Which Bible?

All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;  2 Timothy 3:16  NASB

Inspired – Please don’t get me wrong.  I’m not trying to poke holes in your favorite English Bible translation.  But I do want to point out that there might be a great many more assumptions about the integrity and authority of your Bible than you think.  And, unfortunately, scholars have known this for a long time but have done very little to help the average believer understand what this means.

In an article written for the Proceedings of the Seventh Meeting of the IOQS in Helsinki on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Corrado Martone made some important points about the differences in ancient manuscripts and the juggling act performed by modern translations: [1]

 . . . it is worth noting Harry M. Orlinsky’s judgment on the Aleppo, Leningrad and Or 2626–27–28 biblical manuscripts:

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that none of these manuscripts or of the printed editions based on them has any greater merit or “masoretic” authority than most of the many editions of the Bible, than, say, the van der Hooght, Hahn, Letteris, Baer, Rabbinic and Ginsburg bibles.[2]

On the other hand it is undeniable that, if the result of a critical edition of a given text is (or can be) arbitrary, the choice of the best manuscript is no less arbitrary and, it goes without saying, entails “an inevitable subjective element.”

The word Bible evokes the image of a unified book, a codex, a unit, a collected anthology; but this was not the case in the late Second Temple period.  In this regard, the distinction between “biblical” and “nonbiblical” manuscripts is likely to create more problems than it would solve.

In fact, if the text of a historical source is corrupt, it is self- evident that the resulting historical information will be corrupt and on this matter it is not necessary to point out that, to a very great extent, the Bible is our only source for the history of ancient Israel.

Martone provides six examples of translations that “borrow” verses from non-canonical sources.  Here is just one:

Another example from 4QSama is very interesting. 1 Samuel 10:27 is attested in MT as follows:

וְּבֵ֧ני ְבִלַיַּ֣על ָאְמ֗רוּ ַמה־יִֹּשֵׁע֙נ֙וּ ֶ֔זה ַוִיְּבֻ֕זהוּ ְוֽלֹא־ֵהִ֥ביאוּ ֖לוֹ ִמְנָ֑חה ַוְיִ֖הי ְכַּמֲחִֽרישׁ

this verse is translated in the New International Version (1978) as follows:

But some troublemakers said, “How can this fellow save us?” They despised him and brought him no gifts. But Saul kept silent.

and in the Revised Standard Version (1952) as follows:

But some worthless fellows said, “How can this man save us?” And they despised him, and brought him no present. But he held his peace.

In the 1989 New Revised Standard Version, however, the same verse is different:

But some worthless fellows said, “How can this man save us?” They despised him and brought him no present. But he held his peace. Now Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had been grievously oppressing the Gadites and the Reubenites. He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer. No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had not gouged out. But there were seven thousand men who had escaped from the Ammonites and had entered Jabesh-Gilead.

It is clear that this latter translation is based on the text of 4QSama, first published by F. M. Cross in the 1950s (4Q51 10a 4–8).

Martone concludes with a citation from Orlinsky:

it is only the Hebrew books (not even their order beyond the Torah, i.e., the order of the books that came to constitute the Prophets and the Writings) that were canonized, not the Hebrew text of these books. The Hebrew text of the Bible was never canonized or fixed.[3]

What is the result for you and me?  First, it should be obvious that the claim to exclusively translate the “standard” Masoretic Text is not true.  Translations use many different sources, not all canonized, to produce an English Bible—without telling the reader what source they are using.  Second, it should be just as obvious that there was no standardized text in the Second Temple period even if there was a canonized list of books.  Believing communities enjoyed a much more fluid notion of inspiration than we assume today.  And finally, what do we do with this?

 You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I am commanding you. Deuteronomy 4:2 NASB

Maybe we need to stop holding on to the idea that you can’t believe unless the text is certain.  Apparently no one in the Second Temple period had any difficulty with multiple renditions, substitutions, additions, or subtractions from the “biblical” text, so why do we?  It seems to me that these circumstances tell us more about ourselves than they do about the text.

Topical Index: Bible, inspiration, authority, certainty, 2 Timothy 3:16

[1] All citations from Corrado Martone, “ALL THE BIBLES WE NEED:
THE IMPACT OF THE QUMRAN EVIDENCE ON BIBLICAL LOWER CRITICISM,” in The Scrolls and Biblical Traditions: Proceedings of the Seventh Meeting of the IOQS in Helsinki (Brill, 2012).

[2] Harry M. Orlinsky, “The Septuagint and its Hebrew Text,” in The Hellenistic Age (ed. William D. Davies and Louis Finkelstein; vol. 2 of The Cambridge History of Judaism; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 534–62 at 557

[3] Harry M. Orlinsky, “The Septuagint and its Hebrew Text,” p. 552, n. 1