Our Scriptural Confidence

[Anthony Pritchard]

The Old Testament text kept by the church for hundreds of years was the old Greek Septuagint.

Your entire argument depends on extra‑biblical textual‑critical authorities. You cite Gordis, Bednar, Lucianic recensions, Qere/Kethib theories, and Septuagint reconstruction hypotheses. None of these are biblical or ecclesial authorities.

The early churches did not treat the Septuagint as the preserved text. They used it because it was the only Greek OT available, but they consistently deferred to the Hebrew. Jerome rejected the Septuagint’s authority.

The preserved text is the text kept, used, preached, and transmitted by the churches. That is the Masoretic Hebrew tradition, not the reconstructed Septuagint. Qere/Kethib does not undermine preservation; it is a scribal notation, not a corruption.

Preservation is ecclesial, not academic. The churches kept the Hebrew text. Modern scholars reconstruct the Septuagint. Those are not the same thing.

 

[Anthony Pritchard]

For the Old Testament text, the KJV is based on this Hebrew Masoretic text imperfectly kept by the Jews.

The Masoretic text was not perfectly kept by the Jews; it was perfectly kept by God, who used the Jews as His instruments, and the final custodians of that providential line were the Ben Asher family of Tiberias, Moses ben Asher and his son Aaron ben Moses ben Asher. Preservation is the work of God, not the achievement of scribes. The Masoretes did not create a text; they transmitted the text God preserved. Qere and Kethib do not represent corruption; they are simple scribal notes that record the received reading. The Septuagint was never regarded by the churches as the preserved Old Testament; it was used because it was available, not because it was authoritative. The preserved line is the Hebrew text that the churches kept, used, preached, and transmitted, not the reconstructed Greek text promoted by modern textual critics.

 

[Logos1560]

The Masoretic text was not perfectly kept by the Jews; it was perfectly kept by God, who used the Jews as His instruments, and the final custodians of that providential line were the Ben Asher family of Tiberias, Moses ben Asher and his son Aaron ben Moses ben Asher.

You seem to close your eyes to the clear verifiable facts that prove that the Hebrew Masoretic text was not perfectly preserved or kept by the Jews. Your seeming attempts to avoid or deny actual verifiable facts will not make them go away.

Three whole Old Testament verses [Joshua 21:36-37; Nehemiah 7:68] are not found in Ben Chayyim’s Hebrew Masoretic Text edition. Robert Gordis (1908-1992) wrote: “In almost fifteen hundred passages, the Masorah demands that one word be written [Kethib] in the text, while another word must be read [Qere] in its stead” (Biblical Text, p. 2), and the KJV sometimes followed the Qere marginal readings. Elias Levita as translated by Christian Ginsburg listed “the fifteen instances in which the textual reading has one word and the marginal reading two” as the following: Gen. 30:11; Exod. 4:2; Deut. 33:2; 1 Chron. 9:4; 1 Chron. 17:12; Neh. 2:13; Job 38:1; Job 40:6; Ps. 10:10; Ps. 55:16; Ps. 123:4; Isa. 3:15; Jer. 6:29; Jer. 18:3; Ezek. 8:6 (Massoreth, p. 193, footnote 34). In this same footnote, Elias Levita noted: “The eight instances in which the reverse is the case, that is, the text having two words, and the margin one word, are as follows:” Jud. 16:25; 1 Sam. 9:1; 1 Sam. 24:9; 2 Chron. 34:6; Isa. 9:6; Isa. 44:24; Lam. 1:6; Lam. 4:3 (Ibid.). Christian Ginsburg maintained that the KJV “adopts the Keri” at Judges 20:13 where “the Massorah tells us the [Hebrew] word sons of, has dropped out and directs us to supply it in reading” (Introduction, p. 313). Christian Ginsburg claimed that at 2 Kings 19:31 “the direction in the Keri [is] that [the Hebrew word] of hosts, should be supplied here in reading,” and he noted that the KJV “adopts the Keri” (p. 314). Christian Ginsburg asserted that “many MSS., early editions, and the Versions have the Keri [Qere] in the text” at this verse (p. 314). Scrivener also listed some examples where he maintained that the KJV adopted in its text the Keri [Qere] reading from the marginal notes [1 Sam. 27:8, 2 Sam. 13:37, 1 Kings 22:48, 2 Kings 20:4, 2 Kings 23:33, Ezra 2:33, 46, Job 6:21, Job 33:28, Ps. 9:12, Ps. 10:12, Prov. 17:27, Isa. 65:4, Jer. 2:20, Ezek. 25:7, Dan. 9:24, Zech. 11:2] (Authorized Edition, pp. 41-42).

Barry Levy observed: “The historical fact that numerous conflicting readings existed [in the Hebrew OT text]– and that many still exist – cannot be made to disappear” (Fixing God's Torah, p. 159).