-orthodox up to their old tricks again, blatant forgery. They created a tailor-made prophecy for Jesus and attempted to pawn it off as an authentic part of the ancient Jewish scriptures. To explain why it had never been seen before, Justin slandered the Jews and said "they cut it out."

One begins to wonder if this was not the case with other non-existent prophecies, such as Matthew 2:23, " and came and lived in a city called Nazareth This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets: "He shall be called a Nazarene." There is no such prophecy, but much study and ingenuity has gone into guessing what Matthew might have meant. Perhaps it was simply a lie.

Another example, from Justin—Trypho, chapter 73.

Here is the text from Justin.
"And from the ninety-fifth (ninety-sixth) Psalm they have taken away this short saying of the words of David: `From the wood.' For when the passage said, `Tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath reigned from the wood,' they have left, `Tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath reigned.' Now no one of your people has ever been said to have reigned as God and Lord among the nations, with the exception of Him only who was crucified"

The Christians had attempted to add `from the wood' to Psalm 96:10.
Here is Psalm 96:10. "Tell all the nations, "The LORD reigns!"
http://biblos.com/psalms/96-10.htm
But Justin and the Christians have attempted to make it say "Tell all the nations, The LORD reigns from the wood!" as if the crucifixion were prophesied.

As usual, the early proto-orthodox writers falsely accused their opponents of cutting out text that was never there to begin with.

This is off course the same tactic the proto-orthodox later took with Marcion. "I say that my Gospel is the true one; Marcion, that his is. I affirm that Marcion's Gospel is adulterated; Marcion, that mine is." Tertullian, AM 4.4.
http://www.gnosis.org/library/ter_marc4.htm

We know quite well that Tertullian falsely accused Marcion of cutting "M" material from the gospel of Luke!

'Thus Christ did not at all rescind the Sabbath: He kept the law thereof, and both in the former case did a work which was beneficial to the life of His disciples, for He indulged them with the relief of food when they were hungry, and in the present instance cured the withered hand; in each case intimating by facts, "I came not to destroy, the law, but to fulfil it," although Marcion has gagged His mouth by this word.' Tertullian, Against Marcion, 4.7.14.

The problem, of course is that this text is not in Luke's gospel. It is found only in M material, that peculiar to the gospel of Matthew. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill." Matthew 5:17.

But what was the other side of the story? Can we find out the Marcionite counter-argument? Yes, even though Tertullian concocts as always the most disadvantageous contexts, we can still see what the heretics say.

Deleting Tertullian's rhetoric and anachronistic accusations, here is the Marcionite position on the subject.
".. the Gospel called Luke's which is currently used by [the catholics] ... was interpolated by the defenders of Judaism, for the purpose of such a conglomeration with it of the law and the prophets as should enable them out of it to fashion their Christ." AM 4.4.4.

This is precisely what we have so long discussed on. That the figure of Gospel Jesus was built up by "midrash" (loosely defined) from the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jake Jones IV

spamandham

Well, we can't completely dismiss the idea that the Jews cut things out of their scriptures that supported Christianity. The earliest extant manuscripts of Jeremiah and Isaiah are very late. We are only guessing that they are substantially unchanged from 1st and 2nd century versions - yet there is no reason to make such an assumption, particularly when we know how despised Christians were by Jews during the early/mid 2nd century.

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Actually I think the solution to the Justin/OT understanding is much simpler. The Greek OT (socalled LXX) is known to have been tampered by just about anybody and everybody. Ebionites, Jews and Alexandrian "Christians" (where there was a strong gnostic element) are all seen to have spun the text in various ways. I remember discussions of a Talmudic passage where the Jews claim to have rigged the Greek OT, to keep the Gentiles a bit off-base. And you can see a blatant example of textual rigging in Psalm 14.

Jerome, to his credit, recognized all this in 400 AD and made the Hebrew Bible the base of his translation efforts into Latin. Moving to Israel, living in Bethlehem, using the library in Caesarea and studying with the Jews. For this he got some flak from Augustine and others, yet his efforts stayed the course, ultimately helping to lay the foundation for direct translations from the Hebrew into English in the time of the Christian Hebraist movements and the Reformation.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

jakejonesiv

Hi Stephen,

I agree that the solution is simple.

In the case at hand, the proto-orthodox were corrupting the scriptures ; the spurious text was appealed to by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus.

The same Christians corrupted Isaiah 7:14 and attempted to corrupt Psalm 96:10 in their Greek OT.

Could you give more information about the textual rigging in Psalm 14, and the reference to Talmudic passage where the Jews claim to have rigged the Greek OT. What date was this supposed to have occured? Fairly late, right?

Best,
Jake

show_no_mercy

It seems kinda spurious for Jews to claim to have rigged the LXX. Jews stopped using the LXX at the turn of the 2nd century. And I'm sure the Ebionites didn't use the LXX (unless refering to the LXX made by Symmachus) because they were (originally?) Hebrew speaking Christians... hence the term "Ebionite".

jakejonesiv

Hi spamandham,

I don't think so. A copy of Isaiah found in the DDS at Qumran, and it matched very well with the Masoretic Text. Am I missing something? :redface:

Best,
Jake

aa5874

There is something wrong here. Jesus believers did not write the Septuagint. The Septuagint predates the Jesus stories or Justin Martyr by perhaps as much as four hundred years.

Based on Josephus, it was the Jews, or about 70 Jews that translated Hebrew Scripture to Greek at the time of Ptolemy or about 400 years before Justin Martyr's writings.

So, Jesus believers probably had nothing whatsoever to do with mis-translating the Hebrew word for "woman" to the Greek word for "virgin".

semiopen

IAJ once translated this as "maiden" - rather humorous and not entirely inaccurate.

That text is peculiar. Jewish commentators make a big deal about any extra words in text. A famous example is Deuteronomy 17:6 -

where the question is asked why not say

as The Bible in Basic English among many other translations put it. This extra word becomes a major pillar of Talmudic law.

Therefore there is a legitmate question about why that word (whatever it means) and passage was put into Isaiah. Calling this a mistranslation is therefore not completely accurate.

This link discusses the translation and seems favorable to the Jewish view

http://www.messiahtruth.com/is714a.html

Personally, I think Jewish interpretations of the bible are generally far superior to Christian. On the other hand, this particular verse seems quite technical and its meaning is not completely clear.

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv A copy of Isaiah found in the DDS at Qumran, and it matched very well with the Masoretic Text.

Exactly, I omitted this from my response to not jump around too much. The book in the Tanach that would have been most tempting to tamper was Isaiah (eg. 7, 9, 53) and the text is essentially identical (putting aside scribal faux pas and dialect changes and minor this and that) throughout, including the charged verses. (Secondarily, there might be some temptation in the Psalms.)

This does not prove the Masoretic Text reflects the 'original' .. although I believe that is true .. it does prove that the Masoretes were faithful copyists of the Hebrew Bible, that their interest was accuracy in copying, not textual tampering. This was also the view of the Reformation Bible labourers, with John Owen later writing most excellently on the topic.

As for those discussing the Isaiah 7 translation and understanding of almah, I suggest beginning looking into that with the Daniel Gruber booklet, which is however a small purchase, not readable on the net. All in all, the topic is a fascinating research and discussion.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakejonesiv Could you give more information about the textual rigging in Psalm 14

[textualcriticism] The LXX and Psalm 14 - Ted Clure
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/textua...m/message/5074

[textualcriticism] The LXX and Psalm 14 - Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/textua...m/message/5084

The issue of LXX Jewish deliberate tampering I will have to check for separately. It was actually first told to me by a Jewish anti-missionary in our private chat at a Messianic conference, and he was relating it with a bit of irony. As I remember, I looked it up later.

Shalom,
Steven Avery