So when we say the Bible is the word of God, what is meant by this? Did the Bible just drop from heaven? So most peoples understanding both those who believe in the truth of scripture and those who do not. It sort of goes like, a prophet goes into a daze or trance and two hours later they wake to the realization that they just wrote the scroll of Isaiah. This is not how real divine inspiration worked at all, it is true that prophets had dreams and visions and this is true. Dreams and visions were not the whole story or even most of it. In the case of Moses for instance he met God on Mt Sinai and was dictated the better part of what is know as the Torah by God in person. However Moses was the only Biblical prophet that ever knew God in person.
Here is Exodus 33:20
But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
Even though Moses never beheld the glory of God’s literal face Moses through the glory cloud or “Sh’khinah” was instructed by God in person. Other prophets wrote God’s word in other ways. For instance the Gospel of Matthew showed profound attention to detail in it’s record of the life, words and acts of Jesus Christ. The fact that God put Matthew into the family and customs growing up and the disposition of mind to become a tax collector. In being a professional tax accountant Matthew learned the skills of precise record keeping. This precision of memory and written record would make Matthew the longest and most detailed of all the Gospels. That is part of divine inspiration, in that God chose his writers from the beginning and shaping their lives and experiences so they were up to the task of what they would one day write. Yes the Holy Spirit worked through Matthew and yes it was God’s word but it was also Matthew writing the words. So Matthew used his skills as a accountant and in record keeping to make his recollection of Jesus’s life and words the most precise, accurate and detailed. So yes it is true that the truest author of the Gospel of Matthew was the Holy Spirit but it was still written by a human to who’s knowledge and experience also informed the text. Look at it this way is that Matthew from day one was purposed for that task.
The same can be said of Luke and it’s heavy emphasis on the infancy narrative, to which a doctor Luke was perfect to be the Gospel of the birth on a deeper level than other Gospels. Luke being a doctor was no stranger to pregnancy and birthing. Luke chapters 1 and two deal both with birth of Jesus and John the Baptist. Luke was also chosen to write the early history of the church on the book of the Acts of the Apostles. The Bible is a collaboration between God, the Holy Spirit and men. So you ask then if god is all powerful then why didn’t God simply teleport the Bible to earth in perfect divine language. People had to be able to read and understand scripture. For instance if people in their human condition heard God speak they could never understand it, it would be beyond them. It would almost like a high school drop out taking a doctoral level course on Astrophysics at MIT, it would be so far above their head they would get very little from it. So the Bible needed to be relatable to people, so people could connect with it in a real way and not whitewashed in the speech of angels which would make scripture not understandable.
This is not to say that the prophets did not have visions and dreams, they did without any question. Verses like Ezekiel chapter one and Isaiah chapter and much of the Book of Revelation prove this. This especially leads me to believe that John had knowledge from his upbringing on things like “Maaseh Merkavah” and Heikhalot literature, the precursors of modern Kabbalah. This is literature about visions of God’s throne and Chariot and that sort of thing. John the most spirtitual of all the Gospels with hard hitting chapter and verses like 1:1, 3:3, 3:16 and 14:6 and many more we all know of John along with three letters and Revelation. Although the Book of Revelation defined our view of heaven itself but also showed that John had gifts of a more spiritual nature as opposed to the more intellectual Matthew and Luke. I would strongly suspect that John had an early life Jewish mystical education. Obvioiusly the Holy Spirit guided John but John had be be more spiritual in nature to write “The spritual Gospel” along with Revelation the greatest prophetic book in history. Matthew or Luke would not have been chosen for that task. As far as Mark, Mark may have been Peter’s Gospel actually scribed by the Libyan John Mark and was called Mark’s Gospel. Peter may have had the writing skills for two letters but not a whole Gospel.
This is not to trivialize the visions but it takes an extra pure, unworldly and spiritual person to see heaven in a vision. David in Psalm 131 tells not to pursue matters of great wonder or above ourselves but obviously Ezekiel, Isaiah and the Apostle John had the right stuff to be behold the “Throne”. Which took a special type of early life and a life of deep purity and an inborn spiritual nature, not any Joe off the street could have written the “heaven visions” things of the Bible. It’s not that the vision didn’t come from heaven itself, they did, but not every prophet could handle psychologically such powerful visions. Throne vision stuff takes a special type of prophet.
What made Paul so special in the New Testamental era?
To start with where Paul began, he was from the Greek part of Rome in Tarsus and was Roman citizen as opposed to other apostles who were from Israel primarily. Paul had good exposure to Greek and Roman culture making him perfect to reach out to the gentile as opposed to Peter who typically recoiled and gentile things. Paul studied with Gamli’el, the master of the Torah in that time along with a master of the Oral Torah now called the Talmud. Paul also had mystical training and know who know Kabbalah can recognize that in his letters. The letters of Paul articulated the true meaning of the Gospels, in a way Paul’s letters were like a Talmud on the Gospels. Paul accomplished accomplished in full total perfect commentary on the Gospels in 13 or 14 letters (depending on whether you attribute Hebrews to Paul) what 10,000 pages of Rabbinical literature could not do for the Torah. Paul was also a sports fan who used athletic allegory to make moral lessons. This also came from his Greek and Roman roots in Tarsus, in the Galilee where Peter was from they prayed and read Torah all day, no really liked sports. The athletic allegory was perfect for the gentile audience and again this is part of how God chose his writers from the beginning shaping their lives for the later task. So Paul had exposure to it all Torah, Prophetic and Psalm writings, Oral tradition, Mystical tradition sort of the proto Kabbalah like Maaseh Merkavah and Heikhalot literature. Along with Greek stoic thought and even Roman sports. What other Biblical writer was this well rounded! This is what divine inspiration means is that they were molded for the holy purpose from day one of their lives! With all these tools he gave a perfect articulation of the complex 4 Gospels with the guidance of the Holy spirit.
So when was the New Testament written? secular historians place the Gospels from about 65 ce to about 100-110 ce. This is problematic however because John could not have known Jesus and been alive long enough to have been writing in the second century. Here we have Matthew chapter 10:
2 “These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.”
Traditionally John’s birth is around 6 0r 7 ce and his death in about 100 second century. So let’s place the Gospel of John and the three letters about 90 ce and Revelation about 95-100 ce. Some people have suggested that Revelation was actually written first because it uses a grammar that is more simple along with more Jewish and fewer Greek style idioms and phrases. I do not put much into that because if Revelation was written in exile in the Aegean sea on Patmos, John would have had only his own skills and knowledge for reference. If we assume the Gospel was written in Jerusalem then John would have had more resources at is disposal to make a more sophisticated gospel like scribes to consult and Greek writings to touch up his Greek and so on. In other words to use a modern metaphor, the Gospel was written in a fancy computer lab at a University and Revelation in a hunting cabin in Maine somewhere. I think the Gospel came first, also on that theory, John was still in his 80’s when he wrote the Gospel and would have learned in life most of what he would learn in life at that age anyway, it’s not like at 80 ten years later his Greek grammar was going to be that much better. It’s not like he wrote one at age 18 and the other at 30. For most people people by 70 you’ve hit your learning curve, so the grammatical difference reflected the exile at Patmos not life experience, so the Gospel came first in my opinion.
So on the other Gospels, so there is a secular historical theory called Q theory and Q stands for quelle which is German for source. So here is a wikipedia exerpt:
“The Q source (also called the Sayings Gospel, Q Gospel, Q document(s), or Q; from German: Quelle, meaning “source”) is a hypothesized written collection of primarily Jesus‘ sayings (λόγια, logia). Q is part of the common material found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke but not in the Gospel of Mark. According to this hypothesis, this material was drawn from the early Church’s oral gospel traditions“
Luke:1-2
“Concerning the matters that have taken place among us, many people have undertaken to draw up accounts 2 based on what was handed down to us by those who from the start were eyewitnesses and proclaimers of the message”
Here in Luke 1:1-2 above on quotes and it appears that Luke lets the cat out of the bag that other people tried to draw Gospel accounts even earlier than even Matthew or Mark by the use of “many”! The case for proto-Gospels is strong but the Holy spirit gave Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the nod on the final job.
It is my personal belief that this Q was actually Peters writings on the words and acts of Jesus. This is why Mark is not part of it because John Mark (that is Mark) wrote or scribed the words of Peter. So Peter was Q and was annotated likely in Aramaic not Greek and was a proto-Gospel about 35-40 ce after the death and resurrection. Then Mark scribed Peters account of Jesus in Koine Greek in the 60’s ce. This was the early churches first proto-Gospel of Peter or Keifa in his Aramaic name (like Peter is Aramaic for rock or stone). This may have also been what Paul first read to base his letters on.
So in about the mid 60’s ce John Mark or Mark scribed Peters Gospel as Mark’s Gospel. Them Matthew followed suite with the more detailed Gospel about the same time. Luke wrote Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles about 80 ce. Although Luke most likely kept notes in his own collection from just after the holiday of Shavuot/ Pentecost along with oral traditions on early Church history and so Acts existed also in proto form before it’s final polished form in the 80’s ce. So Pentecost is a Greek rendering of the Jewish Holiday Shavuot celebrating the wheat harvest 50 days after Passover. The Jews count the 49 omer עומר which is a wheat measure from Passover to Shavuot, so with it 50 days after being Shavuot 49 is the differnce between.
I can only imagine that Yaakov/James and Jude/Yehudah/Thaddaeus were very very early being that both are reputed to be brothers of Jesus himself. There is no real theory on the letter of James and Jude, Jude often called Thaddaeus to distance him from Judas Iscariot. They were likely very very early likely even pre-existing Paul. Although some say Jude was the son not the brother of James, hence Jude was the nephew of Jesus which would put Jude after James but that is theory and not proven. James is likely placed about 40-45 ce’ish or so. So Jude’s placement depends likely on whether he was brother or son of Yaakov/Jacob/James brother of Jesus/Yeshua.
Who exactly were the twelve disciples? (neither of the two Apostles named James wrote the letter of James or were the brother of Jesus)
- Shimon bar Yonah שמעון בר יונה (Simon) also known as Peter and Keifa כיפא in Aramaic. he was of course the first leader of the Church after Jesus resurrected. According to Catholics the first Pope.
2. Andreivas bar Yonah אנדראוס בר יונה. Andrew son of Jonah born in the Galilee and brother of Peter, but not much else is known of him.
3. Yaakov bar Z’vadyah יעקב בר זבדיה (James son of Zebedee) or James the elder. The first Apostle to be martyred.
4. Yochanan bar Z’vadyah יוחנן בר זבדיה John also a son of Zebedee in the Galilee and authored John’s Gospel, three letters and the Book of Revelation. Known also as John the beloved.
5. Philip, no known Hebrew or Aramaic name but also from the Galilee in Bethsaida/ Beit Zaidah בֵּית צַידָה.
6. Natan’el bar Talmai נתנאל בר תלמי or Bartholomew meaning son of Talmai but also known as Nathanael. Church oral tradition has him preaching the Gospel in Persia, Armenia and maybe even India. The fact that the Roman Catholic Church and Armenian Apostolic Church define the trinity differently brings credence to this idea.
7. Toma תאומא or Thomas in Greek which means both twin and purity in Hebrew and Aramaic. also known as Didymus with no known lineage or last name. He was known for doubting the resurrection, which is where the phrase “doubting Thomas came from.
8. Matityahu ben Chalfi מתתיהו בן חלפי Matthew son of Alphaeus. The brother of James the younger and author of the Gospel of Matthew and sometimes known as Levi.
9. Yaakov ben Chalfi יעקב בן חלפי James son of Alphaeus or James the younger and brother of Matthew.
10. “Jude” His true name maybe Yehudah ben Yoseif if he was the brother of Jesus or he could have been Yehudah ben Yaakov if he was the nephew of Jesus, hence son of James/Yaakov/Jacob. His Aramaic name was Todah תודה or in Greek writing “Thaddaeus” which has the same meaning as Yehudah in Hebrew. Often known by the Aramaic name to distinguish him from Judas the betrayer of Jesus. He wrote the letter of Jude the second to last book in the New Testament.
11. Shimon/Simon. He is sometimes called the zealot or of kanah a town in the Galilee. If pronounced and spelled like Kanay like this קנאי that would mean zealous but if spelled and pronounced Kanah like קנה this was a town in the Galilee. So a spelling error or question clouds his true name.
12. Yehudah ben Shimon ish Kriot יהודה בן שמעון -איש קריות meaning Yehudah or Judah man of Kriot, this is in Greek Judas Ascariot the betrayer of Jesus. Kriot was a small village in Israel and kriot also means small village in Hebrew. He betrayed Jesus with a kiss and commited suicide after returning the money. Interestingly every other disciple at the last passover called Jesus Lord or Master but Judas called Jesus only Rabbi.
So what was the Bible’s origin and when was it written?
I place the giving of the Torah in or about 1440 bce and here is an excerpt from another one of my articles.
“So why should we place the Exodus in the mid 1400’s bce? Let us look at a article out of a website called strategoshistory dot com.
“The date 1445 B.C takes us to the reign of Tuthmosis III – the sixth Pharaoh in Egypt’s 18th dynasty. He was a legendary conqueror and arguably the greatest warrior-Pharaoh in all of Egyptian history. Under his reign, Egypt reached its greatest and most powerful extent. It was the height of the Egyptian golden age.”
“In the 35th year of his reign, he suddenly stopped all military affairs. He had suffered no defeats, but still ceased to fight completely, and never fought again for the rest of his reign (20 years). Why?”
“25 years after Hatshepsut’s death, Thutmosis III went on a rampage to eradicate her name from history. He ordered her statues to be defaced, her name to be erased and her name in the King Lists was removed. Even the monuments built under her were credited someone else. It is possible he also ravaged her tomb – a sacrilege in Egyptian religion. This way, Hatshepsut would never be remembered in history.”
- The Pharaoh’s daughter” at ca. 1525 B.C was Moses’ adoptive mother and the person who raised him as a Prince of Egypt. Who was the daughter?
- She knew that Moses was a Hebrew, yet still decided to raise him in court – why would she do that when the Egyptians were trying to oppress the Israelites at the time?
- She named him Moses. Moses is a royal name belonging to the 18th dynasty (Ahmose I, Thutmosis I, Thutmosis II, Thutmosis III…etc.), but supposedly means “out of water”.
“Why did Tuthmosis cease military activity without reason ,was he defeated by Moses at Yam Suf? Was Hatshepsut Moses’s adoptive mother who found him in the Nile?”
So according to the Torah the Torah was given 50 days after the exodus or Passover. So if the Torah was given on Mt Sinai (aka Mt Horeb) on two tablets of stone in the Proto-Sinaitic script in the Hebrew language. Although Mosheh/Moses did not see God’s literal face God spoke to Moses directly and through inspiration or visions. It is very doubtful that all of Genesis through Deuteronomy was given on Har Sinai directly but most of God’s commandments were given to Moses at that time. I would haver to imagine that most of Genesis was already in Hebrew oral tradition along with early Exodus. I cannot say if all of the Torah was worked out with scribes and Moses together in the desert or if scribes put the Torah in final form after the Israelites took the land of K’naan and claimed it as Eretz Yisrael. I’d also imagine that Joshua wrote most or all of Devarim/Deuteronomy.
So what writing systems were the Torah scribed in. Today Bibles are written in the Ktav Ashuri script as well as all Hebrew today since the Babylonian captivity. The discovery of the Mt Ebal curse tablet by Dr. Scott Stripling in 2019 on a lead tablet is evidence that Proto-Sinaitic was the first script used for Hebrew. Then around the time of King David the Phoenician script was adopted and used until the return of the exiles in the late 6th century bce. Then the modern current Ktav Ashuri was adopted and used to this day.
So what types of medium was the early Bible written, the discovery on Ebal by Scott Stripling point to lead but was that pervasive? Here below is an excerpt from an article James D. Moore.
“The monumental scripts were not products of ink writing
techniques, rather ink scripts were products of a writing technique
more closely associated with those composed on more rigid writing
mediums. The writers’ hands were not trained to write with ink but a
medium such as a wax-board. Writing with ink was a technique that was
foreign to them and they struggled, at times, to write clear letters
and to adapt to the conventions of ink writing. The only economical
and rigid writing medium these writers could have learned on was
wax-boards.”
This points to wax boards as a writing medium in the ancient near east. More below from the same article talking about wax boards.
“Palace of Sargon, King of the World, king of Assyria. The text series
(beginning) Enuma Anu Enlil he had written on an ivory writing-tablet
(lēᵓu) and deposited it in his palace at Dur-Sarrukin.103 A piece of
the wax text on one of the boards survives confirming that Enuma Anu
Enlil was the actual text inscribed on the ivory polyptych. In
addition, fragmented wooden pieces survived of other wax-boards at the
same find spot. The Nimrud boards are clear evidence, not only for the
use of wax writing boards, but for (1) the use of wax-boards for more
than drafting purposes and (2) the use of waxboards for composing
divinatory texts. The Nimrud wax-boards date to the time of many
Hebrew prophets and contain divinatory texts which are of a similar
genre to those of the Hebrew prophecies.
Comparative Evidence: Mesopotamia Mesopotamian writers used wax-boards
during the time the Israelite and Judahite writers composed the Hebrew
prophecies. According to legend, Shamash-resh-uṣur introduced
wax-board technology to Mesopotamia from the west in the eighth
century.99 In reality the technology was present in Mesopotamia as
early as the Ur III period but became popular in the eighth
century.100 Examples of Mesopotamian wax-boards survive from Nimrud.
There both wooden and ivory boards were found encased in watery silt
in Aššur-naṣir-pal’s palace and date to 707-705 B.C.E.101 The ivory
boards formed a sixteen-leaved polyptych and were the text of the
literary omen work, Enuma Anu Enlil.
Wax-Boards Wax-boards were used in the ANE from the early third
millennium B.C.E. through the middle ages C.E. In fact, according to
Jewish mystic texts, wax-boards were used to write the human deeds in
heavenly administrative documents, and “the same practice can be
inferred for earthly administration” as well.87 Until the invention of
the printing press wax-boards were used for drafting and finalizing
compositions. From deeds and contracts to religious and literary
works, textual and archaeological evidence shows that wax-boards were
used throughout the ANE in a variety of ways”
James D. Moore does admit that papyrus degrades quickly and evidence of it would not last to be discovered later. Based on known ancient record papyrus was common in use but not found later on because it degraded beyond salvaging. Here is a final excerpt from the same article.
“The few references to writing mediums in the Hebrew prophecies show
that prophets wrote on many different materials. Isa 8:1 mentions a
גדול גליון, the actual meaning of which is uncertain.61 Jer 36, Ezek
2:9, 3:1-3, and Zeph 5:1-2 refer to a מגלה” a scroll.” Is 30:8, Jer
17:1, 62 and Hab 2:2 make reference to a לוח, the meaning of which is
debated. Jer 17:1 also makes mention of writing on מזבחות קרנות” horns
of altars.” In Ezek 37:16, 20 the prophet writes on עץ” wood,” which
is often translated “sticks” on the basis of the LXX (ῥάβδον). Lastly,
the general term ספר” document” appears at least 42 times in the
Hebrew prophets and could pertain to multiple types of materials.
References to styli in prophetic texts are even more sparse than those
references to writing mediums. Isaiah used a חרט to write on the גדול
גליון in Is 30:8. Jeremiah claims that the ספרים” scribes” used an עט”
pen.” Jeremiah, also says that the sins of Judah are engraved on a
metaphorical tablet and altar horns with an ברזל עט” bronze stylus”
which has a שמיר צפרן” diamond point(?)” (Jer 17:1). The scant
evidence resents conclusions about which material was better suited
for which type of literary genre. Prophecies are recorded on a board לוח in
Isa 30:8 and Hab 2:2, they are recorded on a scroll in Jer 36. The
paucity of internal references to writing”.
It is evident that different things were in use from papyrus and parchment to wood clay and wax. The general idea with the prophets was the short prophecy was delivered to priests or kings and small mediums are not out of the question. Then at the end of a prophets life the priests and scribes would go through a prophets lifetime of writings and organize a scroll, a seifer and then things like parchment and papyrus became very useful for a longer text where you go from short prophecies to a collection of prophecies. A lu’ach לוח is a board and a seifer ספר is a scroll and today a book or codex.
So the Book of Jubilees a deuterocanonical book (books left out of the Bible but not considered directly heretical) implies that Arpakhshad created writing. Here is Jubilees chapter 8 verse 1-3.
- “In the twenty-ninth jubilee, in the first week, [1373 A.M.] in the beginning thereof Arpachshad took to himself a wife and her name was Rasu’eja, the daughter of Susan, the daughter of Elam, and she bare him a son in the third year in this week, [1375 A.M.] and he called his name Kainam.
- And the son grew, and his father taught him writing, and he went to seek for himself a place where he might seize for himself a city.”
The implied meaning is that Arpakhshad created writing at least post flood because the text does not say who taught him writing. This looks like Sumerian Cuneiform and a language called Emegir or simply Sumerian an ancient empire of southern Iraq. The writing system was pictographic and used direct symbols to convey meaning. Egyptian hieroglyphics also uses a pictographic writing system. The concept of using symbols to convey meaning left Mesopotamia and was adopted by Egypt as civilization spread post flood. The cuneiform script was not only used for Emegir but aslo Akkadian which for centuries was the Lingua Franca of the ancient near east. According to this article (Dayagi-Mendels, M. and Arie, E. 2010. Early Hebrew Writing) the Alpha-Bet or that is putting letters together to make sounds and phonetic language developed sometime in the early 2nd millennium and the Phoenicians who were a sea people spread the first Alpha-Bet to other nations like Greece who then inspired Latin. The first Phonetic Alpha-Bet was Proto-Sinaitic loosly based on the Egyptian hieroglyphs but emphasizing sounds not symbols south of Israel and with Proto-Canaanite developing farther north and some Canaanite languages like Ugaritic holding on to Sumerian Cuneiform. However Akkadian Cuneiform held on for a while until the 8th century when the Assyrian Empire adopted Aramaic as it’s official language and the Chaldeans followed suite after conquering Assyria.
According to the same above Israel used Proto-Sinaitic and then Proto-Canaanite script until the 11th century bce when the adopted the Phoenician script which they used until the exile. Although the transition took time and did not happen at once and some Hebrew scribes used the Proto-Canaanite script until about 800 bce when Phoenician (aka Paleo Hebrew) script was used exclusively. It is very interesting that the biggest empires like Egypt and Akkad held on to the pictographic style for so long. It appears that nomadic desert dwellers invented phonetic writing maybe Arabian or Canaanite tribes and then the Phoenicians by ship spread it around the ancient near east, southern Europe etc.. and it was the Syrian Arameans who gave it to Assyria then making Aramaic the language of the near east until the Isalmic conquests of the 6th century. The Israelites were well ahead of their time by adopting the Alpha-Bet in the 15th century bce. We could make an argument here that part of divine inspiration was getting the more sophisticated writing system into the hands of those who would put God’s word into text and scrolls etc.. by proximity.
This quote below from an article by Emanuel Tov of Hebrew University on the issue of scribal corruption.
“From the beginning of the critical scholarship of the Hebrew Bible,
and especially within the historico-critical approach, scholars have
assumed that many biblical books were composed of different layers
superimposed upon earlier texts. The assumption of rewriting previous
formulations has become one of the axioms of historico-critical
analysis, but as far as I know, little thought has been given to the
realiaty of this rewriting. To be true, unconsciously the scholarly
perception is probably influenced more by modern writing habits than
the realiaty of ancient scrolls. Therefore, even the modern scholar, who
knows that in the ancient world every- thing was different, sometimes
does not realize that it was simply impossible to add or delete a
section in the middle of a column. I submit that the shape of the
earliest biblical scrolls did not differ much from that of the Qumran
scrolls (with the possible exception of their length) and that
therefore most rewriting was not superimposed on existing scrolls.
From a technical point of view, it would have been very hard, if not
impossible, to insert, for example, the story of Judah and Tamar”
There have definitely have been scribal errors and scribal corrections but it does not appear that scribes simply made things up, although they did adjust grammar. Remember that from Moses in 1440 bce to Ezra in the mid 400’s bce you have a 1000 years of linguistic evolution. The language of Moses and Joshua would have been very hard to understand within 5 centuries or more, so yes scribes did make changes in grammar and phrasing but not the meaning of the text itself. Here below is an excerpt from one of my earlier article.
(כתיב ובעפלים) יַכְּכָ֨ה יְהֹוָ֜ה בִּשְׁחִ֤ין מִצְרַ֨יִם֙ וּבַטְחֹרִ֔ים
וּבַגָּרָ֖ב וּבֶחָ֑רֶס אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹֽא־תוּכַ֖ל לְהֵֽרָפֵֽא:
In the parenthesis is k’tiv (written) uvalafalim ובעפלים and this word which means “and with swelling” with the root afal meaning to swell. There is a textual correction of the word batchorim בַטְחֹרִ֔ים meaning “hemorrhoids”. This is very interesting in that it shows that scribal adjustment was part of the scripture. Showing that scribes keeping the spirit of divine inspiration would from time to time choose a better word.
This is a slight update but not a total correction. Here below again from my article.
(כתיב ישגלנה) אִשָּׁ֣ה תְאָרֵ֗שׂ וְאִ֤ישׁ אַחֵר֙ יִשְׁכָּבֶ֔נָּה
בַּ֥יִת תִּבְנֶ֖ה וְלֹֽא־תֵשֵׁ֣ב בּ֑וֹ כֶּ֥רֶם תִּטַּ֖ע וְלֹ֥א תְחַלְּלֶֽנּוּ:
You shall be engaged to a woman, but another man will lie with her. You will build a house but you will not live in it. A vineyard you will plant but not redeem of it.
The original in parentheses is yishgaleinah and strong word meaning a violent attack and was changed to yishkavenah which means he will lie down, a bit less blunt and maybe as time went on yishgaleinah was to graphic for synagogue reading. The core meaning is the same here even with a word substitution. Remember scribal change was very necessary because they had no translations. Today we take our favorite native language Bible translation. You can see from my articles I’m pretty good with Hebrew but I am not good at all in Greek, so I do use translations for New Testament reading. Then there was no translations at least not until post Babylonian exile when Aramaic translations were made. So scribes had to change grammar and spelling to keep the Torah understandable. This is a part of inspiration and as you see from the annotated changes in parentheses they had nothing to hide and were not changing the Bible!
So can the Bible say two things at once? Yes and there four levels of Biblical interpretation. The peshat (plain or simple) the remez (hint) the drash (seeking) the sod (the esoteric or secret). Here is Psalm 2 verse 12 or maybe 11 in some Bibles.
All translations say this:
lest He become angry and you perish in the way, for in a moment His wrath will be kindled; the praises of all who take refuge in Him.
נַשְּׁקוּ־בַ֡ר פֶּן־יֶאֱנַ֚ף | וְתֹ֬אבְדוּ דֶ֗רֶךְ כִּֽי־יִבְעַ֣ר כִּמְעַ֣ט אַפּ֑וֹ אַ֜שְׁרֵ֗י כָּל־ח֥וֹסֵי בֽוֹ:
Many translations open as “kiss the Son” meaning Jesus the Son of God. So what is in question? This here: נשקו בר “nashku bar” can mean kiss the son but bar is son in Aramaic, and the use for bar for son was not in use in Biblical Hebrew until after the Babylonian exile. However Psalm 2 appears early unless it was written in the 6th century and not in David’s time and ordered much earlier than its actual writing. Yes nashku can mean kiss him from nashak meaning kiss. This word can mean weapon and can also mean to meet or come together. This statement with the Aramaic for son can mean kiss
Now in Hebrew bar can mean purity, grain or wild flowers. Here below is a alternate translation based on bar meaning purity in Hebrew as opposed to Aramaic for son. This is also the types of linguistic irregularities that many scholars think the Psalms may not have been composed in order.
“Arm yourselves with purity lest He become angry and you perish in the way, for in a moment His wrath will be kindled; the praises of all who take refuge in Him.”
This phrases bar as purity and nashak as a weapon or arm likes arms as in weapons not physical limbs. “come together” or “meet in purity” is another way to look at it. So could this still mean kiss the son and have been written in David’s time? Yes, that is the beauty of divine inspiration is that God can give one plain meaning “bar nashku” “use your purity like a weapon” and in a deeper meaning once the Aramaic era began then it can also mean “kiss the son” (Jesus). Yes the Bible can have simple and esoteric meanings.
Are there more examples, yes, and lets go to Psalm 22. The verse can vary, it is verse 13 in the Hebrew text and is verse 12 in most English translations, nothing was left out it was simply ordered differently.
סְבָבוּנִי פָּרִ֣ים רַבִּ֑ים אַבִּירֵ֖י בָשָׁ֣ן כִּתְּרֽוּנִי
Many bulls have surrounded me, mighty (bulls) of Bashan have encircled me.
In the simple meaning this is talking about David in his time dealing with enemies in Bashan a region in modern Syria. This is also where the modern Golan Heights are which Israel has occupied since the Six Day war. So this region has many modern enemies of Israel and this passage may have predicted parts of the Six day war. This is an example of a prophecy with double meaning. This is also a “Hebrew parallelism” which uses a parallel meaning to convey poetry. As we see here it starts with surrounded and the phrase ends with encircled and that is the parallelism.
My second point will show the more mystical side of scripture. You notice the use of surrounded or encircled two times with two different Hebrew words. In the first phrase you have the word s’vavuni (I am surrounded) from the word סבב savav meaning round or to surround. In the second phrase you have the word kitruni (encircled me) rooted in kiteir כתר meaning circle and this word also means “crown” (keter) because a crown encircles the head. So two different words that are meant to mean “surrounded”. So what does the name “Golan” mean in Arabic, it means “surrounded! There are numerous examples of this type of thing in the Bible if you read and study it closely. Now let us get back to the New Testament for a bit. If you want to learn more about the Hebrew Bible or the Tanakh and the Torah there are plenty more article on both my sites, on both WordPress and Academia.edu on that.
I am not an expert on Greek but lets talk about the scribing of the Greek texts.
The oldest thing mostly intact is the Chester Beaty Papyri housed in Dublin, Ireland. It contains partial versions on every New Testament Book excluding the non-Pauline letters. This dated to the last second or early third century ce.
There is also the even older Rylands Library Papyrus dating to the early second century ce but this only contains a partial copy of the gospel of John.
Codex Sinaiticus: Dated to AD 330–360, this magnificent parchment codex contains the oldest complete New Testament in Greek. It also contains about half of the Old Testament. There is a dispute on this one in that a famous forger claimed to have faked this but this was never proven.
Codex Vaticanus: Dated to around AD 325–350, this is one of the oldest surviving copies of the Greek Bible. It contains an exceptionally well-preserved copy of the New and Old Testaments (though portions of Paul’s letters and Revelation are missing at the end). This is absolutely authentic.
Codex Alexandrinus (c. 400 AD) well intact and undisputed.
The Textus Receptus. This means in Latin received text. This has been for hundreds of years the standard for the translated Protestant Bibles. Erasmus of Rotterdam compiled the Textus Receptus from 8 byzantine manuscripts. Codex Basiliensis A. N. III., Codex Basilensis A. N. IV. 2, Codex Basiliensis A. N. IV. 1, Minuscule 2814, Codex Basilensis A. N. IV. 4, Minuscule 4, Codex Basilensis A.N.IV.5 and Codex Basiliensis A. N. III, 15.
These texts used to compile the Textus Receptus date from the 11-15th centuries and were weaved together into a final text. This text has been criticized for being late in the game. However late Medieval and early modern Europe had a problem. In 1054 ce The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Great Schism parted ways with each other. This made it very hard for western Europe to procure Greek manuscripts of high quality. However this troubled Rome little for they had sufficient Latin manuscripts to copy Bible. The Protestant Reformation brought a demand for New Bibles in native languages like German, Dutch or English and the Protestants did not trust the Latin tests due to there perception of Roman Catholic corruption. Martin Luther and William Tyndale wanted Greek texts but The Eastern Orthodox Church was not cooperating. so the Textus Receptus compiled by Erasmus was used and later also by King James in 1611 for his authorized Version of the Bible which would be the main English translation into the 20th century.
There is no question that the Textus Receptus was inferior to earlier Greek manuscripts, any Greek expert will tell you this. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit Bibles translated with the Textus Receptus like the Authorized King James Version which has been the most read translation of the Bible in the English speaking world. The Holy Spirit not only wrote the Bible but in dark times gave translators the wisdom to negotiate difficult translation material and all of this is part of the miracle that is the Bible.
Leave a Reply