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The Hebrew Masoretic text we have today The Hebrew copyist practices are very detailed in explaining the intricate process that the Hebrew scribes took in order to preserve Gods Word the way it was delivered to them. First; the writing was prepared for synagogue use only by a Jew, done on the skins of clean animals that are fastened together, with strings also taken from clean animals. Each skin must contain an exact number of columns, which must be equal throughout the entire manuscript. Some words in the text were not intended to be read out loud, such as the name of God. YHWH was considered so sacred to the Jews, that they taught it should not be pronounced out loud, less they take it in vain. The Sopherim / scribes had rules. Before they started copying the Word, the scribe must wash his whole body. The original that was used to make the copy from had to be authentic. When the scribe came across the name of God, (YHWH), he had to stop and wash his whole body again, to begin translating again, and this would continue throughout the entire manuscript he was copying. Before he wrote the name of God it was to be written with a pen newly dipped into the ink. The black ink was prepared from a special recipe that was used only for the copying of Scripture. The scribe would speak each word out loud as he wrote it down with the exception of God’s Name. This was all, as you can imagine, extremely time consuming. Though many would memorize large portions of Scripture as they grew up. Nothing could be written from memory; the scribe must always look first at the original, before writing his copy. Considering this was the Scribe’s job or lifelong occupation, they had to be careful not to rely on their memory. From 500 B.C. to A.D. 100, the Scripture was handled by Sopherim (scribes) preserving Israel’s sacred traditions. The Babylonian Talmud (Qidd. 30a) exlains, “The early [scholars] were called soferim because they used to count [sfr] all the letters in the Torah.” Known as Gematria. The letters, words, and paragraphs were counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other, the middle paragraph, (word and letter) must correspond to the original document and there was constant checking and rechecking of the letters throughout the entire copying process. A system of checks and balances were implemented to make sure that the text was copied accurately by the Scribes. Numbers were used, placed at the end of each book, telling the copyists the exact number of words that a book contained in its original manuscript. At the end of each book, the Masoretes also listed the word or the phrase that would have numerically been found in the exact middle of the book. If the copy had a few more words or a few less words than the original, the copy was discarded, put away. As mentioned, this was an extremely tedious time-consuming process to make sure everything on a page was correct. A tradition had been handed down to carefully copy each letter in order to maintain the highest quality in preserving the written texts. No imperfection, no matter how small, was tolerated. One mistake on it, the parchment was condemned. Imagine writing a whole page and at the last line making a mistake; you would have to start all over again. Each scroll had to be checked within thirty days of its writing, or it was considered unholy, and if mistakes were made, no document containing God's Word could be destroyed. The documents could be stored only in sacred places (synagogues, etc.) a genizah - a Hebrew term which means "hiding place." The Masoretes Ancient Hebrew language was only written with consonants, no vowels, it was called Paleo Hebrew. It was the Masoretes who later introduced vowel signs to guarantee correct pronunciation (5th cent AD onward) kept in the language as Jews were in the many nations. For nearly 2 thousand years the Hebrew language was only written with consonants, no vowels were used, even though the Hebrew language was always spoken with vowels. While reading these texts, they had to supply all of the vowels based on known pronunciation of their language that was handed down. The Masoretes vowel points were tiny markings insetred above and below the Hebrew consonants, (a series of dots and dashes above and below the letter[s]), the vowel used would indicate how each word should be pronounced. This made the Hebrew more readable for those who were not fully familiar with the language. A series of consonants would be hard to pronounce correctly without the vowels that accompanied them. Textual tradition of the Jewish scholars known as the Masoretes (or Masorites) were (Rabbis) who copied and paid special attention to correct any faults that had crept into the text of the Old Testament from their Babylonian captivity, and to prevent any future corruption by any alteration. The Masoretes followed the Sopherim tradition. They not only counted and noted down the total number of verses, words, and letters in the text but would further indicate in the verse, which word, and which letter marked the center of the text. In this way any future emendation could be detected. A rigorous care was taken, in order to produce a pure consistency of the Old Testament Hebrew texts that would be read in the synagogues. Hebrew versions of the Old Testament continued to exist, even at a time the language was not openly spoken. At this time the Hebrew Scriptures were not divided by chapter or verse. It was not until much later this would take place. The Masoretic work enjoyed an absolute monopoly for 600 years among the Jews, Scholars today are amazed at the trustworthiness of the earliest printed version (late 15th century A.D.) compared to the oldest surviving codices (late 9th century A.D.) or earlier. The Masoretic text is universally accepted as the authentic Hebrew Bible. There are 12,000 plus Hebrew Manuscripts. These include the following: Nash Papyrus. (2nd century B.C. and 1st century A.D.) that contains Deut. 6:4-9 and some fragments from the Decalogue Exodus 20:2, Deut. 5:6. The Septuagint After Alexander the Great conquered the regions, Greek ideology, thought, religious beliefs, and especially its language were spread throughout the known world. Greek then became the universal language starting from about 300 BC. Then around 200 A.D. there came a distinction of Classic Greek and Koine Greek which became the Greek dialect that the common person spoke in ancient times, in Jesus' day. The Egyptian king, Ptolemy declared war on Antiochus I in 274 BC., invading Seleucid Syria. At first, he succeeded but was later defeated in battle by Antiochus and forced to retreat back to Egypt. The Syrians adopted the Greek language and around 200 A.D. the Syrians had rule over the Jews in their land. The Jews who tried to live their lives according to Moses’ law, began to be eliminated or made slaves. The Syrian Empire was forcing the Jews to conform to their culture, speak Greek instead of Hebrew, and to worship their foreign gods. The war of the Maccabees took place in 167 BC when Antiochus Epiphanes’ goal was to eliminate Judaism. As the story goes, he overtook the temple and erected an idol of Zeus and defiled the temple by sacrificing a pig on the altar. He found the Scriptures and cut them to pieces or burned them. The temple was defiled and desecrated, but later God performed a miracle to restore the temple, and this later became known as the feast of Channukah. (Which means the Feast of dedication or lights which Jesus himself acknowledged). The Jews won the war against the Syrian ruler and his armies by the courageous acts of faithful men, specifically led by one family, the Maccabees (the leader was Judah Maccabee). During the Maccabean revolt, the observant Jews saw the other Jews who had learned the Greek language and culture as traitors and were now enemies. The Jews fought hard to retain their temple, language and culture; they were not willing to abandon it. We read in the New Testament, when they were under Roman occupation the written and spoken language was Hebrew. When the Romans invaded; the Latin language was also introduced to the population, but the Jews continued to speak Hebrew and retained their own culture and their own unique language. The Gentiles (non-Jews) spoke Greek. The Jews were able to converse and speak Greek to the Gentiles, they also spoke Aramaic or Hebrew among themselves. Aramaic was used as their everyday common language among them and Hebrew was reserved mostly for the religious service and teaching in the synagogue or temple. During this time period they had two forces of change to contend with, one was being under Roman occupation and the other, being under the religious Pharisees who then included their many traditions to live by that became more important than Moses law. The Pharisees added 100 or more laws for each of the 613 laws of Moses. In time the people knew the laws of the Pharisees better than their Hebrew Old Testament which made it more difficult for them to recognize the Messiah when he came.
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