1) Billiardsball said : " Clear, scholarly nonsense is still nonsense. The written Talmud dates to the times of Hilkiah? We both know that is untrue. "
You are confused. No biblical scholar or translator has made that silly strawman claim.
The third century Talmud, is simply describing ancient history, just as the Massoretic Jewish Bible, written in the middle ages describes prior ancient history. This specific bit of rabbinic history is simply consistent with the factual observation that there are three major families of recensions with multiple conflicts and differing sets of errors.
The creators of the most popular rabbinic bible themselves described and catalogued the errors and conflicts and variants they found in their texts. They also list many changes they made to the text to try and fix errors and conflicts they found. The claim that the text is inerrant and perfect is simply inconsistent with historical reality.
2) Billiardsball said : " The statement of 2 Kings 22:8 that a SINGULAR BOOK of the Law can be redacted to be three variants? I call baloney. "
You are again confused. It is not three variants, but at LEAST FIVE major Hebrew Torah variants implied in my statement. There are more than this but generally three are discussed). With the help of the notes left to us by the Jewish massoretes who created the Jewish massoretic bible, we now know of many times that many variants.
For example, consider the variations caused simply by the peculiar use of the letter He ( ה )among some example variants.
The Massorah catalogues lists of words which ought to have he (ה) at the beginning, and other words which have a superfluous He (ה) in the text, but, according to the Massorah, should have been omitted, and other lists of words having an extra He (ה) in the middle. These simple sorts of error create different words. The mechanism is like adding an “e” to the english word “bad”, to create an entirely new words such as “bade”, or “bead”, or a nonsensical “ebad” out of the original word. It’s not just the variant uses of “He”, but often this letter is interchanged with Aleph, or Vav, etc.
For examples :
A simple example is 2 Samuel 7:9 where the reading is “and I have cast off (ואכרתה) all thine enemies", whereas in the parallel passage in I Chronicles 17:8 the same quote is “and I have cut off (ואכרית) all thine enemies”. As Ginsberg explained, the editor/redactor of the text in Samuel added He (ה) and the editor/redactor of Chronicles resolved it into it’s present form by inserting a yod in the middle of the word. This is a simple variant / conflict since "cast off" and "cut off" are fairly similar. Other conflicts cause more problems.
For example : Such additions of He to the earlier text explains some of the unusual variations between the different versions of the Hebrew text. For example, In 2 Samuel 24:13 the text reads “or wilt thou flee (נסד ) three months before thine enemies?”, whereas in 1 Chronicles 21:12 the quote is “or wilt thou be destroyed (נספה ) three months before thine enemies”. The massoretes tell us that the original text in both passages was נסד without the He (ה) and this was introduced into Chronicles by the editor/redactor of that base text. The copyist in a later period, simply mistook נ for a פ. The fact that the earlier Jewish Septuagint and the Vulgate will have נסד confirms this error.
These sorts of instances of change of letters occurred so often that the Massorah directs us to read certain words WITH a Vav, instead of a He.
To show visually how such a mistake is so easy to make, I have pasted a text from Joshua 1 below. I have circled (in yellow) three letters that all appear as Tavs ( ת ) except, when I first read the middle "tav", the word simply does not make sense. Finally, it only made sense when I realized the middle letter in the example was not a tav at all, but was a final nun followed by a less well formed beginning nun of the following word that were written so close that there was no space so as to separate them.
Both my wife and I read the final line (lower right corner) as starting with "Betun" with a tav (a nonsense word) initially. I looked at it several times until it was clear that it was two words ("Been Nun") ("son of Nun"). This is how easily one letter can be mistaken for another. AND, this particular hebrew script is impeccable in it's appearance. Many, of the early texts are not nearly so beautiful and clear. Ancient scribes also made similar mistakes in both writing and reading. Thus, such errors crept into texts.
The same difficulties are exhibited with the texts showing the early introduction of the matris lectiones. The Aleph ( א )is occasionally left out, and occasionally added when it is improper to do so. Ocassionally this changes meanings significantly and has resulted in errors in text.
For example, in 2 Kings 7:17, the later form of the text read המלכ "the King" without the aleph of המלאכ "the messenger" (my computer doesn’t write a final Kaf form….). The primitive form that reads, “the messenger” (with aleph) appears correctly in the Septuagint and the Syriac Jewish versions, but not in the massoretic. Thus, it is not “the king” who came down in this sentence, but it should read that “the messenger” came down. The preceding chapter has it in it's correct form (6:33).
In 2 Samuel 11:1 the opposite type of error is created when an aleph is inserted into the very same word, making “the messengers” (המלאכימ) out of “the Kings” (המלכימ) (my computer doesn’t convert to final mem’s either…)
The point is, we have only discussed one, very, very simple type of error and there are LISTS of texts given to use by the massoretes themselves, telling us of the errors they either know about or created (for reasons they thought justifiable) in the biblical text they created.
To then have you theorize that the text is actually inerrant and perfect despite the witness and admission of the texts creators is simply bizarre. This is silly history you are trying to create.
3) Billiardsball said : " Again, please stop and think about how you are using your great learning and knowledge base to be a "witness" to the contradictions, redactions and inaccuracies of the Word of God."
Billiardsball, why don't you consider that it is no advantage for you to be ignorant of the text, nor for offering erroneous theories in the place of authentic religion helpful to investigators of religion. For example, given your limited level of knowledge on this point, how would you fix the textual mistake in Genesis 1:31?
An authentic belief in and a witness to the truth that there is a God and that Jesus is his son does not depend upon your theory of an inerrant text but is much more dependent upon having the spirit of God witness to the individual that there is a God and that Jesus is their savior. The witness of the spirit is a better basis for belief.
However, IF one tries to use a false witness of “inerrancy and perfection” of a text in an attempt to embellish, enhance and support the Christian claim, then what happens when the believer finds that claim to be false? It does no favors to offer a naïve, but erroneous witness in the hopes of creating authentic religion.
4) Billiardsball said : " I beg you to reconsider your notions, and frankly, to abandon your more pagan concepts. "
Billiardsball, the recognition that ancient texts have errors is not a “pagan concept” but is simply common knowledge to all historians and others who work with such texts. I don’t know any Christian who can read the Greek or Hebrew of variants that does not recognize some variations conflict. And yet we remain completely convinced that God is certainly real and that he is personal and that he loves us and that Jesus is our redeemer and wrought a superlative atonement and is the savior to whom all mankind must look for salvation.
Thus, recognition of imperfection in ancient texts does not mean God does not exist, he does. Rather, it merely means that the authentic witnesses of God and of Jesus that have come down through the centuries with some textual errors. It is not the end of the world. God still exists. Jesus is still the Christ. I would not have brought up errors in ancient texts if you had not offered the silly theory that ancient texts are “perfect” and “inerrant”.
In any case, I wish you a good spiritual journey as your knowledge increases. Knowledge does not destroy the value of any authentic Christian witness, but instead, it enhances it. Christians have nothing to fear from knowledge.
Clear
ειφυφυσεω
I changed the text in this post to make an example more clear (I thought it confusing the way I wrote it initially. )
You are confused. No biblical scholar or translator has made that silly strawman claim.
The third century Talmud, is simply describing ancient history, just as the Massoretic Jewish Bible, written in the middle ages describes prior ancient history. This specific bit of rabbinic history is simply consistent with the factual observation that there are three major families of recensions with multiple conflicts and differing sets of errors.
The creators of the most popular rabbinic bible themselves described and catalogued the errors and conflicts and variants they found in their texts. They also list many changes they made to the text to try and fix errors and conflicts they found. The claim that the text is inerrant and perfect is simply inconsistent with historical reality.
2) Billiardsball said : " The statement of 2 Kings 22:8 that a SINGULAR BOOK of the Law can be redacted to be three variants? I call baloney. "
You are again confused. It is not three variants, but at LEAST FIVE major Hebrew Torah variants implied in my statement. There are more than this but generally three are discussed). With the help of the notes left to us by the Jewish massoretes who created the Jewish massoretic bible, we now know of many times that many variants.
For example, consider the variations caused simply by the peculiar use of the letter He ( ה )among some example variants.
The Massorah catalogues lists of words which ought to have he (ה) at the beginning, and other words which have a superfluous He (ה) in the text, but, according to the Massorah, should have been omitted, and other lists of words having an extra He (ה) in the middle. These simple sorts of error create different words. The mechanism is like adding an “e” to the english word “bad”, to create an entirely new words such as “bade”, or “bead”, or a nonsensical “ebad” out of the original word. It’s not just the variant uses of “He”, but often this letter is interchanged with Aleph, or Vav, etc.
For examples :
A simple example is 2 Samuel 7:9 where the reading is “and I have cast off (ואכרתה) all thine enemies", whereas in the parallel passage in I Chronicles 17:8 the same quote is “and I have cut off (ואכרית) all thine enemies”. As Ginsberg explained, the editor/redactor of the text in Samuel added He (ה) and the editor/redactor of Chronicles resolved it into it’s present form by inserting a yod in the middle of the word. This is a simple variant / conflict since "cast off" and "cut off" are fairly similar. Other conflicts cause more problems.
For example : Such additions of He to the earlier text explains some of the unusual variations between the different versions of the Hebrew text. For example, In 2 Samuel 24:13 the text reads “or wilt thou flee (נסד ) three months before thine enemies?”, whereas in 1 Chronicles 21:12 the quote is “or wilt thou be destroyed (נספה ) three months before thine enemies”. The massoretes tell us that the original text in both passages was נסד without the He (ה) and this was introduced into Chronicles by the editor/redactor of that base text. The copyist in a later period, simply mistook נ for a פ. The fact that the earlier Jewish Septuagint and the Vulgate will have נסד confirms this error.
These sorts of instances of change of letters occurred so often that the Massorah directs us to read certain words WITH a Vav, instead of a He.
To show visually how such a mistake is so easy to make, I have pasted a text from Joshua 1 below. I have circled (in yellow) three letters that all appear as Tavs ( ת ) except, when I first read the middle "tav", the word simply does not make sense. Finally, it only made sense when I realized the middle letter in the example was not a tav at all, but was a final nun followed by a less well formed beginning nun of the following word that were written so close that there was no space so as to separate them.
Both my wife and I read the final line (lower right corner) as starting with "Betun" with a tav (a nonsense word) initially. I looked at it several times until it was clear that it was two words ("Been Nun") ("son of Nun"). This is how easily one letter can be mistaken for another. AND, this particular hebrew script is impeccable in it's appearance. Many, of the early texts are not nearly so beautiful and clear. Ancient scribes also made similar mistakes in both writing and reading. Thus, such errors crept into texts.
The same difficulties are exhibited with the texts showing the early introduction of the matris lectiones. The Aleph ( א )is occasionally left out, and occasionally added when it is improper to do so. Ocassionally this changes meanings significantly and has resulted in errors in text.
For example, in 2 Kings 7:17, the later form of the text read המלכ "the King" without the aleph of המלאכ "the messenger" (my computer doesn’t write a final Kaf form….). The primitive form that reads, “the messenger” (with aleph) appears correctly in the Septuagint and the Syriac Jewish versions, but not in the massoretic. Thus, it is not “the king” who came down in this sentence, but it should read that “the messenger” came down. The preceding chapter has it in it's correct form (6:33).
In 2 Samuel 11:1 the opposite type of error is created when an aleph is inserted into the very same word, making “the messengers” (המלאכימ) out of “the Kings” (המלכימ) (my computer doesn’t convert to final mem’s either…)
The point is, we have only discussed one, very, very simple type of error and there are LISTS of texts given to use by the massoretes themselves, telling us of the errors they either know about or created (for reasons they thought justifiable) in the biblical text they created.
To then have you theorize that the text is actually inerrant and perfect despite the witness and admission of the texts creators is simply bizarre. This is silly history you are trying to create.
3) Billiardsball said : " Again, please stop and think about how you are using your great learning and knowledge base to be a "witness" to the contradictions, redactions and inaccuracies of the Word of God."
Billiardsball, why don't you consider that it is no advantage for you to be ignorant of the text, nor for offering erroneous theories in the place of authentic religion helpful to investigators of religion. For example, given your limited level of knowledge on this point, how would you fix the textual mistake in Genesis 1:31?
An authentic belief in and a witness to the truth that there is a God and that Jesus is his son does not depend upon your theory of an inerrant text but is much more dependent upon having the spirit of God witness to the individual that there is a God and that Jesus is their savior. The witness of the spirit is a better basis for belief.
However, IF one tries to use a false witness of “inerrancy and perfection” of a text in an attempt to embellish, enhance and support the Christian claim, then what happens when the believer finds that claim to be false? It does no favors to offer a naïve, but erroneous witness in the hopes of creating authentic religion.
4) Billiardsball said : " I beg you to reconsider your notions, and frankly, to abandon your more pagan concepts. "
Billiardsball, the recognition that ancient texts have errors is not a “pagan concept” but is simply common knowledge to all historians and others who work with such texts. I don’t know any Christian who can read the Greek or Hebrew of variants that does not recognize some variations conflict. And yet we remain completely convinced that God is certainly real and that he is personal and that he loves us and that Jesus is our redeemer and wrought a superlative atonement and is the savior to whom all mankind must look for salvation.
Thus, recognition of imperfection in ancient texts does not mean God does not exist, he does. Rather, it merely means that the authentic witnesses of God and of Jesus that have come down through the centuries with some textual errors. It is not the end of the world. God still exists. Jesus is still the Christ. I would not have brought up errors in ancient texts if you had not offered the silly theory that ancient texts are “perfect” and “inerrant”.
In any case, I wish you a good spiritual journey as your knowledge increases. Knowledge does not destroy the value of any authentic Christian witness, but instead, it enhances it. Christians have nothing to fear from knowledge.
Clear
ειφυφυσεω
I changed the text in this post to make an example more clear (I thought it confusing the way I wrote it initially. )
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