Understanding the Question of Corruption

When asking whether the Old Testament has been corrupted, one must begin with clarity on the term itself. Corruption, in its textual sense, refers to the process by which a word, phrase, or passage departs from its original form through scribal errors, deliberate alterations, or linguistic changes. It does not necessarily mean wholesale loss of the message or doctrinal collapse, but rather reflects the inevitable realities of hand-copying texts for over a thousand years before the invention of the printing press.

Yes, the Old Testament has undergone corruption in this limited sense: variant readings exist, some alterations were introduced, and occasional deliberate emendations occurred. However, these corruptions are overwhelmingly minor and, more importantly, they have been restored through the discipline of textual criticism. The result is that the Hebrew Scriptures we possess today represent, with an exceedingly high degree of confidence, the original inspired writings.

This is not miraculous preservation, nor providential in the sense of divine intervention overriding human transmission. Rather, it is the preservation through the careful work of copyists, and restoration through the faithful application of textual criticism. The inspired words of Isaiah 40:8—“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever”—do not promise an error-free scribal tradition, but the enduring preservation of the inspired Word through restoration, even in the face of human imperfection.

Miraculous Preservation or Scribal Preservation?

Many traditions, including charismatic movements and King James Version Only advocates, misinterpret passages such as Isaiah 40:8 and 1 Peter 1:25 to argue for the doctrine of miraculous preservation. They teach that God ensured every copyist wrote without error, or that a specific version of the text (often the KJV or Textus Receptus) embodies perfection. This belief collapses under the weight of manuscript evidence.

The reality is that there are hundreds of thousands of textual variants across the tens of thousands of Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. These include spelling differences, accidental omissions, word order changes, and even occasional larger-scale insertions or omissions. If miraculous preservation were true, such variants would not exist.

What the manuscript evidence demonstrates is preservation of the text through human scribal diligence, and restoration through the science of textual criticism. The Masoretes, the custodians of the Hebrew text from the 6th to 10th centuries C.E., exemplify this: they did not preserve a perfect tradition without corruption, but they preserved with painstaking accuracy what they received and carefully annotated places of difficulty.

The Hebrew Old Testament Before the Masoretes

The Sopherim (Ezra to the Early Centuries B.C.E.)

Following the Babylonian exile and the return of the Jews to Jerusalem in 537 B.C.E., the work of copying and transmitting the Hebrew Scriptures was undertaken by the Sopherim, beginning with Ezra, who was both priest and skilled scribe (Ezra 7:6). Their role was to preserve the Law and the Prophets, ensuring that every copy was exact. Yet, in their zeal, the Sopherim also made deliberate textual emendations in some cases, which were later recorded in the Masora.

Among these were the so-called “Eighteen Emendations of the Sopherim,” changes deemed necessary out of reverence for God or for clarity. For instance, in a few passages, they altered the divine name Jehovah to substitute another word they deemed more fitting in context. These emendations do not undermine the integrity of the text, for they are few, clearly documented, and often obvious when cross-referenced with earlier traditions.

The Dead Sea Scrolls (250 B.C.E. – 50 C.E.)

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 provided unparalleled confirmation of the antiquity and reliability of the Hebrew text. These scrolls, dating from the 2nd century B.C.E. to the 1st century C.E., contain portions of nearly every book of the Hebrew Bible.

When compared with the Masoretic Text, the Scrolls show an astonishing degree of agreement, even after a millennium of transmission. Minor differences appear in spelling, grammatical forms, or order of words. More substantial differences exist in books like Jeremiah, where the shorter form preserved in some scrolls resembles the Septuagint version. Yet the overwhelming testimony is that the Masoretic tradition faithfully preserved the inspired text.

The Early Translated Versions

The Samaritan Pentateuch

The Samaritan community, diverging from Jewish orthodoxy after the Assyrian exile, preserved their own recension of the Torah. Written in Samaritan script (a descendant of the old Hebrew script), it originated between the 4th and 2nd centuries B.C.E. Although extant manuscripts date from the Middle Ages, the Samaritan Pentateuch reflects an early textual tradition.

It contains roughly 6,000 differences from the Masoretic Text, but the majority are orthographic or stylistic. Theologically motivated changes exist, such as the command in Exodus 20 to build an altar on Mount Gerizim, a support for Samaritan worship practices. While corrupt in these instances, the Samaritan Pentateuch remains valuable for textual criticism, especially where it aligns with the Septuagint or Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Aramaic Targums

As Aramaic replaced Hebrew as the spoken language of the Jews after the Babylonian exile, the Scriptures were paraphrased in Aramaic during synagogue readings. These paraphrases, later written down as Targums, were not literal translations but interpretive expansions. Their value lies less in preserving the Hebrew text and more in reflecting how Jews understood and explained the Scriptures in the centuries leading up to and following the time of Jesus.

The Greek Septuagint (LXX)

The Septuagint, begun around 280 B.C.E. in Alexandria, was the first major translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Produced by Jewish scholars for the Greek-speaking diaspora, it soon became widely used among both Jews and Christians.

The earliest Septuagint manuscripts, such as the Fouad Papyri (2nd–1st century B.C.E.), demonstrate that the divine name Jehovah originally appeared in Hebrew characters within the Greek text, only later being replaced by Kyrios (“Lord”) or Theos (“God”). This is a critical witness to the early Jewish reverence for God’s name.

While the Septuagint often reflects a different textual tradition than the Masoretic Text—especially in books like Jeremiah, Daniel, and Job—it remains a vital comparative tool. Agreement between the LXX and the Dead Sea Scrolls against the Masoretic Text sometimes reveals an earlier Hebrew form of the text.

The Latin Vulgate

In 390–405 C.E., Jerome produced the Latin Vulgate, translating directly from Hebrew for the Old Testament rather than relying on the Greek Septuagint. His work was monumental in ensuring a text accessible to the Western Church. Jerome himself distinguished between canonical and apocryphal writings, a distinction later blurred in Roman Catholic tradition.

While the Vulgate is far removed from the Hebrew originals, its significance lies in the fact that Jerome relied on Hebrew manuscripts that have since disappeared, preserving readings valuable for comparison.

The Masoretic Tradition

From the 6th to the 10th centuries C.E., Jewish scribes known as the Masoretes undertook the meticulous preservation of the Hebrew Scriptures. They introduced vowel points, accents, and detailed marginal notes (the Masora) to safeguard the text. These notes included information about variant readings, unusual spellings, and even records of places where the Sopherim had made emendations.

The Masoretes belonged to different schools—Babylonian, Palestinian, and Tiberian—with the Tiberian system (particularly the Ben Asher family) becoming the standard. The Aleppo Codex (c. 930 C.E.) and the Leningrad Codex (1008 C.E.) remain the most complete and authoritative representatives of this tradition.

Modern Hebrew Editions and Textual Criticism

The transmission of the Hebrew Bible entered a new phase with the advent of printing. The Second Rabbinic Bible, edited by Jacob ben Chayyim (1524–25), became the standard text for centuries. Later, Benjamin Kennicott and Giovanni de Rossi collated variant readings from hundreds of manuscripts, laying the groundwork for critical editions.

In the 20th century, Rudolf Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica introduced a new standard, basing the printed text on the Leningrad Codex and supplementing it with variant readings from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, Samaritan Pentateuch, and other witnesses. The ongoing work of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta continues this effort.

Conclusion: Corrupted Yet Restored

Has the Old Testament been corrupted? Yes, in the sense that textual variants, scribal errors, and deliberate emendations exist. No, in the sense that the inspired message has not been lost. Through the faithful diligence of scribes and the careful work of textual critics, the text has been preserved and restored.

We possess today a Hebrew Bible that reflects with extraordinary accuracy the inspired words penned by Moses, the Prophets, and the later writers of Scripture. It is not the product of miraculous preservation but of human diligence under God’s providential allowance of restoration.

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