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:

• Moses' death recorded in Deuteronomy 34:1-12.

• Updated place names: Genesis 14:2, 3, 7, 8, 14 (usage of the city of Dan), 17

• Uses of the phrase 'to this day': Gen 26:33; 32:32; 47:26; Deut. 2:22; 3:14; 10:8; 29:38; 34:6

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.

Paleo Hebrew

Hebrew Alphabet (Aramaic Characters)

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).

Adapted from Gleason Archer, Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Moody, 1994. Pg. 42.

See also:

• http://www.bible-researcher.com/hebrew-editions.html

• http://oldtestamenttextualcriticism.blogspot.com/p/online-digital-images.html

• http://animatedhebrew.com/mss/index.html

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."

Leningrad Codex

Manuscript points of interest

• Jewish practice of burying old scrolls

• Dead Sea Scrolls and Isaiah

• Masoretes and the Masoretic Text (MT)

  • A.D. 700-1000

  • Vowel pointing and character counting

  • Leningrad and Aleppo codex

"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)."

• https://bible.org/article/how-accurate-bible

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.

Textual criticism

• Textual criticism is the technique (art and science) of restoring the original readings of texts.

• Textual Criticism is necessary because the process of transmission is not infallible.

• Difference between Higher criticism (content criticism) and Lower criticism (textual criticism)

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…

• Is older

• Is more difficult

• Is shorter

• Best explains variants

• Has the widest geographical support

• Conforms to the style and diction of the author

• Reflects no doctrinal bias

“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.

• Haplography- Singular entry of a letter which should have been written twice. (Judges 20:13 'sons' is missing)

• Dittography- Writing twice what should have been written once. (Ezekiel 16:6, Hebrew and NASB)

• Metathesis- Transposing of letters or words. (Psalm 49:11)

• Fusion- Combining all or part of two words into a single word.

• Fission- Division of a single word into two words. (Hosea 6:5)

• Homophony- Substitution of one homonym for another.  (Psalm 100:3 compare NASB to NIV)

• Misreading similar letters- Confusion of one letter for another of similar shape.  (Jeremiah 15:14)

• Homoeoteleuton- Omission of an intervening passage due to having a similar ending (such as between two sentences). (Judges 16:13-14, 1 Sam. 14:41)

• Homoeoarkton- Omission of an intervening passage from the beginning of two similar sentences.

• Accidental omission- Loss of a single word or letter.

• Vowel misreading- Misreading vowel letters as consonants.

• Vowel point variations- Misreading a weak vowel as an actual consonant or, a discrepancy in added vowel points giving a change in word meaning.

• Marginalia - Words mistakenly inserted from the margin. (Isa. 38:21-22, cf. 2 Lings 20:7-8, Joshua 2:15 & LXX)

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.

"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.

Recommended books:

• Archer, Gleason.  Survey of Old Testament Introduction. ISBN 0802484344

• John H. Walton, John H.  Chronological and Background Charts of the Old Testament, Revised and Expanded.  ISBN 0310481619

Additional helpful books:

• Geisler and Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible.  ISBN 0802429165

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