Isaiah 14:12 - KJV vs. Modern English Versions

[Deacon]

Care to share with me which of the Dead Sea Scrolls were Greek or Aramaic mss of the Bible?

He's correct, quite a few were in Greek and Aramaic.

Here are just a few of the manuscripts found in cave 4

GREEK

Name: 4QgkLeva (= Rahlfs 801)
Content: Leviticus 26:2–16
Date: c. 100 B.C.

Name: 4QpapGkLevb
Content: Leviticus 1:11; 2:3–5, 7–8(?); 3:4, 7, 9–14; 4:4, 6–8, 10–11, 18–19, 26–28, 30; 5:6, 8–10, 16–19; 6:1–5 [5:24, MT].
Date: probably first century B.C.

Name: 4QgkNum (= Rahlfs 803)
Content: Numbers 3:40–42; 4:6–9, 11–14
Date: uncertain

ARAMAIC

Name: 4QtgJob
Content: Job 3:5–9; 4:16–21; 5:1–4
Date: uncertain

[Scanlin, H. P. (1993). The Dead Sea Scrolls and Modern Translations of the Old Testament. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.]

Rob

 

[John of Japan]

He's correct, quite a few were in Greek and Aramaic.

Here are just a few of the manuscripts found in cave 4

GREEK

Name: 4QgkLeva (= Rahlfs 801)
Content: Leviticus 26:2–16
Date: c. 100 B.C.

Name: 4QpapGkLevb
Content: Leviticus 1:11; 2:3–5, 7–8(?); 3:4, 7, 9–14; 4:4, 6–8, 10–11, 18–19, 26–28, 30; 5:6, 8–10, 16–19; 6:1–5 [5:24, MT].
Date: probably first century B.C.

Name: 4QgkNum (= Rahlfs 803)
Content: Numbers 3:40–42; 4:6–9, 11–14
Date: uncertain

ARAMAIC

Name: 4QtgJob
Content: Job 3:5–9; 4:16–21; 5:1–4
Date: uncertain

[Scanlin, H. P. (1993). The Dead Sea Scrolls and Modern Translations of the Old Testament. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.]

Rob

Thanks, Rob, I appreciate the effort.

 

[CDF]

Thanks Rob, I was getting ready to post the exact same thing from cave 4. However, I also realize that there are those that just like to argue for the sake of arguing and it is a waste of time and effort to try and convince them otherwise.

Having said that...

:smilewinkgrin:

BTW, Jerome's Latin Vulgate did indeed come from the Hebrew, not the Greek. It was called the Hebrew Tanakh, which is also known as the Masoretic Text. That, combined with the DSS being in all 3 languages, I really don't see where you are coming from with your retort, unless you just don't know history that well.

 

[John of Japan]

Thanks Rob, I was getting ready to post the exact same thing from cave 4. However, I also realize that there are those that just like to argue for the sake of arguing and it is a waste of time and effort to try and convince them otherwise.

Having said that...

:smilewinkgrin:

You know, I was actually trying to be nice, and get to know you, so I even welcomed you to the BB. As for your errors, many people on the BB at that point would have said, "Thanks for the corrections." I truly have no desire to "argue for the sake of arguing."

BTW, Jerome's Latin Vulgate did indeed come from the Hebrew, not the Greek. It was called the Hebrew Tanakh, which is also known as the Masoretic Text. That, combined with the DSS being in all 3 languages, I really don't see where you are coming from with your retort, unless you just don't know history that well.

Surely, being a historian, you know that there was a NT to the Vulgate, which came from the Greek. I have a copy.

Go ahead with your thread. I'm out of here. You've killed any desire I have to interact with you on the main point of the thread.

 

[RAdam]

I agree, but you don't seem to be applying that across the board version-wise. You seem to be holding the KJV to a different standard than non-KJV versions.

Show me where I have done that. I haven't attacked a single other version?

 

[Tater77]

You know, I was actually trying to be nice, and get to know you, so I even welcomed you to the BB. As for your errors, many people on the BB at that point would have said, "Thanks for the corrections." I truly have no desire to "argue for the sake of arguing."

Surely, being a historian, you know that there was a NT to the Vulgate, which came from the Greek. I have a copy.

Go ahead with your thread. I'm out of here. You've killed any desire I have to interact with you on the main point of the thread.

I would love to get a hold of the manuscripts Jerome had to translate from :thumbs: Also the DSS had translation notes where the Aramaic was translated to Hebrew. I will have to look this up though since I don't have it at hand.

 

[John of Japan]

I would love to get a hold of the manuscripts Jerome had to translate from :thumbs: Also the DSS had translation notes where the Aramaic was translated to Hebrew. I will have to look this up though since I don't have it at hand.

Sounds fun. Enjoy!:wavey:

 

[CDF]

"This is a little mixed up. First of all, Jerome revised the Old Latin from the Hebrew and Greek, and Erasmus edited a Greek NT, not a Hebrew OT. "

-- Erasmus referred to both the Greek and the Hebrew when writing the Novum Instrumentum omne, which has its reference roots in the Vulgate, which is from the Hebrew.



Secondly, not just the KJV, but also almost all other English OTs are also "based off the Hebrew."

-- most non-KJV translations today use the critical text method, which is to say they cross reference everything available to them, including Greek documents.

And the Dead Sea Scrolls are also Hebrew, but don't necessarily "agree and support the Septuagint" any more than the Masoretic Hebrew OT does.

-- Been over this already.

Finally, the Dead Sea Scrolls being themselves Hebrew could not be "far older than the Hebrew."

-- By "Hebrew" that is to say the Masoretic Text, which was not actually finished until the 9th century AD (with some pieces coming in the 11th century). There is also a difference between the old Hebrew language and that which was spoken 1,000 years later. The Septuagint and DSS are also a thousand years older.

 

[Johnv]

Show me where I have done that. I haven't attacked a single other version?

I want to make it clear that I don't believe you've attacked any version. Your implication is that you've got an aversion to someone referring to inaccuracies in the KJV, but there's no indication that you have an aversion to someone referring to inaccuracies in any other translation. Would it bother you to the same extent if someone were pointing out inaccuracies in, say, the NASB, or the Geneva?

 

[RAdam]

Again, I'd rather people read the bible to learn rather than trying to fix it. People spend too much time and energy correcting the bible, trying to find problems with the bible, etc. I'd rather read it to learn.

 

[Johnv]

Again, I'd rather people read the bible to learn rather than trying to fix it. People spend too much time and energy correcting the bible, trying to find problems with the bible, etc. I'd rather read it to learn.

Again, would it bother you to the same extent if someone were pointing out inaccuracies in, say, the NASB, or the Geneva?

 

[Rippon]

Again, I'd rather people read the bible to learn rather than trying to fix it. People spend too much time and energy correcting the bible, trying to find problems with the bible, etc. I'd rather read it to learn.

Yeah, those dreaded Bible correctors. Would you like to see improvements in any other version? There is no room for correcting the KJV's? Are they in a state of perfection?

 

[RAdam]

How many times do I have to explain that I'm not here to wage version wars. Use whatever version you want, I don't care. I just get agitated when people sit around and spend their time trying to correct the bible.

 

[Johnv]

How many times do I have to explain that I'm not here to wage version wars. Use whatever version you want, I don't care. I just get agitated when people sit around and spend their time trying to correct the bible.

I know you're not KJVO, and I know you're not trying to start a version debate, but you only seem to have that problem when it's the KJV in question.

 

[CDF]

Keep in mind that the KJV was translated from the older Masoretic Hebrew Text with some Septuagint references for the Old Testament, and the Textus Receptus for the New Testament.

Modern translations use the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (updated Masoretic Hebrew) along with numerous other references which were not available during the time of the 1611 KJV, for the Old Testament, and the Novum Testamentum Graece for the New Testament.

Why different sources? Scholars are trying to correct errors, bad translations, and inconsistencies found in older versions of the Bible.

Does the KJV contain errors? Absolutely!
Does the KJV contain bad translations? Most definitely!
Did scholars for the KJV add words or phrases for the time period's expressive style of writing? You bet!

KJVO advocates can get over it. The message is the same, but the little details differ and THOSE are what scholars of today are trying to make as accurate as possible.

 

[franklinmonroe]

... If Lucifer, whom we all learned is Satan, was a bad translation, then that would bring in to question the accuracy of the KJV, and moreso, Jerome and Eresmus{sic} and how they defined Hebrew to Greek to English. The KJV is based off the Hebrew text, but the Dead Sea Scrolls largely agree and support the Septuagint, which is in Greek...and are far older than the Hebrew. ...

Hello CDF, and a sincere welcome to the BB. Unfortunately, I must dispute some of the 'facts' you presented.

First, Jerome and Erasmus didn't produce any English works. Jerome is credited with the production of the Latin Vulgate; without getting into a lot of details, his Latin version was ultimately a mixture of an entirely fresh translation from a Hebrew text (OT; except Psalms, which his first translation from the Greek was kept), the Old Latin remained mostly unchanged in the apocryphal books, and the Greek of the NT. Erasmus' 1615 publication was a Greek - Latin parallel of the NT (no Hebrew was used).

Second, the DSS do not "support" the Septuagint. There is no singular Hebrew text; the KJV is based upon a particular printed edition of the Masoretic Text. The Masoretic manuscript tradition did not appear until well into the Christian era (AD); the Dead Sea Scrolls seem to have been produced about 200AD. Nonetheless, the biblical DSS agree with MT about 80% according Dr. Randal Price in his book Searching for the Original Bible (sorry, my notes did not include a page number). Excellent book, btw.

There is also no singular text called 'Septuagint' but rather there are several versions of a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. The translation of the Torah (Five Books of Moses) in Greek probably was not available before 200AD; the remaining portions of the Jewish texts were translated into Greek somewhat randomly over a long period. Again, according to Dr. Price the biblical (all languages inclusive) DSS only agree with the Septuagint about 5% of the time (FYI the balance: matching the Samaritan Pentatuech 5%, nonaliagned 10%). The vast majority of biblical DSS are in Hebrew (remember, only a minority of the DSS are actual OT books).

While the DSS and Septuagint extant manuscripts are older than our Masoretic MSS, there are problems with allowing them too much influence: the DSS are incomplete, and the Septuagints are very uneven translations.

 

[Tater77]

Jerome was correct using "lucifer" in his Latin translation as it means " light bearer / morning star" as the morning star (Venus) was called the light bearer. The Hebrew word "heylel" is only used once here in the OT. The LXX used a word meaning "shining one" which was the only real translation that Jerome had to compare to.

The LXX was translated by Jews hundreds of years prior in the 3rd century BC in Alexandria, Egypt under orders of Ptolemy 1st so he could have a copy of the Jewish Scriptures for his great library. So the kings interest was purely academic. The king had to call in Jewish translators since his own people had too much trouble with the Hebrew language. The Torah (Gen-Duet) came first with the Psalms and Prophets coming later. In the first century AD, the entire OT in Greek was in use ( see the Hellenist's in Acts etc etc).

With all that stuff being said, Jerome's usage is right, but it should not have been retained in English. Even Jerome himself thought this verse was targeted at an individual besides to king of Babylon. But the interpretation held sway over the translation I'll bet even though the context is set in verse 14:4 with the target person being called out.

The usage of lucifer is not special in the Vulgate as it is also found here:

Job 11:17 et quasi meridianus fulgor consurget tibi ad vesperam et cum te consumptum putaveris orieris ut lucifer

and

2Pe 1:19 et habemus firmiorem propheticum sermonem cui bene facitis adtendentes quasi lucernae lucenti in caliginoso loco donec dies inlucescat et lucifer oriatur in cordibus vestris - meaning "morning star" here

So lucifer can't be significant since in its text of origin, its just another word.

Also see: and read note "h" in the right margin.