-
Study Number 5—The Hebrew Text of the Holy Scriptures“All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial”
-
-
ERA OF MANUSCRIPT COPYING
3. What need arose for additional copies of the Scriptures, and how was this filled?
3 From Ezra’s time forward, there was an increased demand for copies of the Hebrew Scriptures. Not all the Jews returned to Jerusalem and Palestine in the restoration of 537 B.C.E. and thereafter. Instead, thousands remained in Babylon, while others migrated for business and other reasons, with the result that they were to be found in most of the large commercial centers of the ancient world. Many Jews would make annual pilgrimages back to Jerusalem for the various temple festivals, and there they would share in the worship conducted in Biblical Hebrew. In Ezra’s time the Jews in these many faraway lands used local assembly places known as synagogues, where readings and discussions of the Hebrew Scriptures took place.a Because of the many scattered places of worship, copyists had to multiply the supply of handwritten manuscripts.
4. (a) What was a genizah, and how was it used? (b) What valuable find was made in one of these in the 19th century?
4 These synagogues usually had a storage room known as the genizah. In the course of time, the Jews placed in the genizah discarded manuscripts that had become torn or worn with age, replacing them with new ones for current synagogue use. From time to time, the contents of the genizah would be solemnly buried in the earth, in order that the text—containing the holy name of Jehovah—might not be desecrated. Over the centuries, thousands of old Hebrew Bible manuscripts disappeared from use in this way. However, the well-stocked genizah of the synagogue in Old Cairo was spared this treatment, probably because it was walled up and forgotten until the middle of the 19th century. In 1890, when the synagogue was being repaired, the contents of the genizah were reexamined and its treasures were gradually either sold or donated. From this source, fairly complete manuscripts and thousands of fragments (some said to be of the sixth century C.E.) have found their way to Cambridge University Library and other libraries of Europe and America.
5. (a) What ancient Hebrew manuscripts have now been cataloged, and how old are they? (b) What does a study of them reveal?
5 Today, in various libraries of the world, there have been counted and cataloged perhaps 6,000 manuscripts of all or portions of the Hebrew Scriptures. Until recently there were no such manuscripts (except for a few fragments) older than the tenth century C.E. Then, in 1947, in the area of the Dead Sea, there was discovered a scroll of the book of Isaiah, and in subsequent years additional priceless scrolls of the Hebrew Scriptures came to light as caves in the Dead Sea area surrendered rich treasures of manuscripts that had been hidden for nearly 1,900 years. Experts have now dated some of these as having been copied in the last few centuries B.C.E. The comparative study of the approximately 6,000 manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures gives a sound basis for establishing the Hebrew text and reveals faithfulness in the transmission of the text.
-
-
Study Number 5—The Hebrew Text of the Holy Scriptures“All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial”
-
-
Few of the existing manuscript copies are older than the 13th century C.E.
-
-
Study Number 5—The Hebrew Text of the Holy Scriptures“All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial”
-
-
13. What valuable fragments of the Septuagint have survived to this day, and of what value are they?
13 There are still available for study today a considerable number of fragments of the Septuagint written on papyrus. They are valuable because they belong to early Christian times, and though often just a few verses or chapters, they help in assessing the text of the Septuagint. The Fouad Papyri collection (Inventory No. 266) was discovered in Egypt in 1939 and has been found to be of the first century B.C.E. It contains portions of the books of Genesis and Deuteronomy. In the fragments of Genesis, the divine name does not occur because of the incomplete preservation. However, in the book of Deuteronomy, it occurs in various places, written in square Hebrew characters within the Greek text.d Other papyri date down to about the fourth century C.E., when the more durable vellum, a fine grade of parchment generally made from calf, lamb, or goat skins, began to be used for writing manuscripts.
14. (a) What does Origen testify as to the Septuagint? (b) When and how was the Septuagint tampered with? (c) What witness must the early Christians have given in using the Septuagint?
14 It is of interest that the divine name, in the form of the Tetragrammaton, also appears in the Septuagint of Origen’s six-column Hexapla, completed about 245 C.E. Commenting on Psalm 2:2, Origen wrote of the Septuagint: “In the most accurate manuscripts THE NAME occurs in Hebrew characters, yet not in today’s Hebrew [characters], but in the most ancient ones.”e The evidence appears conclusive that the Septuagint was tampered with at an early date, Kyʹri·os (Lord) and The·osʹ (God) being substituted for the Tetragrammaton. Since the early Christians used manuscripts containing the divine name, it cannot be supposed that they followed Jewish tradition in failing to pronounce “THE NAME” during their ministry. They must have been able to witness to Jehovah’s name directly from the Greek Septuagint.
15. (a) Using the chart on page 314, describe the vellum and leather manuscripts of the Septuagint. (b) What references does the New World Translation make to these?
15 There are hundreds of vellum and leather manuscripts of the Greek Septuagint still in existence. A number of these, produced between the fourth century C.E. and the ninth century C.E., are important because of the large sections of the Hebrew Scriptures that they cover. They are known as uncials because they are written entirely in large, separated capital letters. The remainder are called minuscules because they are written in a smaller, cursive style of handwriting. Minuscule, or cursive, manuscripts remained in vogue from the ninth century until the inception of printing. The outstanding uncial manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries, namely, the Vatican No. 1209, the Sinaitic, and the Alexandrine, all contain the Greek Septuagint with some slight variations. Frequent references are made to the Septuagint in the footnotes and comments in the New World Translation.f
-