BIBLE STUDY
History not theology
Right: Jewish Torah Scroll
Exegesis No. 1
As a child I was given by an uncle The Bible as History by Werner Keller, originally published in 1956 (bought for 25/-). This paralleled the Bible stories with the latest archaeology and also showed that for example the parting of the Red Sea and Manna from Heaven were phenomena that could still be seen today. At school I was booted out of the choir when my voice broke and was given the job of reading the lesson instead. Ever since I have been fascinated by the origins of the biblical narratives - and as you know we are always supposed to use primary sources where possible in historical investigation.
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I recently acquired Bible Manuscripts by Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, published by the British Library in 2007 and The Bible with Sources Revealed by Richard Elliott Friedman, published by Harper Collins in 2005. So, we are not talking about theology here just what has been found out of the Bible’s origins (even so, apologies to anyone who has a fundamentalist point of view).
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The subject is extremely complicated and very academic but I will have a go at trying to simplify things.
The Bible is of course two books which we call the Old and New Testament. There are a staggering number of biblical manuscripts, 10,000 alone were found in the old Cairo Synagogue. The Septuagint is the Alexandrian, first centuries BC, translation of Jewish scriptures into Greek (above is a fragment of the Minor Prophets scroll from Nahal Hever courtesy of Eliyah). For most of our history, the Latin Vulgate written by St.Jerome in the 4th Century AD, has been the main accepted text but all this changed in 1947 when shepherds discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls in Wadi Qumran, east of Bethlehem. Unfortunately, they managed to trash a lot of what they initially found, causing experts years of painstaking work assembling fragments. The pots in which the manuscripts were stored have been radio carbon dated to 30BC - 7AD but the linen wrappings came out at 100BC.
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Above a 1993 photo of the Psalms Scroll by the Israel Antiquities Authority courtesy of Library of Congress.
The most remarkable find was a 23’ scroll comprising 17 sheets of leather. This turned out to be the complete Hebrew text of Es Aias (Isaiah). Altogether there were 19 books from the Old Testament in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Aramaic is the language from ancient Syria (2nd millenium BC) and became one of the most prominent Near East languages. Yeshua is the Aramaic form of Joshua which corresponds to the Greek Iesous and Latin IESVS from where we get the English ‘Jesus’. Amazingly, the reverse of the Isaiah scroll shows the finger prints of those who read it. Luke 4 16/17 tells us that Jesus read aloud from the scroll of Isaiah in Nazareth, which makes history really come alive.
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Let us start with the Pentateuch (Greek) or Torah (Hebrew), the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The original manuscripts are catalogued as follows:
J - after JAWEH the German translation of God (YHWH).
E - after ELOHIM, Hebrew for God.
These are dated between 922 and 722BC. In 722Bc the Assyrians destroyed the northern Kingdom and the two documents were combined, a manuscript that is known as RJE, the R standing for Redactor (editor).
P - after Priesthood, dated 6th to 5th century BC.
D - after Deuteronomy, which comprises the law code chapters 12 to 26 known as Dtn and an introductory text, two old poems and the end of Moses’s life known as Dtr. Just to confuse matters there are two versions of this writing: Dtr1 written during the reign of King Josiah of Judah around 622BC and Dtr2 written during the Babylonian exile.
All these sources were put together by an editor known as the Redactor or R.
Are you still with me Simkins?
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The method of examination of biblical sources is known to philologists as Documentary Hypothesis*. This examines seven arguments:
Linguistic - chronology is shown by development of Hebrew and comparison with outside sources.
Terminology - Mountain is called Sinai in J and P (20 times) but Horeb in E and D (14 times).
Consistent content - Tabernacle is mentioned 200 times in P, 3 times in E and not at all in J or D.
Narrative flow - RJE is a flowing narrative. P is the same so cannot be composed around JE as some scholars aver.
Connections with other parts of the Bible - D has parallels with Jeremiah. P has parallels with Ezekiel. Jand E parallels with Hosea.
Relationship to history and other sources - JE connect to Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. P connects to period after fall of Israel. D connects to period of Josiah. P follows JE.
Convergence - many overlapping texts. 30 cases of doublets (stories or laws) in the Torah. Separating them resolves all contradictions and the terminology then remains consistent.
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*Don’t take this as gospel (ouch!) as the experts all disagree but it is a good way into the subject. I think that is enough to digest for the present; I hope I haven’t put you off biblical history for good.
Right is Exodus from the Leningrad Codex written about 1010AD courtesy of Shmuel ben Ya’akov.
Exegesis No. 2
I sent a copy of EXEGESIS 1 to my nephew, Guy who holds a degree, MPhil and PhD in Old Testament theology from Cambridge University. He replied that I had it broadly right but added these comments.
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The Septuagint (or 'LXX' as it's often called, because the legend goes it was written by 70 Greek scholars) has multiple different texts/versions, which from memory date back to 3rd century BC for the oldest through to some that were translated in the early centuries AD. While the Latin ('Vulgate') was used, I think by the Catholic Church until the Reformation (not 100% sure), the complete Hebrew text of the Bible has existed since the start of the early Church because that's what the Jews used. The Masoretic Text (the main Hebrew text of the Bible) hasn't changed since the 1st century AD because they were so careful copying it.
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The texts from the Dead Sea are the oldest scrolls found, and date back to 1-3rd centuries BC. The earlier ones already show the beginnings of the tradition that led to the Masoretic Text - that is, it hadn't changed much in the previous couple of centuries before it was fixed for good. After the Fall of Jerusalem in the 60s AD, the Jews became even more careful about copying the scriptures accurately, because they were now the sole pillar of their faith (no Temple any more because the Romans burned it down). So the Hebrew text has been around, and reliable, for 2,000+ years. The Dead Sea Scrolls just confirmed that the scriptures really had been copied accurately, as well as giving us several other texts that were specific to the Dead Sea sect.
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JEDP... it's been a while since I had to grapple with that. Aside from those who disagree with the idea of different sources, or those specific sources, there's lots of discussion about where one stops and another starts, but I think you have the broad strokes right. The Documentary Hypothesis in that form is closely associated with a German theologian called Julius Wellhausen, but I wouldn't recommend you try reading his books, and I think there's more uncertainty about his ideas now. The Wikipedia page is probably worth a quick read for a summary, if you haven't had a look already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis
As an example of how the Bible might have come to its current form in practice, my PhD was on Isaiah 36-39 / 2 Kings 18-20, two texts that are almost but not quite identical. 2 Kings has earlier spellings, but later theology (like footnotes added by the Deuteronomist). Isaiah's text has later spelling but appears to be 'cleaner' and earlier in its form. So the conclusion is that they both used a common but separate original source.
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Then if you look at the different versions of the texts over the centuries - Masoretic Text, different Greek versions, Latin, Syrian Aramaic, etc - you see that they have cross-copied phrases backwards and forwards between them. Then from about the 1st century AD, the Hebrew texts were fixed and there were no more changes. And, just to complicate matters further, the pointing for the Hebrew - the dots and dashes above and below letters that represent vowels and other things - didn't exist for several hundred years. So even now there are some uncertainties about exactly what different words are...