Fixing the Bible

[NumberX]

Some time ago I wondered what kind of person is this who can make a website so nice with Hebrew and the Bible Wheel, where I can read and that feels like having a warm bath! Now I understand this much better. When I split his personal opinion about the Bible and God and Christians to one side and his work to the other, I end up with one side I enjoy. Let's not mix these sides I think by myself, that's not necessary.

[NumberX]

Never mind the 'fixing' -- instead, keep on reading!

We wondered how Noah knew the difference between the clean and unclean animals, when Leviticus hadn't yet been written.

.. hmmm?

Heh! Haha! That's smart! They say the Torah is not subjected to time!

[Richard Amiel McGough]

The role of the Hebrew Torah I know, has been unchanged for centuries, everywhere is the same role present with the same amount of 'letters'. When someone wrote one letter wrong, he had to start again. It's the word Torah I translated above not as law, but as how I translated it. This corresponds with "not one jot or tittle". Pfft that I have to educate you this. Did you not know this? This is what I mean by that you get dumber and dumber all the time. And by the Bible Wheel and other sources we can understand that there is more on it's right place as it is today.

Your comments are becoming incomprehensible. You certainly do not need to educate me on this issue. You need to educate yourself. The myth that the Torah has been perfectly preserved is just that - a myth. It is not true, and if you believe it is then you are ignorant of the most basic element of Biblical studies. Here is a good place to start your education. It is a brief overview from a very conservative Jew who would like to believe as you do but cannot because the facts contradict your belief.

There is no text more sacred to Jews than the Torah. While it is not the sole source of our religion, it is a holy work whose every word is precious. It is therefore a critical task, and a religious imperative, to determine whether the text of the Torah that we have is correct and, if not, to fix it. However, because of the importance of this mission, there is no room for hasty judgements or speculative decisions. This is a very serious undertaking that requires the proper sense of humility.


In this essay, we will list the various evidence we have for the Torah - what are called the "witnesses" of the text. Additionally, we will discuss the usefulness of each witness and, in this, depart from the standard academic method. Emanuel Tov wrote in what quickly became the standard handbook on textual criticism of the Bible, "[M]any scholars, including the present author, believe that all readings which have been created in the course of the textual transmission ought to be evaluated " (Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, p. 295). We disagree. Almost anyone who attends synagogue regularly has witnessed the finding of a mistake in a Torah scroll. An average Torah has some mistakes and therefore the precise reading of any given word is suspect. There are, however, better than average scrolls and even excellent scrolls that have been reviewed carefully many times. Only those witnesses that are known to be excellent scrolls are valid evidence. Average scrolls, such as the one in our synagogue, can hardly be used as proof of the original Torah text.



In addition to this, we will also depart from academics in the following. We will assume that, absent any evidence to the contrary, the text that is agreed upon by the Jewish community - the textus receptus that is claimed to be the Masoretic Text - is correct. In halacha, this is called chazaka. We will abide by the status quo until it is categorically disproven and only in those areas that it is disproven. Thus, if it is demonstrated that the textus receptus is inaccurate in its differentiation between א and ה - sometimes switching them - we will draw no conclusion regarding the differentiation between masculine and feminine nouns. Those are very different areas. Just because - and if - scribes made mistakes between א and ה does not mean that the entire text is worthless. It only means that any given א might be a ה and vice versa. However, if we detect evidence that the scribes who wrote this text were consistently careless in many areas or had no compunction regarding intentionally changing the text, then we have no choice but to disregard the entire text.

Pffft! I can't believe I have to school you on these elementary facts.

So the order of loving God by (1) faith, (2) feelings and (3) knowledge does not apply to you and Rose and must be a big mistakes line in the text in your eyes. You can use it as a stick towards Christians who like me can simply believe and enjoy and expand knowledge.

That is not the order you followed! I already explained this to you. It looks like you are not even reading what I wrote.

You are in the field of not having enough knowledge to have a truth, as your bottom line reads. Because of all kinds of mistakes you see. And your end goal is truth and nothing more it reads. Well we are all 'eating' everyday so that's no difference then any other person. You differ from a Christian by a lack of the above 1, 2 and part of 3. But don't feel uncomfortable, there are more like you who have a lack of the above 1, 2 and part of 3.

I have more than enough knowledge to conclude that the Bible is not the "inerrant and infallible Word of God." You are merely claiming to believe something when you don't even know what it is that you claim to believe. Sure, you can claim the Bible is perfect and all the errors are only apparent - who am I too stop you from living in a fantasy world? Don't feel uncomfortable, there are plenty more like you who have placed personal opinions and fantasy above truth and reality.

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Never mind the 'fixing' -- instead, keep on reading!

We wondered how Noah knew the difference between the clean and unclean animals, when Leviticus hadn't yet been written.

.. hmmm?

Heh! Haha! That's smart! They say the Torah is not subjected to time!

Or it is yet another anachronism that shows Genesis was not written by Moses, but rather is a composite text written and edited over a large span of time by multiple authors.

[Richard Amiel McGough]

The scroll of the Hebrew Torah I know, has been unchanged for centuries, everywhere is a scroll present with the same amount of 'letters'. When someone wrote one letter wrong, he had to start again. It's the word Torah I translated above not as law, but as how I translated it. This corresponds with "not one jot or tittle". Pfft that I have to educate you this. Did you not know this? This is what I mean by that you get dumber and dumber all the time. And by the Bible Wheel and other sources we can understand that there is more on it's right place as it is today.

Here is some more basic information that anyone interested in the Torah should know about.

But getting a little back into history we have to conider the work of the Masoretes, baalei masorah, who standardized spelling and pronunciation. Consider, the Gemara says that we are not experts in plene and defective spelling (maaleh and haser). This even has halakhic implications. If a Torah is found with a mistake of this type then it is not rendered unkosher, since, the fact is that maybe the error is really 'correct.' Only other types of errors render a Torah unfit. Halakhic authorities like the Chasam Sofer invoked the 'we are not experts' rule in explaining why there is no blessing for the writing of a Torah, a mitzvah de-oraysa. If that's the case than why is that our Torahs essentially do, in theory, have exact conformity in the plene and defective spellings? After all, the Gemara implies that we wouldn't. The answer is that we wouldn't, and in Talmudic times they didn't, but for several centuries after the Talmudic period the Masoretes worked to standardize even the plene and defective spellings. So now we do--except that we don't really and we especially didn't until about 500 years ago.

Consider also that our oldest copies of Tanakh are about a thousand years old. Our Tanakhs are based on these and are known as the Masoretic Text. The ancient evidences do not confirm the Masoretic Text exclusively. For one thing, there are Dead Sea Scroll versions of parts of Tanakh that differ from our own. Then there is the Septuagint, a translation of the Tanakh made by Jews centuries before the Common Era. While working backwards from translations is a risky business (especially when we do not really known what methods the translators were using) there are places where we are certain as to what they were translating and the Septuagint implies a variant Hebrew text. Sometimes the variance is relatively minor, sometimes major. Not unoften this difference is reflected in the Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew versions, which means that the Septuagint was translated from the same text-type or a similar text as the Dead Sea versions. There was also Masoretic text-types among the Dead Sea Scrolls (but not identical to the Masoretic Text, henceforth 'MT'). This means that, minimally, there were different texts of the Torah in Second Temple times.

So there it is. The idea that the Masoretic text is the "true" or the "original" text is simply false. We don't have the original text.

[duxrow]

Kings couldn't usurp the Priest duties in the OT (Uzziah and Saul examples), but now in the NT we can be BOTH!

Ever wonder what kind of Light it was on Day One? (sun, moon, on Day Four) -- we FINALLY learn in John8:12, and how Jesus and The Father are One, John 10:30. TWO
Great Lights! PTL

[duxrow]

You have seen how the 66 books are complete, and fit a "pattern". Now, “understandest what thou readest?”

Melchizedek the King-Priest another example: After that brief intro in Gen14, nothing more for about a thousand years, until Ps110:4. Then, ANOTHER thousand years to the 'Rest of the Story' in Heb6-9.

Two Covenants and Three dispensations are highlighted here. Great feeding!

[Richard Amiel McGough]

You have seen how the 66 books are complete, and fit a "pattern". Now, 'understandest what thou readest?'

Yes, I understand much of it. But much remains to be understood. You and I are in the same boat, wouldn't you say?

The problem is not the Bible. The problem is our interpretation of the Bible, which is what your question suggests when you ask 'understandest what thou readest?' Everyone has their own interpretations, and that's fine. Most interpretations cannot be proven true or false. But the situation is quite different when folks insist that the Bible must be understood as the "inerrant and infallible Word of God" because that can be proven false in short order. And that's the irony - the folks who claim to have the highest regard for the Bible as the "very Word of God" actually have the greatest disregard for what the Bible really states! If God is the author of the Bible, then he has made it absolutely impossible for any rational person to assert that it is "inerrant and infallible."

Melchizedek the King-Priest another example: After that brief intro in Gen14, nothing more for about a thousand years, until Ps110:4. Then, ANOTHER thousand years to the 'Rest of the Story' in Heb6-9.

Two Covenants and Three dispensations are highlighted here. Great feeding!

Yes, there is indeed a lot of good food derived from Melchizedek.

[NumberX]

Here is some more basic information that anyone interested in the Torah should know about.


So there it is. The idea that the Masoretic text is the "true" or the "original" text is simply false. We don't have the original text.

Well, have it your way in your brain. Should you or the persons in the links you give, be educated about the structures in the present text like I am by my professor's books - about the present Torahs with the 304,805 letters - then they may see it in another light. But, it is even possible that they still write like that, when they scale down their understanding deliberately afterwards. I don't like to discuss with persons who act like that, too dumb they get. So I rest my case here about this subject with you as well.

[NumberX]

Kings couldn't usurp the Priest duties in the OT (Uzziah and Saul examples), but now in the NT we can be BOTH!

Ever wonder what kind of Light it was on Day One? (sun, moon, on Day Four) -- we FINALLY learn in John8:12, and how Jesus and The Father are One, John 10:30. TWO
Great Lights! PTL

I like it, how you express! And there is no need for you to scale down your thoughts towards earthly.