Does anyone know, in terms of manuscripts, where our current translations of the OT come from? Is it from the Hebrew or Greek translation?In ChristJeff
_________________Jeff Marshalek
Hi Jeff,This would be a good question for Ron, but the KJV is translated from the Hebrew [url=http://www.answers.com/topic/masoretic-text]Masoretic Text[/url] which was compiled in the 1500's. This manuscript is remarkably accurate when compared to the Qumran Texts, which as I understand it were 1000 years older than the former oldest text.Jerome used the LXX (Septuagint) and the Masoretic text for the Vulgate. It is difficult to maintain Hebrew idioms when translating certain passages into Greek, etc. Having a bible translated from both Hebrew and Greek also makes for a challenge in doing word studies. Having the LXX gives us an understanding of how the Hebrew/Greek scholars of that day would have translated the words. This allows us to more accurately compare Hebrew/Greek words, etc. This could become a huge discussion. :-)
_________________Robert Wurtz II
Actually Krispy might have some stuff on this. Most older translations, upto almost 1950, were based on the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoretic_Text]Masoretic Text.[/url] The Revised Standard Version of 1948? 'corrected' the Masoretic text by using [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint]the Septuagint.[/url]The NASV did not depend on the Septuagint, although it used it, but based its OT text on versions of the Masoretic Text. This is an area I have not studied in detail, but I recall Kripsy objecting to the Hebrew text behind the NKJV. (Incidentally, type "NASV Old Testament" (without the quotation marks) and observe Google's suggestion in their search options!!!Because OT documents were buried, with a proper burial service, very few OT manuscripts (mss) survived except for those buried in Egypt where the atmosphere was dry. Consequently, until the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, we had older NT mss than OT mss. (Do you follow that?) The Dead Sea scrolls pushed the study of the text of the OT back almost a 1000 years.
_________________Ron Bailey
A few other interesting facts:1. The order of the OT books in our Bible follows generally that of the Septuagint (LXX).2. But our Bible follows the Masoretic Text (MT) by excluding the apocryphal books in the LXX.3. MT is affirmed well after the New Testament period because the Jews did not find it necessary to formally canonize and unify the Old Testament texts until after the destruction of Jerusalem.
_________________Sam