A Response to Fr. Gerike’s Masoretic Misreprestation
A Response to Fr. Gerike’s Masoretic Misrepresentation
by Fr. Tyson Mastin
I would like to thank Fr Gerike for his interest in my ramblings to Fr Braaten on the Septuagint and I thank him for taking the time to respond in his post Mastoretic Misrepresentations. Like him I believe that this is an important subject that should be discussed and also one that we have some freedom to disagree. I will attempt to answer the points addressed in his paper “Masoretic Misrepresentation” in order.
First, I will gladly agree with Fr Gerike that the Letter of Aristeas is not infallible and has been debated for quite a few centuries. The historicity of the document is not something I am all that interested in though I believe that it is significant that both Jewish and Christian writers cited it for proof of why the Septuagint (LXX) was authoritative. I don’t think the authority of the LXX depends on that document though. I believe that the stronger case for the authority of the LXX comes from the fact that the Jews accepted and used it extensively up until their rejection of Christ while the Christians kept on using it.
How does one explain the Jewish embrace and use of the LXX in Christ’s day? We know from the Bible (Luke 4) that it was read in the synogogs in Galilee. The famous Jewish theologian Philo (who probably didn’t even know Hebrew) and the Jewish historian Josephus used the LXX. How do we explain this? How did the LXX enjoy such high regard if it were a bad translation? It’s not like it was used by heretical Jews. Were not Philo, Josephus, and the Jews of Nazareth (including Jesus) good Jews? The Targums (Aramaic being the common tongue of many middle east Jews) didn’t enjoy the elevated status of the Greek Septuagint. Doesn’t it make sense that there must have been some sort of official sanction for the Septuagint if it was used by so many Jews and read in their synogogs?
As far as I know, we don’t have any evidence for the Temple Scribes, the Sadducees, or the Pharisees using the MT or LXX, we lost the Second Temple library in AD 70, so it is an argument from silence that I will make here but isn’t it significant that we don’t hear the Jews correcting Jesus when He quotes the LXX to them instead of the MT? c.f. Mt. 15:8-9; 21:16.
What is the evidence for the Masoretic Text (the consonantal pre-Masoretic text) being used in Jesus day? I haven’t looked into this deeply. I’d imagine that there would be evidence for the MT in the Talmud but does it date to the time of Jesus? The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) provide proof that the MT was around in some form (the Masoretic Text was created by the Masoretes who were active from the 4th through the 10th centuries) in Jesus’ day. But who were they? Were they the Essenses that Philo, Josephus, and Pliny wrote about? We are not entirely sure but there is quite a bit of evidence pointing to the fact that they were not typical Jews. We know that they separated themselves from the majority of Jewish society. A large amount of the texts discovered in the caves were from books that did not make it in the Jewish canon (Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Tobit, the Wisdom of Sirach, Psalms 152–155) as well as strange sectarian writings (Community Rule, the War Scroll, the Pesher on Habakkuk, and The Rule of the Blessing) that seem to be unique to that Jewish sect and no others.
As for the other sites which housed those “Masada rebels and the freedom fighters of Bar-Kochba” who “closely followed the guidance of the Jerusalem spiritual center in religious matters” I would be very surprised if they would have used or saved any texts that the Christians (who didn’t join the rebellions) were using. It also makes sense that the Qumran community and the Jewish rebels didn’t have much Greek literature because they saw it as a foreign influence (much like why the Ukrainians have banned the Russian language in their country).
I don’t believe that we can use Qumran as evidence that the MT was widely accepted or had the official sanctioning of the Jews in Jesus’ day. Yes, the majority of the Biblical Hebrew consonantal texts from the Qumran community do match up with the MT but could that be the case because it that group’s favored text over and against the Greek LXX and the Hebrew texts that agreed with the LXX used by “mainstream” Jews? We know that the Qumran Jews were critical of the Temple authorities and they were definitely not Christians so would they have special reasons for favoring the consonantal Hebrew texts that became the basis for the MT?
I must apologize to Fr Gerike for my brevity in pointing out the differences between the MT and LXX texts. I should have been more thorough in my treatment of this important point. Looking at numbers quoted in the New Testament and how they agree with the LXX rather than the MT can be considered a minor variance to many and I should include other examples that are not number related. There are many charts one can find with a simple search online that compares the NT quotation to the MT and LXX and I encourage everyone to do so.
Hebrew 1:6: “But when He brings again the firstborn into the world, He says, ‘And let the angels worship him.’” This is a quote from Deut. 32:43 in the LXX. The MT leaves out this line entirely.
Hebrews 10:5: “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me.’” Here St Paul quotes Psalm 40:6 in the LXX. The MT and ESV reads: “In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear.”
Matthew 12:20-21: “till he send forth judgment to victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.”
MT Isaiah 42:4: “He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.”
LXX Isaiah 42:4: “He shall shine out, and shall not be discouraged, until he have set judgment on the earth: And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.”
Acts 15:17: “… that the remnant of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called”
MT Amos 9:12: “… that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called of my name”
LXX Amos 9:12: “… that the remnant of men, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, may earnestly seek me”
Romans 10:20: “I was found of them that sought me not: I was made manifest to them that asked not after me”
MT Isaiah 651-2: “I am sought of them that asked not for me; was found of them that sought me not
LXX Isaiah 65:1-2: “I became manifest to them that asked not for me; I was found of them that sought me not”
It is a good thing that with most of the NT citations of the OT the MT and LXX agree. But where they disagree, as noted above, it is not always a minor disagreement. So are these really minor translation differences or in the case of Heb 1:6, an accidental deletion? That would be quite the coincidence that the very proof texts that the Apostles used from the LXX are different in the Hebrew texts that the Jews chose for the MT.
This is where the testimony from Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Origin are helpful in that they claim that the Jews have been tampering with the texts. Origin goes so far as to accuse them of destroying all Hebrew evidence for the book of Susanna (I bring this up not to claim the canonicity of Susanna but to illustrate the early Christian belief that the Jews could and did tamper with the text).
As for the importance of Is. 7:14, I have yet to find any instance where a non-Christian Jew has ever translated Is. 7:14 as “virgin”. The only ones I know of that may have done that (if they weren’t using a Hebrew version with “bethula”) were the Jews who gave us the LXX. Why didn’t the church Fathers argue that “almah” means virgin? Justin Martyr in his second century work Dialog with Trypho (ch. 67-68) deals with this very attack by reasserting that the LXX was correct. To debate with Jews who can point to a 1,900 year history of interpretation of “almah” being “young woman” is a losing battle. This is why the LXX is important, because we have Jews before the time of Christ saying “virgin” and that translation being accepted by Jews until their wholesale rejection of Christ.
Now I know that I have not answered all the points brought up in Fr Gerike’s thoughtful response, there is much work to be done on our understanding of the LXX and I am not the man for that necessary work. I would like to hear from someone the answer to the question, why did the Christian church give up the LXX? After using it for hundreds of years, seeing that it is the one that is quoted the most in the NT, being warned by the Church Fathers of Jewish tamperings, hearing St Augustine’s pleas Jerome to keep it, and now rediscovering much evidence that it is based on Hebrew texts that are not the same as the MT, what good reason can we point to in order to favor a Hebrew text compiled by Jews centuries after Christ over the Septuagint?