I'm done here. The data I presented form Archer and Chirichigno's book is now being so distorted that I despair of helping the others on the thread to understand it. Have a good day, everyone.
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Is the LXX superior to the MT?
- Thread starter Calminian
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LOL! Where did you hear me say that? You really don't argue well. You may have some expertise, but your arguments.....
Oh, okay fine. I find your arguments very ignorant.
Well, we can agree on this final note. Thanks for participating. We may agree on the MT one day, but I doubt we'll arrive in the same manner.
That was not my point at all.
And what do you think those two quotes prove? crickets.
You have your expertise, but don't let that trick you into thinking you're making good arguments. Some very smart educated men cannot argue themselves out of a box. You may be right about the MT being superior to the LXX, but I wouldn't want you doing the arguing for either side.
You have your expertise, but don't let that trick you into thinking you're making good arguments. Some very smart educated men cannot argue themselves out of a box. You may be right about the MT being superior to the LXX, but I wouldn't want you doing the arguing for either side.
RighteousnessTemperance&
Well-Known Member
Sorry to exasperate you, JoJ, but I am trying to be honest with the data, even if you think not.
Do you find translators consistently translating passages verbatim? Perhaps your experience with translating lends credence to the LXX myth of translator agreement? Your response can give that sort of impression.
Rather than accusing of distortion, you might want to consider that conclusions from data may differ due to bias. As far as I can tell, my statement regarding the claim of MT-LXX match in the 268 cases can only be rejected by using a priori assumptions based on unfounded bias.
The cited data suggests the NT writers may have been somewhat less concerned with exact "copying" than with the message. But it looks like the vast majority of time the LXX served so well that it could be incorporated into inspired writing as if it were itself inspired. This is not due to the MT, but to the LXX translators' faithfulness to their source(s), which did not always match the MT.
The 22 times the MT was rejected in favor of the LXX, and the 50 times the LXX seems to be followed closely rather than the MT (assuming the NT writers had the MT handy), makes textual criticism necessary with no a priori reliance on the MT as superior, that is, rather than the MT the LXX could very well be the correct representation even though it is in Greek rather than Hebrew. MT preference should not be assumed.
The real superiority of the MT seems to be its giving the underlying Hebrew where it agrees with the LXX, and everything associated with that.
Hello,
I'm sorry It's taken me so long. I didn't realize fully what the topic was about when I first posted, so I was a bit off-topic.
You are making a mistake. You seem to think that when an Egyptologist gives you a date, Christians have to make sure that the Bible fits their data instead of the other way around.
Remember up until the 19th century Egyptologists couldn't read a single word of Hieroglyphics. And you're thinking that these dates they have are set on stone when in fact there are times they change every season. In many cases, they are mostly made up because they make assumptions which have no facts to support them. Remember, most Egyptologists are trying to satisfy the "bible" of the secular atheists who want to push the dates back as far as they will go.
Even with an extra 600 years, you still won't be Kosher with secular history. Solomon will still not line up properly with the history the secular archeologists support. The Youtube author is trying to make a small modification to get the Bible to line up and the atheists are pointing and laughing.
From what I understand, Jerome decided that the Hebrew text was better than the Greek text. At that time this was considered to be avant garde. The Greek text was very popular at that time. Yes, Luke definitely used the Greek. Jerome's choice of the Hebrew text in the Vulgate shows that the Hebrew text is far older than 1000 A.D. - unlike what the youtube video tries to say.
I think in translating the Hebrew to Greek, the writers of the Septuagint either tried to correct a mistake or used another copy. I don't see much evidence they used another copy and those are not the only numbers they seem to have tried to correct. (Example - the number of songs Solomon composed.) In passage of Genesis with which you are concerned, the Greek do not really help that much. The fact that all the men are have the next child in the line at around 130 seems implausible at best. Not just the high age, but the fact that it never varied like from 50 - 150. Always around 130.
That being said, I hope you've had a chance to read the book of Numbers and the discrepancies I pointed out earlier. Almost all the numbers of the Old Testament are a problem and settling major or minor theological points with the numbers listed is dubious at best. Trying to convince people of the authenticity of the Old Testament using the numbers is downright foolhardy.
If you want to see a possible complete fixing of the Egypt problem, you might want to read:
Unwrapping the Pharaohs: How Egyptian Archaeology Confirms the Biblical Timeline by John Ashton and David Down. (2006)
They will go through all of the Pharaohs and help you with a version which is flood friendly.
You might also want to check out:
Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament by John H Walton. (2018)
Motel of Mysteries by David Macaulay (1979)
Yes, I agree with you on this. I'm not the author of the video, but that's not precisely the angle he took. In his defense, he was actually touting the Patterns of Evidence film which shows that Egyptian chronology is off, and should be adjusted to line up with biblical chronology, specifically, Exodus chronology.
But he did make some very good points about the chronology of Gen. 11, specifically how LXX provides time for events like Babel and the founding of Egypt by Mizraim, Noah's grandson. But those are internal chronologies. That has nothing to do with reconciling biblical chronology to egyptian chronology.
His issue about the 400 years of slavery also solves an internal biblical timeline issue between the Old and New Testament. That's really what the video was about, more so than the date of the pyramids, and even that part was not an attempt to harmonize biblical and egyptian chronology.
But absolutely, only Scriptural chronologies are authoritative. The question is, which is closer to the original manuscripts, the MT or the LXX?
Jesus never read LXX though many people misunderstand that he read Septuagint
Luke 24:44 cleary mentions 3 fold Masorah as he said Law-Prophet-Psalm
Septuagint is not so but similar to the composition of the modern OT.
If we compare LXX and NT Greek quotations, every verse has a difference of one word at least in each verse.
For example, Mt 2:18 exists nowhere in LXX maybe because LXX has shorter Jeremiah.
φωνη εν ραμα ηκουσθη, θρηνος και κλαυθμος και οδυρμος πολυς, ραχηλ κλασουσα τα τεκνα αυτης, και ουκ ηθελε παρκληθηναι, οτι ουκ εισι
Luke 24:44 also rejects Ben Asher or Leningrad Codex as well.
Matthew 23:35 mentions Abel thru Zacharias, the first martyr and the last martyr according to Ben-Chayyim Masorah.
Zacharias was the last martyr neither in LXX nor in Ben Asher Masorah
but only in Ben Chayyim Masorah Zacharias was the last Martyr.
If you find any difference between NT Greek and Ben Chayyim, there might have been
another text which may be called Vorlage, but similar to Ben Chayyim
LXX misses many verses in Exodus as well.
LXX contains Apocrypha and many paganism
Eliyahu
Luke 24:44 cleary mentions 3 fold Masorah as he said Law-Prophet-Psalm
Septuagint is not so but similar to the composition of the modern OT.
If we compare LXX and NT Greek quotations, every verse has a difference of one word at least in each verse.
For example, Mt 2:18 exists nowhere in LXX maybe because LXX has shorter Jeremiah.
φωνη εν ραμα ηκουσθη, θρηνος και κλαυθμος και οδυρμος πολυς, ραχηλ κλασουσα τα τεκνα αυτης, και ουκ ηθελε παρκληθηναι, οτι ουκ εισι
Luke 24:44 also rejects Ben Asher or Leningrad Codex as well.
Matthew 23:35 mentions Abel thru Zacharias, the first martyr and the last martyr according to Ben-Chayyim Masorah.
Zacharias was the last martyr neither in LXX nor in Ben Asher Masorah
but only in Ben Chayyim Masorah Zacharias was the last Martyr.
If you find any difference between NT Greek and Ben Chayyim, there might have been
another text which may be called Vorlage, but similar to Ben Chayyim
LXX misses many verses in Exodus as well.
LXX contains Apocrypha and many paganism
Eliyahu
First, he wasn't touting it, he was denigrating it. 'Look! They won all these awards and they got it wrong too!' is a paraphrase.
He borrows quit a bit from Jewish conspiracy myths. He quotes passages about not arguing about Myths and genealogy, but this is what he is doing.
You're still missing the point. There is more than the flood issue. There is the Middle Bronze and Early Iron issue and others.
This is a well known situation which you can also read about in the NLT Study Bible Among other places. He is not saying anything even remotely new here.
Neither. The numbers are messed up. Irrevocably so. The LXX has all of the errors the MT has in this regard. And once again, is arguing about genealogies the best use of our time?
There is a reason why the Bible is mostly narrative - it is harder to mess up a story in translation than a list of rules or even a genealogy. So, the question is not which has a better genealogy, but which describes the story better. So if you can find where the narrative is better in the LXX, point that out instead.
And since you now made me fast forward through the rest of the video,
Could everyone please stop posting silly Jewish conspiracy theories?!
Denigrating the Patterns of Evidence film? Not at all. Questioning the MT dates vs. LXX dates from the Flood to the Exodus? Yes he was. Have you seen Patterns of Evidence? It's not a creationist film.
Are they myths?
Of course it is. One that's been difficult to resolve over the years. I've resolved in the past by rendering the enslavement of Israel to an idiom including their mistreatment in Canaan. Nothing wrong with someone offering a different angle.
I don't think Paul was telling us to ignore biblical chronology. The Gospels have genealogies that prove Christ was linked to Abraham and Adam. I think Paul was speaking about something completely different.
And I don't think the OT is a mess, as you put it (that's your conspiracy theory). I don't even think the MT is a mess, I just think it has a fews things wrong, like, perhaps, the some chronologies, and if true, we have access to the correct chronologies in other manuscripts. I have much more faith in the preservation of the Bible than that.
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Myth is a polite way of saying it.
I never said that or put it that way.
It's obvious to me now that you're just here to push anti-jew propaganda under the guise of LXX vs. MT.
Bye
The Spirit can inspire certain passages of the LXX to have been used in the NT books, as those would sub in for the few instances where the MT got "messed up", but the Hebrew was and is the inspired Original OT.
Generally I agree. No one disagrees the OT was written in Hebrew. The question is, does the MT perfectly match the original Hebrew Bible? Does it match the Hebrew Bible Josephus read? Or Jesus read?
I think there's evidence there was a better Hebrew manuscript during New Testament times. Some believe the LXX better represents it. So far, they make a compelling case.
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LOL! Anti-Jewish propaganda. You truly have run out of arguments. Just when I thought I'd heard it all. I'm about as pro-Israel as you can get, and a critic of replacement theology.
And this from someone promoting conspiracies that all OT MSS are a mess. If you ask me that's more anti-Jewish than someone believing the LXX may have been based on superior Hebrew MSS than the MT.
The MT would be the closest that we have to the original Hebrew inspired text though!
Perhaps you do not understand what would make a compelling case if you think the LXX better represents the Old Testament than the Hebrew Masoretic text does.
You can’t help but lie can you. I never said that.
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I think you've run out of things to say. Kind of sad.
Is it? I'm not so sure anymore. There are at least some areas I believe the LXX is more accurate.
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