The Septuagint vs. The Masoretic Text

[Erose]

Good Day,

Even more enjoyable is an internet poster claiming to belong to the Roman denomination who lacks the understanding and ability to interpret the teaching of the Bishop with in their own denomination...

A couple things I would like to start with. 1) I would love to see the whole document, and not just one exert that most probably is being taken out of context. I just don't accept quotes that cannot be referenced. 2) What little I know of the St. Cajetan, this just doesn't sound like something that he would say, so like I said if you are going to provide a exert as your proof, the burden is on you to provide a solid reference for it so that one can fact check. 3) When St. Cajetan was dealing with Luther, he was not a bishop at that time.

Great unhistorical assertions you make here..... I stick to the Bishop as I find him much more compelling historically than you and clearly has a greater understanding of the issue than you do.

It is still questionable whether or not your assertion or you exert is historical. It is most probably taken out of context, which is a normal technique used by the sites that you probably got this exert from.

If you have an historical source of someone attempting to correct Cajetan as his shows how scripture is to be viewed, and the correct understanding of previous councils on the issue then please cite it, I would love to see it as would so many other current day Roman Catholic historians.

No I don't have that type of source, but at this time I don't need that source as you must first prove two things to me. 1) That this is an actual quote from St. Cajetan, and 2) that this exert wasn't taken out of context. Until then the burden of evidence is upon you. What I do have is the long standing teaching of the Church on the Christian OT canon, from the synods of Rome (382) Decree of Damasus, from the Acts of the Roman Synod, 382 A.D.,

Hippo (393), which we no longer have the documents from but the canon established at Hippo was reaffirmed at the council of Carthage (419) CHURCH FATHERS: Council of Carthage (A.D. 419),

Then you have a letter of Pope Innocent I in 405AD Letter of Innocent I on the Canon of Scripture

Then you throw in the Council of Florence and Trent, and you see that the Protestant differentiation was not part of the official understanding of the Christian Biblical canon.

As to Jerome, he is not stating his view, but giving the view of the church:

As the church reads...... this was the preface used for Wisdom of Solomon in the Latin he wrote under the direction of the Bishop of Rome.

I would think if the Bishop of Rome did not agree there would be a record of his disagreement, seeing none in history it is fair to assume he agreed with Jerome.

No. Jerome was not. In the comments that he made there were two types: His opinion or the opinion of the Jews during his time. The perfect rebuttal of this false understanding is the Vulgate itself, which possesses the whole Christian OT and not the Masoretic canon.

The pope who tasked Jerome with developing a new translation of the Bible for the Roman Church was none other than Pope St. Damasus I, who presided over the Synod of Rome (see above) that declared the Biblical Canon of the Western Church.

As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church. If any one is better pleased with the edition of the Seventy, there it is, long since corrected by me. For it is not our aim in producing the new to destroy the old. And yet if our friend reads carefully, he will find that our version is the more intelligible, for it has not turned sour by being poured three times over into different vessels, but has been drawn straight from the press, and stored in a clean jar, and has thus preserved its own flavour.

To be fair to Jerome, during his time, the Christians of Alexandria and Jerusalem did have a smaller Canon. But in the West it had the full canon, as shown by both the Synods of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage; but also by the writing so St. Augustine as well:

Now the whole canon of Scripture on which we say this judgment is to be exercised, is contained in the following books:—Five books of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; one book of Joshua the son of Nun; one of Judges; one short book called Ruth, which seems rather to belong to the beginning of Kings; next, four books of Kings, and two of Chronicles, these last not following one another, but running parallel, so to speak, and going over the same ground. The books now mentioned are history, which contains a connected narrative of the times, and follows the order of the events. There are other books which seem to follow no regular order, and are connected neither with the order of the preceding books nor with one another, such as Job, and Tobias, and Esther, and Judith, and the two books of Maccabees, and the two of Ezra, which last look more like a sequel to the continuous regular history which terminates with the books of Kings and Chronicles. Next are the Prophets, in which there is one book of the Psalms of David; and three books of Solomon, viz., Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. For two books, one called Wisdom and the other Ecclesiasticus, are ascribed to Solomon from a certain resemblance of style, but the most likely opinion is that they were written by Jesus the son of Sirach. Still they are to be reckoned among the prophetical books, since they have attained recognition as being authoritative. The remainder are the books which are strictly called the Prophets: twelve separate books of the prophets which are connected with one another, and having never been disjoined, are reckoned as one book; the names of these prophets are as follows:—Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; then there are the four greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. The authority of the Old Testament is contained within the limits of these forty-four books. That of the New Testament, again, is contained within the following:—Four books of the Gospel, according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John; fourteen epistles of the Apostle Paul—one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, two to the Thessalonians, one to the Colossians, two to Timothy, one to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews: two of Peter; three of John; one of Jude; and one of James; one book of the Acts of the Apostles; and one of the Revelation of John. CHURCH FATHERS: On Christian Doctrine, Book II (St. Augustine) see chapter 8.

 

[Erose]

It is a moot point to make an argument from authority with people who do not believe in with the same quasi-magical, mysterious, miraculous authority of an infallible Pope and Church as what you maintain is self-evident.

On this part I agree. Your church or any church for that matter that isn't part of the Catholic Church really has it own authority to establish their own Biblical Canon.

The point that I am arguing against is the bewildering attempts of justification made when this is done. And most people (if there is really anyone that truly knows) don't really know the real reasons for the Protestant traditions removing the books from the Bible. Most just have been taught or just assume that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches have added books to the Bible, and quite frankly that is a purely false statement.

And then to justify why the Masoretic text was chosen, with the Masorite canon, by appealing to someone who quite frankly did not have the authority, nor really claimed to have the authority, is really a sad attempt of justification.

Anyway why just state the facts why the Christian OT Canon was rejected for the Masorite Canon? And then just call it closed. Why do many Protestant preachers and teachers feel the need to change history to justify their OT canon? Why do they feel the need to lie to their students and those in the pews and tell them that the evil old Catholic Church added books to the Bible at the council of Trent? That is what I am questioning.

Not saying that you or your particular church does such a thing; but there are plenty out there who do so.

It is perfectly acceptable for all of us to understand that it was just St Jerome's opinion. What makes the opinion of the Pope any more credible though, than that of Jerome, except for magical thinking that this must be so?

St Jerome's opinion on the other hand is the opinion of the pre-eminent Biblical scholar of his day.
And yes, that is still just an opinion. But it is also an opinion that falls into an early historical time period, and therefore is testimony to the diversity of opinion regarding what makes up Scripture from a very early date.

That is fine, but one question for you though. What is your opinion of St. Augustine' skill with Scripture?

Jerome nevertheless does not reject the Masoretic text, but the Vulgate is a translation that relies heavily on the Masoretic text, does it not? What Jerome had problems was the idea that the Greek Deuterocanons were of the same quality as the more ancient Hebrew texts that preceded all that came after.

Well to start off with the Masoretic text did not exist during the period of Jerome. What is called the proto-Masoretic text(s) is what he translated from. This is an area that many don't realize. The Masoretic text is a revision of the Hebrew texts done between the 6th and 10th centuries. Before then there were more than a couple of Hebrew texts that did have some variations in them.

It was a question of quality then, and that question was raised in Jerome in his day, just as surely as it is raised by Christians who share his same reservations in this day.

Arguments from authority miss the point in interdenominational studies, for 'it is true because I say it is true' does not do nothing to address the issue of quality, which was the main contention in the first place.

The other point that needs to be made here is that the biblical canon of the Masorites established and was eventually accepted by all Jews was not the same Biblical canon used by Jews during the time of Christ. The early lists that we have of the books that were suppose to be part of the 22 scrolls, do not match up exactly to the Masorite canon. Then you throw in the very fact that the various factions of Jews had a very differing understanding of what writings were canonical. For instance the Sadducees and Samaritans only accepted the Torah. The 22 Scroll Canon seems to be the canon of the Pharisees. The Essenes had a much larger Canon than any other group. The Jews in Alexandria and many synagogues among the Diaspora Jews had a canon closer to the books generally tied to the LXX. So canon is not as simple concept as many are led to believe.

On the other hand, The LXXvs the Masoretic as it pertains to Deuterocanons is really an apple and oranges issue, since Deuterocanons are not a part of the Masoretic in the first place, and there is nothing to compare to.

The larger issue of course is which version of the Bible is truer when the comparison is between books that the two versions share.

True on both accounts. I think the problem is here, that we can never truly know, unless we find the original documents. Even then we wouldn't know them if we seen them unless there was some miracle attributed to them. IMO.

Anyway, what we are learning is that the OT Bible went through more of its fair share of revisions, and interpolations, and additions.

The Vulgate of Jerome remains truer to the Masoretic than the LXX, does it not? It is my understanding that it did.

It remains truer to the proto-Masoretic texts as it predated the Masoretic text, but yes, when there are deviations between the Masoretic text and the LXX, more often it aligns with the Masoretic text. But not in all cases.

 

[Achilles6129]

I suppose one could understand those statements your way. It doesn't seem a very natural reading though. And it flies in the face of the NT being pretty indifferent to the question, apparently drawing from Greek, Hebrew and paraphrases of the texts.

So, no. I think I have to conclude it reflects more of a human obsession with wanting certainty on irrelevant detail while being distracted from the message.

Why isn't "not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law" in reference to the immutability and inviolability of Scripture not a natural reading?

The NT is not at all indifferent to the question! It may paraphrase the text here or there but in each case it preserves the exact sense of the text. What do you make of statements such as:

"17 Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth." Jn. 17:17 (NASB)

God word is truth, meaning that there are no lies nor contradictions in anything that God says. Obviously, if we've got two different versions of what God says, each with a different meaning and sense, then somebody's wrong. And we have to find out who.

 

[BBAS 64]

A couple things I would like to start with. 1) I would love to see the whole document, and not just one exert that most probably is being taken out of context. I just don't accept quotes that cannot be referenced. 2) What little I know of the St. Cajetan, this just doesn't sound like something that he would say, so like I said if you are going to provide a exert as your proof, the burden is on you to provide a solid reference for it so that one can fact check. 3) When St. Cajetan was dealing with Luther, he was not a bishop at that time.


It is still questionable whether or not your assertion or you exert is historical. It is most probably taken out of context, which is a normal technique used by the sites that you probably got this exert from.


No I don't have that type of source, but at this time I don't need that source as you must first prove two things to me. 1) That this is an actual quote from St. Cajetan, and 2) that this exert wasn't taken out of context. Until then the burden of evidence is upon you. What I do have is the long standing teaching of the Church on the Christian OT canon, from the synods of Rome (382) Decree of Damasus, from the Acts of the Roman Synod, 382 A.D.,

Hippo (393), which we no longer have the documents from but the canon established at Hippo was reaffirmed at the council of Carthage (419) CHURCH FATHERS: Council of Carthage (A.D. 419),

Then you have a letter of Pope Innocent I in 405AD Letter of Innocent I on the Canon of Scripture

Then you throw in the Council of Florence and Trent, and you see that the Protestant differentiation was not part of the official understanding of the Christian Biblical canon.


No. Jerome was not. In the comments that he made there were two types: His opinion or the opinion of the Jews during his time. The perfect rebuttal of this false understanding is the Vulgate itself, which possesses the whole Christian OT and not the Masoretic canon.

The pope who tasked Jerome with developing a new translation of the Bible for the Roman Church was none other than Pope St. Damasus I, who presided over the Synod of Rome (see above) that declared the Biblical Canon of the Western Church.



To be fair to Jerome, during his time, the Christians of Alexandria and Jerusalem did have a smaller Canon. But in the West it had the full canon, as shown by both the Synods of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage; but also by the writing so St. Augustine as well:

Now the whole canon of Scripture on which we say this judgment is to be exercised, is contained in the following books:—Five books of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; one book of Joshua the son of Nun; one of Judges; one short book called Ruth, which seems rather to belong to the beginning of Kings; next, four books of Kings, and two of Chronicles, these last not following one another, but running parallel, so to speak, and going over the same ground. The books now mentioned are history, which contains a connected narrative of the times, and follows the order of the events. There are other books which seem to follow no regular order, and are connected neither with the order of the preceding books nor with one another, such as Job, and Tobias, and Esther, and Judith, and the two books of Maccabees, and the two of Ezra, which last look more like a sequel to the continuous regular history which terminates with the books of Kings and Chronicles. Next are the Prophets, in which there is one book of the Psalms of David; and three books of Solomon, viz., Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. For two books, one called Wisdom and the other Ecclesiasticus, are ascribed to Solomon from a certain resemblance of style, but the most likely opinion is that they were written by Jesus the son of Sirach. Still they are to be reckoned among the prophetical books, since they have attained recognition as being authoritative. The remainder are the books which are strictly called the Prophets: twelve separate books of the prophets which are connected with one another, and having never been disjoined, are reckoned as one book; the names of these prophets are as follows:—Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; then there are the four greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. The authority of the Old Testament is contained within the limits of these forty-four books. That of the New Testament, again, is contained within the following:—Four books of the Gospel, according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John; fourteen epistles of the Apostle Paul—one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, two to the Thessalonians, one to the Colossians, two to Timothy, one to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews: two of Peter; three of John; one of Jude; and one of James; one book of the Acts of the Apostles; and one of the Revelation of John. CHURCH FATHERS: On Christian Doctrine, Book II (St. Augustine) see chapter 8.

Good Day,

Cajetan did write his commentaries on the books of the bible starting in 1507.

Correct?

Is not the context clear:

"Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament

What do you think the context is?

You do understand with in the Roman denomination Local (Hippo, Rome) councils do not set ecclesiastical policy.

Trent on the other hand set the scope of scripture for the Roman Catholic denomination, and they have the right to do that....

The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council.


http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm

The idea that Trent has any binding input to The whole of christian world is a faulty claim touted by them , but really lacks any basis of authority.

Ball is in your court:

In Him

Bill

 

[Erose]

Good Day,

Cajetan did write his commentaries on the books of the bible starting in 1507.

Correct?

Is not the context clear:

"Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament

What do you think the context is?

I really don't understand what you are doing here so I cannot comment.

You do understand with in the Roman denomination Local (Hippo, Rome) councils do not set ecclesiastical policy.

Yes, yes they do. Rome for the whole Patriarchate of Rome, Hippo and Carthage were ratified at the 4th, 6th and 7th Ecumenical Councils.

Trent on the other hand set the scope of scripture for the Roman Catholic denomination, and they have the right to do that....

The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council.


CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Canon of the New Testament

The idea that Trent has any binding input to The whole of christian world is a faulty claim touted by them , but really lacks any basis of authority.

What Trent did was close the canon. Granted that Protestants who reject the Catholic Church and its authority quite honestly accept or deny any books they choose to do so. I don't contend against that point. What I contend against is the poor justifications proposed for rejecting the Christian OT Canon, for the Masorite canon. In other words you guys need to come up with either better justifications, or admit that the contested books were rejected on the opinions of various Protestant leaders and scholars.

Ball is in your court: [/QUOTE] Back at you.

 

[Standing Up]

I really don't understand what you are doing here so I cannot comment.


Yes, yes they do. Rome for the whole Patriarchate of Rome, Hippo and Carthage were ratified at the 4th, 6th and 7th Ecumenical Councils.

IIRC, the books they "ratified" didn't end up the same as the books for Trent.

In other words you guys need to come up with either better justifications, or admit that the contested books were rejected on the opinions of various Protestant leaders and scholars.

But we have explained. Over and over and over. You simply disagree, just as you disagree with EO's canon or OO's canon.

 

[barryatlake]

Jesus was only speaking to Peter , only Peter had his named changed [ sign of authoritative position / leadership as per past biblical examples ] Only Peter received the "Keys". [ read OT for significance of receiving "Keys"]

 

[ebia]

Why isn't "not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law" in reference to the immutability and inviolability of Scripture not a natural reading? The NT is not at all indifferent to the question! It may paraphrase the text here or there but in each case it preserves the exact sense of the text.

You seem to have forgotten that the question at hand is whether only one exact version/translation is authoritative.


If one were to actually take "jot and tittle" as concretely as some think they are one would need to stick to not just the original language but the original script of that language.

You also seem to have forgotten that the NT authors often take an OT phrase in paraphrase and use it to say something completely unconnected with its origin. To the point where sometimes we don't even know what they were thinking of.

 

[Erose]

IIRC, the books they "ratified" didn't end up the same as the books for Trent.

They're not!?! SU you may want to do a fact check on this one.

But we have explained. Over and over and over. You simply disagree, just as you disagree with EO's canon or OO's canon.

You have? Then what is the explanation? Explain to me who decided to either remove these books from the Christian Canon, or why the Protestant churches accepted the Masorite Canon over the Christian Canon. Speaking to Lutherans and Anglicans on this forum, they claim that they didn't remove these books, but rather just reduced their authority. So who removed those books? What authority in the Protestant faith traditions had the authority to remove these books? These question I have been trying to learn for quite some time, and yet no one seems to know.

Look I'm not at arms about you guys having a different canon than the Catholic Church, but I am very interested in knowing how this came to be; and I haven't found the answer to this one. And you would figure that it would be a pretty simple answer since we are only speaking of something that occurred in the last 500 years.

Concerning the OO and the EO, well my opinion on the matter is that they can have whatever Canon they want just like Protestants can. It is theirs and your decision. You guys are not under the authority of the Church, nor are you under the authority of an Ecumenical Council, so have at it.

Now the OO broke off into schism before the current Canon was accepted Church wide. So that explains why theirs are different. The EO on the other hand accepts authoritative the Ecumenical Councils and as such accepts ever books in the Catholic Bible as Canonical. Now what these councils didn't do it seems is close the Bible Canon, and as such the EO Patriarchates accepted the full Canon given at Hippo and Carthage, because that Canon (which by the way is the same as that one in Rome) was ratified and confirmed at the 4th, 6th & 7th EC.

 

[Achilles6129]

You seem to have forgotten that the question at hand is whether only one exact version/translation is authoritative.

If one were to actually take "jot and tittle" as concretely as some think they are one would need to stick to not just the original language but the original script of that language.

"Jot and tittle" is a figure of speech meaning that it's all the word of God and can never be changed or destroyed. So that means if the Septuagint is conflicting with the MT over the meaning, we've got a serious problem. Somebody must be wrong.

FYI, I think the MT is the word of God.

You also seem to have forgotten that the NT authors often take an OT phrase in paraphrase and use it to say something completely unconnected with its origin. To the point where sometimes we don't even know what they were thinking of.

That's true, but I'm not sure how it follows that that means the OT has been changed as a result.

 

[SolomonVII]

.....

That is fine, but one question for you though. What is your opinion of St. Augustine' skill with Scripture?

St Jerome and St Augustine were contemporaries. They were both very learned of Scripture and all things Christians.
I think in the act of translating, with that entails about research, comparisons, of different sources, speaking outside of Christian circles with Jewish experts, Jerome would have been more the expert at that time.

That being said, I think that either of their opinions are more valid than my own.

What it comes down for me is not which books and which version of the text is the inspired one. Inspiration is even more a matter of the inspiration that the Spirit gives to the reader in the process of interacting and studying any given book.

Neither the Masoretic or the LXX would be much of an inspiration to me, since either one mean nothing more than squiggles to me on pieces of paper. I would need an English translation to be inspired at all.

Once it comes to translation, what ought to be noted is how much may be lost, even with the best of translation.
I will give one example from Genesis. The Hebrew word aram is used to translate both the nakedness of Adam and Even and the bald-faced cunning of the snake. Those are the kinds of associations of meanings that are readily apparent in the Hebrew, but would most likely be lost in any English translation.

In literature such as the Bible, where due to the conciseness of the language and sparseness of the words, such layering of language and finding similar words and phrases in different texts and seeing if there are any thematic connections between the two is crucial to understanding of what the text itself is going to say.also telling us.

In comparison to Augustine,Jerome in the end, I think, revealed a better method for us to follow. That is to confer with people from different traditions and different languages, and different religions even. To confer with Jews who are as intensely connected to the OT as Christians are, is to open us up to different meanings of the text that inevitably become lost to us, lost not just in translation, but in the exegesis that sees all passages first and foremost to how they relate to prophecies about Jesus.