Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Aspirin99 · 08-02-2007, 08:58 AM

Quote:

the evidence here from Josephus was strong that he did not have the full Greek Bible.

Can you expound on that point a little more please. Thanks.

Steven Avery · 08-02-2007, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aspirin99

Quote:

the evidence here from Josephus was strong that he did not have the full Greek Bible.

Can you expound on that point a little more please. Thanks.

Hi Aspirin,

The thread was back in Feb 2007 and began here:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=195782
Question about the Septuagint

And revolved around the Antiquities Preface.

http://www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/ant-pref.htm
2. Now I have undertaken the present work, as thinking it will appear to all the Greeks worthy of their study; for it will contain all our antiquities, and the constitution of our government, as interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures. And indeed I did formerly intend, when I wrote of the war, (Jewish Wars 75AD) to explain who the Jews originally were, - what fortunes they had been subject to, - and by what legislature they had been instructed in piety, and the exercise of other virtues, - what wars also they had made in remote ages, till they were unwillingly engaged in this last with the Romans: but because this work (Antiquities 93 AD) would take up a great compass, I separated it into a set treatise by itself, with a beginning of its own, and its own conclusion; but in process of time, as usually happens to such as undertake great things, I grew weary and went on slowly, it being a large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a foreign, and to us unaccustomed language.

And this section in Antiquities.

http://www.godrules.net/library/flav...viusb10c10.htm
AJ 10.218
But let no one blame me for writing down every thing of this nature, as I find it in our ancient books; for as to that matter, I have plainly assured those that think me defective in any such point, or complain of my management, and have told them in the beginning of this history, that I intended to do no more than translate the Hebrew books into the Greek language, and promised them to explain those facts, without adding any thing to them of my own, or taking any thing away from there.

Jeffrey Gibson also mentioned (three spelling errors corrected) an:

"extended footnote on 1.5 on pp. 3-5 in Louis Feldman's commentary on JA 1-4."

Good summary posts were from Andrew in 111 and 123.

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

The prologue by Josephus ... makes the claim (formally true) that the attempt by the Jews in the time of Ptolemy II to make their sacred books available to Greek-speaking Gentiles was confined to the Torah, and argues that hence there is a need for a further work addressed to the Gentiles covering all Jewish history. This need is met by the Antiquities ... Josephus here seems to imply that an educated Gentile Greek-speaker was likely to be aware of the original translation of the Torah and unlikely to have any such knowledge of the later translations of the other books.

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

My guess FWIW is that Josephus originally intended to write a precis of the historical books as an introduction and background to the Jewish Wars, this work was too long to fit into the Jewish Wars but was originally intended to be much shorter than the later Antiquities ended up. ... He gave up on this project in its original form but later used his draft of this work as a basis for the eventual stand-alone Antiquities.

All in all the quotes from Josephus give strong evidence that there was not available and circulating a full Greek Tanach. (So called Septuagint or LXX.)

Thanks for asking, btw.

I wanted to revisit the discussion without the polemic and distraction and have a summary of how Josephus gives evidence against the circulating full Greek OT. One of my fav posters, Riverwind, also contributed on that thread.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery · 08-03-2007, 01:12 AM

Hi Folks,

One more quote from the Preface to Antiquities should be included. Speaking of Eleazar the High Priest at the time of Ptolemy, when the Penteteuch was translated to Greek.

"Accordingly, I thought it became me both to imitate the generosity of our high priest, and to suppose there might even now be many lovers of learning like the king; for he did not obtain all our writings at that time; but those who were sent to Alexandria as interpreters, gave him only the books of the law, while there were a vast number of other matters in our sacred books."

Since the Preface has to do with the labors of Josephus in writing Antiquities the implication is that the rest of the Tanach was untranslated. In fact from this verse it would seem that there was not either Prophets or Histories/Writings in circulation.

If this is accurate then referring to the "LXX Hoax" is understandable, if the emphasis is to disassemble the common theory that there was a Greek OT called the LXX circulating at the time of Jesus and the writing of the New Testament in the first century. And that this Greek OT was a primary source used by Jesus and the apostles. Also clearly these Josephus sections which indicate a later Greek OT supports the idea that the orphan confluences between the NT and the Greek OT came about from OT "smoothing" toward the NT rather than NT usage of the Greek OT text.

The NT also supports this view of the usage of the Hebrew-Aramaic Tanach with its internal indicators toward the usage of the Hebrew text.

Shalom,
Steven

Jack the Bodiless · 08-03-2007, 02:59 AM

This actually came up in the recent Isaiah 7:14 thread. A similar claim is used here to argue that the translation of "almah" to "parthenos" wasn't done by a Jew:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outreach Judaism

Moreover, the Septuagint in our hands is not a Jewish document, but rather a Christian one. The original Septuagint, created 2,200 years ago by 72 Jewish translators, was a Greek translation of the Five Books of Moses alone. It therefore did not contain prophetic Books of the Bible such as Isaiah, which you asserted that Matthew quoted from. The Septuagint as we have it today, which includes the Prophets and Writings as well, is a product of the church, not the Jewish people. In fact, the Septuagint remains the official Old Testament of the Greek Orthodox Church, and the manuscripts that consist of our Septuagint today date to the third century C.E. The fact that additional books known as the Apocrypha, which are uniquely sacred to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Church, are found in the Septuagint should raise a red flag to those inquiring into the Jewishness of the Septuagint.

Christians such as Origin and Lucian (third and fourth century C.E.) had an enormous impact on creating and shaping the Septuagint that missionaries use to advance their untenable arguments against Judaism. In essence, the present Septuagint is largely a post-second century Christian translation of the Bible, used zealously by the church throughout the centuries as an indispensable apologetic instrument to defend and sustain Christological alterations of the Jewish scriptures.

hatsoff · 08-03-2007, 03:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by S.C.Carlson

Maybe it is possible after all to judge a website by its garish fonts and colors.

It usually is, yes.

My God, what a joke. The LXX is a FRAUD! FRAUD! LIES! CONSPIRACY! CHEMTRAILS! ARGH!

Jayhawker Soule · 08-03-2007, 04:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Incredibly we have proof positive, the smoking cannon, of major Greek OT tampering towards the NT in the Psalm 14 verse which took from Romans 3. (There was also Jewish-favored translation, especially Aquila. We know of no such specific tampering as Psalm 14 although some Jewish history actually claims to have messed with the Greek.)

Could you expound on this a bit more? Thank you.

Doug Shaver · 08-03-2007, 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Doug, beware of the genetic fallacy.

I am very aware of it, and I know how to avoid it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Now I would be the first to agree that the quality of scholarship of those who accept the King James Bible as the inspired and pure word of God is not always what it should be.

In my observations to date, it never has been what it should be. I have never seen an argument by an apologist for the KJV's authority that does not assume the apologist's own infallibility.

Steven Avery · 08-03-2007, 08:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

I have never seen an argument by an apologist for the KJV's authority that does not assume the apologist's own infallibility.

"the apologist's own infallibility" ?

Anyway, even if you reject the general concept of King James Bible perfection, or specific arguments for that view, it is clearly the genetic fallacy to therefore reject every apologetic and argument from those who have such a view. As seen here.

Keep in mind that KJB perfection is really an inhouse discussion among those who accept the Bible as the word of God. Clearly anybody who does not can brand and label this and that as "circular" or "illogical" since they work from differing perspectives and paradigms. Nobody who rejects the Bible in a general sense can ever be expected to receive arguments for the perfection of a manuscript, text or translation in a specific sense.

Shalom,
Steven

Steven Avery · 08-03-2007, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ConsequentAtheist

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Incredibly we have proof positive, the smoking cannon, of major Greek OT tampering towards the NT in the Psalm 14 verse which took from Romans 3. (There was also Jewish-favored translation, especially Aquila. We know of no such specific tampering as Psalm 14 although some Jewish history actually claims to have messed with the Greek.)

Could you expound on this a bit more? Thank you.

Hi Consequent,

On the Romans 3 - Psalm 14 I want to tidy it up a bit and then I will plan to put in a post here, maybe on a new thread. Quite amazing. I'm also amazed that the folks writing to show the corruption of the Greek OT barely mention it (e.g. Floyd Nolen Jones generally excellent article).

As to deliberate Jewish tampering, it is funny, the first folks who told me about that were from Jews for Judaism many years back (they were at a Messianic conference as traditional Jewish apologists/evangelists). This requires delving into the Talmud quotes, again it will have to wait a bit, maybe someone else has the info handy.

As for Aquila it is well known that his 2nd-century version of the Greek OT was meant to give more of a Jewish spin. In fact when Emanuel Tov was using the evidence from the Greek OT to support the verbal reading given by Peter Flint for Psalm 22:16 (we have that link on forum here) Tov specifically noted that Aquila goes the verbal way, making the evidence that much more significant. (No I do not know how they figger out which is which.)

As for Jack's comment about Isaiah 7:14 I agree that the Greek OT is way overused for the purpose of supporting "virgin". (I dunno offhand if Aquila is extractable on this.) The booklet I reference on Isaiah 7:14 by Daniel Gruber "God, the Rabbis and the Virgin Birth" does not have the Greek on its radar, is my recollection, working directly with Hebraic understandings.

Shalom,
Steven

Jayhawker Soule · 08-03-2007, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Quote:

Originally Posted by ConsequentAtheist

Could you expound on this a bit more? Thank you.

Hi Consequent,

On the Romans 3 - Psalm 14 I want to tidy it up a bit and then I will plan to put in a post here, maybe on a new thread. Quite amazing. I'm also amazed that the folks writing to show the corruption of the Greek OT barely mention it (e.g. Floyd Nolen Jones generally excellent article).

As to deliberate Jewish tampering, it is funny, the first folks who told me about that were from Jews for Judaism many years back (they were at a Messianic conference as traditional Jewish apologists/evangelists). This requires delving into the Talmud quotes, again it will have to wait a bit, maybe someone else has the info handy.

As for Aquila it is well known that his 2nd-century version of the Greek OT was meant to give more of a Jewish spin. In fact when Emanuel Tov was using the evidence from the Greek OT to support the verbal reading given by Peter Flint for Psalm 22:16 (we have that link on forum here) Tov specifically noted that Aquila goes the verbal way, making the evidence that much more significant. (No I do not know how they figger out which is which.)

As for Jack's comment about Isaiah 7:14 I agree that the Greek OT is way overused for the purpose of supporting "virgin". (I dunno offhand if Aquila is extractable on this.) The booklet I reference on Isaiah 7:14 by Daniel Gruber "God, the Rabbis and the Virgin Birth" does not have the Greek on its radar, is my recollection, working directly with Hebraic understandings.

Shalom,
Steven

Thank you. I look forward to it. BTW, I've loaned out my copy of Tov but doesn't he date the remainder of the Greek OT to 2nd or early 1st century BCE?

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

08-03-2007, 01:12 AM	#13
Steven Avery Banned Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Queens, NY Posts: 2,293	Hi Folks, One more quote from the Preface to Antiquities should be included. Speaking of Eleazar the High Priest at the time of Ptolemy, when the Penteteuch was translated to Greek. "Accordingly, I thought it became me both to imitate the generosity of our high priest, and to suppose there might even now be many lovers of learning like the king; for he did not obtain all our writings at that time; but those who were sent to Alexandria as interpreters, gave him only the books of the law, while there were a vast number of other matters in our sacred books." Since the Preface has to do with the labors of Josephus in writing Antiquities the implication is that the rest of the Tanach was untranslated. In fact from this verse it would seem that there was not either Prophets or Histories/Writings in circulation. If this is accurate then referring to the "LXX Hoax" is understandable, if the emphasis is to disassemble the common theory that there was a Greek OT called the LXX circulating at the time of Jesus and the writing of the New Testament in the first century. And that this Greek OT was a primary source used by Jesus and the apostles. Also clearly these Josephus sections which indicate a later Greek OT supports the idea that the orphan confluences between the NT and the Greek OT came about from OT "smoothing" toward the NT rather than NT usage of the Greek OT text. The NT also supports this view of the usage of the Hebrew-Aramaic Tanach with its internal indicators toward the usage of the Hebrew text. Shalom, Steven

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.