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Joshua 21: 36-37

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by franklinmonroe, Oct 19, 2007.

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  1. franklinmonroe

    franklinmonroe Active Member

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    From the KJV Old Testament --
    "And out of the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with her suburbs, and Jahazah with her suburbs,
    Kedemoth with her suburbs, and Mephaath with her suburbs; four cities."​

    The NKJV notes for these verses states: "Following Septuagint and Vulgate (compare 1 Chronicles 6:78, 79); Masoretic Text, Bomberg, and Targum omit verses 36 and 37."

    Richard Donald Nelson wrote in his Joshua: A Commentary on page 22-23--
    The Masoretic (MT) and Old Greek (OG) text of Joshua offer substantially different readings in many places. Although the Greek is about 5 percent shorter, both the MT and the OG text forms are expansionistic in the sense that each contains scribal additions, harmonizations, and developments not found in the other. Both also show mechanical halographies (omissions triggered by similarities in the beginning or end of words and phrases) and other typical scribal errors. In recent years it has become clear that the Greek version of Joshua is a dependable translation of a form of the Hebrew text with textual value at least equal to that of the MT. Two almost universally accepted OG readings are the restoration of eleven names in the town list of Judah (after 15:59) and the levitical cities of Reuben in 21:36-37. By Old Greek is meant the earliest recoverable form of what is popularly call the Septuagint (LXX). ​
    This is a clear departure for the KJV from the Ben Chayyim Masoretic text (Second Rabbinic Bible, printed in Venice in 1525 by Daniel Bomberg) which Gail Riplinger asserts in a video was virtually the Hebrew 'received text', and strictly followed by the revisionists of the Bishop's Bible. She criticizes 'modern' versions for following Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), the third revision of Rudolph Kittle's Biblia Hebraica (BHK, and is based upon the Leningrad Codex).

    Cardinal Ximenes' Complutensian Polyglot (1522) has Joshua 21:36-37 (in the Hebrew column), as do some other Hebrew editions. Another widely circulated Hebrew edition that also lacks the verses was Augustus Hahn’s 1839 (a revision of Van der Hooght’s text). Several Hebrew Bibles printed in the 19th and 20th centuries DO NOT have Joshua 21:36-37 in the main text, but place the verses in the margin or set in some special typographic manner.

    What can be made of this information?
     
    #1 franklinmonroe, Oct 19, 2007
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 19, 2007
  2. Deacon

    Deacon Well-Known Member
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    Joshua 21:19 The cities of the descendants of Aaron, the priests, were in all thirteen cities with their pasturelands.

    21:26 The cities of the clans of the rest of the Kohathites were ten in all with their pasturelands.

    21:33 The cities of the several clans of the Gershonites were in all thirteen cities with their pasturelands.

    21:40 As for the cities of the several Merarite clans, that is, the remainder of the clans of the Levites, those allotted to them were in all twelve cities.

    21:41 The cities of the Levites in the midst of the possession of the people of Israel were in all forty-eight cities with their pasturelands.

    Without Joshua 21:36-37 the numbers don't add up.

    Rob
     
    #2 Deacon, Oct 19, 2007
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 19, 2007
  3. Logos1560

    Logos1560 Well-Known Member
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    Re: Joshua 21:36-37

    Arthur Farstad claimed that "Joshua 21:36-37 is lacking in the Masoretic text," but it was added to the KJV from the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Syriac versions (The NKJV: In the Great Tradition, p. 96). Joshua 21:36-37 are not in the standard Second Rabbinic Bible edited by Chayim, but these two verses were in the First Rabbinic Bible edited by Pratensis. Ginsburg noted that Jacob ben Chayim "decided to omit them [Joshua 21:36-37) in accordance with a certain school of Massorites" (Introduction, p. 965). Kyle McCarter observed that Joshua 21:36-37 “are entirely missing in the Leningrad Codex and other major manuscripts of MT” and that the “cause of their omission in MT was homoioteleuton: Verses 35 and 37 ended with the same sequence” (Textual Criticism, p. 41). These two verses were said to be in the other earlier printed Hebrew texts: the 1488 Soncino, the 1491-93 Naples, the 1494 Brescia, and the Complutensian Polyglot.


    KJV-only author D. A. Waite indicated that the view that "the Second Rabbinic Bible is an inerrant reproduction of the original manuscripts" is his "position completely" or that it was a "perfect Masoretic text" is his "belief exactly" (Central Seminary Refuted, p. 41). Waite claimed that “the difference between the King James Bible and all the other versions and perversions is that the King James Bible translates what the Hebrew says” (Fundamentalist Distortions, p. 22). Waite asserted that “something with alleged ‘scribal errors’ cannot be ‘preserved for us’ if you mean, as I do, inerrant preservation of the Words of the Bible” (p. 23). Waite wrote: “it is my considered opinion that the Hebrew and Greek texts underlying the King James Bible are also inerrant and infallible” (p. 10). Waite maintained that “the words of the Old Testament Hebrew were preserved to the letter” (Bob Jones, p. 21).

    Was this claimed perfect Masoretic text in the Second Rabbinic Bible missing two verses at Joshua 21? Would Waite claim that the Second Rabbinic Bible cannot be the preserved text if it followed a scribal error in omitting two verses? According to Waite‘s own claim, were the KJV translators wrong not to follow the Second Rabbinic Bible at Joshua 21?
     
    #3 Logos1560, Oct 19, 2007
  4. Bluefalcon

    Bluefalcon Member

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    Nice work. It does look like accidental omission by h.t. error was the culprit.
     
    #4 Bluefalcon, Oct 20, 2007
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