How God Gave Us His Word, Part 6

Last time we looked at the period of ancient translations of the OT.

In this session, we will look at the transmission of the OT from AD 100-1000.

Why is 100 AD an important time for the transmission of the OT?

During this time the MT was established and created within the Jewish community.

During this time they did not create an entirely new text, but looked at the different traditions and decided which ones took precedence.

During this time the OT was copied by professional scribes. These scribes are called the Masoretes. Their name comes from the Hebrew verb “masar (מסר)” - to hand down.

What was the motivation for a single text?

The motivation was religious, to preserve their understanding of the OT.

This was fueled by the Christians who were using the Septuagint in their debates with the Jews.

The Septuagint was used to prove Jesus as the Messiah, which motivated the Jews to minimize this version of the OT.

The Jews did not endorse the idea of two powers in heaven, I.E. God the Father and God the Son. Christians believe in a triune Godhead and worship God in three persons, the blessed trinity - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Jews see this as a heresy and wanted to establish a text that did not lend its support to a Godhead, but a singular God.

What is the role of the Scribes from AD 100-1000?

The Scribes and Pharisees worked together to produce, copy, and promote the MT.

Their decisions were affected by the Rabbinical literature of the period such as the Talmud. This collection of documents is dated AD 135 - 500.

There were specializations within the scribal class.

There was the Tannaim , who were teachers of the OT.

There was the Amoraim , who were the expositors of OT.

What are the rules for Scribes?

Rules of antiquity: These rules are based in the BC era. We know this from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran community found by archeology.

They created and adopted more rules in the AD era. It is these rules that many Christians are familiar with such as:

Hand washing before writing Yahweh

Parchment and thread for writing had to be from ritually clean animals.

Columns and lines were specified for the correct formatting. For example, each line had to have 30 characters, and each leather had to be lined so the text was written straight.

Nothing could be written from memory.

Proper spacing of one hair must be maintained between the characters.

One must be ritually washed and dressed before the process of copying the OT.

There were special rules for writing the divine name, such as handwashing and not talking to anyone while writing it.

What are the Scribal Innovations?

Verse divisions were introduced, but they were not numbered.

Paragraph divisions were introduced.

Liturgical divisions were created. These are preserved in the modern Hebrew Bible.

How did Scribes make notations and why?

They made notations because they ran into problems in the text.

They made notations to keep track of differences between manuscripts.

They would add dots over letters, place vertical strokes, and suspend letters or leave blank spaces to indicate these differences.

They would deliberately alter the text if it was offensive to God making notes as to why they did so.

They practiced the “Kethib - Qere”, which in English means “what is written - what is read”, suggesting there was a vocalization system in the text.

What is the Masorah?

It is a scribal commentary on what they were doing in the text of the OT.

It is the scribal’s collection of specialized notes.

It is the scribal’s collection of footnotes on the text.

It is the scribal's collection of explanations of things in the text.

It is the scribal’s collection of word-use statistics.

It is the scribal’s collection of Kethib-Kere in the OT.

How did the vocalization system develop?

Vowels were added to the Hebrew text.

Consonants were used by the Qumran community to act as vowels.

Accent marks were added to help with proper reading of the text.

They created a whole new system to indicate vowels, using dots and straight lines.

What are the differences in the Masoretic Tradition?

The Masoretic practices are not equal to the inspiration of Scripture.

This leads to unnecessary arguments over translations today. An example would be taking a Septuagint reading over the Masoretic text.

Two Masoretic Families created differences.

Aaron ben Asher

Moses ben Naphtali

These are part of the golden age for this manuscript production.

They produced subtle differences between each family's work.

Victor Aptowitzer traced the quotations in sermons and found that the rabbis were not always quoting the same MT.

What are the important manuscripts in AD 100-1000?

The Aleppo Codex (A) written AD 925 includes all of the OT and is vowel-pointed by Aaron ben Asher.

The Lenigradensis (L) written AD 1008 includes all of the OT and is close to Ben Asher’s pointing tradition - the basis for the modern Hebrew Bible.

The British Museum 4445 (B) written AD 925 includes most of the OT and is in the Ben Asher tradition.

Cairo Codex (C) written AD 896 contains the former and latter prophets and is close to the Moses ben Naphtali tradition.