Which OT (Septuagint or MT/proto-MT) is the legitimate one? Let's consider these Septuagint facts:
- The Greek OT (LXX) was a gift by Hebrew-speaking Jews to the Hellenized Greek-Speaking Jews and by extension to the entire Gentile world,
- The preeminent legitimacy of the Greek OT (LXX) was made manifest when the Apostles predominately quoted the LXX instead of any Hebrew-based OT,
- The Greek-speaking Diaspora Jews were elected by God to be dispersed amongst the Roman Empire so that they can spread the Gospel across the Roman Empire (with their Greek OT in hand) upon their conversion,
- Greek, the Lingua Franca of the Eastern Roman Empire, was the language unanimously chosen over Hebrew by all Apostles for their Epistles, so that all people, not just Jews, would hear the Gospel and be converted,
The Masoretic (or Proto-Masoretic) text is well known for its manipulations. The most famous example of Masoretic (or proto-Masoretic) manipulation is Isa 7:14 where the LXX says a
virgin shall conceive whereas the MT says a
young woman shall conceive.
Septuagint (LXX):
διὰ τοῦτο δώσει Κύριος αὐτὸς ὑμῖν σημεῖον· ἰδοὺ ἡ
παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει, καὶ τέξεται υἱόν, καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ᾿Εμμανουήλ
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a
virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel.
Current Masoretic Text:
לָכֵן יִתֵּן אֲדֹנָי הוּא, לָכֶם--אוֹת: הִנֵּה
הָעַלְמָה, הָרָה וְיֹלֶדֶת בֵּן, וְקָרָאת שְׁמוֹ, עִמָּנוּ אֵל.
Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, the
young woman shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
It is not clear on which side you're on? Are you on the Christian Septuagint side or the anti-Christian Masoretic Text side?
My Complete Jewish Bible uses the Masoretic Manuscripts.
It is usual to think of the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish
Tanakh as the same. Actually there are important differences,
and for the purpose of understanding the Complete Jewish Bible, these must now be addressed.
The most obvious difference, clear from the table of contents, is that the books of the
Tanakh appear in an order different from
those of the Old Testament (OT), as any Christian looking for the book of Malachi at the end of the
Tanakh will quickly discover.
As the acronym
TaNaKh reminds us, the Hebrew Bible is divided into three parts:
Torah (Law,Teaching),
Nevi'im (Prophets), and
K'tuvim (Writings). But the Christians divide the OT into four parts: Pentateuch, Historical Books, Writings, and Prophets. Both the
OT and
Tanakh have the five books of Moshe first, whether one calls them the
Torah or the Pentateuch. The Prophets section of
the
Tanakh is divided into the Early and Later Prophets. The Early Prophets correspond to the Historical Books of the OT minus
the books of Ruth, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, which are placed with the Writings. The Later Prophets are the
same as the "Prophets" section of the OT, except that the Hebrew Bible places Lamentations and Daniel with the Writings.
The
Tanakh "Writings" section is larger than that of the OT, because it includes the eight books that in the OT are located elsewhere.
Finally, in the
Tanakh the Later Prophets come immediately after the Early Prophets, but in the OT the Prophets come last.
Why these differences? Because the Christian OT follows the order found in the oldest manuscripts of the Septuagint, the translation
of the
Tanakh into Greek made by Greek speaking Jews in Alexandria, Egypt, two or three centuries before Yeshua's birth; while
the
Tanakh sequence was finalized in the land of Isra'el after the time of 'Ezra. This is the order Yeshua knew, as evidenced by his
referring in Luke 24:44 to "the
Torah of Moshe, the Prophets and the Psalms" (by "Psalms" he referred to the Writings section, which
in the
Tanakh begins with the book of Psalms, not Job, as in the OT).
The second difference is that by Jewish reckoning, the
Tanakh consists of twenty-four books, whereas Christians count thirty-nine
in the OT. This is because the
Tanakh considers each of the following to be a single book: 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, the
Twelve Minor Prophets (so called their books are short---Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah,
Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi), Ezra - Nehemiah, and 1 and 2 Chronicles. Thus what the OT counts as twenty books appears in
the
Tanakh as five.
A third difference is in the names. Many of the
Tanakh books are simply called by the first words. What the OT calls Genesis, the
Tanakh calls
B'resheet ("In the beginning"). Exodus (the book about the Jewish exodus from Egypt) is called
Sh'mot ("Names"),
because the book starts out, "These are the names...."
Nevertheless, there is good reason to think that several of the books of the New Testament were written in Hebrew or Aramaic,
or drew upon source materials in those languages; this case has been made by one scholar or another for all four Gospels,
Acts, Revelation, and several of the General Letters. Moreover, Sha'ul whose letters were composed in Greek, clearly drew on
his native Jewish and Hebraic thought-forms when he wrote. In fact, some phrases in the New Testament manuscripts make
no sense unless one reaches through the Greek to the underlining Hebrew expressions. Here is an example, only one of many.
Yeshua says in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) , literally, "If your eye be evil, your whole body will be dark" (Matt.6:23)
What is an evil eye? Someone not knowing the Jewish background might suppose Yeshua was talking about casting out spells.
In Hebrew, however, having an
'ayin ra'ah, an "evil eye," means being stingy, while having an
'ayin tovah, a "good eye" means
being generous. Yeshua is simply urging generosity against stinginess. And this understanding fits the surrounding verses:
"Where your wealth is, there your heart will be also......You can't be a slave to both God and money" (Matt. 6:21, 24)
The translation of the
B'rit Hadashah is based primarily on the United Bible Societies'
The Greek New Testament, 3rd edition
(New York: American Bible Society, 1975
Shalom