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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Does this change anything? Could it?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
They have managed to read inside a 2000-year-old scroll that was too crumbly to unroll using fancy x-ray technology. They found that the text, a bit of Leviticus, was a word-perfect match for the Masoretic Text.
Does this change how we feel about the Bible, or about the MT? If it were different from the MT, would that change anything? Why or why not?
Should we be leary about this kind of exploration of old manuscripts, or welcome it with open shelves?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
I think it may change the way we feel about the MT text. We'll have to see. But beyond that, doesn't really change much-- more of an academic interest.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
I think this is an extension of previous discoveries.
See in particular the section on Biblical significance. And this quote.
quote:
It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.
I'm not sure if it has become 'increasingly clear'. The Essenes were a particular sect and kept and used documents, including OT documents, which supported and reinforced the sect's theological understandings.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
quote:
Does this change how we feel about the Bible, or about the MT?
Well it's good you separated the questions, because as I'm sure you know, no OT books were written in the late Hebrew of the MT.
Now I'm no hebrew expert, though I became interested but never got beyond reading a few Psalms and then I needed an analytical dictionary because of the way verbs in particular become quite difficult to spot in their various forms.
But I believe there is good reason to believe that MT could reasonably be classified as a translation from earlier forms of Hebrew, so it is at one remove from the autograph so beloved by fundies trying to sound scholarly and which I doubt ever existed in terms of an autograph of the complete OT.
This is how many explain the discrepancies with the LXX and some prefer LXX reading given the likelihood that the translators were nearer the original text.
So to me, the more interesting issue is the relation between MT and OT. I believe many orthodox still use the LXX as their inerrant OT.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
So to me, the more interesting issue is the relation between MT and OT. I believe many orthodox still use the LXX as their inerrant OT.
You are correct. Indeed I can't think of any who don't. Maybe the Finns but even there I doubt it.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
What is amazing is the technology that was used.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Is it a small-o orthodox Christian doctrine that, if not each book or letter, each passage, narrative, or thematic segment within a book or letter of the Bible had an exact date of definitive composition when God inspired someone to compose the authoritative text in the original language (even if we don't know for sure if we have that text today)?
If this is not the case, is it Christian doctrine that, after centuries of editing, combining, reordering, and other deliberate or accidental alterations of the text, Christian leaders managed to compile one or more versions of the text in the original languages that are "representative enough" (of the Divine Revelation that God intended to make through Scripture) to carry all the authority that we hold Scripture to have? - And that no future discoveries of ancient texts or of the histories of the texts we already have will make any changes to the authoritative text we have today that are significant enough to affect Christian doctrine?
(I'm deliberately trying to avoid the Dead Horse of biblical inerrancy. I'm not sure how good of a job I am doing of it.)
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
That would be a FAIL!
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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