To get started…
What causes someone to dismiss the contents of the Old Testament out of hand?
What evidences would you use to defend the integrity of the Old Testament
Scriptures?
Evaluating the Accuracy of the Old Testament
A. Evaluating the accuracy of the Old Testament begins with understanding what
it is
B. The Old Testament is, primarily, a record/history of the people of Israel/Jews
C. Therefore, the legitimacy of the Old Testament is dependent on the
testimonies therein
II. Old Testament Textual Criticism
A. Definition: the science and art that seeks to determine the most reliable
reading of the Hebrew text.
i. Science- involves rule sand specific protocols
ii. Art- Rules cannot be rigidly applied
iii. Intuition and Common Sense
B. Informed judgments about a text depend on one's familiarity with copyist
errors, manuscripts, versions, and their authors
i. Reasons for copyist errors;
A. Poor quality Vorlages
B. Copying under poor conditions
C. Lack of training
D. Unintentional/intentional scribal changes
C. The Goal of OT Criticism
i. Goal: to determine the final, authoritative form, which then was
maintained by the scribes and was later recorded in the canon.
ii. This assumes that there has always been a relative "uniformity" of the
textual tradition in the religious circles around the temple, even amidst
the "plurality" that developed before the turn of the century.
Good To Know
There is very little question about the reliability of most of the Hebrew text-
textual criticism really only deals with small portion of the overall text.
However, it is crucial for the OT textual critic to have a good understanding of the
history of the OT text in order to understand how the process of its preservation
affects OT textual criticism
III. History of the Hebrew Text
A. Shortly after the third millennium in both Egypt [hieroglyphics] and
Mesopotamia [Sumerian], people began to write historical works
describing wars, famines, and conquering of empires.
B. Shortly after the beginning of the Christian era (AD 70-200), a second
group of scribes arose called that Tannaim who began copying their
traditions.
C. Sometime during this period meticulous rules were developed to
preserve the OT text in synagogue scrolls.
1. Clean parchments
2. Column length was restricted
3. Lined pages
4. No reliance on memory
5. Wash up
6. Special care for the sacred name of Yhwh
D. Finally, about 500-1000 AD, a fourth group of scribes called Masoretes
inherited the scribal traditions and preserved them.
IV. Process of Old Testament Criticism
A. Identify errors
1. Unintentional changes
A. A confusion of similar letters
B. Homophony-substitution of similar sounding
letters
C. Haplography- omission of a letter or word
D. Dittography- word or letter repetition
E. Metathesis- word/letter reversal
F. Fusion- incorrect word division
G. Fission- incorrect word separation
2. Intentional errors
A. Changes in spelling or grammar
B. Clearing up difficulties
C. Euphemistic changes
B. Follow Good Methodology
1. Collect evidence from various sources
2. Evaluate the internal and external evidence
3. Determine the most reliable reading of the text
4. Attempt an Emendation (an attempt to reconstruct an original
reading that has not survived among the extant manuscripts)
A. Fun Fact
1. 90% of the text is without significant variation- Bruce Walke
2. The number of manuscripts for both the OT and NT dwarfs
those for other sacred books (Qur'an and Book of Mormon)
V.
