What is the Bible? Old Testament

Arrangement, Timeline, & Authorship

The Old Testament - The “Tanakh”

Most understandings of the Old Testament are that it is comprised of three main categories of material. The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. In Hebrew, these are:

A threefold conception can be observed in Luke 24:44:

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

Luke 24:44 ESV

Viewing the chronological construction of the Old Testament shows that the books are not arranged strictly chronologically. Instead arrangements generally follow the content/genre distinctions of the TaNaKh. The arrangement of western translations is expanded from 'Law' to 'Historical Books' and condensed from 'Writings' to 'Wisdom literature.'

Arrangements of the Books of Scripture and Approximate Dates of composition

The arrangement of books in the Hebrew Bible is different than the arrangement in the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and also our English translations.

Authors and Approximate Dates of Composition

Later editors, such as Ezra, may have added clarifications, such as updated place names . This is referred to as Textual Updating, and it is often understood by its proponents that these clarifications were accomplished with the provision of the Holy Spirit. Others view these passages as possibly prophetic, and the Textual Updating approach as problematic.

Examples of possible Textual Updating passages:

In the composition of the scriptures, we see the Holy Spirit and the authors working together. A human document (An infinite God revealing Himself to finite men), inspired by the Lord.

Historical Criticism of skeptical modern scholastics has led to broad speculation about the composition and dates of Old Testament scrolls. The modern atheistic interpretation is driven by principles such as Vaticinium Ex Eventu (where there can be no such thing as accurate predictive prophecy, so prophetic passages must of been written 'after the fact.') and source criticism. You can observe the results of such approaches at this wikipedia page.

Language & Alphabets

Paleo Hebrew

Hebrew was originally written in 'Paleo' characters. Paleo Hebrew characters are older than the 'Aramaic' square letter counterparts. Paleo Hebrew usage diminished in light of the prevalence of Aramaic as the common language (lingua franca). 


Hebrew and Aramaic

The Old Testament is mostly written in Hebrew, but there are some parts that are in Aramaic (approximately 1%). Aramaic was the language of the Arameans (Aram stretched from Lebanon to the Euphrates), the Semitic speaking people of the ancient Near East. Aramaic became the lingua franca of the ancient Near East with the Neo-Assyrian empire (911-605 B.C.) and lasted until Koine Greek supplanted it as the lingua franca. Koine Greek's influence stems from the Greek conquests of Alexander the Great (333 B.C.), and the ensuing Hellenization of the conquered cultures. Aramaic would still be spoken in Israel at the time of Jesus.

Aramaic occurrences in the Old Testament:


F.F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments (Teppan, New Jersey. Fleming H. Revell, 1950, 1980), 22.

Hebrew Alphabet (Aramaic Characters)

Aramaic characters replaced the paleo Hebrew characters. This change would occur after the destruction of the first temple, and probably during the time of the exile.

Manuscripts and Translations

Earliest Manuscripts and Translations of the Old Testament

The inspiration and preservation of the scriptures does not necessarily extend to the copying and translation of texts by mankind. The fallenness of the world and the brokenness of the human condition allow for errors in the copying and transmission of scripture. 

Old Testament manuscripts were significantly bolstered by the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. The Dead Sea scrolls were collections of scrolls that had been buried (worn out, had errors, or were intentionally hidden).

Translations of the Old Testament text happened in antiquity, with the translation of the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) happening as early as 250-150 B.C. For the Septuagint, the Torah was translated first, and then additional books were translated later. These ancient translations help establish the history of the text of the Old Testament, and the Septuagint was even referenced by the New Testament writers (who were writing in Greek).

Ketef Hinnom Scroll

The Ketef Hinnoam scroll is a small silver scroll found in Jerusalem during the first temple period. The first Israelite temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C.

The Ketef Hinnom Scroll contains the words from Numbers 6:24-26, written in the paleo-Hebrew script that pre-dates the exilic adoption of Aramaic characters. The scroll dates from around 600 B.C.

(4.3 minutes)

Dead Sea Scrolls - Isaiah Scroll

The Dead Sea Scrolls were an amazing find for modern scholarship and understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures. For instance the Isaiah scroll contains the scroll of Isaiah that matches amazingly to what was handed down, with only small deviations, often in spelling. The Isaiah scroll was written in approximately 150 B.C.

(1 minute)

(2.5 minutes)

Crosscheck by the Dead Sea Scrolls

"With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars have Hebrew manuscripts one thousand years earlier than the great Masoretic Text manuscripts, enabling them to check on the fidelity of the Hebrew text.  The result of comparative studies reveals that this is a word-for-word identity in more than 95 percent of the cases, and the 5 percent variation consists mostly of slips of the pen and spelling.  To be specific, the Isaiah scroll (1Q Isa) from Qumran led the Revised Standard Version translators to make only thirteen changes from the Masoretic text; eight of those were known from ancient versions, and few of them were significant.  More specifically, of the 166 Hebrew words in Isaiah 53 only seventeen Hebrew letters in 1Q Isb differ from the Masoretic Text.  Ten letters are a matter of spelling, four are stylistic changes, and the other three compose the word for "light" (add in v.11), which does not affect the meaning greatly.  Furthermore that word is also found in that verse in the LXX and 1Q Isa."

Geisler and Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, Moody, 1986, pg. 382.

Masoretic Text

The Masoretic text was a collection and codification of the Hebrew scriptures. The Masoretes labored to preserve the Jewish scriptures. They did this by inventing vowel pointing and cantillation marks that would go around the text's characters, thus not changing the text, to indicate how to pronounce the scriptures. They also carefully counted the characters and words in Jewish scriptures to be able to detect changes.

"Masoretic text, (from Hebrew masoreth, “tradition”), traditional Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible, meticulously assembled and codified, and supplied with diacritical marks to enable correct pronunciation. This monumental work was begun around the 6th century AD and completed in the 10th by scholars at Talmudic academies in Babylonia and Palestine, in an effort to reproduce, as far as possible, the original text of the Hebrew Old Testament. " 

... "When the final codification of each section was complete, the Masoretes not only counted and noted down the total number of verses, words, and letters in the text but further indicated which verse, which word, and which letter marked the centre of the text. In this way any future emendation could be detected. The rigorous care given the Masoretic text in its preparation is credited for the remarkable consistency found in Old Testament Hebrew texts since that time."

"Masoretic Text" from Britannica

Leningrad Codex

The Leningrad Codex is the oldest complete copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh. The Leningrad codex was written in A.D. 1008.

Manuscript points of interest

"In the case of the Old Testament, there are a small number of Hebrew manuscripts, because the Jewish scribes ceremonially buried imperfect and worn manuscripts. Many ancient manuscripts were also lost or destroyed during Israel's turbulent history. Also, the Old Testament text was standardized by the Masoretic Jews by the sixth century A.D., and all manuscripts that deviated from the Masoretic Text were evidently eliminated. But the existing Hebrew manuscripts are supplemented by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint (a third-century B.C. Greek translation of the Old Testament), the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Targums (ancient paraphrases of the Old Testament), as well as the Talmud (teachings and commentaries related to the Hebrew Scriptures)."

Transmission & Textual Criticism

How was writing done that is different than today? A great deal was different; no mass produced notepads and pencils and erasers. No typewriters, computers, copy machines. Everything was hand made and hand done.

Who would be the people writing and reading?  Scribes and scriptoriums

What were used for writing?   Often vellum and lamp soot ink. Sometimes papyrus.

(12.3 Minutes)

Textual criticism

Textual Criticism: Errors in Copying

There were ample opportunities for errors to slip into the very human process of copying texts. After all there were no computers, no printing press, and no mass produced writing materials. All texts were copied by hand. Often times they were copied by listening to another person reading. Sight and hearing errors could creep in to the copy, and then possibly be transferred onward to future copies.

Canons of Textual Criticism

Textual Critics evaluate the manuscript evidence to determine what is the original reading of scripture.

The preferred reading is one that…

“Canons of Textual Criticism” from Gleason Archer’s Survey of Old Testament Introduction, pg. 64.

Most Common Manuscript Errors

Errors in the copying of text have been studied and classified to understand better how and where these human errors happened.

Adapted from: 

“Most common manuscript errors” from Gleason Archer’s Survey of Old Testament Introduction, pg. 60. 

John H. Walton, Chronological And Background Charts of the Old Testament, (Zondervan, 1994), pg. 92.


Conclusion

"The thousand of Hebrew Manuscripts, with their confirmation by the LXX and the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the numerous other crosschecks from outside and inside the text provide overwhelming support for the reliability of the Old Testament.  Hence, it is appropriate to conclude with Sir Frederic Kenyon's statement, 'The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries.'"

Geisler and Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, Moody, 1986, pg. 382.


References

Recommended books:

Additional helpful books:

Exercise

Take two minutes to copy the following information via hand written note. Then have someone else check it for errors.

בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ