The Masoretes
Wisdom makes one wise person more powerful than ten rulers in a city. Ecclesiastes 7:19 NIV
Ten rulers – Most modern translations of the Hebrew Scriptures are based on a text complied by a group of rabbinic scholars called the Masoretes. They worked between the 6th and the 10th Centuries CE in Tiberias and Jerusalem. They are the ones responsible for diacritical pointing of the text, and for cantillation and syllabication. In other words, nearly all modern versions of the Hebrew Scriptures and modern translations can be traced to the Masoretes. What this means is that our Bibles depend on the recording of the text from 600 to 1000 CE, hundreds of years after the original texts were written. Furthermore, the Masoretes had agendas. They didn’t just copy the texts. They standardized them. They made changes based on their own views. For example, they added vowels (pointing), fixed syllables and, sometimes, altered the consonants themselves. What this means is that your Bible today isn’t always what the original documents contained. It is what the Masoretes wanted it to contain.
In the past we’ve mentioned as some of these problems (like the fact that the Dead Sea scrolls have more than 150 psalms and contain additional material in the book of Kings). Today we will look at just one verse in Ecclesiastes that has been modified and draw some conclusions about the reliability of our contemporary Bibles. The verse is Ecclesiastes 7:19. The problem is the phrase “ten magnates (rulers).” This idea (ten rulers governing a city) is a Roman institution. If Ecclesiastes were written after the Babylonian captivity, this method of ruling did not exist [obviously, it doesn’t come from the time of Solomon either]. The wording in the text reflects something that the Masoretes knew but does not match anything existing at the time of the writing. Michael Fox notes: “However, by dividing the words differently and repointing them, we can translate ‘than the wealth of magnates’ (Trans.). Wisdom is more powerful than great wealth.”[1] So we see that the real problem is the way the Masoretes pointed the text and the way they divided the syllables. Historical correction and textual criticism help us uncover these issues, but if you do a quick review of modern translations, you’ll discover that none of these translations pay any attention to this problem. They all just use the MT (Masoretic Text).
There is, unfortunately, another issue. There were two major groups of Masoretes and they each preserved their own versions of the Tanakh. When we compare these two versions, we find approximately 875 differences between the two. It’s not just a matter of the MT. It’s also a matter of which version of the MT is considered as the authority. All of this makes definitive claims about particular Bible verses much more difficult. The usual evangelical response is that none of these differences affect any major doctrine. But is that a sufficient answer? Are we only concerned with the big ideas? It seems to me that we must acknowledge the history of transmission before we can make claims about biblical authority and certainty. And that’s uncomfortable, especially for people who want to know THE TRUTH.
All of this does not mean the Bible isn’t trustworthy. What it means is that the Bible is not the only source of our faith. Experience of God’s handiwork in your life and mine, in the lives of others, past and present, also matters—a great deal. It’s not just the words that make trust a reality. If it were only the words, then a lot of biblical heroes would be in real trouble. They didn’t even have the words we have. No, we must temper our experiences with God by the historical facts of the way His words were handed down to us, and while we may not have the Greek idea of Truth (with a capital T) available, that does not mean we have lost all our hope and heritage. Trusting God is not limited to the accuracy of the Bible. We don’t worship a book.
Topical Index: rulers, wealth, Masoretes, Ecclesiastes 7:19
[1] Michael V. Fox, The JPS Bible Commentary: Ecclesiastes (JPS, 2004), p. 50.
