Space Chef

After gathering alot of info about the bible from various sources, my memory is kind of jammed and moulded. In other words, I can't tell what I really read, imagined, reasoned out myself, and can't tell fact from impression etc. I've tried searching out the sources from which I had gotten info, but in some cases haven't been able to find, couldn't remember what I searched and came up with, etc. So, I'm at a dead end with a lot of contradictory information that I need to sort out, so I'm just gonna list some info, and I would appreciate if you would correct me if I'm wrong. And don't accuse me of being lazy, I've tried looking for all the shit I've read, and can't tell skeptic from Christian, liberal from conservative, and pseudo-historian from real historian sources apart. If you still want to accuse me of being lazy, just simply leave one of these , okay?

Now, heres the questions/facts/bullshit pseudo-historical christian bias stuff:

The earliest manuscripts were written in Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. (Note that I only said manuscripts, not the language that Jesus really spoke in, etc.)

The King James translators didn't have the greatest knowledge of Greek;

the King James translators translated the KJV from the Vulgate;

the Vulgate translators translated the Vulgate from the Septuagint;

the Vulgate had/has many errors;

and so does/did the Septuagint.

The King James team of translators were under strict orders to make their translation in accordance with the Church Of England and the King's opinions.

So, if all these were right, the KJV isn't accurate, or atleast inaccurate in many places.

The NRSV was translated from the same (erroneous) sources as the KJV.

The Vulgate was also heavily biased on the RCC's opinions.

There's not even a partly accurate bible translation.

The Peshitta is the earliest known complete bible.

That's all (for now... tee hee hee!)

Apikorus

Jerome's OT Vulgate was translated directly from the Hebrew. Problem with the LXX was too many recensions afloat (hence Origen's hexapla), whereas consonantal rabbinic text had stabilized by early 2nd century CE (as adduced from the Wadi Muraba'at texts).

Dark Jedi

Gotta love dyslexia. At first glance I read that as the Mad Wombat....

spin

I'm probably not the best person to talk here, but, as I've recently been reliant on my software only, I've done a lot of work with the transliteration of names into Greek and Latin. From this I'd say that about a third if the time the Vulgate transliterations seem to come directly from the Hebrew, a third of the time too similar to Greek and dissimilar to Hebrew and the rest, unaccountable. I get the idea that it wasn't done in a "single time" sources were probably not standard.

From the scraps at Masada, it might have been that early for the bulk.


spin

Haran

Ok... If you are getting the information from good sources, Christian or not, it will doubtfully be "pseudo-historical Christian bias stuff"...

Earliest MSS of the OT: Hebrew & Greek
Earliest MSS of the NT: Greek (earliest known), Latin, Aramaic, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian, Gothic, Slavonic, and some others.

For their time, the scholars who translated the KJV were some of the best. Their knowledge of the Hebrew was more deficient than their knowledge of Greek. I can't think of any examples of that deficiency, but I think it is relatively minor (perhaps some of the mythological creatures of the KJV...).

This is not the case.

The NT was translated from the Textus Receptus (TR) or "received text", which is based on late Byzantine-Type MSS (and in a small part of Revelation, a back translation from the Vulgate).

The OT was translated from the Masoretic Text (MT), considered by most modern translators as probably closest to the original.

There was only one translator for the Latin Vulgate, to my knowledge, the church father named Jerome.

He translated some of the OT books from Origen's Hexapla (which contained several versions of the Septuagint, or LXX), and he translated the rest from Hebrew. I do not know for sure, but he probably used the Masoretic Text.

Jerome translated Job, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, and Psalms from the Greek Septuagint. The rest of the OT was translated from Hebrew.

I have not read all of his works, but I believe he describes what he did in some of his written works. You might be able to find them online at a site that contains the early church father's works.

This is kind of a sweeping statement. It would be more interesting to know what kind of errors are being mentioned. I have not read much about its errors although I have heard that Jerome made some translational mistakes.

This is a harder call. It depends on whether you consider the Septuagint to be more original/inspired or the Masoretic Text. The Dead Sea Scrolls seem to have confirmed more of the Masoretic Text. But scholars seem somewhat divided on this.

Somewhat, yes. There were guidelines, anyway. The History of the King James Version on the Bible Researcher website has some good information on these guidelines and on the translators.

The KJV is considered by many (most?) scholars to be somewhat inaccurate. As far as the NT is concerned, there are some scholars today who support the type of text that underlies the KJV - that is, the Byzantine or Majority Text - just not in the form used by the KJV - that is, the Textus Receptus.

The KJV is longer by approximately 50 verses than many modern translations because it is based on the Textus Receptus, whereas most other modern versions are mostly based on a Westcott & Hort type text, such as the United Bible Societies (UBS) Greek New Testament (GNT) Version 4 or Nestle-Aland (NA) GNT Version 27.

Nope. It very unsimilar to the KJV. The NRSV is based on the Westcott & Hort type text. In other words, it makes use of the oldest Greek manuscripts rather than the later and seemingly theologically expanded Byzantine texts. In fact, I believe at least one of the persons responsible for this translations is one of the same who produced the UBS4 GNT, namely Bruce Metzger.

The NRSV is a very good translation. However, it takes some liberties in representing the Greek. Those liberties are a particular methodology of translation referred to as dyamic equivalency. In other words, it is not word-for-word equivalency with the Greek (as if that were actually possible anyway...).

Not sure about this one, if RCC refers to the Roman Catholic Church. Could this also be somewhat anachronistic?

Of course this depends on how you mean it...

Scholars mostly agree today that the Westcott & Hort type text is closest to the original text (with the exception of a few scholars today, who prefer the Byzantine/Majority Text - Yuri K. would seemingly agree with them). Therefore, many (most?) modern translations are based on the WH type text.

It is hard to exactly represent the original languages, so no one translation really captures every nuance of the Greek or Hebrew. Most modern translations (NKJV if you want the Byzantine text or NIV, NASV, or NRSV if you want the WH type text) do a pretty good job. For the most part, one can glean a pretty good understanding of the Bible from these translations. However, I feel that to argue nuances, one must look at the original languages.

This is what theologically motived proponents of the Peshitta would have you believe.

However, I believe the Peshitta dates to the 5th century.

The earliest known complete bibles are probably the mid-4th to 4th century Codeces Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus.

Many of your perceptions seem to be incorrect. I would find some books written by reputable scholars and do some more study.

Apikorus

Haran, thanks for the correction on Jerome. I didn't know that he took so much of Kethuvim from the Hexapla. Oopsie.

One minor quibble: around 400 CE it is anachronistic to refer to a "masoretic" text, as the masora were just being developed at that time (probably over a long period from ~200 CE to ~800 CE). "Masora" means "tradition" and includes vowel pointings, cantillation marks, and marginal notes. Better "early rabbinic" than "masoretic".

Haran

I'd like to find this stated in Jerome's writings (about much of the Kethuvim - or Writings - being from the LXX), but I'm not so sure this stuff is online. My source for this is Comfort (I'm not sure what his source was, though there are plenty listed in the back of his book).

True. It's been a while since I read my OT textual criticism books, so I couldn't remember what the dates would be.

I'm assuming that you are, here, referring to the Hebrew texts used by Jerome. Do you agree that they were probably within the stream that led to or is now referred to as the Masoretic?

I'd like to find out more about what Jerome appears to have used. There may be something in his writings.

By the way, you're pretty well read on OT text crit, right? I'm curious if I've missed any good or critical works... I've read Tov, Wurthwein, McCarter, and Brotzman. As to the LXX, I've read Silva/Jobes and Jellicoe (I want to read Swete, but I can't find it in print and I'm not sure which of the older prints is best).

Haran

Isn't there a debate about whether the translations of Aquila, Symmachus, etc. came afterwards in reaction to the texts in use by the Christians?

Apikorus

Not much of one, from what I know. There is rather little in the way of Christian tampering in the LXX. The biggest differences between LXX and MT (e.g. in Jeremiah, Daniel) are due to the fact that the LXX was witness to a different Hebrew exemplar. Cross's theory of local text types (which probably makes spin wince) assigns the LXX to an Alexandrian tradition and the MT to a Babylonian tradition. So the proto-MT in the first centuries CE differed in significant ways in certain books from the LXX. At Qumran, as you know, we have pre-Christian Hebrew biblical scrolls which agree with the LXX over the MT. Still, the majority of biblical DSS are proto-masoretic (according to Cross, Schiffman, et al.)

This still leaves open the question of whether the authors of the rabbinic recensions were responding to what they perceived as Christian tampering. This gets into Jewish traditions about the LXX, which I haven't time to expound upon at the moment. However, inasmuch as the biggest differences between the MT and LXX are not tendentiously Christian, I tend to doubt it. There are some minor cases at the level of individual words - the famous almah vs. bethulah of Isa 7:14, for example - but to put such minutiae in perspective, the LXX of Jeremiah is about 13% shorter than the MT.

And yes, Jerome's Hebrew exemplar was surely proto-masoretic. The variant Jewish traditions had been exterminated by that time, leaving only the rabbinic text.