Biblical Variations

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TILL
Biblical inerrantists who think that the books of the Bible have been
transmitted to us over the centuries without any substantial changes in the
text are living in a fantasy world.  A simple way to confirm that
substantial textual alterations have occurred is to compare the Septuagint
(Greek) translation of the OT to the Masoretic text.  The Septuagint was
translated in the third century B. C., and almost all English translations
are based on the Masoretic text, the earliest extant copy of which was the
Leningrad Codex, which dates from A. D. 1008.  In other words, more than 12
centuries separate the Septuagint from the oldest complete version of the
Masoretic.

Bible fundamentalists were ecstatic when a copy of the book of Isaiah was
found at Qumran, which proved to be essentially the same as the Masoretic
text, and they used this to argue that the biblical text had been
transmitted faithfully over the centuries with only minor changes, most of
which could be attributed to scribal carelessness.  In so arguing, they
fail to mention that fragments of the book of Jeremiah that conform to the
Septuagint version were also found at Qumran.  This is significant, because
the Septuagint text of Jeremiah is about 15% shorter than the Masoretic and
is very different in its organizational structure...
[snip]

STEVE CR
Many apologists write about this subject, usually in the vein of:
a) the skeptics all said that the Bible text was unreliable
b) we knew all along it was reliable
c) then came the Qumran discoveries and we were proved right

As the problem of the text of Jeremiah is one that usually confuses
evangelicals you would think that any apologetic discussion of textual
reliability would bring the subject up. However, I've yet to find an
apologist who makes mention of it. The two I have asked did in fact know
about the problem, but are unable to explain why they never discussed it,
or why it doesn't impact on textual reliability.

Steve Carson-Rowland
Brisbane, Australia
(Witty or incisive quote pending)

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