1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

KJVO Sect's Hatred of LXX

Discussion in '2003 Archive' started by Dr. Bob, Jul 31, 2003.

  1. garpier

    garpier New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 18, 2000
    Messages:
    186
    Likes Received:
    0
    The question of the value or irrelavance of the LXX can be best answered by a careful study of the Bible. Keep in mind that the LXX is a translation. Therefore it should never be used to correct the preserved Hebrew/Aramaic texts. That is the same error some use in saying the KJV can be used to correct the Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic.

    I know this has been brought up before, but in this context it needs reviewing. There are at least three occasions when Jesus Christ referred to the text of the Old Testament. 1) Matthew 5:18 "For verily I say to you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." This is an obvious reference to the Hebrew/Aramaic since the Greek alphabet does not have jots or tittles.
    2)Luke 11:51 "From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation." The text of the Old Testament to which Jesus referred here begins with Genesis and ends with Chronicles. That is the ordering of the Hebrew Scriptures not the LXX.
    3) Luke 24:44 "And he said unto them, These are thewords shich I spake unto you, while i was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me." Again this reference is to the three fold division of the Hebrew text not the order used in the LXX.

    It would seem that if the Lord had used the LXX, his references to the Old Testament would indicate that, but they do not.

    It must also be observed tat the LXX is at time a good translation and at times a poor one. For example in Isaiah 40 there are numerous changes in the LXX which are not warrented by any Hebrew manuscript.
    In verse one the pronoun "your" is left out before God.
    In verse two the word priests is inserted into the LXX
    In verse three the phrase "in the desert is omitted in the LXX.
    IN verse five the phrase "the salvation of God" is inserted.
    in verse six the phrase "glory of man" is substituted for "goodliness thereof"
    Verses seven and eight in the LXX read""The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our Godabides forever". In the Hebrew these verse read "Th grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadet: but the word of our God shall stand forever.

    I could go on and show more of the same sort of sloppy translation. Some might argue that Luke in the third chapter of his gospel quoted from the LXX. Perhaps it was the traslator of the LXX who copied from Luke. Again some would argue that Peter in the first chapter of his first epistle copied from the LXX. Perhaps it was the LXX translator who copied from Peter.

    Those who disagree might say, "But the LXX was around before Christ." My question is other than the Torah, is there any proof that the entire Old Testament was in Greek before Christ? If not, then why not accept the statements of the Lord Jesus Christ as evidence that He used the Hebrew/ Aramaic text?
     
  2. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2000
    Messages:
    30,285
    Likes Received:
    507
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Garpier - Go back in this thread, then, and deal with each of the 6 examples I gave where the NT quotes EXACTLY from the LXX and NO WHERE CLOSE to the Masoretic Hebrew text. I have a dozen more that have been judged INCONTROVERTIBLE from the LXX and not the Hebrew.

    We're talking different words and phrases, not just different choice in translating.

    That is how documents are deemed authentic. Remember, the I John 5 "comma"? It is not in 99% of the Greek but you can find word-for-word references to it in 150-250AD, so the onlies say "see, it is quoted there so it MUST be true."

    Same thing with the LXX.
     
  3. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    May 14, 2001
    Messages:
    26,977
    Likes Received:
    2,536
    Faith:
    Baptist
    I agree with Dr Bob, I have also done this exercise and even posted these LXX quotations here on the BB and asked the question:

    How do KJVO folk reconcile the differences in these OT-NT LXX quotations?

    One possibility is that God has put His stamp of approval on at least those portions of the LXX quoted in the NT even though they differ from the Masoretic.

    Here is amazing fact:

    God Himself is not KJVO, since even the AV 1611 English reflects the differences between the OT Masoretic and LXX quotations of those OT Scriptures!

    If He were KJVO these English quotations would be exactly the same in both OT and NT regardless of the Hebrew-Greek sources.

    HankD
     
  4. garpier

    garpier New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 18, 2000
    Messages:
    186
    Likes Received:
    0
    Dr. Bob and HankD,
    I am sure that the two of you are gracious and well learned men. I am merely a student of the Word trying to learn what I can. It took me some searching to find the verse Dr. Bob indicated since they wer not on this thread but on another. The similaritie between the LXX and the New Testament references are quite amazing. In fact if I didn't know any better, I might guess that the LXX copied from the Greek New Testament.
    I know that there is supposed to be a greek translation of the Old Testament BC. That may or may not be true. What I do know, based on the three references in my earlier post is that the Lord did not refer to a Greek source but to a Hebrew source.

    I don't know all of the history of all of the ancient texts, but then I don't need to know. "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God".

    In the middle of the nineteenth century there was a great deal of criticism concerning many of the facts in the Old Testament. Archaeological evidence has vindicated the Old Testament time after time. Not that man's discoveries were necessary to prove the Word of God. It is true (as you know) whether or not we can prove it. So it is in this case. The writers of the New Testament were also students of the Old in the original Hebrew. Their quotes from the Old Testament whether they were direct or indirect fall under the heading of inspiration.
    As noted in my previous post the LXX is at times a good translation and at other times a poor one. I have a hard time believing that the God who gave His pure word would endorse a translation that was not. In the case of Jesus as noted earlier his endorsement was the Hebrew Scriptures not the Greek translation.
     
  5. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    May 14, 2001
    Messages:
    26,977
    Likes Received:
    2,536
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Dear garpier,

    Thank you, your vocabulary and writing style tell me that you also are an educated person.

    Of course we both both know that education and wisdom do not always reside in the same person [​IMG]

    What was mind-bobbling to me was that some of the OT quotes in the NT AV were off the mark when compared to one another and that that difference was also reflected in the inspired languages of the Greek and Hebrew.

    I have resolved in my own mind that God therefore has more concern for the conveyed thought of a TRANSLATION than the choice of the raw words of the receptor language. The conveyed thought MUST match the thought of the inspired text.
    Of course the optimum is to mirror the inspired text as much as possible.

    However, anyone who is multilingual knows the impossibility of a word-for-word translation from one language to another.

    This of course applies to a translation of the inspired text but not a copy. A copy must be faithful to the very jots and tittles of the inspired text.

    My opinion, of course.

    HankD
     
  6. aefting

    aefting New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2002
    Messages:
    874
    Likes Received:
    0
    First, no translation is pure in the same sense that the originals are. Man does the translating and he will, because he is human, make translation choices that are not optimal or simply wrong. God can use faithful translations, though, that are essentially pure and He has throughout history -- LXX, Vulgate, Luther, KJV, ASV, NAS, NIV, ESV, etc.

    Also, Christ's acknowledgement of the Hebrew Scriputures does not indicate His rejection of the LXX. In fact, since the entire NT consists of the Words of Christ (not just the direct quotes in the gospels), we can conclude that Christ endorsed the LXX, too, by virtue of the NT's many quotations of the LXX.


    Andy
     
  7. Taufgesinnter

    Taufgesinnter New Member

    Joined:
    Jul 27, 2003
    Messages:
    1,135
    Likes Received:
    0
    First, no translation is pure in the same sense that the originals are. Man does the translating and he will, because he is human, make translation choices that are not optimal or simply wrong. God can use faithful translations, though, that are essentially pure and He has throughout history -- LXX, Vulgate, Luther, KJV, ASV, NAS, NIV, ESV, etc.

    Also, Christ's acknowledgement of the Hebrew Scriputures does not indicate His rejection of the LXX. In fact, since the entire NT consists of the Words of Christ (not just the direct quotes in the gospels), we can conclude that Christ endorsed the LXX, too, by virtue of the NT's many quotations of the LXX.


    Andy
    </font>[/QUOTE]Agreed--and the LXX translators took a slightly dynamic equivalence view of translation, too.

    TRADUTORRE TRADITORE!--and that includes the KJV scholars!
     
  8. Forever settled in heaven

    Joined:
    Jul 29, 2000
    Messages:
    1,770
    Likes Received:
    0
    absolutely--like i've said (elsewhere), dyn equiv saves formal equiv fr itself! ;)

    when the Bible refers to the preservation of words n even jots n tittles, it does NOT--repeat, NOT--refer to the translation process. n those who yell the loudest abt defending form have been shown to be rather silent n absent when shown that their fave Bible versions r really lacking in whole words, yodhs, n bet/kaph distinctions, not to mention athnachs n the 2 dageshes, the dual form, n tons more, in terms of FORM.

    :rolleyes:
     
Loading...