Pre-Flood ages based upon different calendar?

by Inquisitor 86 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Narkissos

  Thank you Leolaia for explaining my point much better.

  I would add two further brief remarks in response to a Christian:

  One popular misunderstanding about textual history is that there is a clear line between redaction and transmission, hence (in the reverse order of knowledge) between textual and literary criticism. That at some point an "author" "publishes" the final version of a "book" (henceforth termed "the original") and then nothing happens except copy and translation (including possible "mistakes" or deliberate "tampering" with "the original," which textual criticism is supposed to sort out through comparative study). Actually redaction and transmission almost always overlap, sometimes for generations or centuries, along different lines (including translation and back-translation at times), before the text somehow "freezes" -- in different states. Only when one particular "edition" has so "frozen" do the scribes stop acting as redactors or re-writers and become "mere copyists". But that means "the original" is a myth. The extant editions/versions may have one common textual ancestor but it is nothing like any of them. For instance, it is practically impossible to go back from the wildly different LXX-type and MT-type versions of Jeremiah to a common Hebrew ancestor text (I mean the "book," not particular verses) and should we discover it someday you would probably find much of your Jeremiah missing. The same would likely be true of the common Greek ancestor of the Western and Alexandrine versions of Acts.

  About the Masoretic textual tradition in the middle-ages, one must not forget that it is tributary to the Pharisaic-Rabbinical standardisation of the Hebrew text which occurred in the wake of the Jewish War(s) in the late 1st and 2nd centuries AD. At that point one text type (anachronically called the "proto-Masoretic" one) was selected and finally "frozen", while the others were forcefully rejected and, as much as possible, destroyed (which was fortunately not the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and... the LXX which was essentially preserved by Christians). So, leaving aside the elusive issue of "truth" and "originals," there is some historical irony in Jerome's shift to hebraica veritas and the modern Western Christian insistence on the MT as the best textual basis.
• 

  Leolaia

  Well, I just spent the last two hours writing a long reply and lost it by pressing the wrong button. Rats!

  So rather than reconstruct the rather eloquent post I was very satisfied with and enjoyed writing, I am forced to respond in unsatisfactory brief form....

  To Narkissos, I mentioned the similar situation with the Quran and the Uthmanic recension, which is an excellent example of "freezing" in the development of a standardized text.

  I gave a point-by-point discussion of a Christian's post, including these points:

  At the time Hebrew manuscripts were being chosen by the Masorites some ten to fourteen hundred years ago to form the basis of their text they no doubt had many MSS to choose from.

  I pointed out that in fact they did not have access to the full range of the textual tradition....they did not have access to the Dead Sea Scrolls, to the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX, to MSS copied in the fourth century BC, etc. They only had access to a subset of the MSS that had ever been copied, and these were all of the proto-MT text type.

  And certainly at that time all those MSS contained slight differences when compared to others which were then available to them

  The differences among the MSS of the proto-MT type are relatively minor compared to the full range of variations in the overall tradition. I discussed in my lost post how the process of standardization began centuries earlier and even the (hexaplaric) LXX gradually assimilated itself with the proto-MT text. Standardization reduced the amount of variation among the available MSS.

  So even if the Masorites never made a single error over the years in copying the MSS they selected to form the basis of their text, the possibility remains that their original choice of MSS may not have been the best choice.

  Best according to what standard?

  It isn't a matter of failing to select the "best" MSS out of what was available, it is a matter of whether the MSS available to the Masoretes represented an early (i.e. more original) form of the text, vis-a-vis other forms of the text known to us today. As I mentioned above, no scribe no matter how careful could recover material that had been lost or detect accretions that entered into the text long ago.

  And of course the possibility exists that no MSS then in existence contained a fully accurate reproduction of the Bible writers' original written words.

  I would say that it is much more than a possibility in most cases.

  I continue to believe that since the MT represents a very carefully preserved copy of fairly ancient Hebrew MSS it is entirely possible that it does in fact represent a very close facsimile to the OT writers' original documents.

  Again, the fallacy here is assuming that the carefulness of the Masoretes mitigates over a thousand years of textual history that preceded them; the early redactors of the OT were not at all like the Masoretes....they added glosses and interpolations, altered the wording for various reasons, dislocated material, accidentally deleted text via homoteleucon, etc. A whole paragraph (which was known to Josephus), for instance, dropped out of 1 Samuel 11 in the MT which was only recovered in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some books (such as 1-2 Samuel, Psalms, Jeremiah) circulated in very diferent editions and we lack any textual evidence of the "prehistory" of the text tradition (say, before the third century BC) to know what existed before these varying editions arose; we have to instead rely on literary critical analysis to reconstruct some of the early redaction history, but this does not necessarily bring us closer to a definitive original text. There are however a few rare early witnesses, such as 1 Chronicles on the text of 1-2 Samuel in the fifth or fourth century BC. Interestingly, the Chronicler knew a version of 1-2 Samuel that was much closer to what is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the LXX than what is found in the MT (e.g. compare 2 Samuel 10:6-9 in 4QSam with 1 Chronicles 19:6-9, and cf. many other similar examples).

  Since we know that the men who translated the LXX often showed no great respect for the work they were hired by "heathens" to do, when the MT differs from the LXX - with very rare exception - I will assume that the MT is the text to be trusted.

  Again, as I stated above, a great many of the LXX variants derive from the Hebrew Vorlage that the translators worked from. These disagreements with the MT have nothing to do with a failure to "respect" the text. The LXX translators could have been as careful as the Masoretes and they still would have passed on what was in the Hebrew text that lay before them.
• 

  LouBelle

  Very interesting topic. The thing is we're taking that all literally. What if that isn't literal - the same as the days of creation aren't literal?
• 

  a Christian

  Leolaia,

  Again I thank you for your thoughtful and very informative reply. Obviously my thinking on this matter has been overly simplistic.

  However, regardless of how exactly the collection of texts which now form the basis of our Bibles were preserved and selected, I believe those texts contain all of the original Bible writers' words which God felt were important for us to now have. In other words I believe those portions of what once was considered by some to be "Holy Scripture" which God allowed to be lost or corrupted he did so because he did not consider them to be either essential for our salvation or important for our enlightenment.

  I am interested to know how you believe on this matter. Do you consider the Bible to be "the Word of God"? If so, how do you define "the Bible"? Do you believe any of the books of the "Apocrypha" belong in the Bible canon?

  From what I gather, some who have participated in this discussion, partly due to the issues we have here discussed, have little faith in or use for the Bible, or maybe for that matter its supposed Author. I'm just curious. Do you believe as I do that God saw to it to preserve for us today all parts of the written works he long ago inspired which he felt were important for us to have? If not, how do you now view the Bible and the God whom most of its readers believe inspired both its writing and its preservation?
• 

  hillary_step

  A Christian,

  However, regardless of how exactly the collection of texts which now form the basis of our Bibles were preserved and selected, I believe those texts contain all of the original Bible writers' words which God felt were important for us to now have.

  As I have noted in my post above, in the final event rather than facing the facts, many religionists fall back on the notion of "divine preservation". It is their only option apart from viewing the Bible as a book of "faith" but flawed when it comes to matters of history and science, and therefore not the literal and unimpeachable word of any God.

  What is even more interesting is understanding why some Christians can accept a Bible with limits and why some can not. It seems to me that a person with a more mature faith in the Bible does not need to fall back on "divine intervention" as an escape clause where Biblical fallibility is concerned. If faith could be measured, I wonder whether there would in fact be any difference between the two camps, and faith after all is what belief in a God is all about.

  HS
• 

  johnny cip

  OK my guess at how these people lived 900 years. is that they were counting full Moons. not 365 day years. take 960 full moons and divide by 13 per year . and you get 73. years old. jews are know for counting full moons. it how the old jewish calander works. it's pretty simple.
• 

  Leolaia

  a Christian.....I view the Bible as a library of different books written at different times by different authors that came to be canonized at different times under diferent authorities. There is not just one Bible, but many different anthologies if you compare the Bibles of the Anglicans with the Protestants with the Roman Catholics with the Nestorians with the Armenians with the Russian Orthodox with the Ethiopian Christians. And the early church had different ideas of what is considered "scripture" than the post-Nicene church. I am not going to make any judgment which Bible is superior to the other, or what is the "right" canon; each canon represents what each different community considers authoritative and eddifying. I do question the (modern) Protestant conflation of the notions of inspiration with authority and scripture, as if only the 66 books of the received canon can have all three properties. Not only does that run up against the Protestest criterion of sola scriptura (as the Bible itself does not set up its own canon or equate inspired = canonical = scriptural), but it is at odds with what is stated in their Bible itself (such as the author of Jude using 1 Enoch throughout his epistle and quoting it as an inspired "prophecy"). There are many examples in the early church of books used that are recognized as scripture or inspired but not as canonical.

  And with respect to 2 Timothy 3:16, the NT as a whole did not yet form part of scripture and we do not know what the author considered to be "scripture" (although he does use the story of Jannes and Jambres as a teaching example, which pertains to a book in the pseudepigrapha, not the Tanakh). Even the meaning of theopneustos is open to interpretation, as it could range between "God-enlivened" to "God-dictated". Inspiration is not the same thing as inerrancy or infallibility (i.e. the assumption that if God breathed it, it must be perfect) as you probably know from the OT; God also breathes into man the breath of life (Genesis 2:7, Job 33:4), but that doesn't make man inerrant or perfect. The OT background in fact suggests that the expression is intended to characterize scripture as alive, as animated by divine agency (and hence not dead but useful for teaching or reproving), and not necessarily that scripture contains only the voice of God and not man. I think even a cursory reading of the different books of the "Bible" bears out a multiplicity of voices and views (as you would except with any anthology), and I believe that the original intent or meaning of a text can be obscured or overriden by harmonizing it with other writings in a post facto collection (thought to represent a single voice). This is the case even with books presenting themselves as containing the literal voice of God (such as the OT prophetical books).

  I believe that inerrancy and infallibility are presumptions about the text that can bias an appraisal of its features, such as leading one to maintain an untenable position when the evidence is judged on its own terms because the alternative would contradict these presumptions.

  I believe those texts contain all of the original Bible writers' words which God felt were important for us to now have. In other words I believe those portions of what once was considered by some to be "Holy Scripture" which God allowed to be lost or corrupted he did so because he did not consider them to be either essential for our salvation or important for our enlightenment.

  Here an underlying belief about what the original text should have been like (that it corresponds to the present Bible text) leads you to prefer some textual judgments over others, not on the basis of what the evidence may indicate on its own terms. Of course, the idea that "God allowed some parts of the Bible to be lost or corrupted" is a non-biblical belief motivated by this assumption, but also it is not the only way one could construe God's agency on the life of the text. One could just as easily believe that God played a role in modifying the original text in its transmission, as part of a continuing revelation of God. I think it is better to evaluate the textual evidence by itself without having a presumption of what the original text should have been like.
• 

  quietlyleaving

  Leo

  Even the meaning of theopneustos is open to interpretation, as it could range between "God-enlivened" to "God-dictated". Inspiration is not the same thing as inerrancy or infallibility (i.e. the assumption that if God breathed it, it must be perfect) as you probably know from the OT; God also breathes into man the breath of life (Genesis 2:7, Job 33:4), but that doesn't make man inerrant or perfect.

  fantastic reasoning
• 

  a Christian

  HS, You wrote: rather than facing the facts, many religionists fall back on the notion of "divine preservation". I wonder what facts you feel I have not faced. That the Bible cannot possibly be anything more than a very ordinary collection of books just because it can be shown that those books have not all been perfectly preserved over the last 3,500 years? Very few serious students of the scriptures believe that the Bible, as we now have it, contains perfectly preserved copies of all of the Bible writers' original written works. Rather most Christians believe as I do, that God saw to it to preserve all parts of the Bible that he considered to be essential for our salvation and important for our enlightenment.

  Correct me if I am wrong. But It seems your understanding of the "facts" appears in your words, "... the Bible [is] a book of 'faith' but flawed when it comes to matters of history and science, and therefore not the literal and unimpeachable word of any God." If that is how you view the Bible it is certainly an understandable opinion. It is one I would now hold myself, especially when it comes to "matters of history," if not for the fact that my recent exhaustive studies into this subject matter have left me with exactly the opposite opinion.
• 

  Leolaia

  Back to the subject of "Cainan":

  And if that is the case then his illegitimate appearance in the LXX is what must have inspired the author of the Book of Jubilees to refer to him.

  No, Jubilees was not dependent on the LXX per se, as it utilized the Hebrew text directly. The witness to Cainan in Jubilees is evidence that this name was already in the Hebrew prior to its rendering in the Greek LXX.

  And it then may have been both his mention in the LXX translation of Genesis and his mention in the Book of Jubilees that inspired a copyist of Luke to improperly take it upon himself to "correct" Luke's genealogy of Christ to include this "second Cainan."

  But as mentioned earlier, the structure of the genealogy itself supports the view that "Cainan" is original to the genealogy. I was reading yesterday an article by Richard Bauckham on the Lukan genealogy (and its parallels with the Apocalypse of Weeks), and he made a lot of other good points supporting this analysis. He pointed out that if "Admin" (v. 33) is regarded as original to Luke, the 77 generations from Adam to Jesus (consisting of 11 weeks of generations) have a structure in which the sabbath positions of the genealogy point to Jesus:

  1st week: Enoch, 2nd week: Sala, 3rd week: Abraham, 4th week: Admin, 5th week: David, 6th week: Joseph, 7th week (jubilee position): Jesus, 8th week: Salathiel, 9th week: Mattathias, 10th week: Joseph, 11th week: Jesus

  As mentioned above, the genealogy has a symmetrical plan of 3 weeks to Abraham, and the coming of the Abrahamic covenant, and then 2 weeks to David and the coming of the Davidic kingdom, and then 3 weeks for the Davidic kingdom to the exile, which marked the end of the Davidic kingdom, and then 3 weeks for the post-exilic period to Jesus. Bauckham explains that the week schema places special importance on the conclusion of the week, the sabbath, and the jubilee week (the 49th week) has even greater importance. It is thus noteworthy that the name "Jesus" occupies this jubilee position (foreshadowing the individual of central importance to the genealogy), and that the person preceding him in the sabbath position is TWICE Joseph (i.e. in the sabbaths of both the 6th and the 10th weeks), which points to Jesus' father Joseph directly preceding him in the genealogy. I think Bauckham makes a persuasive case that the genealogy is organized into weeks and these patterns fall out of the genealogy only if "Cainan" was original to Luke.