Errors in the Torah and Septuagint - Fact or Fiction?

Are there are errors in the Hebrew OT (Torah) and the Greek NT (Septuagint)?

Exactly what sort of errors did you have in mind?

The Septuagint is the Greek Old Testement which was translated from the Hebrew OT. And the Torah is just the first five books of the Hebrew OT, the books of Moses. Just letting you know. And please explain what you mean by “errors”.

Yes. For example, the 26th chapter of the book of Ezekiel predicts that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy the city of Tyre, in what is now Lebanon, and that the city “would never be rebuilt”. And yet, there’s Tyre, right there on the evening news.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke give completely different genealogies for Jesus (or more accurately, for Jesus’ stepfather, Joseph).

I feel the spirit of prophesy upon me; I shall foretell the future and utter the truth: I predict that no matter what anyone else posts to this thread, or how many pages of posts this thread gets, no one will convince the original poster that there are any errors in the Bible. Behold, man, a prophecy has been made!

Based on a thread over in CSR, it appears that sfworker is likely a Creationist and probably a Biblical literalist.

Consensus of informed opinion here seems to be: The Bible is the work of men. Some believe that those men were in some way inspired by the God of whom the Bible speaks, but very few adhere to the literal-dictation hypothesis. (AFAIK, only cmkeller holds that theory, and that only for Torah. There may be a few others who agree, though.)

Its contents are in general a mixture of literary forms, each to be understood according to the proper critical methods for understanding that particular form. Editorial redaction is evident in many books. Authorship is sometimes but rarely that ascribed by tradition.

Can things be learned from the Bible? With the exception of a few rabid anti-religionists, I think the consensus is yes, even among the agnostics, atheists, and other non-Christian/non-Jew members. But any such study calls for understanding the original text, the circumstances in which it was written, the context, the possible modifications made to it, the differentiation of then and there from here and now, the vocabulary and idioms used, etc.

(Badchad, your analysis of the above paragraphs as a summary of what Dopers as a cultural subset hold valid as regards the Bible is welcomed. I’m trying to carefully avoid making my own personal assertions about it, instead addressing the OP question regarding the consensus opinion here; your critical analysis of my answer in those terms is welcomed.)

And here I figured y’all would just know what I was asking :wink:

I was discussing Scripture in another thread and it was suggested that I post here instead.

My position is that the translations of the original Hebrew and Greek texts are riddled with errors and heavily misinterpreted today to the point that the things people believe are pure fantasy.

Going back to the original texts (as best I can) exposes the truth and it’s a far cry from what the churches are teaching.

It was suggested that even the original texts are prone to errors, which would suggest that God is a myth, but so far I haven’t seen any evidence of these erros -* in the original text*.

I personally believe that the Word of God is innerrant, but the Word of God isn’t necessarily in the books you buy at your local book store with the word “Bible” printed on the front.

Someone suggested that this forum would help root out the answer to the question:

Where are the errors in the original Hebrew and Greek texts?

You really do need to clarify your question.

What Christians identify as the Old Testament, Jews generally call the Tanakh (from the initial letters for the Hebrew words for Torah (Law), Nevi’im (Prophets), and Kethuvim (Writings, i.e., Psalms, Wisdom literature, and other works), the three major divisions of the Jewish scriptures.

The Septuagint is a translation from the Hebrew to Greek of the Tanakh that includes several additional works and passages that are not included in Hebrew scripture, but that have been accepted as Scripture by Catholics and Orthodox.

Are you looking for errors between the Hebrew Scriptures and the Septuagint (such as the rendering of the Hebrew almah (young woman) in Isaiah 7:14 into Greek parthenon (virgin)? Or are you actually looking for factual errors in either the Tanakh or the New Testament?

That’s funny.

I’m decidedly NOT a Creationist and most certainly NOT a literalist. The entire Book of Revelation is metaphor, where today’s chuches teach it literally and that’s ridiculous. My goal is to show the error in what they’re teaching. I’m not really interested in debating Scriptural reality (i.e. does God exist?), only what Scripture actually says.

Didn’t your mom tell you to never “assume”?

What errors? Which errors? Spelling and grammatical errors? Errors in formal logic? Errors in astronomy, geology or geography? Historical errors? Mathematical errors? Errors in etiquette? Baseball errors? What? WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR HERE??!? :confused: :confused: :confused:

Yes.

Cross post!

OK. There are several issues regarding the factual nature of many passages of Scripture. Each of these is disputed, to one degree or another, by persons who view Scripture as merely literature and persons who believe every word is divinely inspired. (And there are a lot of views between those extremes.)

Among the various points raised by those who perceive errors in the texts are the apparent lack of historicity of the purported census of the “whole (Roman) world” in Luke, the discrepancies in the genealogies of Jesus (that not only disagree with each other, but do not clearly match the lists in genesis or chronicles), the errors in the names and chronologies of Chaldean and Persian kings and empires, the lack of evidence for an Exodus from Egypt or a 40 year sojourn in the desert, the lack of a viable city on the site of Jericho at the time that the invading Hebrews were supposed to have destoryed it.

Many, many of “today’s churches” do no such thing. In fact, without looking into the matter much, I would expect Catholic, Orthodox, and most mainstream Protestant churches read Revelation non-literally. Unless only evangelical conservatives count as “today’s churches”?

The person who made the statement “even the original texts have errors” will have to find this thread and respond. I know of no errors and if they aren’t pointed out there’s nothing to discuss and that’s the end of thread. It was suggested that I start this thread here and I did so in response to that only.

I don’t believe there are errors of any kind in the Word of God as written (original text) - but the English translations are flawed and even worse greatly misinterpreted today. If in fact there are errors in Scripture (as Divinely Inspired) it would seem to imply that God isn’t perfect.

Where do you say that modern translations (such as the NIV, or for that matter older translations like the King James) differ from the Hebrew text of Ezekiel 26? Does the Hebrew text of Ezekiel 26 not indicate that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy Tyre? What would be a correct translation of the Greek texts of the genealogies in Matthew and Luke, that would avoid the obvious contradictions between those two passages?

Well, I guess that settles it.

I’m not debating English translations - they’re full of errors.

I’m only referring to the original texts.

AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH!!!

If you’re right, then you’ll be able to describe (according to them) “hell” accurately. If you can, then those churches are reading the Book of Revelation metaphorically.

I can wait. :slight_smile:

Is that Greek?

But how can you know what the original texts said? All we can know is what was said in the earliest preserved copy of any scripture. We have no way of knowing if it actually is the original- only God knows that, and God doesn’t seem to want to tell us.

Even if our texts do have errors in them, that doesn’t necessarily mean that God is a myth- it might mean that some of the stories told in the Bible about God are myths. There are tons of myths told in various cultures about the sun, but nobody says that means that the sun is a myth (though I was starting to wonder for a while this past spring, when it rained all the time here).