_________________
Ron Bailey

"BTW I dumped the title of 'pastor' over 30 years ago as being unscriptural, so please do not resurrect it. Thank you."

Phiolo can you give me some detail on why?

Paul

_________________
Paul R Carley

hi Paulus
We may have been through this on other threads but I can see no evidence that the words 'apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor/teacher were ever used as titles in the early church. I think their use can only lead to a positional authority which I think is contrary to the spirit of the early church. They recognised the fact of apostleship in the life of Paul, and Paul was not afraid to draw attention to the inherent authority of his calling but I don't think he ever called himself 'Apostle Paul' nor did anyone else call him so. I try to use words accurately as a personal mental discipline, although it can drive friends to the verge of distraction!

_________________
Ron Bailey

So in essence they decribe what you do rather than who you are? i.e "do the work of an evangelist". Is your objection then to people calling themsleves Pastor or whatever and in reality demanding position, rather just having a pastoral role.

Paul

_________________
Paul R Carley

Received Text:

Salute! The site you initially referred to contains a lot of valuable information that should be read. Especially in discovering what really went on behind the scenes with the Alexandrian Text. It has been dressed up in different clothes over the years, but is still the same 'vicious text.' unquote Dean John Burgon.

Even Dr Waite advices reading Edward F Hill prior to reading what is contained on the DBS site. Good advice as many who do not even realize are man-handling Scripture. click here Hills, deals with the DSS and the Sept. etc etc...


God Bless!
In Jesus,
.A.
:-P

_________________
Eric John Sawyer

Things to ponder about the illustrous LXX that there are NO EXTANT COPIES OF:

THE SEPTUAGINT (LXX)

The Septuagint (LXX) is a very old translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament) into Hellenistic Greek. This statement alone is almost the only hard fact concerning this translation that is truly verifiable.

In perusing the literature, the typical definition offered for the Septuagint is that it was an "authorized" Greek translation of the Old Testament prepared in Alexandria, Egypt around 285-250 B.C. The enterprise is said to have been accomplished by 72 Jewish scholars at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus or possibly begun during the reign of his father, Ptolemy Soter.

Very serious and far reaching ramifications immediately follow this seemingly innocuous description – namely, the ensuing assumption (1) and the conclusions that proceed (2 & 3):

1. There was a complete Greek translation of the Old Testament before the time of Christ Jesus.

2. This was the "Bible" actually used by the Lord Jesus and the Apostles.

3. Since this translation has the books of the Apocrypha interwoven into its fabric, its use by Jesus and the Apostles infers their endorsement of the Apocrypha.

Thus, we see that the issue before us is threefold. First, the paramount question is not whether there was a very old Greek version of the Old Testament, but was it made prior to the time of Christ and the Apostles? Second, even if this should be true, did Christ Jesus and the Apostles actually use and/or quote from the Greek version at times in preference to the Hebrew Bible? Third, the crux of the matter is not whether we have extant ancient Greek witnesses to the Old Testament text, but rather – do they represent an accurate B.C. translation of the original Hebrew text?

In addition, modern scholars inform us that there are three (some say four) families of Old Testament manuscripts. Most believe that all three must be compared in order to arrive at the original text. The three are the Hebrew Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint. All text critics feel that the LXX contains readings that have been lost or corrupted in the Hebrew Scriptures. Subsequently, these men hold that the Septuagint may be used in determined places to "correct and restore" these adulterated readings. The late Dr. Ira M. Price is representative with regard to modern scholarship’s position in Old Testament textual criticism when he states:

"... there are extant manuscripts of this version (the Septuagint) much older than any document of Biblical Hebrew that we possess, except a few fragments and the Isaiah scroll; and comparison of the age of the great manuscripts of the two traditions gives an advantage to the Greek of six or, perhaps we should say, of eight centuries. This fact makes the Septuagint of high importance for the study of the early text of the Hebrew Old Testament."

Farther along Dr. Price continues this line of thought:

"Study of the Septuagint and the use of it as a tool for recovery of the original text of the Hebrew Bible have thus taken a great step forward. ... advances in our knowledge of the Septuagint are to be welcomed as important contributions to a better understanding of the Bible." (emphasis added)

These two citations by Price are typical of that which abounds in the literature and serves to illustrate the important position which the LXX has attained in textual critical circles. For example, the prestigious International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia relates that:

"Its (the LXX) chief value lies in the fact that it is a version of a Hebrew text earlier by about a millennium than the earliest dated Hebrew manuscript extant (916 AD), a version, in particular, prior to the formal rabbinical revision of the Hebrew which took place early in the 2nd century AD. It supplies the materials for the reconstruction of an older form of the Hebrew than the MT (Masoretic Text) reproduced in our modern Bibles. ... The main value of the LXX is its witness to an older Hebrew text than our own. But before we can reconstruct this Hebrew text we need to have a pure Greek text before us, and this we are at present far from possessing".

The alert reader may correctly ascertain from the above quotes that the vast majority of modern academia does not consider the "Hebrew" Bible and the Old Testament portion of our "Holy" Bible to be one and the same entity. Indeed, many laymen as well as numerous pastors may well have been surprised to "learn" that the original text of God’s Word has been lost and was in need of "recovery". Moreover, the last portion of Price's second citation is truth reversed. The Septuagint does not add to our understanding of the Bible. Rather, as the Bible is the only written source of God's revelation to man, it is the "advances in our knowledge" of Scripture that give wisdom and better understanding concerning – not merely the LXX – all written materials, philosophies, etc. But – we wonder – is such veneration of the Septuagint by academia justified? As best we can, we shall examine the evidence to see whether these things be so.


God bless,

Stever

The Septuagint: A Critical Analysis.  Copyright 1995 • Floyd Jones Ministries, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. This book may be freely reproduced in any form as long as it is not distributed for any material gain or profit; however, this book may not be published without written permission.
Published by
Bible For Today Press
900 Park Avenue
Collingswood, NJ 08108

There is an excellent explanation of the origin and nature of the Septuagint in Edersheim's 'Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah'. Edersheim's knowledge of the history and traditions of the Jewish people was encyclopaedic and has never been equalled.

You will find his references to the Septuagint [url=http://philologos.org/__eb-lat/book102.htm]here.[/url]

_________________
Ron Bailey

Now I have just this morning discovered something in my daily reading which has enormous implications. I was reading Luke 4 where is tells us that Jesus 'stood up to read' and was handed the Isaiah scroll. He unrolled it to 'the place where it was written...'“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and [u]recovering of sight to the blind[/u], to set at liberty them that are bruised, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,” (Luke 4:18,18, KJV)The passage in view, of course, is Isaiah 61 which is my KJV coming from the Masoretic text has...“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD..,” (Is. 61:1-2, KJV) I have paused half way through the quotation as does Luke in his record of this event.

Here is my discovery. If, in Luke's record, Christ is 'reading what is written in Isaiah' then Christ is not reading from the Masoretic text. The Masoretic text, as seen from the KJV above, does not have the words 'and recovering of sight to the blind' BUT THE SEPTUAGINT DOES. If Christ was 'reading what was written' He was reading from the Septuagint (or something remarkably like it).

Now I am not setting up the Septuagint text as more 'reliable' or 'authentic' than the Masoretic text, I am simply saying that it was already in existence, contrary to what has been suggested in this thread, in the 1st Century. Not only was it in existence but it was available in the synagogue at Nazareth in Galilee of the Gentiles. It has long been a matter of discussion whether or not the Eritz Israel synagogues used the Septuagint for their scripture readings; this Luke quotation strongly suggests that they did. (it has been well established that the Diaspora synagogues used the Septuagint). In fact, as far as I can ascertain, the phrase 'and recovering of sight to the blind' does not appear in the Isaiah scroll in any Hebrew mss.

The theory that the Septuagint readings were actually reverse engineered from the New Testament writings and that the 3rd century BC Septuagint is a figment of imagination is consequently demolished.

Campbell Morgan believed that Christ spoke and taught in Greek, but I have never been able to find his reasons for saying this. The conversation with Pilate is one passage which might indicate this as we may be quite sure that Pilate did not speak Aramaic and not mention is made of any interpreter. The occasional use of Aramaic words in the gospels is seen, by some, as another indication that Christ's preaching was generally in Greek. There is no doubt that Christ, as a resident of 'Galilee of the Gentiles', would have been bilingual but this use of the Septuagint in a Nazareth synagogue may be another evidence that Christ taught in Greek and the most appropriate language for Galilee.

_________________
Ron Bailey

_________________
Ron Bailey