On December 10 and 11 I will be giving my eight-lecture remote course on “Finding Moses: What Scholars Know about the Exodus and the Jewish Law.” This was supposed to happen a month earlier, but life got in the way and we had to postpone it. The course is not connected to the blog per se, it is part of my other outreach program the Bart Ehrman Professional Services (BEPS), which hosts public courses and lectures. To find out about the course and others like it, here’s the address: Online Courses by Dr. Bart Ehrman (10% Off First Order)
The course is one of a long series that I’ve started on the entire Bible, both Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament) and NT. My expertise, of course, is mainly NT and early Christianity; but all the way back in graduate school (about the time the book of Isaiah was written) my secondary field of training was Hebrew Bible, and I taught Introduction to Hebrew Bible at both Rutgers and UNC.
Some years ago when I decided to write my undergraduate textbook, The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction, and I decided that to do it right I had to re-tool in Hebrew Bible. That was great fun: I got back into reading the Hebrew Bible (it was never one of my strongest languages, and these days ranks right up there with Swahili and Mandolin) and I caught up on a good deal of scholarship. For this course I’ve had a terrific time catching up on some of the most interesting more recent stuff.
In the next couple of posts I’ll be talking about the sorts of things I’ll be going into in greater depth in the course, just to give you a taste. In this post I’ll be dealing with a preliminary matter that a lot of people ask me about: do we have a reliable account of what the authors of the Hebrew Bible (whoever they were!) actually *wrote*. Or is it like the New Testament — lots of manuscripts, none original, and all of them changed in lots of ways, sometimes significantly?
As it turns out, the problems I’ve talked about in my publications and on the blog about the New Testament are even more pronounced for the Hebrew Bible. The situation is much worse.
With the New Testament, we have over 5600 manuscripts in the Greek language that it was originally written in, some of the fragments dating to the second century. With the Hebrew Bible, prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, our Hebrew text was almost entirely based on one (count them, one) manuscript from around the year 1000 CE (called Codex Leningradensis). Suppose the book of Amos was written in the middle of the 8th century BCE. That means the first complete copy we had of it was produced some 1700 years later. That would be, well … 1700 years. With the New Testament we have complete copies within 300 years.
Some people who have read around on such things will feel their knees jerking right now, and they’ll be saying two things: (1) the Dead Sea Scrolls give us a reliable text! And (relatedly) (2) We know that Jews were unbelievably careful in their copying practices, so that they were virtually human Xerox machines, never making mistakes. So, they’ll be saying, it doesn’t *matter* if we base the text on a late manuscript. A manuscript a thousand years earlier would have looked virtually the same!
So, let me respond by giving some information.
- The Dead Sea Scrolls (discovered: 1947). These were indeed the most remarkable discovery – absolutely the most important discovery in biblical archaeology in modern times. The most important. Among the scrolls are copies (mostly fragmentary) of every book of the Hebrew Bible with the exception of Esther. And these copies are about a thousand years older than our previously oldest copy. That’s the good news, and it is good news indeed. And it gets better. In some instances the copies of the Hebrew Bible among the Dead Sea Scrolls are almost word for word the same as Codex Leningradensis. But along with the good news is some news that’s not so good.
-
-
- We do not have complete copies of the Bible from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and many of the manuscripts are in fact highly fragmentary. So we can’t check the entire text.
- Worse: in some instances the text in the Dead Sea Scrolls is significantly different from the text in Codex Leningradensis. The books of 1 and 2 Samuel, for example, have very significant differences. And a copy of Jeremiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls is more like the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint) than it is like Leningradensis, and the Greek version is 15% shorter than the Hebrew version.
- Worse still, even though the Dead Sea Scrolls can tell us something about Jewish copying practices from around the first century BCE or first century CE, but they can tell us nothing about copying practices in earlier centuries. That gets me to the second point.
-
- Jewish copying practices. It is true that Jewish scholars called the Masoretes, starting around 500 CE, and working for about the next five centuries, standardized the text of the Hebrew Bible and incorporated copying practices that were to be followed that more or less guaranteed that the text would not be changed by scribes copying it. These practices really worked. Scribes didn’t change the text (we believe). (Some of the practices involved counting the numbers of words that were to be copied and then making sure the right number were copied, and other even more elaborate devices).
But here we have the same problem we had with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Even if the text had been more or less standardized centuries before the Masoretes – say, around the time of the first century CE – that doesn’t help us if what we want to know is whether the text of the Hebrew Bible got changed from the *originals*.
Again, suppose Amos’s book was first put in circulation in the mid 8th century BCE (he is predicting a destruction by the Assyrians – which happened in 722 BCE – so he was writing before that). And suppose that 800 years later, the words of his text were standardized and from then on, not changed. How does that help us know how much it got changed *before* that time, during all those 800 years of copying and recopying, by who knows what scribes with who knows what skills?
In short, to this point, there simply is no way to know. (That’s my view of the originals of the New Testament as well.) We simply can’t know. I’m not saying that we can know that the texts we have are radically different from the originals. I’m saying we can’t know either way – whether they are radically different or basically the same. Any one who argues one way or the other is doing it on the basis of faith, not knowledge. I wish it were different!
But given the differences in date, I think it’s clear that with the manuscript tradition of the Hebrew Bible, we’re not in nearly as good a shape as we are with the New Testament, where, at least, we have thousands of copies.
Is this course going to touch on Genesis?
Lately I’ve been looking at the creation story in Genesis 2 & 3 and thinking that since Jesus was Jewish, we have the Jewish creation stories tacked onto the front of the faith story. If Jesus had been born Greek or Egyptian, we would have one of their creation stories at the beginning of the texts.
I’ve also been thinking of it as the Mesopotamian creation story. It’s my understanding that this is where the story first originated. Fundamentalist Christians date creation and Adam and Eve to be at 4,004 BCE, on October 23rd to be exact. If one looks at pretty basic and simple archeology, that has been going on for 100s of years, it’s proven that there were a lot of people living in Mesopotamia at that time. The A&E story can’t possibly be the literal truth. Perhaps they were the first known Jewish ancestors, idk.
It would be nice to know what the texts actually say.
I’ve wondered if Jesus is intended to “save” us from our evolutionary mixed-up-ness or something. If the “fall” as written in Genesis 3 isn’t literal truth, I still think that we humans could use some help,
Ah, I already did an entire course on Genesis — six full lectures! You can see it here: https://ehrman.thrivecart.com/in-the-beginning-tc/ I deal with those kinds of issues there. (though not October 23; James Ussher, who established that date, was a brilliant scholar. But, well, you can’t get *everything* right!)
The course looks really interesting. I’ve been wanting to take some of your courses, but it will probably have to be after the New Year.
Have you ever seen the movie, ‘Inherit the Wind’?
In this movie it says that Bishop Usher determined that creation was at 9am, on that day, but he never stated if that was Eastern Standard Time or Rocky Mountain Time. 🙂
It’s also interesting and really weird what the leading biblical scholar at the time thought the original sin was. It wasn’t knowing good from evil according to the movie.
Somewhere I read that an early religious group, in like the year 0, either the Essenes or the Gnostics or something, actually thought they got the devil and God switched around in the Garden of Eden story, and that god was really the devil and the devil really god in this part of the story.
It’s my understanding that two Catholic popes that have actually acknowledged the big bang.
If people are going to believe in evolution, it should make them/us think more and better of animals, sometimes alot better.
Thanks for your posts and your replies.
Some ‘Inherit the Wind’ movie clips if you have the time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqftjAazzu0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMxFOA85A3w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qBLoBH4_L4
Dr. Ehrman: What exactly are “Black Jews?” I hear this “term” a lot. Did you watch Kanye West interview with Piers Morgan and Kanye West? Most Christians, apparent to me, are not aware of this term. Any thoughts? (As you know, Malcolm X also used this term.) Here is the interview link” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L63Jt6__aGw
I”m afraid I don’t have any special wisdom on this one.
They claim that they are the ‘original’ Jews.
Ah.
I’d just add that even the texts we do have show “seams” where different older texts were placed together; the two creation stories is just the first and most famous example. Also, the MT preserves a lot of what are obviously scribal errors; there’s even a standardized notation for them: “k’tiv-k’ra”, meaning “it’s written this way, but you need to read it that way.”
(By the way, I’m pretty sure you meant “Mandarin,” not “Mandolin.”)
Actually, I don’t speak either….
My understanding is that, in most fields, authoring general introductory textbooks does little to advance one’s academic career, at least in universities. In fact it’s more likely to hurt it.
General introductory textbooks seem extremely valuable to me. I don’t know of anywhere else where one can find a (more or less) systematic presentation and summary of the up-to-date and consensus knowledge in a field. It seems like most of the research that advances one’s career is highly specialized and fragmented in relation to the rest of the field.
Are there other places where one can find the type of thing to be found in general introductory textbooks?
The closest things are trade books by bona fide scholars who also produce scholarship. I’ve been reading a lot of evolutionary psychology lately, and started with trade books (Dawkins, Robert Wright) and then moved to a textbook (David Buss). All fantastic, but for me, the textbook is best of all. But I’m also a BIG proponent of the idea that someone shoujld not write *either* a trade book *or* a textbook until they have done serious hardcore scholarship in the field and published scholarly monographs for many years. You just don’t know enough otherwise.
The peer review process seems extremely valuable to me. I don’t know of any other way that laypeople can be confident that the information being published is well-founded.
My understanding is that it applies mainly to research published in scholarly journals.
Is the peer review process used for textbooks and trade books that academics author?
Are there other somewhat similar processes for textbooks and trade books that enable readers to better trust what is in those books?
For textbooks, definitely. For trade books it depends on the publisher and the reputation of the author.
Bart, how much help is the Septuagint in determining the original Hebrew text? I suspect it has the same issues such as not having the originals, as well as modifications and scribal errors.
It does have those problems and so it’s not an uncomplicated affair. But seeing what the Septuagint reads can in many cases show you what Hebrew manuscripts the translators used said, and so can be extremely helpful.
Another very informative post Bart. Thank you for this.
May I ask an off topic question ? It’s about the Jesus quotes where he talks about his return to earth, e.g Matthew 16 27, Matthew 24 29-34, Mark 13 26-30, Luke 21 27-33, there may be others.
Back when you believed the Bible was inerrant / the inspired word of God :
1. did you believe that Jesus genuinely meant he would return in the lifetime of his disciples (say within 20 or 30 years of his crucifixion) ?
2. If the answer to 1 is yes, how did you account for the fact that this clearly did not occur ?
Thank you.
PS : you should keep an eye on those pesky scribes – they keep altering the original text. The language which I’m sure you typed is Mandarin.
1. No.
And yup, a textual corruption. Tho I don’t speak that either….
disabledupes{3c137b69c284a3e9d79c5f9b85bdfcb7}disabledupes
Thank you Bart.
How much help, if any, does extra-biblical material like the Ugaritic texts provide in guessing about the earlier stages of the Hebrew Bible?
What it mainly helps with is philological — figuring out what Hebrew words meant based on their cognate usages.
Why the biblical scholars don’t take the Samaritan tradition and bible into their analysis and equations?
The background for this question:
The Israelites have split into two camps about 900BC: the Jews and the Samaritans. Actually, the first confirmed and clear archeological evidence for the Israelites belong to the Samaritans and their King Ahab which he is mentioned in an Assyrian Stele dated about 850BC (the Merneptah Stele, about 1200BC, is not a confirmed archeological evidence for the Israelites as the name there is debated whether it is Israel or Yezrael, and Yezrael is the Canaanite name for the fertile valley of Jezreel in northern Palestine).
These two camps (the Jews and the Samaritans) hated and fought each other for centuries, but they both had shared stories that doesn’t contradict with Science or Normality (S&N): the existence of King David and his son Solomon doesn’t contradict with S&N, and both were supposedly before about 50 years from the split. The existence of a leader of the Israelite tribe with the name Moses doesn’t contradict with S&N and this man was supposedly about 200 years before the split.
———>>
———->>
The immigration of a tribe with the name Israelites from Egypt to the Jordanian desert doesn’t contradict with S&N; in the contrary; there are many tribes (ancient and recent) that made a long immigration. For example, a full tribe with the name Bani-Hilal immigrated from Yemen to Tunisia in one go about 1150AD.
But let us just consider the existence of King David and his Son: If we have a story that doesn’t contradict with S&N and it is based on two distinct oral traditions (the oral tradition of the Jews and the oral tradition of the Samaritans) then wouldn’t this story have a high credibility?
I assume this would follow the “criterion of multiple attestation”.
But it seems that the Biblical Scholars are ignoring the Samaritan tradition, therefore they are only considering the Jewish stories based only on the Jewish oral tradition, therefore, the Scholars put a lot of doubt into these stories (for example: the existence of a King with the name David and his son King Solomon).
So, my question here: do the biblical Scholars have a good reason to ignore the Samaritan tradition from the analysis and equations?
Some do, of course; the Samaritan Pentateuch is an ongoing object of scholarly analysis.
Bart,
One more book I hope you will read before you finish your work on Christian Love & Charity
American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World is a multidisciplinary book about the indigenous peoples of the Americas and colonial history written by American scholar and historian David Stannard.
Not exactly lite holiday reading – but a book everyone should read.
Thank you for your time and patience with me on this topic,
SC
Bart, when did Christians first claim that the Masoretes corrupted the Hebrew Bible? And who (which theologian?) specifically made up this claim?
There are disputes of the superiority of the Greek over the Hebrew already in the time of Justin Martyr (around 150 CE), in his Dialogue with Trypho.
I have started reading that conversation. I will continue with that! Thanks
1. I suppose; but the predictions are not very specific. Kind-a like people were saying what was going to happen in Ukraine 330 days ago; 2. The physical copies don’t tell us much about the composition date of the works they contain, except insofar as they were earlier. Yes, archaic language is one of the most widley used criteria for the *really* old stuff, and yes, these two are dated way back there. But it’s hard to get anything like an exact date. We simply don’t have other Hebrew texts from those periods to *compare* them with (let alone dated Hebrew texts); 3. Not necessarily. Egypt controleled Canaan for centuries. It’s kind of like in the Gospel of Mark: there are lots of Latinisms in it, but that doesn’t mean it was written in Rome or that hte author had ever lived there; 4. Oh my god, is *THAT* a complicated topic. Prior to the 1970s or so, the rabbinic literature was taken unreflectively to be, well, reflective of first century Judaism. THAT don’t work. But determining earlier layers of the material is hugely helpful and massively complicated. I don’t know if angels fear to tread there but millions of scholars do. (But yes, this is the kind of thing serious critical scholars of late ancient Judaism do)
Really looking forward to the course on the coming weekend. But you’re up against some tough competition, Dr Ehrman, the 10th is the Nobel Day! I usually spend the day watching the award ceremony at the Concert Hall on TV, which then sends some of the recorded Nobel lectures by some of the laureates held in this week ahead of us. This year, Pääbo’s Neanderthal genes and the entanglement of the physics award will be great to watch. TV then shows the whole banquet from our City Hall, interlaced with snippets of recorded information on the laureates and their discoveries and, of course, the speeches of the laurates. All in all a good 10-12 hours of quality TV while traffic is worse than hell outside. Guess I will have to use two screens then, wonder if I will be able to get Bart in the left channel of my headset and the King in my right?
– John, Stockholm, Sweden
What do you think accounts for the difference in the number of manuscripts between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament?
Jewish versus Christian copying practices.
Hi Prof Ehrman,
What does it mean to say the that the book of Jeremiah has a 15% variance?
What accounts for these: Is this in content ( a matter of taking out stuff or introducing new content?), language (that one language simply employs more words/ vocabulary to express, but same content?)
The Septuagint version of Matthew, which is most closely aligned to the version found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, is 15% shorter than the Hebrew version. It leaves out passages.