[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Originally Posted by TimV

Lots of words, and the more you write the more likely mistakes are to be made.

So what is the supposed "mistake" ? My point was precisely that while Edersheim's overall view of the Greek OT was faulty:

"Note: Edersheim himself was buffeted by the common Greek OT error"

he gives us tremendous and helpful insight into the reading of the Torah scroll by the Lord Jesus, described in Luke 4.

You dishonor your posts when you falsely rush to accuse of a "mistake" apparently not even reading carefully. There may be some mistakes here and there in my posts, however my writing on Edersheim above was accurate.

Here is Edersheim's quote about "the so-called LXX version".

http://books.google.com/books?id=TudS94P8swMC&pg=PA26
In Egypt, which was then under the rule of Euergetes, he found the so-called LXX. version completed, when he set himself to a similar translation of the Hebrew work of his grandfather.

Edersheim missed a lot in this section. e.g. He did not even notice that Josephus indicates the lack of the Greek OT "histories" even decades after the NT was written. Nor the gross tampering of Psalm 14, showing how what is the so-called "LXX" was NT-'smoothed'. However my purpose was not to go into those issues, but to stick more with Luke 4 and Isaiah 61 and the 'midrashic' tapestry of the Lord Jesus Christ, accurately reported by Luke.

As for your concern about "lots of words", sometimes the truth is helped by carefully and properly reading a number of different perspectives, and quoting the full, related Scriptures. Seeing that you only jumped to one point to try to falsely accuse, I am not surprised that you received little from the above. The post was composed more for those with a heart for the purity and accuracy and truth of the Scriptures.

Notice how Brian similarly put his foot in his mouth, since he has no idea what language or text was original and true in either the NT or the OT. Brian has no text to "believe what was written" since Brian does not know what was written ! Anything can be redacted, and who knows, other books can be included as your "personal conviction/preference/whim" canon, sections can be added or (snipped) as well. Brian has no authority base beyond his personal whims to determine if the Hebrew text is the pure word of God or maybe the Greek OT at times, or maybe something else, maybe Tobit. Nor can he ever determine if the Received Text NT is right, or maybe the alexandrian corruptions, or maybe something else. Brian does not even know whether Jesus said "but by every word of God" in Luke's account. Despite its absolutely overwhelming attestation (covered, btw, quite well by Dean John Burgon and Marty Shue, in articles that truly highlight the textual absurdities of the modern version corruptions).

Shalom,
Steven Avery

You dishonor your posts when you falsely rush to accuse of a "mistake" apparently not even reading carefully. There may be some mistakes here and there in my posts, however my writing on Edersheim above was accurate.

No, your remark about Edersheim was not

Note: Edersheim himself was buffeted by the common Greek OT error"

it was

Note: Edersheim himself was buffeted by the common Greek OT error and while skeptical of "the so-called LXX version" he was not emphasizing how the Greek had been smoothed and tampered to the NT.

and that is a false statement. Edersheim wrote 5 pages about the Septuagint, and in those 5 pages says nothing about him being skeptical. That is something you added, hopefully mistakenly and not maliciously. Edersheim says, point blank, that New Testament authors quoted from it, and during the time of Christ it was as common and loved as the King James Version was in England during it mid 1800s.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Originally Posted by TimV

Edersheim wrote 5 pages about the Septuagint, and in those 5 pages says nothing about him being skeptical.

First, even he acknowledges that it was quite possibly not a full Bible.

"at least substantially, completed."

We saw he uses the phrase:

"the so-called LXX version"

Edersheim talks of:

"clerical mistakes and misreadings, and making allowance for errors of translation, ignorance, and haste"

"By the side of slavish and false literalism there is great liberty, if not licence, in handling the original; gross mistakes occur along with happy renderings of very difficult passages,"

If that does not count as skepticism about the text, what words would qualify ?

Oh, here is a bit more.
Discussing:

"allusions to Greek mythological terms, and adaptations of Greek philosophical ideas"

"Difficulties - or what seemed such - are removed by the most bold methods, and by free handling of the text; it need scarcely be said, often very unsatisfactorily"

"banish all anthropomorphisms, as inconsistent with their ideas of the Deity."

Edersheim is stuck a bit, and he talks a lot about Aquila, who was a 2nd-century translator of the Hebrew to Greek ! Edersheim is stuck in this contradiction of acknowledging the text as very corrupt yet declaring it to be used in Israel by the NT precisely because he did not realize the stronghold of the "LXX" mythology. Edersheim lived in the time when liberal theories of the Bible text were becoming popular, and instead of the type of understanding of John Owen, Edersheim turned to the contradictory mish-mosh of the modernists.

Some more Edersheim comments:

"spurious letter from one Aristeas"

"the translation of the Book of Daniel having been so defective, that in its place another by Theodotion was afterwards substituted."

(Theodotian was second century AD, way after the NT.)

"absence of that close watchfulness exercised over the text in Palestine, led to additions and alterations, and ultimately even to the admission of the Apocrypha into the Greek Bible"

(Unclear as to whether he means BC or AD.)

"What text the translators may have used we can only conjecture. It differs in almost innumerable instances from our own, though the more important deviations are comparatively few. In the great majority of the lesser variations our Hebrew must be regarded as the correct text."

(Actually the improtant deviations are many, you can see that Edersheim knew the Greek OT was corrupt, but like Brian did not know if God had preserved his word in any tangible text.)

Nonetheless, he gives us some excellent insights on Luke 4 ! See above .

Shalom,
Steven Avery

If that does not count as skepticism about the text, what words would qualify

It qualifies as cutting and pasting to cover the fact that you misquoted Edersheim.

Why don't you copy here the whole of what he wrote about it? I only have the book.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Originally Posted by TimV

It qualifies as cutting and pasting to cover the fact that you misquoted Edersheim.

"Cutting and pasting" many quotes that demonstrate conclusively that Edersheim was well aware of the "LXX" corruption.

There was no "misgquote". Overall, the Edersheim view is strange and inconsistent and contradictory (even while he understands how the Torah scroll was read in the synagogue) just like the modernists today who have no pure Bible, NT or OT. I specifically said he bought into the:

"common Greek OT error".

In his case it is even worse, because Edersheim clearly knew of the corruption of the Greek OT.

If you want me to modify:

'skeptical' to

'very aware of Greek OT corruption and errors and defects and mistranslations and gross mistakes and Hellenistic doctoring'

I could do so -- however that would be harsher rather than my softer words above.

Shalom,
Steven

There are plenty of places Edersheim is sloppy. For instance he said Palestinian Aramaic was a dialect of Hebrew, which is wasn't, but that was probably a mistake originating in Jewish chauvinism, i.e. that God wouldn't have used a non-Jewish language to speak to Jews, and we know Christ spoke Aramaic to the masses.

Whether the LXX (or something akin to it, or something else) is the source of Luke's words is secondary. The bigger point is that the words Luke says were "written", the words Jesus called "scripture" (written, by definition), are different than what the Hebrew and KJV have in Isa 61.

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

Notice how Brian similarly put his foot in his mouth, since he has no idea what language or text was original and true in either the NT or the OT. Brian has no text to "believe what was written" since Brian does not know what was written ! Anything can be redacted, and who knows, other books can be included as your "personal conviction/preference/whim" canon, sections can be added or (snipped) as well. Brian has no authority base beyond his personal whims to determine if the Hebrew text is the pure word of God or maybe the Greek OT at times, or maybe something else, maybe Tobit. Nor can he ever determine if the Received Text NT is right, or maybe the alexandrian corruptions, or maybe something else. Brian does not even know whether Jesus said "but by every word of God" in Luke's account.

Exactly. Unfortunately, it's like a blind clown running around with a bunch of Chinese phone books talking about "scripture" and "authority."
In some settings it would be funny, but in this setting it's just sad.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Originally Posted by TimV

There are plenty of places Edersheim is sloppy.

The problem is that Edersheim's words about the Greek OT are accurate, not sloppy.

"clerical mistakes and misreadings ... errors of translation, ignorance, and haste" "slavish and false literalism ..great liberty, if not licence...gross mistakes... ," "most bold methods .. free handling of the text; very unsatisfactorily" " Book of Daniel having been so defective" " additions and alterations" "differs in almost innumerable instances "

What is sloppy is thinking that Jesus in the synagogue and the NT writers used the corrupt text. Not understanding the history with the NT tampering and 'smoothing' by the later Greek OT manuscripts (e.g. Psalm 14 is unmentioned !) and not knowing the import of the Josephus Prologue to Antiquities. And also sloppy is Edersheim's not knowing if the Hebrew-Aramaic Bible is the pure word of God, simply because he was confused by the modernist "LXX" theories that tried to give that corrupt text 1st-century apostolic significance. (Jerome gets a lot of historical thanks for sorting that out at 400 AD, essentially saying the same as Edersheim above re: the textual condition of the Greek OT.)

Originally Posted by TimV

... and we know Christ spoke Aramaic to the masses.

Actually we know that Paul spoke Hebrew to the masses, so likely Jesus as well.

Acts 21:40 - 22:2
And when he had given him licence,
Paul stood on the stairs,
and beckoned with the hand unto the people.
And when there was made a great silence,
he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying,
Men, brethren, and fathers,
hear ye my defence which I make now unto you.
(And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them,
they kept the more silence: and he saith,)

The pure Bible told us this, and the scholars (who struggled over the so difficult and complex word Hebraisti) have been catching up the last few years. Start with the paper done by Ken Penner to SBL in 2004 if you want to see the modern scholars catching up to the King James Bible.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Actually we know that Paul spoke Hebrew to the masses, so likely Jesus as well.

And you have studied the issue? Could you point me to anyone who's been printed in a respected academic journal who claims this? Or are you assuming this for some reason? When Christ's direct words were translated by the narrator writing in Greek, the narrator specified Talitha cumi in the TR:

και κρατησας της χειρος του παιδιου λεγει αυτη ταλιθα κουμι

If I can get a straight answer from you, do you know any other language than English? Any Koine Greek? Hebrew? Anything?

Is it exilarating for you to stand against all of orthodox scholarship? Do you feel God's blessing on you for doing this?