Errors in the Torah and Septuagint - Fact or Fiction?

Great Debates
121

[QUOTE=Apos]
No the original texts don’t have any errors, if by “error” you mean “copy change from the original text.” Then, by definition, they cannot have errors. However, in addition to that being pointless, it’s also irrelevant. This no one source of “original” texts. All we have are copies of copies of copies of all sort of different lineages. Judiasm has actually done an incredible job of preservation over millenia, but there’s still nothing to suggest that it was perfect or that what we think of as the originals wasn’t cobbled together from disparate parts earlier on..
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IF I remember right, they recently found some very old copy of some of the OT, older than ever found, and compared that text to modern copies. They were nigh identical, with a very few minor “errors”.

122

Diogenes and Puzzler:

The “excuse” is correct (according to Orthodox Jewish tradition), although as far as I know, the only “special purposes” that the other two legs are referred to differently for is jumping. Those verses refer to what is and is not allowed within the grasshopper/locust family.

Other insects, which use more than four legs for walking, are covered by a different section of the text, 11:42 - “You are not to eat any creature that moves about on the ground, whether it moves on its belly or walks on all fours or on many feet; it is detestable.” In fact, where the NIV English translation uses the term “or”, the Hebrew original says “until”, i.e., four legs and up.

123

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I’ve seen that one before, and it’s one of the minor errors sometimes jumped on by critics. I don’t know Hebrew so I can’t comment on the translation but from what I’ve read about the translation it says something like "all creeping things…which go on four (or “all four”). The standard apology for this is that “going on [all] four” is a figure of speech generically applied to all animals. I don’t know enough about Hebrew to confirm the validity of that claim but I actually don’t find it to be unreasonable on its face.

There is a fairly well known internet apologist named JP Holding who asserts that the ancient Jews did not count the back legs of insects as legs. Let me see if I can find it…

Ah, yes, here it is. Holding (typically for him) cites no source for his claim, so (as always with Holding) you should take what he says with about ten pounds of salt, but I’ll offer it up simply as an example of how inerrantists at leats attempt to address the issue.
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Meh. It could also be assumed to be poetic license. Th eOT indicates pretty strongly that it is assumed that the Sun goes around the Earth- but so does your daily paper and the National Observatory (both speak of “Sunrise” while we know the Sun is not rising the Earth is rotating around so that the Sun comes into view). This one, and the part about the bowl of Mercury having the wrong figure for Pi are some of the "errors’ where Poetic license can be assumed. It also can be assumed that in the Song of Solomon (4:2) that her breasts really aren’t *much * like a couple of baby deer and that they really *really * (I hope to gawd) don’t have teeth eating lilies. :stuck_out_tongue:

124

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Mohammed was not raised in a community of Catholics. (There were a few Christians in Mecca but they weren’t Catholic.) And any Muslim will tell you the Koran is perfected scripture. The Bible was the work of true profits of Allah but somehow they misunderstood what he told them or the people who wrote it down misunderstood what the **profits ** said, resulting in all those errors you’re complaining about.

And the historical or spiritual truth of any element of Christianity does not fall under the heading of “probable.”
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Preview is your friend. Spell-check is not.

125

The saddest thing is that, no matter how hard you beat on him, sfworker will leave this thread convinced he won.

126

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
IF I remember right, they recently found some very old copy of some of the OT, older than ever found, and compared that text to modern copies. They were nigh identical, with a very few minor “errors”.
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The oldest manuscript copies for the Hebrew Bible were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (c. 100 BCE-100 CE). The DSS contain material from every book of the Tanakh but Esther. Much of this material is in fragments but some of it is more intact (I believe there is a complete book of Isaiah, for instance). My understanding is that the OT material found at Qumran is very close to the Masoretic text and that the differences show that the MS probably inherited some minor scribal errors but that there is nothing which significantly alters the meaning of the text.

127

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
The oldest manuscript copies for the Hebrew Bible were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (c. 100 BCE-100 CE). The DSS contain material from every book of the Tanakh but Esther. Much of this material is in fragments but some of it is more intact (I believe there is a complete book of Isaiah, for instance). My understanding is that the OT material found at Qumran is very close to the Masoretic text and that the differences show that the MS probably inherited some minor scribal errors but that there is nothing which significantly alters the meaning of the text.
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Perhaps that’s it. Anyway, the differences were very minor. I think there was just one that was even a Talmudic debate.

128

[QUOTE=dropzone]
The saddest thing is that, no matter how hard you beat on him, sfworker will leave this thread convinced he won.
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And why shoudn’t he? He’s never lost a debate on the topic. He never posts anything he can’t prove. He always backs it up with scripture, which he has clearly stated he cannot pro … oh, never mind.

129

I have a feeling our guest is not coming back. That’s too bad. I kind of wanted to see some of his “irrefutable” explanations for Biblical errors.

130

[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
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).

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To nitpick- the Prophesies of Ezekiel are what “The Lord” tells Ezekiel to say. "The word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, take up a lament concerning Tyre. 3 Say to Tyre, situated at the gateway to the sea, merchant of peoples on many coasts, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: …” Perhpas it could be a warning or a scare tactic.

Some say those are from different bloodlines- there are many explanations. Here’s some of the more common:

“Other scholars believe that the genealogy presented in Luke is that through his mother Mary…Common scholarly explanation generally give one of four possibilities. The first is that Matthew records the passing on of kingship, while Luke records biological parentage, though this fails to explain why kings that were not father to the next have been excluded from Matthew’s list. An alternative, is that Luke gives the actual genealogy while Matthew presents a “ceremonial” one, for example, Neri being Shealtiel’s natural father, but Jeconiah being the prior leader of the Jewish people.”

So, while I see those two lists could very well be an error, it certainly isn’t without controvery even amoung expert scholars.

So far, although certainly I concede the Bible does likely have errors, I haven’t seen any that can’t be argued, even by real scholars.

131

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
To nitpick- the Prophesies of Ezekiel are what “The Lord” tells Ezekiel to say. "The word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, take up a lament concerning Tyre. 3 Say to Tyre, situated at the gateway to the sea, merchant of peoples on many coasts, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: …” Perhpas it could be a warning or a scare tactic.

Some say those are from different bloodlines- there are many explanations. Here’s some of the more common:

“Other scholars believe that the genealogy presented in Luke is that through his mother Mary…Common scholarly explanation generally give one of four possibilities. The first is that Matthew records the passing on of kingship, while Luke records biological parentage, though this fails to explain why kings that were not father to the next have been excluded from Matthew’s list. An alternative, is that Luke gives the actual genealogy while Matthew presents a “ceremonial” one, for example, Neri being Shealtiel’s natural father, but Jeconiah being the prior leader of the Jewish people.”

So, while I see those two lists could very well be an error, it certainly isn’t without controvery even amoung expert scholars.

So far, although certainly I concede the Bible does likely have errors, I haven’t seen any that can’t be argued, even by real scholars.
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These are not scholarly explanations but apologetic ones (and weak ones at that). The scholarly explanation for the conflicting genealogies of Matthew and Luke is simply that they were created independently by two different authors and that they are, in fact, contradictory. True scholarship does not demand that such contradictions be reconciled. That would actually be unscholarly in that it’s unnecessarily tendentious and motivated by a groundless, anti-empirical presumption that contradictions between independent authors cannot or should not exist.

And I assure you, there are problems which cannot be countered by scholarly arguments. I would offer the ten year gap between the birthdates given for Jesus by Matthew and Luke as an airtight example. None of the common defenses even come close to being successful.

132

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I have a feeling our guest is not coming back. That’s too bad. I kind of wanted to see some of his “irrefutable” explanations for Biblical errors.
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That was never going to happen; the frames of reference are not even in the same universe. As I pointed out in my post #77

We had a poster following that line of argument a few months ago. That poster’s position was that we could not use historical information to challenge the bible because it was the result of flawed human reasoning and if was contradicted by God’s Word, then the historical record was obviously wrong.

There is no common ground for discussion, here. The position of people debating from a position of historical or linguistic facts is denied on the grounds that their evidence is “contradicted” by (sfworker’s interpretations of) God’s Word and the position of people debating from a position of theology, (even Scripture based theology), is “contradicted” by their failure to recognize the “Truth” of (sfworker’s interpretations of) Scripture.

133 

[QUOTE=Nic2004]
I made this exact same point in the thread that spawned this one and never really got a reply.
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*"Genesis 1 declares that plants (on the third day) and animals (on the fifth and sixth day) were created before humans (at the end of the sixth day), and that male and female humans were created at the same time.

Genesis 2 declares that God made man (when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up), then God made plants and animals, then made the first woman."*

As it pertains to the KJV:

You’re making an assumption and also not looking at the structure of each of the 2 chapters.

Genesis 1 is chronological account and is structured by the phrase "And the evening and the morning were the [number here] day. It’s consistent throughout the chapter.

Genesis 2 is a synopsis of what took place and isn’t meant to be in a specific order. We’re told what happened and when in Genesis 1 and then we reflect on it (free-form) in chapter 2.

Your assumption seems to be that Genesis 2 is a literal mirror image of Genesis 1 and it’s not written that way.

The 2nd verse of Gen 2 is your first clue. “…And on the seventh day God ended his work…”. The chapter nearly begins with the end so from that point on, you can see that what you’re reading has already occurred.

“Looking back” > Verse 4 “…These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created…”. This is stated as a summary (“generations” Hebrew (towl@dah) [Strong’s 08435] results, proceedings, accounts) and you have yet to get to the specifics of what happened during the first week. Verse 4 refers directly back to the whole of chapter 1 and the first 3 verses of chapter 2.

A third clue is the only time a specific day is mentioned in Gen 2, is in the 2nd and 3rd verses about the 7th day and that day was the very next (and last) day following chapter 1. Without the structure of Gen 1, delineated by specific references to particular days in an obvious order, reading Genesis 2 chronologically doesn’t make sense.

134

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]

And I assure you, there are problems which cannot be countered by scholarly arguments.

I would offer the ten year gap between the birthdates given for Jesus by Matthew and Luke as an airtight example. None of the common defenses even come close to being successful.
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Not a very good offer.

and

http://www.bede.org.uk/seekers4.html#4
give quite a few explanations. Of course, it also could just be that Josephus got a date wrong, too.

Mind you, it certainly could be just that one of the two Gospels (if not both) is wrong, granted. But saying that this is an “airtight example” is wrong.

135

[QUOTE=cmkeller]
Diogenes and Puzzler:

The “excuse” is correct (according to Orthodox Jewish tradition), although as far as I know, the only “special purposes” that the other two legs are referred to differently for is jumping. Those verses refer to what is and is not allowed within the grasshopper/locust family.

Other insects, which use more than four legs for walking, are covered by a different section of the text, 11:42 - “You are not to eat any creature that moves about on the ground, whether it moves on its belly or walks on all fours or on many feet; it is detestable.” In fact, where the NIV English translation uses the term “or”, the Hebrew original says “until”, i.e., four legs and up.
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Yes, but doesn’t 11:42 discusses “Sheretz HaAretz” (~insect of the earth = crawling), whereas 11:20 discusses “Seretz HaOf” (~insect of flight = flying)?

(Note: Sheretz is not precisely insect).

136

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Not a very good offer.

and

http://www.bede.org.uk/seekers4.html#4
give quite a few explanations. Of course, it also could just be that Josephus got a date wrong, too.

Mind you, it certainly could be just that one of the two Gospels (if not both) is wrong, granted. But saying that this is an “airtight example” is wrong.
[/QUOTE]

You’ve linked to some of the common solutions, but as I said, none of them come close to being successful solutions (and they’re not made by scholars). I don’t like trying to rebut entire webpages, though, so if you’d really like to pursue this line, I’d appreciate it if you could select and summarize what you believe to be the strongest responses and I’ll show you why they don’t work. I don’t say that out of hubris or arrogance but out of familiarity with the debate. This one is really impossible to reconcile

137

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
You’ve linked to some of the common solutions, but as I said, none of them come close to being successful solutions (and they’re not made by scholars). I don’t like trying to rebut entire webpages, though, so if you’d really like to pursue this line, I’d appreciate it if you could select and summarize what you believe to be the strongest responses and I’ll show you why they don’t work. I don’t say that out of hubris or arrogance but out of familiarity with the debate. This one is really impossible to reconcile
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FWIW, I did peruse the entire pages linked. The arguments ranged from shaky *(well, then maybe Josephus was the one who was off by 10 years!) * to the snigger-inducing (well, what if Quirinius was governor twice, ten years apart?).

138

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
You’ve linked to some of the common solutions, but as I said, none of them come close to being successful solutions (and they’re not made by scholars). I don’t like trying to rebut entire webpages, though, so if you’d really like to pursue this line, I’d appreciate it if you could select and summarize what you believe to be the strongest responses and I’ll show you why they don’t work. I don’t say that out of hubris or arrogance but out of familiarity with the debate. This one is really impossible to reconcile
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Whether or not you think these are “successful” is entirely a matter of opinion.

And so seems to be your definition of “scholar”. For example, the second link is well written, and fully footnoted. Mr Marchant is a professor at Philadelpia Biblical Univ (a Bible college ,true not universally accredited), with a BA and a M.Div.
http://www.pbu.edu/academic/faculty/bl/ron_marchant.htm
Why isn’t he a “scholar”? Seems like a ‘scholar’ to me. In fact, seems likie a definition of a scholar- Degreed Univ Prof who has written a well researched and full footnoted treatise. Sure, it might be wrong, but any scholar might be wrong.

It seems like you define “Scholar”= “as someone who agrees with me”. :dubious:

The point is you also said “airtight” and it’s nothing but. You also said “successful” and that’s entirely a matter of personal opinion.

I am not arguing whether or not the chronology is correct “Mind you, it certainly could be just that one of the two Gospels (if not both) is wrong, granted”, but rather " saying that this is an “airtight example” is wrong." And it is wrong, it’s hardly airtight. I don’t really care if it was Matthew, Luke or Josephus that made an error or that any of them did. It’s just that any claimed Biblical error is highly disputed, and not in any way shape or form “airtight”.

139

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
That was never going to happen; the frames of reference are not even in the same universe. As I pointed out in my post #77 We had a poster following that line of argument a few months ago. That poster’s position was that we could not use historical information to challenge the bible because it was the result of flawed human reasoning and if was contradicted by God’s Word, then the historical record was obviously wrong.

There is no common ground for discussion, here. The position of people debating from a position of historical or linguistic facts is denied on the grounds that their evidence is “contradicted” by (sfworker’s interpretations of) God’s Word and the position of people debating from a position of theology, (even Scripture based theology), is “contradicted” by their failure to recognize the “Truth” of (sfworker’s interpretations of) Scripture.
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*"You are going to insist that external evidence cannot be used to demonstrate errors in Scripture and, when contradictions are discovered within Scripture, you will fall back on the failure of “true understanding.” *

You’ve got to stop putting words in my mouth.

Absolutely external evidence can be used to either verify or nullify Scripture. The Books are historical references to supposedly factual events unless the verses are written as allegory, parable or metaphor.

It’s not my intent to prove Scripture is accurate historically although I believe it is, but rather to ferret out what Scripture is actually saying and compare it to what many people today seem to believe. If you don’t believe with the “many”, then you aren’t included in the grouping. I initially responded to a statement that went no further than “the Bible is full of errors”, for the very reason that it was incomplete.

I will apologize as many times as is necessary for the very first statement I made on this board. It likely set the tone for the feedback I’m getting, so that’s my own fault. My statement was egocentric and inappropriate and I know better, so there’s no excuse. Hopefully I can make amends for it.

If you were to write a book and a particular passage in it had specific intent in your mind and your reader interprets it altogether differently, is the reader incorrect? Only you would know if they had the appropriate intent.

That’s my approach to Scripture. If God exists and He inspired Scripture and He’s omnipotent then I logically conclude He had intent and it’s my job to find out what that is.

140

sfworker, it just doesn’t fly. Your excuse could, of course, reconcile any contradiction, because you can always claim one account encompasses the other. My point was not that you cannot make this excuse, but that these two different accounts are different in precisely such a way that the echo two entirely different creation myths that may pre-date genesis altogether. Seven generations of gods. Adamah, the golem man of red dirt. The story about someone being born from a rib, or cursed: there are elements that are just too similar to be purely coincidental.