LittleNipper wrote:The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the exact letter-text of the biblical books, with their vocalization and accentuation known as the Masorah. The MT is widely used as the basis for translations of the Old Testament in Protestant Bibles, and in recent years (since 1943) also for some Catholic Bibles. The Eastern Orthodox continue to use the Septuagint, as they hold it to be divinely inspired. In modern times the Dead Sea Scrolls have shown the Masoretic Text to be nearly identical to some texts of the Tanakh dating from 200 BC. The Masoretic Text was primarily copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries CE. Though the consonants differ little from the text generally accepted in the early 2nd century (and also differ little from some Qumran texts that are even older), it has numerous differences of both greater and lesser significance when compared to copies of the Septuagint, a Greek translation made in the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC of the Hebrew Scriptures that was in popular use in Egypt and Israel and that is believed by scholars to be the source often quoted in the New Testament.
The Hebrew word mesorah refers to the transmission of a tradition: the diacritic markings of the text of the Hebrew Bible and concise marginal notes in manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words. The oldest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the 9th century CE,and the Aleppo Codex dates from the 10th century.
The Septuagint is a translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related texts into Greek, begun in the late 3rd century BC. The Septuagint is quoted by the New Testament particularly by St. Paul), and by the Apostolic Fathers. The traditional story is that Ptolemy II sponsored the translation for use by the many Alexandrian Jews who were fluent in Koine Greek but not in Hebrew. The Septuagint derives its name from the Latin versio septuaginta interpretum, (translation of the seventy interpreters).
I see that you used Wiki as your source for the above; I thought I would point that out to the readers in case they wanted to further study the source.
I went ahead and bolded the paragraph which points out that the New Testament quotes the Septuagint and not an Hebraic version of scripture. So, regardless of the history Wiki gives about the Hebrew Bible, the writers of the New Testament did not use an Hebraic version of Old Testament quotes, which were then canonized; they used the Septuagint version of scripture. In other words, we can thus see that even though the Septuagint was the Old Testament source of scripture quoted in the New Testament, today we use an Hebraic source for the Old Testament. As such, we are using a different version of the Old Testament than the version the writers of the New Testament used when quoting the Old Testament.
Here is another source which basically says the same thing:
http://www.godward.org/Hebrew%20Roots/d ... hebrew.htmThe texts of the three Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – present some serious challenges to translators. Substantial portions of the text follow a typically Hebrew word order – yet the language is Greek. This is strange. Wrote Lindsey, "As far as we know no native Greek ever wrote Greek with Hebrew word order, but the Jews about two hundred years before Jesus translated the entire Old Testament to Greek and they made the translation bear the same word order found in Hebrew" (ibid. p. 19, emphasis Lindsey’s).
Dr. Lindsey explains that such a literal translation would normally be considered a bad translation. But, "Happily for us when we want to get back of the Greek to what Jesus said in Hebrew we find that the ancient translators preserved the Hebrew word order" (ibid. p. 19). The net result of all this is that we have a Greek text that often only makes grammatical sense if we retranslate it to Hebrew!When we are faced with all of the different translations into and then out of various languages, it becomes even more important that we each personally seek guidance from the Holy Ghost in order to receive the message which God intends for us to receive; and NOT the message man has translated for themselves. A good example of the vast differences which eventually evolve is to look at the NIV Bible where we will see entire verses have been deleted.
That said, isn't it likely that God Himself would rather have the Bible translated from the original language instead of a Greek translation from the original language?
You are trying to put God into a box with a question like that. Regardless, though, it is believed that Jesus and the Apostles spoke many languages. Aramaic was the more common language for the region He came from. Koine Greek was the general universal language for most of that part of the world at that time. In fact, that was the reason for the Septuagint version of the Jew's scriptures to begin with. In other words, their more common language was koine Greek; not Hebrew. So, even though the Jews in that area of the world could speak Hebrew, they were more comfortable with koine Greek.
God does work in wonderous ways and He and not Constantine were/are in control. I would suggest to you that Mormonism is about human control and God's need of man, and this clouds the view they (Mormons) hold of what God is capable of accomplishing.
You seem to be overlooking the free will which God has given man. God is not going to prevent man from making the choice of which language he will translate scripture into. That is WHY we cannot even know what God's True message IS unless we seek the help of the Holy Ghost. My pointing out that it is the Septuagint which Jesus and the Apostles quoted from is to show that WE are NOT using the same VERSION of the Old Testament which they used. I would think that for those who want to get as close to the exact temporal version of what Jesus and the Apostles taught, they would want to use the same version of scriptures which Jesus and the Apostles used at the time they were teaching.
by the way, the LDS use the KJV as their standard for a Bible - which uses the Masoretic text of the Old Testament. Therefore, I am not sure how it is you are able to use a "Mormon" argument about what God can accomplish, since the LDS don't use the Septuagint version of the Old Testament just the same as you don't use the Septuagint version of the Old Testament.
And One only has to read the Book of Mormon and the Bible together to see that Nephi is told to do things which God would not have had done for reasons God would already be in control of. Murder an uncle, lie, and steal are beyond God and evil in His sight, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Would this, for instance, be like how Isaac lied about his true relationship with Rebekah, in order to save his own life? After all, this put Rebekah into the difficult circumstances of being taken to wife by the very men who would have otherwise killed Isaac. Or, how about the 3,000 men God told Moses to kill (AFTER their exile from Egypt)? Or, how about how Jacob deceived his father, Isaac, so that he could get his father's blessing instead of his brother Esau? What about the deceit God used through the Prophet Elisha to fool the army that would otherwise have destroyed Elisha; instead, God blinded the army and Elisha led them into Samaria where they became prisoners of the Jews. I could go on and on; the God of the Old Testament surely appears to be a God just like the God of the Book of Mormon. As such, can you rather point to actual teachings of the Prophets of the Old Testament which are not the same as the teachings of the Prophets of the Book of Mormon? Is it not the message God gives His Prophets to teach the people which should be relevant? And don't both books teach of Jesus Christ? So again, where exactly do they disagree with each other??? Your argument so far just confirms their similarities; which means your argument that the two books give different messages is false at this point.
God manipulates at His pleasure to accomplish His own desires. God doesn't need the likes of Nephi unless God intended to teach Nephi something. However, one does not teach eternal, spiritual things through the promotion of evil plans.
Again you are putting God into a box. Indeed God IS able to accomplish His own desires AND purposes. With your type of reasoning, I would wonder why God (who knows in advance what a person is going to do) chose Jonah as a Prophet. Jonah was disobedient to God's commands; and even after finally obeying, continued to complain to God. Did God need the likes of Jonah?
I would also disagree with your concept that "one does not teach eternal, spiritual things through the promotion of evil plans". If the "one" you are speaking about is God, why does God continue to allow Satan to be the god of this physical earth? Why doesn't God destroy evil? Didn't God knowingly create the circumstances whereby evil exists? Doesn't God still achieve His desires and purposes even though Satan continues to tempt mankind? Doesn't mankind LEARN by making mistakes and turning to God to seek forgiveness and direction? Would man seek God of his own accord without there being any knowledge of the difference between Good and evil? Is it rather in Wisdom on God's part to allow Satan to help fulfill His purposes to save mankind? Didn't Paul return a man to the world (Satan's domain) in order to save his soul?
Blessings,
jo