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Loading...When talking about “how we got the Bible,” there is obviously a lot more involved than understanding how and when the canon came to be collected and more or less fixed. Knowing which books are in the canon is not the same thing as knowing what words were originally in the books.
For that we have to move to the related question of the “textual tradition” of the books, of how they were copied for many centuries before the invention of the printing press.
I have talked a good deal about that with respect to the New Testament on the blog, but far less about the Hebrew Bible. Since I’ve just finished with some posts on the canon, now I can turn to the question of the text: what do we know about how it was copied? Can we trust that we have what the authors wrote? What are the complexities involved?
This will take two posts. I will be drawing from my discussion in my textbook, The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press) (edited some).
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The earliest writings of the Hebrew Bible were probably produced during the eighth century BCE. This is the date
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“when Jewish scribes copied the Hebrew Bible, they destroyed the manuscripts they used to make their copies once their own copies were complete. So the older copies they copied do not survive. (Why keep an old wearing-out copy if you have a nice new one?)”
I’d suggest a more compelling reason to destroy the old ones could be that if you, the copyist, had made changes, you may not want anyone challenging your changes?? You made the changes for your *good reasons* so – out with the old, in with the new.
It’d be nice if we had any evidence of that! But alas….
I’ve also wondered this. Because isn’t the purpose of copies twofold? One, to replace the old when it’s worn. But two, for convenience (i.e. our community is growing, it’d be nice to have 6 copies of Exodus instead of the three).
Destroying the original would negate that purpose.
If they needed 6 copies, they’d make six and then dispose of the old one that was wearing out.
If when a scribe was copying a manuscript and he realised he had made a mistake, how would he go about correcting the error – crossing it out, scratching it out, starting the page again, ‘starring’ it and writing the word in the margin?… Thanks
For the Hebrew Bible, I”m not sure. If it was written on a scroll, the page itself couldn’t just be thrown out! In CHristian manuscripts you do get cross-outs, erasures, and interlinear corrections.
Thank you, Dr Ehrman. It is perhaps fair to say that, even in the age of printing, mistakes continued to be made, (albeit not on the same scale), as a human was still involved at some stage in the process. I speak as the son of a compositor in the newspaper industry. Wasn’t there a version of the KJV that had accidentally missed out the word ‘not’ in ‘Thou shall not commit adultery.’
Yup. It was sometimes called the Sinner’s Bible or the Wicked Bible! Published in 1631.
Thank you for this excellent overview of the Hebrew Bible. I am finding it both illuminating and deeply engaging.
I have two related questions. First, following the standardisation of the Hebrew Bible, and given that early Christians often reread these texts through a Christological lens, to what extent did Christian transmission of the Hebrew Bible preserve the Jewish textual tradition as it stood? Specifically, did Christian scribes largely transmit the received Hebrew text faithfully, or are there cases where theological commitments led to substantive alterations of the Hebrew text itself rather than interpretive re-readings?
Second, aside from well-known examples such as Isaiah 7:14, are there instances where New Testament authors appear to misquote the Hebrew Bible (as opposed to reinterpreting it), whether due to reliance on the Septuagint, memory, or other factors?
I don’t believe we have any Hebrew bible manuscripts that were made by Christians; when Christians copied the Old Testament it wsa the Greek (or the Latin); there were debates about whether Christians did sometimes change the text of the Greek to line it up more with Christian ideas (some of these are noted by Justin Martyr), but I don’t know offhand of any seroius scholarship on it. The kinds of best known examples like Isaiah 7:14 are because of the Septuagint, not Christian manipulations of the text.
I’ve just discovered something today (and I suspect I’m not the first person to discover it). I’m excited. I re-read the entire gospel of Mark tonight to double check it. Here it is: as far as I can tell, nowhere in the gospel of Mark does anyone call Jesus “lord”. Not his disciples, not his enemies, no one. That suggests that Mark 1:1-3 means John the Baptist is preparing the way for the holy spirit, who is the lord, instead of Jesus. Jesus is empowered by the holy spirit, “the lord”, at his baptism and then John says in 1:8 that one more powerful than him will baptize Israel with the holy spirit, i.e. the lord, and John the Baptist has prepared the way for this. Then Jesus, as a servant, is baptizing the people of Israel with the holy spirit in his exorcisms and so on. This seems to be supported in other places like 11:9 where the crowd is blessing Jesus because he has come “in the name of the lord”, implying Jesus isn’t the lord, and 10:42-45 where Jesus says the son of man didn’t come as a lord but as a servant. What do you think?
Yes, that’s right about Lord. I believe in the Synoptics it is used of Jesus only in Luke. But the word “Lord” in early Christianity broadly referred to both God and Jesus; the reason that’s important is because the quotation in Mark 1 (Prepare the way of the Lord) is a straight up quotation and the author chose not to change the word to something else. As a follower of Jesus, the author (living much later) almost certainly did believe Jesus was the Lord; but he doesn’t use it in DIRECT address to Jesus in his earthly life. That’s because the earliest Christians believed JEsus “became” the Lord only at the resurrection. The Holy Spirit, so far as I know, is never called “Lord” in the NT or in early Chtristianity generally. So I think he must be referring to Jesus, the one greater than him, in the words of JB.
Thanks for pointing out the idea that Jesus became a lord after his resurrection. As you know, Mark 1:1-3 is quoting Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3 where YHWH is translated as lord from the original Hebrew, but the Septuagint (LXX) translates it as “Kyrios”. Is Mark using Kyrios to only mean lord as a ruler or lord as YHWH (God)? If the former then Mark didn’t understand the original Hebrew but if the latter then, it seems certain, that Mark is referencing the holy spirit. That is because Mark 10:18 has Jesus saying, “No one is good except the father”, so Mark cannot think that Jesus is YHWH since Mark doesn’t think that Jesus is totally good. Since Mark never refers to Jesus as lord, it’s reasonable that Mark has John the Baptist preparing the way for the holy spirit (and not Jesus). Perhaps a memory of Jesus originally not being called lord survives in 2 Corinthians 3:17–18: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, … are being transformed into the same image … for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit”.
Hello Bart. Im interested in the translation of parits in the Hebrew bible. Ive noticed that some english translations choose robber in most verses using this term while in contrast, other translations choose something relating to violence almost exclusively with one exception. Even the translations that use violence in absolutely every usage of this term, depart when it comes to Jer 7:11, in which Jeremiah is condemning the activities in the temple. In that one instance, even the translators that were so insistant on that term meaning a violent person or having to do with violence, chose to flip over to robber for that one usage. I find that strange. I wonder if these Christian translators are willing to use the more suitable meaning until it comes to describing what the issue was in the temple and decide to abort previous stance to avoid having Jeremiah call out the violence taking place, since the only violence would be the sacrifices obviously. After all it could be problematic if Jeremiah was calling out sacrifice rather than “commerce” and Jesus quotes Jeremiah himself. Jesus cant be anti sacrifice if he is to be one himself. Thoughts?
Thank you for your time.
I *think* I answwered this question earlier (maybe it was asked on a different post?) If not, let me know!
What specific doctrinal claims in today’s Hebrew Bible can be shown—on textual evidence alone—to differ from what the original authors intended, rather than merely possibly differ?
I’m not sure what you’re asking? We don’t have access to what the original authors intended, only to the words that have survived. THere are plenty of passages that are *misunderstood* by readers today, if that’s what you mean. Even in the ten commandments! (E.g., not committing adultery means not taking the property of the guy next door — his wife!)
I’m not sure what you’re asking? We don’t have access to what the original authors intended, only to the words that have survived. THere are plenty of passages that are *misunderstood* by readers today, if that’s what you mean. Even in the ten commandments! (E.g., not committing adultery means not taking the property of the guy next door — his wife!)