From the website blog of the Sacred Texts exhibit at the British Library:
"The Old Testament and the Jewish Bible are two different texts. The Jewish Bible is the Hebrew Bible, and orders the books into three sections: the Torah (5 Books of Moses / Pentateuch), the Neviim (the Prophets – from Samuel to Malachai) and the Ketuvim (the writings – the later texts, poetry, history and narratives of Job, Ruth, Esther etc. ending with Chronicles). The Old Testament orders and numbers the books differently, counting 39 to the Hebrew Bible’s 24, and is, of course, in a different language, translated first into Greek and later into Latin.
The earliest translation, the Septuagint (meaning 70 in Latin), is named for the legend that 72 Hellenised Jewish scholars translated the Pentateuch from Hebrew into Greek for one of the Ptolemaic kings, and all came up with an identical translation. My poetic experience leads me to doubt this as a possibility, and those who first marveled at the legend clearly shared my suspicions because they only way they believed it could happen was with divine inspiration.
Each version of the Jewish Bible displayed here is different – the Dead Sea Scrolls show a plain text, with no vowels or punctuation; however the post-10th Century Bibles contain the Masoretic text – with vowels and cantillation signs (providing the grammar) stabilising the Hebrew meaning. The Greek and Latin translations into the Old Testament are also varied, just like the numerous English versions we find in our bookshops today. Each word, each inflection changes the sense – as a translator, the tension between rendering Biblical poetry into a poetic text and sticking close to the literalness of its original, is far more freighted that when translating modern writing, or even Shakespeare. The theological implications of using a definite or indefinite article can send reverberations streaming through the text and religious life, let alone the impact of translating the bearer of prophecy in Isaiah into ‘young woman’ or ‘virgin’, or defining how all three religions have different understandings of ‘prophecy’ itself.
How can Jews, Christians and Muslims all be People of the Book, when their concepts of ‘the Book’ are founded on different interpretations and meanings? Who can lay claim to ‘the truth’? In a time when fundamentalism can have terrible and violent consequences, it seems so important to highlight the multiplicity of meaning, of possibility, the ways in which the readings and interpretations of these sacred texts was as much shaped by the historical place and moment as the calligraphy and illustration, the notion of ‘truths’ and not ‘truth’."
First i zak would like to answer the questions the writer poses:"How can Jews, Christians and Muslims all be People of the Book, when their concepts of ‘the Book’ are founded on different interpretations and meanings?"
What, we can't all be People of the Book because we have different interpretations??? No, you don't say, you mean, different? God forbid!
"Who can lay claim to ‘the truth’?"
No one. We're all liars. So why are we having this conversation? Let's go find someone who does tell the truth. Hint: He's in the Bible.
Onward and forward...
Consistent with the writers line of reasoning, it's a common thought that the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts that make up the modern Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible have been altered and manipulated beyond original recognition, or at least are open to interpretation because of the difficulty of translation.
The 20th century discovery of the "Dead Sea Scrolls" is evidence that modern day Old Testament and Hebrew Bibles are, in fact, accurate and faithful translations of the original texts. The Dead Sea Scrolls are fantastic: The Sacred website says "of the scrolls found, about a quarter (220 in all) are books of the Hebrew Bible, or what Christians call the Old Testament: all the books, in fact, except Esther and Nehemiah."
Check that again: "All the books" found in the Old Testament. When were they written, and by whom? The website says "They were written over a period of around 200 years, and were evidently placed in the caves to hide them from the advancing Roman army at the time of the First Jewish Revolt, and hence no later than 68AD. Carbon dating puts the earliest of them at about 150BC. They may have been written out by the scribes of an ancient community living at Qumran, near the caves where they were found. However, their origins are the subject of much scholarly debate, and there are many different theories. What is clear is that the authors were Jewish, and disapproved of the Jerusalem priesthood of the time."
When scholars translated these texts, and compared them to the modern day translations, they found that they were the same. "The discovery of the scrolls proved that today's Hebrew Bible is 'basically the same' and thus did not alter Jewish beliefs, said Rabbi Salomon Cohen-Scali of Congregation Ezra Bessaroth in Seattle. The scrolls attest to "the general reliability of the Hebrew text on which most modern translations have been made," agreed George Nickelsburg, professor emeritus of religion at the University of Iowa.
It's a great debate.
From the Sacred Texts Website:
Dead Sea Scrolls
These celebrated texts are of unique historical and religious significance. The 800-plus manuscripts - written on papyrus or animal skin, and discovered in caves by the Dead Sea in the late 1940s and 1950s - include virtually the only known surviving Biblical documents written before the second century. This piece, part of the Psalms, dates from the year 50.
You can see this item on display in the British Library's Sacred Exhibition until 23 September 2007. Find out more
Enlarged image Zoomable high-resolution image
Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran, Israel, c.50AD. Psalms
Musée Bible et Terre Sainte, Paris
What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 800-900 documents, many containing ancient Biblical texts. Some are in tantalising fragments (there are over 50,000 individual pieces in all). Others are substantial and complete, the longest scroll being eight metres long.
They were written over a period of around 200 years, and were evidently placed in the caves to hide them from the advancing Roman army at the time of the First Jewish Revolt, and hence no later than 68AD. Carbon dating puts the earliest of them at about 150BC. They may have been written out by the scribes of an ancient community living at Qumran, near the caves where they were found. However, their origins are the subject of much scholarly debate, and there are many different theories. What is clear is that the authors were Jewish, and disapproved of the Jerusalem priesthood of the time.
The dry climate on the shores of the Dead Sea, parts of which today are 400m below sea level - the lowest place on earth a human can walk - helped preserve the ancient documents.
In contrast to the Christian Bible, which survives in many manuscripts dating back to the fourth century, the oldest known source for the Hebrew Bible before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was only a thousand years old. They are therefore the earliest surviving sources we have for the Hebrew Bible by almost a thousand years.
What do they contain?
Of the scrolls found, about a quarter (220 in all) are books of the Hebrew Bible, or what Christians call the Old Testament: all the books, in fact, except Esther and Nehemiah. The most common books found are Psalms and Deuteronomy.
A further quarter are religious texts not part of a standard Bible, such as the book of Enoch or the book of Jubilees. The rest are other religious texts and a range of secular writings including lists of laws, advice on warfare, and a catalogue of places where treasure was buried. About one in six of the scrolls have not yet been identified.
Over three-quarters of the scrolls are written in Hebrew. The remainder are in Koine Greek and Aramaic.
Who found the scrolls?
One story is that a young Bedu called Mohammed, nicknamed edh-Dhib, found the first scrolls in a cave in 1947 while searching for a goat. Dr John Trever, an early researcher, found several Mohammed edh-Dhibs all claiming to be that very man.
The extent of the find quickly became apparent. Over the next ten years the site was thoroughly investigated. In all, 11 caves were found to contain scrolls, wrapped in linen and stored in jars. Caves 1 and 11 produced the most intact documents.
The scrolls are referred to by the cave they were found in, the letter Q, and a further identifying number. An example is the controversial shred of papyrus found in cave 7 called 7Q5: some believe it is part of the New Testament, specifically the Gospel of Mark. If this were true, it would be the earliest known Gospel text by a century. However, the only complete legible word is 'kai' - Greek for 'and'.
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What is on this scroll?
This scroll contains part of the Psalms, the most commonly found book of the Bible among the scrolls. Of the 150 'standard' Psalms in the Bible, 126 are found in the Dead Sea collection, plus 15 'apocryphal' ones (that is, not found in the standard Bible). Some scholars believe that the psalm collection was copied out at Qumran, but was not compiled there.
Of the 40 scrolls that contain Psalms, over half (23) came from Cave 4; six came from Cave 11. This fragment is likely to derive from Cave 4, and shows verses from Psalm 33 (centre) and Psalm 35 (left). It is on loan from the Musée Bible et Terre Sainte, Paris (call number CB 7162), which has had it in its collection since 1960.
The fragment was acquired in 1952 by Professor Jean Starcky, a French scholar who in the early 1950s worked as an editor of the Cave 4 Scroll fragments at the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in East Jerusalem. It has never been exhibited or displayed in the UK until now.
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