Samaritan Pentateuch, Important Witness to the Early Textual History of the First Part of the Hebrew Bible

After the deportation of inhabitants of Samaria and the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel by Assyria in the middle of the 8th century B.C.E., pagans from other territories of the Assyrian Empire were settled there by Assyria. (2 Ki. 17:22-33) In time they came to be called “Samaritans.” They accepted the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures and in about the fourth century B.C.E. they produced the Samaritan Pentateuch, not really a translation of the original Hebrew Pentateuch, but a transliteration of its text into Samaritan characters, mixed with Samaritan idioms. Few of the extant manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch are older than the thirteenth century C.E. Of about 6,000 differences between the Samaritan and the Hebrew texts, by far the majority are unimportant. One variation of interest appears in Exodus 12:40, where the Samaritan Pentateuch corresponds to the Septuagint.

8 Jul 2022 0

Syriac Versions of the Bible

The Old Testament.—There are two Syriac translations of this part of the Bible, one made directly from the original language Hebrew, and the other from an ancient Greek version. The Syriac New-Testament Versions.—These we may conveniently enumerate under five heads, including several recensions under some of them, but treating separately the notable “Curetonian text.”

5 Jul 2022 2

Textual Studies of the Hebrew Bible

The Old Testament, the inspired Word of God, how was it copied, maintained as to the textual reliability, and handed down throughout the past three thousand five hundred years?

20 May 2022 0

OLD TESTAMENT TEXTUAL STUDIES: The Aramaic Targums

The “Targums” were loose translations or paraphrases of the Hebrew Old Testament Scriptures into Aramaic. Although fragments of the early Targums of some books were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Jewish Targums as a whole likely found their current form no sooner than about the fifth century C.E.

3 Apr 2022 3

Papyrus Fouad 266 Is a Greek Septuagint Copy of the Pentateuch

Papyrus Fouad 266 is a copy of the Pentateuch in the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint. It is a papyrus manuscript in scroll form. The manuscript has been assigned palaeographically to the second or the first-century B.C.E.

9 Feb 2022 0

Bible Texts and Versions

We must face the reality that while the original 39 OT manuscripts and 27 NT manuscripts were inspired by God [Lit. “God-breathed”] (1 Tim. 3:16), as the authors were moved along by the Holy Spirit (1 Peter 1:21), this was not the case with the copyists thereafter. Yes, hundreds of thousands of scribal errors crept into our manuscripts. Yet, there is ...

22 Jan 2022 1

Evaluation of the Hebrew Old Testament Texts and Ancient Versions as to Their Usefulness for Textual Criticism

How the Hebrew Scriptures, as part of the inspired Word of God, were copied, preserved as to textual integrity, and transmitted down to this day.

14 Jan 2022 1

The Syriac Old Testament Version

Syriac is the language of ancient Syria and one of the dialects of Aramaic, which was an official language of the Persian Empire. It was spoken in northern Mesopotamia and around ancient Antioch. In the second or third century C.E., as a written language, Syriac came into wide use. Within this Western dialect of Aramaic, many important early Christian texts are preserved, and which is still used by Syrian Christians as a liturgical language.

6 Jan 2022 3

JEROME: The Forerunner in Bible Translation

Jerome’s Latin name was Eusebius Hieronymus. He was born about 346 C.E. Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew Scriptures was considerably more than simply some revision of a text that existed in his day. For centuries it altered the direction of Bible study and translation. “The Vulgate,” said historian Will Durant, “remains as the greatest and most influential literary accomplishment of the fourth century.”

14 Dec 2021 4

Did the New Testament Authors Really Quote the Greek Septuagint Rather than Hebrew Text?

Hands down, the Greek Septuagint version is the most important of the early versions of the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. In fact, it is the first translation. The Greek Septuagint is abbreviated as the Roman numeral LXX (meaning, “Seventy”).

14 Dec 2021 6

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