Is the LXX superior to the MT?

Oh, wait, it was in English? Hilarious!

 

Well, as fun as this has been, I can't sit around trading barbs all day. Taking the wife to our church's Valentine Banquet tonight. Toodleoo.

 

Your church celebrates Saint Valentine's day? The Roman Catholic demigod of love, aka Eros. I am surprised.

 

If we believe that many OT quotesin thr NT are from the LXX, can we assume that Jesus spoke in Greek? David Cloud thinks he did as he believes we have the actual words of Jesus recorded.

 

We’re in basic agreement. I’ll briefly point out some problematic wording that seems to contradict and which drew me into the discussion, then drop it, as it is unnecessary that I resolve it to anyone else’s satisfaction.

“86% of the time, the NT writers quoted the LXX which accurately translated the MT.”—JoJ, Post #72
Compare with:

But doesn't the first (from post #72) conflict with, "I've never said that the MT is the source, per se, of the NT quotes from the OT"? It seems to read very much like it. And then there is the following.

“Here are some data from Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament, by Gleason L. Archer and G. C. Chirichigno. Their ‘Category A’ quotes ‘consist of reasonably or completely accurate renderings from the Hebrew of the Masoretic Text (MT) into the Greek of the Septuagint (LXX), and from there...into the New Testament passage’ (p. xxv). There are 268 quotes in Category A.” (see post #67)​

They go from the Hebrew of the MT into the LXX and from there to the NT. Not possible, right? The truth is that the NT writers went directly with the LXX with no translation in these cases. And the Hebrew source(s) for the LXX do(es) not include the MT. So the wording is very misleading in both cases. And then I ended up using the same sort of wording which didn't help any.

 

That sounds like the start of another thread, one that might draw some real interest.

 

A reference to an imaginary Bible passage. Don't tell me you've never tried to translate it!

 

No, we had a lovely banquet remembering St. Valentine, which has absolutely nothing to do with the "Roman Catholic demigod of love," as you put it. And it is God who invented married love.

 

I don't think that question can be answered either Biblically or historically. We do know that He spoke with Hebrew/Aramaic idioms, whatever language He spoke. And I'm sure that He knew both languages, and was fluent in both.

 

If it's imaginary, I haven't tried to translate it. You still have the better of me.

 

Yep, you caught me there. I blew it.

I'm going to disagree here. The "Hebrew of the Masoretic text" refers to the Hebrew texts accessed by the Masoretes to produce the MT, beginning in the 7th century. It does not say "MT," it says the "Hebrew of the MT."

I don't think we can know that "the NT writers went directly with the LXX with no translation in these cases." They may have looked at the Hebrew and then the LXX, and then thought, "Hmm, the LXX does a good job here. I think I'll go with that." We are not privy to their thought processes, which were never written down in any ancient document that I know of.

What we are then left with is the fact that the MT was based on Hebrew mss which were extremely close to the Hebrew mss used to translate the vast majority of the LXX. And again, the LXX is a translation, and in some books is simply a bad translation.

 

God inspired the original Hebrew/Aramaic text, and so the MT would be closer to them then the LXX was overall...

 

The Apostles had the ultimate textual criticism expert on their side, the Holy Spirit!

 

I am sorry to hear that. As you probably know the pagans had a god for all occasions. The Roman Catholics have a saint for the same occasions. Some they even used the same saint name for the pagan god.

I know of no bible believing church in this country that will celebrate any saint's day.